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. All 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.”

The dragon princess was probably part of Brenna’s Nest; it’s rare to have two groups of dragons in the same metropolitan area, even when it’s as big as Los Angeles. I managed a wan smile, turning my attention back to the group spokesman. “You said we needed to talk about the theater. Please. What can you tell me?”

He took a deep breath. He looked older and wearier when he let it out again, like he’d used all his energy in getting us this far. “The Crier Theater was built over a warehouse complex that used to belong to us.”

“Not just us,” interjected Aurelie’s mother. “Us, and the bogeymen, and the hidebehinds. A whole bunch of the subterranean species. We all clubbed together to build the place.”

“Note how my daughter says ‘we’ when she didn’t exist at the time. Then again, neither did I. But my grandparents were a part of the group that put up the money, back when this land was more open, and it was easier to bury such things in the bowels of the permits department.” The old ghoul heaved a sigh. “I was born there. I grew up there. I saw my first communion there, and met my wife beneath the warehouse roof. It was glorious. We’d built a world right under the noses of the humans, and we never once saw the sun when we didn’t want to.”