The strippers didn’t have an official uniform, since they’d just take it off, and the bartenders were allowed to wear jeans or skirts and T-shirts with the bar’s logo. The waitresses weren’t so lucky. Dave seemed to be under the deeply mistaken and deeply regrettable impression that pleated plaid micro skirts, knee-high socks, black heels, and midriff-baring white shirts with the club’s logo on the front combined to project an aura of “class.” Or maybe he was going for an aura of “ass,” since that’s what the uniforms actually managed to project.

I stepped into my heels and walked over to the mirror. Carol moved to the side, giving me room for my contemplation while she continued her epic battle of gorgon vs. snakes. Finally, I sighed, and said, “No matter how many times I put this on, I can’t get past the part where I look like a hooker.”

“No, you don’t, honey,” said Carol. “Hookers get better tips.”

With a final belabored groan, I grabbed an apron from the pile—it was more like a belt, but at least it gave me a place to store tips and my order pad—and tied it around my waist before heading to the door.

Bullets cost money. So do dance shoes, and the terms of my year in New York included the need to support myself as much as possible. Family finances are solid, thanks to good investing, a certain amount of alchemy, and the gratitude of the cryptid community. That doesn’t make them good enough to take care of us all forever. Dave’s might be a lousy place to work, but the boss understood when I had to call in sick because I was chasing something nasty across the rooftops of the city. Add it all together, and well …it was time to start my shift.

If you’d asked me in Oregon whether I was a prude, I would have responded with an offended “absolutely not.” My home life was strange, my hobbies were stranger, and it’s hard to do competitive Latin ballroom dance without shedding all taboos about nudity and invasion of personal space. I considered myself a tolerant, enlightened woman of the world, fully prepared for any perversity my quest for the elusive urban cryptid might bring me into contact with.

That was before I started working at Dave’s Fish and Strips, a place that could’ve been used as the answer to that age-old question, “What does the bogeyman do when he’s not hanging out under your bed?” If the bogeyman in question is Dave, an individual with little tact and less taste, he opens a tacky titty bar. If the bogeyman in question is Kitty, she gets a job there.

(The word “bogeyman,” much like the word “human,” is gender-neutral. If you ever want to see a bogeyman laugh herself sick, call her a “bogeygirl,” or better, a “bogeywoman.” The last time I saw someone make that mistake with Kitty, she laughed so hard I was afraid she was going to rupture something.)

The main room was decorated like the bastard offspring of a nightclub and a sideshow tent—a deeply patriotic sideshow tent with a serious longing to return to the United Kingdom, where it would doubtless be greeted with pitchforks and torches, because the British probably wouldn’t want it either. Stages were set up at strategic locations around the room, each tucked into its own little acoustically isolated group of chairs. The main stage provided the ambient music for the club, as well as the highest percentage of tips and “grab-ass.” That was supposed to be Candy’s territory. Thanks to her cowardly departure, it was going to be mine.

Oh, well; it wasn’t like I could blame her. Dragon princesses are greedy and proud, not brave. When you’re bred to be the humanoid support staff for giant carnivorous lizards, there’s no reason to be brave. The giant lizards can do it for you.

After a stop at the bar to pick up the pending drinks—two trays’ worth, which was a bad sign for the shift ahead—I waded into the crowd. Marcy was a few tables away, distributing baskets of fried fish and blithely ignoring roving hands. Several would-be gropers were sucking bruised fingers and looking confused. That’s what they got for trying to goose an Oread.

I wasn’t so lucky. I’d barely cleared three tables before a hand latched onto my left buttock and squeezed. I jerked out of the way, nearly spilling my remaining drinks. General laughter greeted this reaction, followed by a man saying, “Shit, honey, you’re lots prettier than the last one!”

“Gee, thanks,” I said, turning to face the speaker. He was red-faced, either with excitement or alcohol, and openly leering. “You know, we have strippers here. The waitresses are here to serve you, not service you. Hands off, okay?”

“I think somebody missed a little memo,” he said, turning redder as his friends made the “ooh” noise that seems to be the universal signifier for “you just got dissed.” Standing, he added, “You’re in the service industry.”

He had two hands. I had two breasts. I’m sure he thought the math made sense. Maybe it would have, if I hadn’t started self-defense lessons at seven and ballroom dance lessons at eight. Self-defense teaches you to kick ass. Ballroom dance teaches you to do it in heels.

I dropped my tray before he had time to finish squeezing, grabbed him just above the elbows, and used him to provide support while I braced myself on one leg and swept his feet out from under him with the other. He went down hard, his landing not particularly softened by my discarded drinks.

Sputtering and even redder now, my aspiring assailant stared at me. His friends did the same.

I smiled.

“You can pick up your drinks from the bar for the rest of the night, gentlemen. Table service is suspended,” I said, and started for the bar. I needed replacement drinks.

Ryan—one of the bouncers, and reasonably cute if you have a thing for therianthropes, which I don’t—was waiting for me next to the register. His expression was grim. “Very—”

“Let me guess. I need to go see Dave?”

Ryan nodded dolefully. “You know he doesn’t like you fighting with the customers.”

“And he knows my breasts are a no-fly zone. Let’s see who knows better, shall we?” Dropping the orders I’d managed to collect before things went all Fight Club, I turned to head back to the hallway. Time for another chat about “violent tendencies.”

Jumping off the roof was more fun.

Four

“Sure, you can take a heroic stand against the forces of darkness. Or you can not die. It’s entirely up to you.”