The place was called Jenny’s, and it would always be called that.

In 1889, the widow Jenny macOwen had bought a small pub, not much more than a bar along one side and a row of tables along the other, renamed it Jenny’s, and begun doing rousing business among the rough trade and the half-breed mutts. When she’d grown tired of the business, she’d passed it along to her daughter Muirín.

When Muirín was ready for a change, Jenny came back for a few years – under the guise of a cousin, also named Jenny – until Muirín’s daughter Anna was ready to take over. And so it had gone, until Jae had taken over the bar from her “cousin Jenny”.

Along the way, it had expanded quite a bit. Grandma Jenny had started by buying the place upstairs and putting in a stairway; Grandma Muirín had knocked out the wall between Jenny’s and the failed restaurant next door. The place Jae had taken over was five times as big as the original Jenny’s, and had a chef, a dining room, and a black market trade in Ellehemaei goods and promises.

Jae knew the story by heart. She’d grown up sleeping in a wine crate behind the bar, learned her letters reading menus, and started to walk holding on to the dining room chairs. This bar had stood through two world wars and several police actions. Some johnny-come-lately Law-breaking dragon wasn’t going to change anything.

“Molly.” She gestured brusquely at one of the waitresses. “Go upstairs and ask if any of the Law can shift Force. Use those words exactly, okay? Tara,” she gestured at the other one. “Make sure everyone’s inside. This is going to get rough.”

There were monsters flying overhead, but the regulars were still sitting behind the bar, playing poker at the tables, upstairs making deals. Jae stood on the bar, for the best sense of the whole place, and began muttering Workings. “All right.” She nodded at the Ellehemaei coming down the stairs behind Molly. “What we’re going to do is put a force field around the whole block. That ought to do it.”

The place was Jenny’s, and it would always be called that.

Started reading LKH, designed a sub-setting. Here’s Jenny’s.

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