“Wow,” said Mike, finally. “You know, Very, from what your mother told me, this isn’t what I was expecting.”

I winced. “It’s not?”

“No. This is amazing.” He shook his head, turning toward me. “Lea would love this place.”

“Well, once New York is no longer being threatened by the Covenant, you’ll have to bring her for a visit. I can even let you guys use my staff discount. Come on.” I started down the stairs, waving to the crowd at the bar. Most of them waved back, but kept eating. Breaks are rare, precious things in food service; breaks that come with free snacks are only to be surrendered if you have no other choice.

Ryan cast a wary look toward Uncle Mike and raised his voice to call across the music, “Hey, Very. You need anything?”

“That’s concerned friend-ese for ‘do I need to break this guy’s legs for you,’” I said, just loud enough for Uncle Mike to hear me. Louder, I called, “No, I’m good. I’ll come back for introductions in a sec. Is Kitty in her office?” A few of the patrons looked our way, and then turned disinterestedly back to their drinks or their perusal of the bored-looking dancers on the main stage. I made a mental note to talk to Kitty about punching up the quality of our midday entertainment.

“I think so,” said Ryan, still watching Mike with suspicion.

I decided to cut this off before there could be some kind of “emergency” that caused him to come charging in to Kitty’s office while we were trying to explain what I needed from the dragons. I gestured for Mike to follow as I approached the bar. Once I was close enough that I no longer needed to raise my voice, I gestured to Mike, and said, “Ryan, this is my Uncle Mike, who is not with the Covenant, but is here to help me keep us all from getting killed. Also, he made me a pot roast, and stood over me while I ate a sandwich.”

“An entire sandwich?” asked Ryan, who knew far too much about my occasionally spotty eating habits.

“Yup.” I looked toward Mike. “Uncle Mike, this is Ryan, our bartender and bouncer. He’s also Istas’ boyfriend, which means he’s either insane or preternaturally patient, and he makes a mean cocktail.”

“We’ll have to trade tips some time.” Mike extended his hand to Ryan, who took it, too surprised to do anything else. They shook. “Nice establishment you’ve got here. Now if you’ll excuse us, my niece and I have to see a bogeyman about a room.”

Carol gave another bone to her hair, which hissed happily and set about stripping off the last shreds of meat. “Your family’s coming to town?” she asked. “Are things that serious?”

I realized that all the other waitresses were staring at me—and that none of them were human. I owed them the truth. “Not yet,” I said. “Uncle Mike’s my only backup so far, because we don’t know that I’m going to need any more than that. We just want to talk to Kitty about some tactical issues. I promise, nobody’s going to start killing anybody else without me giving you a heads-up about things. Okay?”

Carol and the other waitresses looked dubious, but finally she nodded, and the others followed suit. The only ones who didn’t look unhappy about the situation were the snakes that made up Carol’s hair. They kept stripping the meat off of chicken bones, entirely oblivious to the danger that we were all in.

“Come on, Uncle Mike,” I said, and waved to Ryan before grabbing Mike’s wrist and pulling him with me toward the door to the staff area. He’d stay if I let him, trying to put everyone at ease and get them all comfortable with the idea of his presence. That was just the kind of guy he was. It was part of what made him so good at his job, and why he and Lea could hold Chicago essentially on their own. The trouble was we didn’t have time.

He knew it, too, because he let himself be pulled out of the main club and into the staff area. I was getting pretty tired of making this particular trek. Hopefully, I wouldn’t have to do it too many more times. Somehow, I wasn’t going to bank on that.

It felt like everyone who worked in the Freakshow was in the building, even the ones who weren’t supposed to be on duty for hours. Some of them were carrying backpacks, coolers, and even camping gear. They were settling in for the long haul. I didn’t see any dragons, but everyone else seemed to be present, from the near-human to the barely-there. It was like walking through one of George Lucas’ fever dreams, only a little more coherent, and a lot less prone to head-tentacles.

“Was that a Pliny’s gorgon?” muttered Mike, as we walked toward Kitty’s office.

“Yup,” I said mildly. “His name’s Joe. Don’t let him make you coffee.” I kept walking. (There are three major subspecies of gorgon. Representatives of two of them worked at the Freakshow. If Kitty ever hired a greater gorgon, she’d be able to declare some form of weird cryptid bingo and win absolutely nothing but the knowledge that she had a lot of venomous people on her staff.)

Kitty was sitting at her desk with the door open when we reached her office. She didn’t have her darks on, maybe because with this many people around, she would have just been turning them off every five seconds anyway. I knocked on the doorframe. She looked up, and blinked twice—first at the sight of me, and then at the sight of Uncle Mike. Unfamiliar humans weren’t exactly what you’d call “common” in the back halls of the Freakshow. “Can I help you with something?” she asked. There was a wary note in her voice, and she didn’t stand up. One of her out-of-sight hands was probably on the panic button, ready to summon security if I looked even a little bit distressed.

Funny as that would have been, I liked all our bouncers too much to pit them against my uncle. “Kitty, this is my Uncle Mike. He’s in town to help with the Covenant situation. We need to ask you for a favor.”

Kitty blinked again. Then she stood, revealing the bright yellow robe she’d put on over her Super Grover pajamas, and walked to the office door to offer Mike her hand. He took it and shook, not flinching at the strange way her fingers bent. (Bogeymen have extra knuckles, the better to creep you right the hell out when they grab your ankles in the dark. It makes shaking hands with them a little bit disturbing, since it feels like you’re breaking fingers no matter how many times you adjust your grip.)

“Katherine Smith,” she said. “You can call me ‘Kitty,’ everyone else does.”