“Yeah, at this point, everybody else has already had their shot,” I muttered.

“—but if you think I’m going to leave you alone while he and his compatriots run loose in this city, you got another think coming. If it were up to me, we’d be relocating to somewhere more secure. We may have to do that anyway, but I figured I’d hear your game plan before I started packing your bags for you.”

“That’s very considerate, thank you,” I said dryly. “Do you want the update, or do you want to lecture me some more about how lousy my apartment is?”

To my surprise, he grinned. “Honey, I live in Chicago. I understand that this is a perfectly reasonable apartment for someone on your budget. But your security is shit, your neighbors are basically cannon fodder, and there’s no one close enough to help if things get bad. We shouldn’t stay here.”

“You’re right.” Even the admission hurt. Not as much as the one that came after it: “Dominic knows where I live. He’s known for a while now. I can’t trust him not to tell the Covenant where to find me.”

There was a pause while Mike looked at me, trying to figure out whether I was serious. Finally, deciding that I meant what I was saying, he asked, “There a reason you haven’t moved house already? Aside from wanting to be here to see my smiling face—and that’s a lousy reason, by the way, since you didn’t know that I was coming. I don’t recommend trying to convince me of that one.”

“This has all happened really fast, and I didn’t totally believe it until this morning,” I said. I shrugged. “Besides, where are we supposed to go? I can’t stay with Sarah, that’ll just put her in the line of fire. The dragons won’t have me, and I’m pretty sure my boss would kill me herself if I tried sleeping at work.”

“Don’t you still dance with that goat-sucker guy?”

“You mean James?” In my alternate identity as Valerie Pryor, professional ballroom dancer, I was usually partnered with a very sweet, very gay chupacabra. He didn’t mind that I kept guns under my tango costume, and I didn’t mind that he occasionally turned into a semi-reptilian quadruped and went hunting deer in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Like any partnership, our association was based on mutual trust. I trusted him not to sell me out to the Covenant. He trusted me not to shoot him in the head.

“Yeah. He lives around here, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, he does, and if I tried to hide at his place when I potentially had the Covenant of St. George on my tail, his husband would kill us both. Dennis puts up with a lot for James’ sake, but there are limits.” I paused. “I need to call him anyway, and tell them both to get out of town.”

Mike sighed. “You’ve made a pretty good mess for yourself, kiddo. Isn’t there anywhere you could go that the Covenant doesn’t know about?”

“Wait—maybe.” I started toward the living room, mice dodging out of the way of my feet as I walked. “The dragons used to have a Nest in the old meatpacking district. They’d been living there for more than a century, and that means they must have managed to ride out previous purges. The place is essentially a fortress.”

“Sounds great,” he allowed. “But where are the dragons now?”

“They couldn’t get their husband out of the cavern he was asleep in, so they’ve relocated to be closer to him,” I said. “They seem perfectly happy down there.” Then again, they were female dragons in the presence of the first male anyone had seen in centuries. Between that and the heaps of gold they’d been amassing since they arrived in North America, they had everything they could possibly have needed.

“Great. You think they’ll let you use this Nest?”

“I may have to sell a kidney to pay what they’re going to ask for it, but there’s a chance.” I ran a hand through my hair, leaving it sticking up in untidy spikes. “I need to call home and give Dad an update on the situation. You want to listen in, so I don’t have to do it twice?”

“Just put the phone on speaker,” he said. “I’ll take care of the pot roast while you deliver the bad news.”

“Thanks, Uncle Mike,” I said—and I meant it. Having another person with combat training standing next to me made the odds feel a little less imbalanced, and a little more survivable. Maybe I was kidding myself. But there’s nothing wrong with some healthy self-delusion once in a while, especially when there’s an ancient organization of monster hunters involved. Since my boyfriend was one of the monster hunters, and they considered my family a type of monster, I figured I was entitled to a double dose.

With the mice swarming around my feet and periodically cheering for no good reason that I could see, I finished trekking to the living room. It was time to bring the rest of the family up to speed. And when that was done, I could start packing.

Nine

“I know that we’re supposed to be the better people and all, but sometimes I just want to stop playing nice and start playing for keeps.”

—Alice Healy

A semilegal sublet in Greenwich Village, twenty minutes and a lot of shouting later

“OKAY, DADDY,” I said, over the sound of my mother and father yelling at each other, and my little sister yelling at no one in particular. Sometimes I think Antimony yells just so she won’t feel left out. “Daddy? Okay. I’m hanging up now. Uncle Mike says the pot roast is almost ready, and I haven’t had anything to eat today.”

“Why are you eating pot roast?” demanded Antimony. “It’s not even lunchtime yet!”

“We’re probably going nocturnal for the duration, and shut up. You think cold pizza is a breakfast food,” I said.

“Only if you put Captain Crunch on it,” she replied.

There was a moment of silence as all of us considered this. Even the mice stopped their chattering, although they were probably less horrified than reverent. Finally, my mother said, “I want you to listen to your uncle, Verity. I know you’re supposed to be doing your journeyman studies, and I wouldn’t dream of impinging on your independence, but there’s being independent, and then there’s being stupid. If you get yourself killed, I’ll never forgive you.”

The idea that she wanted me to just hand my city over to Uncle Mike stung. Still, she was probably right, and so I forced the rancor from my voice as I said, “I know, Mom. We’re going to relocate soon—and no, I’m not telling you where we’re going. I’ll keep in touch via email as much as I can.”