“So nice to have you back!” A tail slammed him back into the metal bars, denting his cuirass. “I was so sorry to eat you, but you were edible!” Another tail lashed out to impale him where his nethers ought to be. All I achieved was scattering bone fragments around the place.

  Said bone fragments slowly dragged themselves back towards the body and began slotting into their original positions. The dark metal armour gradually reformed, and the dents pushed themselves out.

  “I wish my car had been able to do that,” I muttered.

  “Bob, what the hell? They work for you now,” Kat objected.

  “This guy… is a douche,” I announced decisively.

  “The guy he was before he died might have been, but now he’s a bound servant and beating up on him is like kicking a puppy.”

  I lashed out with a foot, kicking the skeleton-puppy back into the metalwork behind him again. I shook out my leg to remove the stink of his armour from my scales. “And he threatened to rape Esme.”

  Kat fluttered down and looked closely into the dull eyes of the desiccated corpse, lifting his chin with one yellow-wrapped hand. “Is this true?”

  A shaky nod.

  Her fist slammed upwards into the strap holding the horny helmet in place, knocking Edible-Reg’s head backwards, causing a loud clang to ring out. “We’ve got latrines you can empty,” she said coldly.

  “So let’s go explore this labyrinth that definitely isn’t going to be a pain in the ass whenever I want a nap.”

  Kat guided me through the twists and turns, avoiding the literal dead ends, and showed me the sights. I was impressed. And annoyed. It took a good hour to wend our way through the maze, stepping carefully in places to avoid the pitfalls and pressure plates as she pointed them out.

  A couple of times, she showed me what would happen, becoming intangible as poison darts hissed through her where her head was, or flying effortlessly over deadfalls after triggering the trap.

  “Well, I’m sold, but getting back through that lot with the murder-crows, the zombies, the Death Kunigits and the traps really is a bit much.”

  “Just use a portal, Bob,” she said wearily. “Now, let's go have a chat with that chef.”

  “Hang on a sec.” I trotted up the stairs proudly and then dumped a ton of rusty armour I’d grabbed from zombies I’d released at the last battle in front of it till it was blocked completely. I repeated the process at the bottom of the spiral staircase as well. “Probably should have just done the bottom first,” I muttered.

  “I am sick of your bottom jokes, Bob. Open a portal, please,” Kat snapped.

  I glared, but thought better of saying anything. The blue oval appeared as I shifted back into my mammal-form and we stepped out onto the mana crystal floor.

  “That’s… quite a lot of people.”

  “The link to Ankmapak has driven the numbers up a lot. Beville is pretty pleased with everything so far.”

  “What about the guilds and Dalgiesh’s enterprise?” I wondered. All stripes and sizes, the newcomers were a vibrant cross-section of the city, which loosely translated into most of them looking like half-starved bums with a few obviously very wealthy people.

  “There’s probably some of them mixed in,” Kat admitted. I narrowed my eyes as sparks burst out around me.

  “Nothing we can do about it now, I guess,” I sighed. “Let’s go.”

  I passed through the portal to the Long Horn and refrained from making any more inappropriate jokes.

  “The hell happened here?” I demanded.

  The previously hopefully tobacco-stained walls were gone. Not gone-gone, but a fresh layer of shiny paint had been applied, and now, rather than piss-yellow, they were a vibrant… beige. The furniture had been replaced. Sturdy, much-loved bar stools, long used to the caress of drunken arses, had been sent to wherever good bar stools go when they die.

  “Those covers had better not be…” I shoved the nearest gentleman off his stool, ignoring his outraged whining. My hand caressed the still-warm seat. “Velvet?” I squeaked. I was surrounded by a halo of glowing motes exploding from my body.

  “Esme has had all the pubs update the decor,” Kat said hurriedly.

  “Esme. Already?”

  “Yes.”

  The hurt, like a little boy abandoned in a supermarket, built, crescendoed and finally faded in what passed for my heart. “Fine.” I would have words with her later. “Where’s Captain Mcfancy-snacks?”

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Kat fluttered up to the bar and slammed a yellow fist on the bell, sparks flashing from the impact.

  “Bob! Kat! Come on through!” Beville said as he poked his head through the door to the back passage. We followed him down to the kitchen and found a glowing portal filling it with blue light. Jenny was standing with her arms crossed, a rolling pin hanging dangerously from her right fist, moustache all aquiver.

  Opposite her was a tall man with curly blond hair. He wore chefs' whites, and someone had helpfully embroidered the word “chef” onto the left breast.

  “This is shit! You’re shit! How the fuck did you manage to survive this long being so stupid? This isn’t puff pastry, it’s filo, you inbred, subnormal–”

  I hit them both with Hunter’s Gaze. Stopping his tirade was only part of my motive. I really didn’t need Jenny bludgeoning him to death in one of my kitchens. The paperwork would be a nightmare, and getting blood off a rolling pin was surprisingly difficult, so I had heard.

  “Let’s take it down a notch, eh? I’m Bob, proprietor and draconic overlord extraordinaire. Hi Jenny.” Now that I was fabulously wealthy, I could get away with that kind of introduction. “I’m not saying I eat people who annoy me, but I do. So let’s discuss this calmly. When that skill wears off.”

  I produced a bottle of Golden Jack and sat down at the table in the centre of the room that had been all that kept the angry cooks at arm's length as we arrived. I poured a dram into a glass for Kat, and we sat quietly waiting for the two frozen humans to start moving again.

  “Trade’s good,” Beville offered cautiously as he sat next to me, and I offered him the bottle. He produced a glass from nowhere, buffed it nervously for a couple of seconds, then helped himself. “I’ve been looking at the numbers and I’m regretting not having the portal inside. Creville and Neville are both doing better than the Horn.”

  “It was your decision, Bev. I can move it if you want.”

  “Thanks, Bob. Leave it with me. I’m trying to work out if bringing it inside and having Quaestors passing through is going to hurt more than leaving it where it is.”

  “Take a few weeks, no need to make a rushed decision,” Kat suggested as we all continued to ignore the fuming but immobile chefs.

  “Do any of your other siblings slash cousins want to join the party? We could use some more locations. They kind of need to be in towns owned by the Bulbonistas. Umbrati towns aren’t going to welcome us,” I said.

  “We can work something out. Nevilla runs a tidy pub over in Harrowton. She might be interested, and if she joins, a bunch of the family will fall in line,” Beville replied.

  “Some kind of split in the De Sackvilles?” Kat asked, taking a long sip of my very expensive liquor. I ignored the Greed-demon starting on a rant in my head.

  “The Sackvilles hang together like plums in a bag,” Beville said quickly, then sighed. “But some of us hang lower than the others.”

  “You think joining the franchise is a step down?” My voice wasn’t cold, but it was chilly.

  “Nah. Just… there’s a pecking order. Me, Crev and Nev are kind of at the ‘gets pecked’ end of the order. You know how it is.”

  “I really don’t,” I muttered. “Five… four…” I mouthed the rest of the countdown and then pointed a finger at the chef.

  “ –chair licking degenerate!” he yelled.

  “Kat?”

  “Hmm? Oh shit.” Kat flew across the table and caught the rolling pin as it reached horizontal, the pointy end aimed at the chef’s left temple, and managed to snatch it away from Jenny before she turned it into a hypervelocity projectile.

  “Cunt!” We all fell silent and stared at Jenny, who had the decency to look embarrassed.

  “Right. Well, that wasn’t what I was expecting. Whatever would your father say?”

  “Piss off, Bob.” Jenny glared at the chef, who looked stunned, his mouth hanging open and eyes wide.

  “How about you both sit down and have a drink while we talk this through?” I suggested in a tone that suggested it was more of an order. Money really does change you.

  “Ok…” They both said hesitantly at the same time. The chef blushed as he pulled back a chair and plonked himself down. I poured another pair of very expensive shots and slid them towards the two cooks.

  “So what we’re looking for Mr…?”

  “Grenemental. Gorboon Grenemental.”

  “OK. Mr Grenemental, what we’re looking for from you is more along the lines of a main meal kind of thing. Desserts and pastries would be left to Jenny and her old man.”

  “But I would need to balance the palate of any mains against the delicate and sumptuously hairy nature of the delectable… desserts.”

  I squinted, purple eyes narrowing in concern. “We can probably make something like that work, I think. Jenny?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Jenny, will that work?” Her eyes flicked towards me, and for a moment, I was glad Kat had disarmed her. She couldn’t kill me, but I knew she was vicious with kitchen utensils.

  Her gaze returned to the chef, and her cheeks flushed slightly. “I think I can figure out a way to make his stuffing hum.”

  I glanced at Kat, who shrugged. “That didn’t make sense, but that’s great, I think. Mr Grenemental, you’d be working out of the soon-to-be-complete kitchen in the dungeon, covering about four hundred customers a night, give or take.”

  “Magnificent eyebrows,” the chef muttered, gaze locked on Jenny. She blushed.

  “Pardon?”

  “Not a problem as long as I have suitable support and am able to work alongside such a talented and hirsute baker.”

  “You two were about to kill each other a couple of minutes ago.”

  “We were not!” they both yelled.

  It’s not worth it, Bob. People are crazy. If this long streak of invective wanted to fall in love with a short, lovable but far too hairy woman, who was I to judge?

  “We’re not looking for squirrel-ball pate or any of that crap. Wholesome, family food, exquisite quality at an affordable price.”

  “Baronet, this is like asking for dry water. Quality is expensive,” Grenemental objected.

  “So true,” Jenny sighed.

  “People will get rich from the network, and some of that will end up being spent on fancy food, so I’m happy for you to keep some weird rich-people-shit on the menu, but the bulk of it should be, you know, Sunday dinner type stuff.”

  “You want me to do roast beef? Me? The finest experimental chef on Helstat? A once-in-three-generations talent, born with gifts beyond the imaginings of most mortals. Me?”

  “I think you’d do a lovely spit roast,” Jenny murmured.

  Kat raised an eyebrow, sparks flashing from her cheeks. The red dots on them suddenly looked a bit darker. Given her taste in literature…

  “Leaving that to one side, Jenny. Grenemental, can you do it?”

  “I can do it.”

  I clicked my fingers, sparkles flying from my digits, to force him to snap his eyes away from Jenny.

  “I said I can do it!”

  “Great. Kat will discuss your… generous compensation. And look, if you’ve got a thing for short, hairy women, that’s cool, but keep any shenanigans off company time and out of my kitchens. Jenny refuses to wear a moustache net; I don’t need pubes in the food as well.”

  I blinked and picked up the rolling pin that had just bounced off my forehead, then crushed its middle in one hand, whose fingers looked more like claws than anything human. “No hank-panky when you’re making pancakes.”