Page 109 of Aftermarket Afterlife

“One two three, promise me,” she chanted. “So you’ve said, so it will be.” She reclaimed her hand and skipped away, not looking back.

I managed a smile as I continued my walk over to Candice. “Cute kid,” I said. “Who’s her mom?”

“Don’t know; we found her in the park one day, and thought she matched the decorating scheme.” She laughed. “You should see your face. You totally bought it!”

“Sure, Candy,” I said. “You’d risk the Nest by kidnapping random sticky, smelly human children.”

She stopped laughing. “Theyaresticky. How are human kids so sticky? Do you roll them in jam?”

“I’ll be honest—I don’t know. Livvy was sticky before she was crawling. I think babies may secrete some sort of biological adhesive.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” she said, and thawed. “Her mother’s Madison, one of the dragons who came down from Boston after William got settled.” The Nest was made up largely of dragons who could trace their relationships by two or three generations, sisters and cousins all living together to keep each other safe. William had added a new wrinkle by making sexual reproduction possible again, and so they had begun quietly making trades with other local Nests, keeping their population stable while dragons whose sisters had already been accepted as William’s wives moved on to increase the local genetic diversity.

Again, if I tried to think about that in human terms, it seemed terribly wrong, but when I looked at it as a naturalist whose subjects could manage their own preservation, it made perfect sense. If William was going to impregnate two females, better that they not be sisters. They had to be smart about things if they actually wanted to revitalize their species rather than buying it the very briefest stay of execution.

“Right,” I said, looking to William. “I’m sorry I got you all snotty.”

“You wiped it off,” he said. “And you’re grieving. You’re allowed to get a few things all snotty. If you don’t mind my asking, what are you planning to do from here?”

“I...” I stopped, once again unable to swallow past the lump in my throat. I struggled for a moment to force it down, finally saying, “I can find a new apartment, once we’re done driving the Covenant back. I should probably stay in New York for at least a while, make sure everything is okay before I go home to my family.”

“But you will return to your family?” he asked.

I blinked. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

“No. Entirely the opposite, actually. The Nest would be...willing, if not happy, to pay your housing costs if it meant you would remain in the area. We have many needs where interfacing with the human world is concerned, and you could serve as a negotiator where relations with other Nests are concerned. We’ve had more inquiries regarding adoptions, and some of them have been rather aggressively...” He paused, looking hopelessly to Candice for help.

“Smug,” she offered. “Patronizing. Rude as hell. They assume that because the Covenant is in our city, we can’t take care of our own husband. They want to buy our sons at a discount, because they’ll be ‘protecting them’ from the dangerous risk of dragon-slayers. We’ve never been that careless. We’ve never endangered our boys.”

That wasn’t entirely accurate, but pointing it out wasn’t going to do me any good. I nodded instead, and focused on William. “You really want to pay my rent? That’s not cheap in Manhattan.”

Candice grimaced. “We have some investment properties,” she said. “Not as many as we used to—we’ve had to sell a few to balance the rising tax rates—but we could provide you with a place to live well below market rate.” Offering me a bargain made her look, briefly, like she was going to throw up, which paradoxically made me feel better.

Knowingwhydragons are the way they are about money doesn’t make it any less fun to occasionally tease them about it, or any more rewarding to have them offer me fair compensation for my time. I kept my eyes on William.

“What would you need from me?”

“Negotiation services, and continued monitoring of the cryptid activity in the city to be sure that nothing dangerous to my family came to reside here in the absence of the Covenant’s quelling activities. In return, we would provide you with housing and basic utilities, and sufficient free time for you to find another source of income to feed yourself and your child.”

I nodded thoughtfully. Kitty was already talking about reopening the Freakshow once the current danger had passed. She had the funds—the only people who come close to the dragons for financial literacy and budgeting are the bogeymen, who have made fiscal responsibility one of the pillars of their culture and community. Kitty had been saving and investing since she was six years old, and could easily afford to find the club a new home. She just didn’t want to do it when there was a chance the Covenant would firebomb the place again. They were good with their accelerants, and they had a vicious tendency to deploy them to make an attack look like an act of arson, which would block insurance payments. Insult and injury in one fell swoop.

If Kitty reopened the Freakshow, I could go back to working for her as a cocktail waitress-slash-dancer, and while that wouldn’t be enough to live on under normal circumstances, it would be sufficient if I wasn’t paying rent. This could work.

“I’ll want to move back to Portland eventually,” I said. “Livvy needs to grow up around her family. But I’d like to stay here for a little while before that happens. We can talk about it more, after this is over.”

“I’m glad you’re willing to at least consider a path that doesn’t see you leaving us,” said William, gravely. “You’ve been a good friend during your time in this city, and I owe you for bringing me my golden ones.”

“Just paying an old family debt,” I said.

One of the little boys turned around and snarled at a group of his sisters who’d been chasing him, producing a small spark and puff of smoke. He stopped after that, blinking in dumbfounded confusion at the dissipating cloud. Then he sat down hard in the gold coins on the floor and started to wail, the sound surprisingly human—that, or the sound of human babies was surprisingly draconic, and I didn’t want to think about that too hard, so I shunted the comparison to the back of my mind and watched as two more adult dragons detached themselves from their conversations and ran toward the boy. The first to reach him swept him into her arms, while the other turned to begin talking softly but firmly to the girls.

“Livvy can still come play if that’s all right with you,” I said. “She’s going to need community.” The bogeyman kids were generally willing to play with her, but they preferred to play with the lights off, which was difficult for a human child. It would be better if she could have multiple friend groups for social situations.

William nodded. “Of course,” he said. “She’s always welcome here. I truly am sorry about Dominic.”

Tears stung my eyes. For a few seconds, I’d been so distracted that I’d almost forgotten about the situation. Not good.

“I should probably get back to Kitty and the others,” I said. “They’ll be worried about me by now. Candy, can you walk me there?”

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