The nightclubs are wildly popular, too. I’d call it a cliché, but that might get me in trouble.

It also helps that Mickey’s is completely owned and mostly staffed by Weres. When you have claws and superstrength, tolerance takes on a whole new meaning.

Lean dark Theron met me at the door. The Werepanther’s face was unusually solemn, and his shoulders came up a fraction as I swept the door closed. “Kid looks shaken up.”

Not even a greeting. Weres are normally so polite, too.

“He should be.” I glanced past him, saw Saul in our regular booth. Across from him, Gilberto slumped, staring at his beer bottle. The bottle’s label was half picked off.

The kid wasn’t old enough to drink, but that didn’t matter in the barrio. It doesn’t matter on the nightside, either. I turned a blind eye—God knows an apprentice is kept on a short enough leash otherwise.

Theron didn’t move. The front of Mickey’s is a narrow tiled foyer, a half wall holding back the tables to your left and the kitchen directly in front of you, with all its steam and heat. One of the cooks, a slim dark bird Were, was tossing a spatula, plucking it out of the air with graceful dexterity while he stared back at the freezer, tossing it again.

I finally looked up, met Theron’s steady gaze. “What? Am I not allowed to come in?”

“I’d tell you to be gentle.” Theron folded his arms. “But that’s so not you.”

I had washed my face, smearing my eyeliner and putting fresh on. But I hadn’t bothered to change. I could spare the time to rinse my face, and I like to do it. The rest of me doesn’t matter so much.

The Talisman hummed low on my breastbone, beneath the ruin of my black T-shirt. The shirt still covered all my bits, but I wished suddenly that I’d stopped to grab a new one. I used to wear shirts with witty sayings, but now I bought them—black, V-neck, three-quarter sleeve, slightly fitted—in job lots. Saul sometimes found nice ones at Goodwill, especially old concert shirts, but I bleed all over them so often I feel kind of bad about it. There’s only so much he can do with a sewing machine and a T-shirt.