“Trust me,” I said. “This is what’s best for all of us.”

She didn’t look like she trusted me. She looked like she wanted to cut and run for the hills. But she wouldn’t have been my assistant if she hadn’t been too smart to pull a stunt like that. Looking uneasy, she nodded. “All right,” she said. “I’ll be there.”

“Thank you.” I turned and walked toward my car, trying to show I believed her by not looking back. It was difficult, and not just because I was half-afraid she wouldn’t come. Another man was dead, this one killed in broad daylight, and I was allowing Dee and Shelby to run around without backup. It had nothing to do with gender, and everything to do with the fact that I didn’t know how good their training had been. Dee was a gorgon. They’re not immune to basilisks, so what about a cockatrice? Would she even know how to handle one? And Shelby—she’d said there were no petrifactors in Australia. What would happen if she was attacked while she was alone?

Those thoughts were bad thoughts, and they would only take me to bad places. I forced them out of my mind, got into the car, and drove.

I waited to call Grandma’s cell until I was halfway home. She picked up almost immediately, greeting me with a cheerful, “Alex! How are things at work?”

“Dee’s clean, or probably clean, and we have a problem,” I said. “One of the guards was found dead this morning. Killed by a petrifactor, after both Dee and I had checked in for work. The zoo’s closed for the day, and Dee and Shelby are planning to meet me at the house so we can discuss our next steps.”

There was a brief pause before Grandma sighed. “You know, I want to ask you why you and your little friends need to have your meeting here, but since three humans are dead, I suppose discussing the situation in public would be a bad idea.”

“Unless we feel like being accused of murder and maybe terrorism, since they’ve got that whole ‘unknown chemical agent’ angle, yeah.” Most of the time, events and issues relating to the cryptid world can be talked about virtually anywhere, since no one will believe you’re talking about anything real. Unicorns? Bogeymen? The thing in the closet? Whatever. Anyone who happens to listen in will assume that you’re a fantasy nut or talking about something from a television program.

That changes when people get dead. It’s not that the fantastic becomes any more believable. It’s just that everyone starts listening differently, and that sort of thing can get you in trouble.

“All right. I’ll get Sarah settled in front of the television. Have you kids had lunch?”

“We were sort of distracted by the whole ‘dead man, closing the zoo, police interrogation’ thing.”

“Swing by the Tim Horton’s on your way, then,” she said. “If Dee or Shelby beat you here, I’ll make them wait in the kitchen.”

I laughed. “Are you asking me to do this because you need donuts to make up for the invasion of your home?”

“I am,” she said. “Get double blueberry.” The connection died as she hung up on me. I laughed again, and kept on driving.

Dee’s car was in front of the house when I pulled up; Shelby’s was nowhere to be seen, which concerned me slightly. I parked in my usual spot behind Grandma, balancing the bag from Tim Horton’s as I got out and walked to the front door. It was unlocked. The sound of laughter greeted me as I pushed it open.

The voices were coming from the kitchen. I stuck my head inside. Grandma and Dee were sitting at the table, each with a mug of what looked like herbal tea (and technically was, if you took a broad enough view of the word “herbal”) in their hands. They looked over as I stepped inside. Dee was grinning, and her fangs had dropped, pushing little indentations into her lower lip.

“You really tried to hug a manticore? Alex, I never thought you had it in you.”

“I was six,” I said, trying to recover my dignity as I put the Tim Horton’s bag down on the table. “It looked like a puppy crossed with a scorpion. Of course I wanted to hug it.”

Something about my frosty tone struck them both as funny, because they started laughing again, even harder than before. Grandma reached out and freed the box of Timbits from the rest of my lunch order, popping it open to reveal the donut holes inside.

“You’re my favorite grandson,” she cooed, popping one into her mouth.

“I’m your only grandson,” I said sourly. Then I paused, looking around the kitchen in alarm. “Grandma, did you remember to bribe—”

“HAIL! HAIL THE RETURN OF THE GOD OF SCALES AND SILENCE!” exulted the mice, emerging from behind most of the appliances on the kitchen counter.

“—the mice.” I groaned, putting a hand over my face. “You asked me to bring home baked goods. You didn’t bribe the mice to stay upstairs. Are you setting me up for a musical number, or do you just hate me?”

“If this Shelby girl is going to be involved with the family business, she’s going to need to handle whatever that involvement might entail.” Grandma took another donut hole out of the box and smiled at me. “Hence the mice.”

For her part, Dee blinked, looking baffled. “Excuse me, but what’s going on?” she asked, in her usual calm, reasonably even tone. She’d been to the house before, and she’d met the mice, but that had been the mice in company mode: three of them had come politely to the kitchen, thanked her for her visit, and asked if she’d like to attend that night’s catechism. This was the mice in full-on celebration. It was a pretty daunting sight even for me, and I grew up with it.

“Grandma doesn’t approve of Shelby, so she’s arranged for an Aeslin bacchanal to convince her to back off.” I pushed my glasses up, glowered at my grandmother. “This is dirty pool, you understand.”

“All’s fair in love, war, and not inviting representatives of barely vouched-for cryptozoological organizations into my home.” Grandma flicked her donut hole into the ocean of mice, where it disappeared, accompanied by the sound of redoubled cheering.

The doorbell rang.

Grandma turned her face to me and smiled serenely. “You’d better get that,” she said. “You wouldn’t want to leave your little girlfriend waiting.”

“We’re going to talk about this later,” I promised, before turning and heading for the door, fighting the whole way not to glower. Intellectually, I knew my grandmother was being reasonable. She was protecting her home. Shelby was a barely-known quantity, and until she could be trusted, embracing her fully was a terrible idea. Grandma had always been a little mistrusting. Being one of the few nonsociopathic members of an entire species had influenced her views of everyone else in the world, and having Sarah home and essentially defenseless wasn’t helping.