“Nope,” said Malena.
I raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“I said, nope. Nuh-uh. Not going to happen. Because from where I’m standing, it sounds like you just said ‘hey, other half of the party, we’re officially in a horror movie now, so how about you two go off on your own, don’t worry, nothing bad will happen.’” She smiled tightly, and her teeth were sharp as rocks protruding from the desert floor. “My mama didn’t raise no fools. We ate them. I’m sticking with you.”
“Malena is right about safety in numbers, but I’ll go back to the apartment anyway,” said Pax. “Anders and Lyra need someone to keep an eye on them, and if you’re not there when Lyra wakes up, she’ll assume you went for a run or something. If I’m not there, she’ll decide we’re having an affair. I don’t want to have that fight with her. Do you?”
“Not in this lifetime or any other,” I said, suppressing a shudder. Lyra was a good friend, and always had been. But between her crush on Pax and the need to keep certain aspects of my life secret from her, sometimes she seemed like just one more obstacle—an obstacle that had to be placated from time to time, to keep her from feeling like she was being replaced.
Valerie didn’t have those problems. Valerie was just another dancer, and anything she needed to hide would be mundane and understandable. Sometimes I envied Valerie, even though I knew that her life was simple only because she didn’t actually exist. Maybe that was always the secret to a simple life. Reality was the complicating factor.
“Meet me at the back of the theater,” said Dominic, disappearing through the nearest exit. We waited a count of thirty before following him.
The night outside was as dark as Burbank ever got. The sky was painted with soft orange light from the streets below it, and illuminated billboards rose above the buildings at irregular intervals, disrupting any decent stretch of shadows. Batman would have taken one look at the cover available here and vanished right back to Gotham, never to venture forth again.
I loved it so. If only it hadn’t been connected to so many things that weren’t worth the effort it took to keep on loving them.
“All this cloak and dagger security is cute, but I’m not sure it’s necessary,” said Malena as we walked toward the back corner of the theater to wait for Dominic and the cab. “Those confusion charms you found are going to have people convinced that they saw us half a dozen times over the course of the night.”
“Yes and no,” I said. “They can make people suggestible, and they can falsify general memories, but they’re all here, at the theater. If Lyra decided I was sneaking around with Pax, a bunch of memory charms wouldn’t be able to convince her otherwise. She’d use that to explain why she wasn’t concerned when she couldn’t find me. Really powerful memory charms could rewrite a lot more, but none of us would be going to rehearsal. We’d decide we’d already been, and go hang out in the lobby.” Dancers loved to dance. Dancers loved to move. Dancers loved the moment where a new routine came together and the whole world made sense. But no dancer, ever, had loved being shouted at by a choreographer who couldn’t believe the arrogant stupidity of the dancers they had to work with. Each and every one of us would skip it if we could.
Malena nodded thoughtfully. “So they have to split the middle. Powerful enough that we don’t notice when things are out of place, but weak enough that they don’t disrupt the show. Do you think it could be one of the choreographers? They like it when we come to rehearsal.”
“I know it’s not one of us; I know it’s not Brenna,” I said. “That’s about where my knowledge runs out.”
“How do you know it’s not Brenna?” asked Pax. “She’s close enough to the dancers that any of us would follow her into a dark corner without thinking twice. She’s tall, too. Strong. She could probably subdue most of the dancers on this show without a problem.” He didn’t add that he was one of the few dancers too strong for her to take down. He didn’t need to.
I was too busy gaping at him to point that out. He’d just identified one major flaw in our intelligence gathering: namely, the fact that protecting the status of the various cryptids I knew had been so drummed into me for so long that I’d never thought to ask whether they knew each other. “I know because Brenna asked me for help the first night of the show,” I said. “She and her sisters need me to broker an introduction to the dragons of New York for them.”
There was a moment of stunned silence as Pax and Malena worked through the implications of this statement. Then they exploded, both of them speaking at once.
“—can’t be serious, there’s no way in hell that Brenna Kelly is—”
“—she’s too nice to be a dragon princess, it doesn’t make any—”
“—thought they were only interested in gold, not in reality television—”
I put up my hands, motioning for them to quiet down. “I didn’t tell you before because it wasn’t mine to tell; I’m telling you now because you need to know that she’s a friend. Dragons can be greedy and self-interested. In this case, that works in our favor. If she and her sisters want access to the male of their species, they won’t do anything that might get me hurt.” I didn’t bother reminding them that “dragon princess” was an outdated, inaccurate term. It was going to take a while for the phrase to work its way out of the language—assuming it ever did. A female cat was a queen, and a male harpy was a harrier. Why shouldn’t a female dragon be a princess? There were definitely more insulting words in the world.
“So it’s not Brenna because the profit is in a successful show, not a bunch of dead dancers,” said Malena. “Shit. Brenna Kelly’s a dragon? Shit. I gotta tell my mother she was wrong when she said no one had ever been able to hide forever.”
“She didn’t hide forever,” said Pax, with a faint note of black amusement. “Verity blew her cover. Good going, Verity.”
“I do what I can,” I said. A yellow cab came gliding around the corner with Dominic in the front passenger seat. He pointed at us, clearly signaling the driver. The vehicle pulled to a stop and we all piled in.
I looked back as the cab pulled away. I couldn’t help myself. The Crier Theater loomed behind us like some vast, hulking beast, squat and hungry and obscene. My grandmother was in there somewhere, or had been, when she was lost. We had to get her back.
We had to.
The drive home was silent, save for the crackle of the radio and the occasional muttered directions from Dominic, who seemed content to be the most memorable one in the car. Our cabbie hadn’t been within range of the confusion charms, and might remember us later if anyone asked. A short redhead, a tall Latina, and a massive Pacific Islander didn’t get into cabs in this area every day. I spent the time bent over my phone, sending the new assortment of gruesome snapshots to my father. Hopefully, this would tell him more about what we were up against. If it didn’t, I didn’t know what we were going to do.
We asked to be dropped two blocks from the apartment. Better safe than sorry, especially when talking about people who were treating my colleagues like their own private hunting ground. Dominic paid the driver, and the four of us stood on the sidewalk, watching as the cab slid off into the night.
“Pax?” I said, once I was sure we were alone.
“I’ll do my best to get inside quietly. If Anders wakes up, I’ll tell him we were hung up at the theater trying to console Malena. He knows we’ve been getting close to her recently. He’ll believe it.”
“All right. If you see Lyra—”
“If you see Lyra, tell her I took Verity home with me after we left the theater; too upset to deal with the fact that we’d lost someone from my season,” interjected Malena. “Feel free to make like Mac and I were super close, instead of just people who’d danced together a time or two. Sell it as hard as you can, and we’ll be besties if that’s what it takes to make it look legit.”
“You do make the most rem
arkable friends,” said Dominic dryly.
Malena looked at him and snorted.
I touched Pax on the arm. “Be safe,” I said. “If anything seems out of place, come find us. Don’t be a hero.”
“I have a family at home to worry about,” said Pax. “I have no interest in being a hero.”
“See, I have family, too,” I said. “Having a family seems to be the trigger that keeps forcing people to heroism.”
“You’re a good person, Verity, but I swear, I’ll never understand humans,” said Pax. With that, he turned and walked away, heading for the apartments and leaving me alone with Dominic and Malena.
Both of them turned to look at me, Malena expectantly, Dominic with the sort of quiet patience that had seen us both through so many potentially life-ending encounters. They were good backup. Maybe not as good as my entire heavily armed family, but still . . . with these two standing beside me, there was a chance that I would come through this alive. That was more than I’d had a few weeks before.
I’d take it.
“My grandmother bought a motorcycle when she got to Southern California,” I said. “Since there’s no parking at the apartments, she’s been keeping it with a local family of ghouls who live nearby. They have a garage.”
“So?” asked Malena.
“So ghouls are like bogeymen: they prefer to live underground. They don’t here in Southern California, which is odd until you account for the earthquakes—but even then, they usually have tricks and techniques that let them build in seismically unstable areas. So why are they living in houses? Why not burrow and reinforce the walls?”
“Maybe they did, and something came and took their burrows away from them,” said Malena slowly. “Like how chupacabra used to mostly live in cactus patch burrows, until humans decided it was time to clear the land. No cactus, no convenient cover for your scrape. No convenient cover for your scrape, you may as well get a condo.”
“That is the most practical approach to industrialization I have ever heard,” said Dominic.
Malena shrugged. “You do what you gotta do. Besides, it’s hard to run plumbing into a burrow, and this girl likes her showers.”
“I think someone did come and take their burrows away,” I said. We were almost to the hole in the fence, following the path Alice had shown me earlier. Dominic and Malena looked at me. I shook my head. “That sort of subterranean construction would have needed to be done before this area was so overbuilt—if not, it would have attracted a lot of attention. We know the ghouls moved to California before it became part of the United States. They were in this area when it was still a part of Mexico. So I ask again, why would they be living in houses?”
“They wouldn’t,” said Malena. “Not unless they had to.”
“Exactly,” I said, and ducked through the hole in the fence.
The cul-de-sac on the other side hadn’t changed: it was still run-down, still smaller and shabbier than the Burbank I was accustomed to. Dominic looked around without comment. Malena walked a little straighter, clearly more comfortable now that we were in a place where the shadows were not only allowed, but encouraged to gather.
The little girl was on the lawn again, her tea party set up in front of her with all the care and precision of a royal wedding. She looked up as we approached, tensing. I realized I was still wearing my wig. I was about to reach up and snatch it off when Malena smiled, showing a mouthful of inhumanly sharp teeth.
The little girl visibly relaxed before asking Malena a question in that same almost-French language she’d used when speaking to Alice.
“Sorry, pudding,” said Malena. She had a slight lisp now, no doubt brought on by the size of her teeth. “Spanish, I can do. English, I can do. French, I can’t do. Do we have any languages in common?”
“I speak French,” said Dominic. “That was not French.”
“It was Acadian,” said a male voice. I turned and found myself looking at a group of three male ghouls. There was no mistaking their species: not with their grayish skin and jagged teeth. All were fully grown, and taller than me. None of them looked pleased by our presence. “No one here speaks it, so it serves us well within the community. Keeps eavesdroppers at bay. There a reason you’re talking to our Aurelie? Last time I checked, it was considered socially inappropriate to talk to someone else’s children without their permission.”
My grandmother trusted these people enough to rent garage space from them. I took a breath, took a step forward, and said, “My name’s Verity. Alice Price is my grandmother. She’s renting space in your garage.”
Their spokesman frowned. “That didn’t so much answer my question as it danced around it in a big circle.”
I relaxed. “You know me.”
“The dancer? Yeah, we know you. She’s right proud of you, you know. Why are you here, and who are your friends?”
“Malena,” said Malena. “I’m a chupacabra.”
“Dominic,” said Dominic. “I’m . . .” He hesitated, clearly looking for a definition that wouldn’t send us plunging into deeper water. He finally settled for, “I’m married to the dancer.”
“I can vouch for him, and you know my grandmother can vouch for me,” I said. “Please, I need to talk to whoever’s in charge here. It could be a matter of life or death.”
“You got that right,” said another voice, again from behind us. This time, it was female. I risked a glance back. Three ghoul women had appeared on the lawn. One of them was holding Aurelie, who looked more annoyed about the disruption of her tea party than anything else.
It must have been nice to be young and unaware of the dangers of the world around you. I didn’t have that luxury anymore, if I ever really had. I looked back to the men, and said, “She’s missing. Alice is missing. She disappeared in the basement of the Crier Theater, where we were trying to catch the snake cult that’s been sacrificing my fellow dancers. I know we’re not welcome here, and I know we’re not friends of yours, but please. If you know anything about that place and what’s underneath it, we need to know. I need to get my grandmother back.”
The ghoul who had been speaking for the others blinked slowly, looking at me in confusion and disbelief. “Alice Price-Healy, missing? Are you sure?”
“She went into the basement to wait for the killers. She never came back out, and she wasn’t there when we went down to look for her.” I nodded. “Missing.”
The three ghouls looked at each other, confusion and concern struggling for control of their expressions. Whatever they were thinking, they weren’t making an effort to hide it, and I wished once again that Sarah were with us.
Finally, the spokesghoul turned to us and said, “Come inside. We need to talk about the theater.”
Fifteen
“The only bad neighbors are the neighbors who try to kill you, discredit you, or steal your lawn equipment. All the rest can be good, in their own ways.”
—Enid Healy
The sitting room of a family of urban ghouls, trying not to worry about being eaten alive
THE HOUSE WAS SURPRISINGLY NORMAL INSIDE, although my impressions may have been influenced by my own weapon- and taxidermy-draped childhood. The furniture was the mix of Ikea and Goodwill that I expect in any home that doesn’t have its own interior design team. The wallpaper was old enough to have faded into a dusty purple, and the windows were covered by blackout curtains. That made sense: ghouls are primarily nocturnal. Keeping the windows covered during the day would let them keep their own hours.
We walked through the living room to the converted bedroom that served as their sitting room. I noted the toys scattered on the floor. Aurelie might be the only child living here, but she certainly didn’t lack for the trappings of childhood.
“You know, there’s a witch in Ohio who makes fashion dolls for cryptid kids,” I said, as our guide motioned for us to take our seats. A
ll six adults had followed us inside, after putting Aurelie back down on the lawn. Apparently, she wasn’t in any danger if we weren’t there. Humans ruined everything. “I could give you her info, if you wanted.”
One of the ghoul women perked up. “Really? Because we’ve just been buying her the gray-skinned Monster High dolls and telling her to ignore the stuff about them being zombies.”
“Really,” I said. The spokesghoul was starting to look impatient. I offered her an apologetic smile, and said, “I’ll bring it by later.”
“For a woman who has managed to mislay a member of her family, you certainly spend a great deal of time discussing fripperies,” said the ghoul.
“I’m so worried about her that I feel sick,” I said. He gestured toward our seats again. This time I sat, sinking into the slightly musty-smelling embrace of a couch that must have been almost as old as I was. Dominic and Malena settled wordlessly on either side of me. “Alice is the oldest, most dangerous member of my family, and she’s gone. How am I supposed to defeat something that can take her out? How am I supposed to tell my father I lost his mom? But I can’t stop paying attention to the world just because I’m scared. I’m too well trained for that.”
The ghoul nodded. “Your grandmother was a good woman, and she spoke highly of you. That doesn’t make you our friend. We have allowed you to enter our home because it was better than having this conversation on the street. Please don’t mistake pragmatism for welcome.”
“What my father is trying and failing to say is that we’d appreciate it if you didn’t show up here all the time; our neighbors can be a little nosy,” said the woman I assumed was Aurelie’s mother. “They like the idea of getting us in trouble with our landlord.”
“Never going to happen,” said one of the other women. She slanted a glance in my direction and said conspiratorially, “The house is owned by a dragon princess. As long as we pay our rent on time and don’t burn it down, she doesn’t give a fuck how pleasant we are to live near. May the Great Rot bless and keep the greedy ones.”