On the stage against the far wall, the goth-rock house band was playing. The logo on the drum kit announced them as Drusilla and the Dollies. The lead singer—Drusilla, presumably—danced trancelike, her face mostly concealed by a curtain of long dark hair. Black-and-white-striped stockings peeked out from under her corseted red dress. Seated behind her was a loose-skinned demon whose pale batwing ears sagged beneath a bowler hat. As the demon in the bowler hat drew his bow over an electric cello, the singer whispered luridly into the microphone, “Kiss me, kill me till I bleed.”

The crowd pressed against the stage and burst into anticipatory applause. One—a chaos demon from the look of their gooey antlers—passed the singer a single red rose, which she used to blow kisses into the crowd.

The bartender, a bleached-blond man with a face that was 90 percent cheekbones, rolled his eyes, seemingly disgusted by the proceedings onstage. Anya pushed Andrew and Jonathan toward him.

“Can I get you a pint of plasma?” the barman offered Anya in a thick Cockney accent. He narrowed his eyes at Andrew’s and Jonathan’s wristbands. “Or a glass of milk?”

“Do you have chocolate—” Andrew began to ask.

Anya cut him off. “Actually, we’re looking for information. You’re a vampire, aren’t you?”

The barman glared at her in annoyance. He took a moment to lick his teeth, letting his canines change into fangs and back again. “What do you think, love?”

Jonathan had never been so close to a set of fangs before. Just seeing them made him feel light-headed and anxious. On jelly legs, he took a step away from the bar and bumped directly into a passing Fyarl demon in a waiter’s apron. Foot-soldier demons that usually worked for vampires or even scarier monsters, Fyarls were a common sight in Demondale. They all had curved black horns and sharp knobs for shoulders. They were extraordinarily strong. Jonathan had once seen one throw people out of its way just to make it to the front of a line at the bank.

The waiter Fyarl growled down at Jonathan, gesturing to the serving tray it had balanced on one hand. A basket of cheese fries sat beside a bowl overflowing with live cockroaches. Jonathan didn’t speak Fyarl—to him it just sounded like grunts and roars—but he apologized a few times for good measure, hoping the demon could at least sense his contrition. It seemed to work. The Fyarl trudged away toward the patrons at the pool tables.

Anya set her forearms on the bar and leaned forward, catching the barman’s full attention. “We need to know about the slayer.”

“Is that right?” the barman drawled. He picked up a pint glass and buffed it with a towel that was more bloodstain than not. “Well, I’ve slain a few slayers in my time. What do you want to know about them? And how much is that information worth to you?”

Anya turned around, raising her brows significantly at Andrew and Jonathan and not very subtly tilting her head toward the vampire bartender. Jonathan opened the messenger bag and withdrew a handful of twenty-dollar bills before taking out the video camera. He fast-forwarded the playback to the moment the blond girl interrupted the Ascension.