(Dragons take avarice to a religious level, but they have good reason; their health and reproduction depend on the presence of certain precious materials. European dragons need gold. Their Chinese counterparts seemed to have a similar affection for jade and pearls, although some of what I’d been able to overhear implied that they actually created pearls somehow, which definitely gave them a financial leg up. What can I say? I’m a cryptozoologist, and we didn’t write our books on cryptid biology by being too polite to eavesdrop.)

“Are we good?” I asked.

“We’re good,” said Marcy, shoving the last of the sedated snakes under Carol’s wig. “Thanks for the save.”

“It’s no big deal,” I said, although a quick glance at the clock told me that it was actually a very big deal indeed. I was due on stage with the rest of the chorus in less than three minutes. I stuck two fingers in my mouth and whistled sharply before shouting, “This is not a drill, people! Hairspray down, high heels on, and anyone who breaks a leg before intermission is going to answer to me!”

The already hectic dressing room exploded into motion as everyone scrambled, double-time, to get ready for the cue that was about to crash down on us. I dashed back to my locker, grabbing the few pieces of costume still in need of application, and took off for the stage. Anything I couldn’t put on while I was running was just going to have to wait until I got a break.

There’s no business like show business. And thank God for that.

A little background, in case it’s still needed: my name is Verity Price, and I’m a journeyman cryptozoologist, currently studying the sentient cryptid population of New York City and the surrounding area. This turns out to pay surprisingly poorly, since most people don’t believe cryptids exist, and those who do believe in them usually fall into one of two camps—either “kill it with fire” or “I wonder how I can use that freak of nature to make myself buckets and buckets of money.” Neither of these is helpful when what you’re trying to do is observe and assist a cryptid population, and so I, like every other member of my family, make do with whatever jobs my admittedly non-standard skill set can help me hold onto. That brought me, in a roundabout way, to Dave’s Fish and Strips, a tits-and-ass bar that was billed as a “nightclub for discerning gentlemen.”

Dave was a bogeyman. He probably still is, since no one’s managed to kill him yet—at least as far as I know, and given how we parted ways, I would expect his killers to send me a nice “you’re welcome” card. Anyway, when I came to town looking for gainful employment, serving cocktails in a cryptid-owned establishment seemed like the best of all possible worlds. I could study the urban cryptid population both in and out of the workplace, allowing me an unparalleled view of their social structure, and I could make a little money at the same time.

I mean, really, it was all going pretty great until Dave decided to sell me to a snake cult before skipping town. They say nobody’s perfect, but there’s having a few flaws, and then there’s selling your employees as human sacrifices. That sort of thing is just uncool.

The whole “human sacrifice” thing didn’t pan out, and I returned to find Dave gone and the strip club abandoned. Since he wasn’t technically dead—not until I get my hands on him, anyway, and who knows when that might be?—the rest of the city’s bogeymen got to decide what would be done with his property, and they settled for turning it over to his niece, Kitty. She’d been touring with her boyfriend’s band when things really got nasty, and didn’t find out that her uncle was missing until she came to ask for her old job back. Maybe Dave left the deed in her name, or else her boyfriend was really good at fabricating paperwork, but either way, talk about your welcome home presents.

None of us had expected too much of Kitty, but she proved to have a good head for business and, better still, a good sense of showmanship. Dave operated the club on a sort of “If we put hot naked girls on stage, they will come” theory. Kitty looked at that and said, “Well, yes, but how are we going to get them to come back?” Dave’s Fish and Strips closed its doors for good a week after Kitty took it over. Two months after that, the Freakshow was born.

Have a prehensile tail? Wear a miniskirt and use it to carry an extra tray when you’re serving drinks. Got wings? How do you feel about swinging on a perch suspended from the ceiling? Cryptids of every race and creed were invited to come and show off the things that divided them from the human race—and every one of them who did just helped to raise the Freakshow’s cred a little higher. There was even a review in the New Yorker, calling it a “cunning use of smoke and mirrors,” and “a fantastic example of the misuses one can manage with a degree in theatrical makeup and costuming.” In short, it was so in-your-face that everyone assumed it had to be fake, and the human populace of the city was all but busting down the doors for the chance to dance with the monsters they still didn’t believe in.

Still, every gimmick has its shelf life, and Kitty knew that if she wanted to keep the Freakshow running, she would need to have more than just a few strange but pretty faces on staff. She’d need actual entertainment. Well, that, and some of the stiffest drinks in the city, courtesy of our bartenders, Ryan and Angel.

All of which goes to explain why I scrambled to the middle of the stage less than a minute before curtain, wearing a corset, a ruffled black-and-red cancan skirt, high heels, and enough glitter to start my own David Bowie tribute band. In the end, no matter how tight the timing, the show must always go on.

“Ladies and gentlemen, honored guests and less-than-honored neighbors, the Freakshow welcomes you to a night of thrills, chills, and sweet surprises that can be found nowhere else in this fairest of all fair cities.” Kitty always did her ringmaster act from the center of the stage, despite the fact that she’s a bogeyman, and should hence want to avoid the light whenever possible. I guess she never got to that page of the bogeyman edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves. She strutted back and forth between two precisely placed marks as she used her womanly wiles to get the attention of a rowdy crowd.

Her luck was usually good in that regard. Something about her wearing an outfit that looks like a classic ringmaster’s attire as reinterpreted by a designer who specializes in high-end fetish gear just managed to catch the eye. It didn’t hurt that she had the subtly inhuman proportions shared by all bogeymen, making her difficult to look away from.