The Necromancer's Stone; The Party, part six

Thalia appraised the shop before her cautiously.  The third band, 'Flare!' having sent a rather excited message the prior night that they would be more than happy to perform, was reported by a reliable source to be performing here tonight.  'Gravitas', as the sign on the door referred to them, had already started to set up their equipment on the small stage on the far end of the building, but Thalia was still holding at the door.
It was known, well known depending on who you asked, that Thalia was fearless, powerful, and bold.  But that didn't mean that there weren't places she didn't like to go.  Cafes were one of them.  Their usual patrons were hardly the sort that she liked to deal with, and a past interaction with coffee had left her incapable of sleep for nearly a month.  In truth, few Nielda could be found within sight of the unobtrusive semi-restaurant.  For that matter, she couldn't see any Ga-Vok either.  There was a Jaguan further down the street, near the edge of an alley, but it was obvious that she was here to cater to the locals, and not out of any personal desire of her own.  Thalia couldn't help but worry about the overwhelming..human-ness of the neighborhood.  Most of Krove was so much more balanced in its demographics.  But she swallowed her concerns and pushed the door open.
The smell was devastatingly potent.  Thalia muttered a spell to ward off the effects and forged on towards the stage.  Five people, two girls and three guys, all of them were human.  She glanced around and noticed a few heads turned in her direction.  Even though most humans couldn't tell the difference between a Nielda, like Thalia, and a human, they would still notice her impressive height.  She stayed quiet until she stood directly in front of the singer's mic,  which she tapped gently.  No feedback, luckily they hadn't finished rigging the sound system yet.
"You're Gravitas?"
"Yes."  Dog-gone-it, they were going to make her force the whole conversation, weren't they?
"My name is Thalia, I'd like to engage your services."  She held out a hand, putting up her warmest smile.  None of them made any motion to return either the offered handshake or the smile, continuing about their business.  She lowered her hand, but forced herself to continue smiling.
"I hear you're the best in town, and I wanted to offer to let you play at my party, on Junsrew Eve."
No reply.  Were they deaf or something?  Her research should have turned up something like that.  She stopped smiling.
"I promise to compensate you fittingly."
"Look lady, we don't need your establishment money.  You can't buy us."
"Yeah!"
Crap, Those People; she couldn't stand dealing with people like this.  If they didn't want money it gave her two choices; threats, or trickery.  She couldn't play nice with Those sorts of people, it was just too far from her own view of things for her to pull off convincingly.  She could try to flirt her way to success, but none of these guys seemed to be inclined towards that weakness.  And threats were out of the question.  That meant she'd have to offer alternative bribery.
"Thats a shame, because my friend Katie's dad is the head of Bulenko Records."
Eyes popped up across the room.  Thalia smiled again, she had them.