When someone screamed in the distance, it was almost a welcome distraction.

  Fatma and Ali glanced at each other before hurrying toward the noise. David and Jillian had triumphant looks as they followed, and Damian grinned widely, his hunches proven correct.

  Chloe’s mom frowned, matching how she felt as they hurried to keep up. She should have been in the lead instead of running after everyone. She had the power, for fuck’s sake. Clearly, no one had told them their gear might be useless in certain situations. They’d survived this long, so there had to be something in it.

  When David pulled her down behind some bushes, she knew there was more to his survival than his gear, too. Just ahead, Fatma and Ali had taken cover behind some trees. Fatma had a pistol out, and Ali clutched something just bigger than a grenade. God, she hoped it wasn’t a freaking grenade. She wasn’t used to guns and explosives, but as she focused on the clearing beyond, she realized she’d have to get used to them real fucking quick.

  Four thuggish people with handguns of various varieties stood around the siren Chloe had seen before. She lay on the ground, blood streaming from a wound on her temple. A crash sounded across the clearing from a large shed or portable building that rocked on its base.

  “I’ll go look,” Ramses said, stepping through the plants between Jillian and Damian, who crouched on David’s other side.

  Chloe forced herself to wait, her mother’s presence at her back a comfort as her mind raced. How had these people defeated a siren’s song? She couldn’t see anything in their ears, and earplugs small enough to go unnoticed wouldn’t cut it. A shimmer near the collar of one caught her eye. It could have been the top of a sigil, and the way it glowed was a dead giveaway that it was magical in nature. It might even be invisible to those who weren’t her.

  The hair on Chloe’s neck stood up. If these people were savvy enough to use magic in case of a siren attack, what else were they prepared for?

  “Ramses,” she thought as hard as she could, “get back here.”

  Her heart stuttered as something made a short fzzt like an overloaded socket. A trap?

  “Ramses?”

  The air left her lungs in a whoosh, like someone had clubbed her on the back. She had to fight to keep from doubling over as Ramses’s presence faded from her mind, taking her back to when Helen had forced them to separate, a feeling she’d never wanted to revisit. “Ramses?” she croaked.

  Everyone glanced her way, and she pushed up, her fear washed away in a tide of anger. How fucking dared they?

  She slapped the magical helmet on her head, heard the gasps as she was surely lost from sight, and waded in where Ramses had vanished, determined to get him back or die trying.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Helen gasped, breathing in old paper and stone. She darted for the door in the dark, intent on reaching Ligeia and Maurice, but a solid mass blocked her way: the softness of skin and the iron of muscle.

  And the cold, slick feeling of scales.

  A throaty laugh filled the stale air, and the muscled mass heaved into Helen’s side, knocking her sideways and sending pain reverberating through her ribs. It didn’t feel like an arm or a leg, more like the thick slab of a tail.

  She’d know that laugh anywhere. “Lamia,” she gasped as she caught herself on the heated metal of the wall.

  “You really are a gullible fool.”

  Helen pressed against the wall and tried to follow the sibilance of the Lamia’s scales in the shadows. She half wished the window was completely covered so her eyes could truly adjust. Gods, she had to think fast. The Lamia was strong, her bite was venomous, and if she transformed—

  No, she couldn’t do that, not with the cuff Helen had forced on her.

  Well, if she’d gotten out of the sanctuary, she’d obviously removed that.

  The air shifted. Helen ducked, and a clang over her head rewarded her effort. She rolled away, waving the kladenet to the side in case the Lamia was close enough to hit. In the darkness, it wouldn’t be effective, needing light as much as most in order to fight.

  She bumped into a wooden chair and clattered around it, putting it between her and where she remembered the door to be. The Lamia would be keeping her distance, too, lashing with that powerful tail until she could change shape.

  Why hadn’t she done it already?

  “You’ve got me here, now what?” Helen said, skittering backward after she spoke, not wanting to give her position away. When she heard the chair splinter into bits and felt the sharp patter of pieces against her arm, she knew she’d made the right choice.

  “Now you die.”

  “If you could kill me all this time—” She moved again, staying low, not wanting to be silhouetted against the meager light. She heard another thump where she’d been, but now she’d found a sofa or love seat and circled it quickly.

  “Come and fight me, coward.” The Lamia had to be close to the center of the room now.

  Helen knelt behind the sofa and put her shoulder to it. She gathered her godhood in a rush, not wanting a glow to give her away before she had the chance to ram some furniture down the Lamia’s throat.

  When another small movement gave the Lamia away, Helen heaved, flinging the sofa across the room. The Lamia gave a strangled cry. Helen darted for the door, the path illuminated by her power. She braced herself, smacked into it, knocked it halfway off its hinges as she barreled through. With a grunt, she tumbled down the short steps and hit the ground in a roll.

  Voices were shouting on top of one another, and she glimpsed a blue body on the clearing floor amid shuffling boots. Bastards.

  But Ligeia would have to wait until Helen had dealt with the Lamia. She let go of the kladenet. “Guard.” It would watch her as she rushed to put her back to one of the other buildings, keeping it between her and the mercenaries. No matter what else was going on, the Lamia was the biggest threat. She always was, always had been, it seemed.

  But no one emerged.

  When a cry came from the forest, Helen edged toward the other end of the building and peeked. A hazy white glow lit a patch of ground about ten-feet square. Inside, someone stood silhouetted against the trees. Well, not exactly. She could see the trees through him even as she could make out a few details of his clothing: a pleated kilt with a long belt, high sandals, and a tall, oblong crown upon his head, a figure straight out of a book about ancient Egypt.

  Chloe’s pharaoh.

  Her ghost pharaoh.

  How in the hell could Helen see him?

  It had to be the hazy glow that surrounded him. He beat his hands against nothing like a mime trying to escape an invisible box, his face twisted in anger or pain. A trap of some sort? But if he was here…

  Another shout drew her attention from where the mercenaries had been. She hurried back to the other side of her building, sparing a glance for the gaping door to the old one. The Lamia still hadn’t come out. Before Helen could glance around the corner, one of the mercenaries flew past as if tossed by a giant.

  Not even Maurice was that strong. “What in the world?”

  Another mercenary went sailing into the trees on the right of the clearing as Helen glanced around. The others were struggling to rise, cradling various parts of their bodies. That looked more like Maurice’s handiwork.

  Then Chloe appeared out of nowhere and took a defensive stance near Ligeia’s prone body. Helen smiled amid a surge of joy. Whatever else Chloe was, she clearly wasn’t with these mercenaries.

  That shouldn’t have felt so good.

  Chloe put the tarnkappe under her arm. No wonder she’d been able to throw the mercenaries around like toys. Next, she’d be wanting her pharaoh back.

  Helen looked for him again, trying to spot the source of whatever imprisoned him. When she sensed movement behind her, she threw herself down just as a thick blue-black tail smashed into where she’d been standing, bouncing off the metal of the portable building with a ting that reverberated through the clearing. And leaving a huge dent in its wake.

  The Lamia had finally decided to join them.

  The kladenet slashed at the retreating tail but didn’t advance, still in guard-mode. The Lamia seemed younger than the last time Helen had seen her. Perhaps that was an effect of seeing her in sunlight for the first time in years. She still wore nothing but a jeweled belt and an evil smile, the imprisoning cuff gone from her wrist.

  And still no transformation?

  When the Lamia’s tail whipped around again, the kladenet blocked, and the contact made another too-metallic ting, along with a sound like cracking leather. And the blade didn’t appear to cut her flesh. Something was wrong.

  The Lamia’s gaze flicked to the side. More shouts, maybe double the voices for the number of people Helen had seen. Reinforcements had arrived for someone. The Lamia cocked one shoulder back, her tail flicking as if she might strike again, but she hissed, recoiling as several somethings thwacked into her, each one preceded by a loud thunk.

  Chloe marched past the edge of the building, a cordless nail gun in hand. “All window dressing, my ass,” she said for some inexplicable reason. When her eyes met Helen’s, she stutter-stepped a bit but didn’t drop her formidable stance. “I guess cold iron works on a lamia, too.”

  “The,” Helen corrected her automatically. She shifted so she and Chloe were nearly standing side by side. “And I guess it does.” Though being shot by a bunch of nails was bound to make anyone cranky.

  But it shouldn’t have been enough to make the Lamia wheeze and fall back, one hand to her wounds, the other still cocked strangely behind her. Helen peered at where the nail heads protruded from the Lamia’s flesh, certain they were oozing black blood.

  “The Lamia doesn’t bleed,” she muttered.

  Maurice’s voice yelled something about a glamour. This wasn’t the Lamia.

  “It’s a demon.” Chloe dropped the tarnkappe and pulled a pentacle from her bag.

  Helen could smell the anise from where she stood. “A demon?”

  The faux-Lamia staggered back, its glamour slipping away to reveal pale red skin covered in barbs and a very muscular body. They had no eyes, the skin stretched tight over the upper half of their face like a mask, and the teeth were bare in a lipless grimace. A flaming circle stood upright just above the crown of their bald head, moving with them as they flicked a whip with a metal end, the Lamia’s “tail.”

  “Gods,” Helen mumbled just as Chloe said, “Oh shit.” Helen wasn’t well-versed in demons, and this one looked…challenging.

  Thankfully, the demon spread black-veined bat wings and leapt into the air. Chloe fired the nail gun after them, and Helen commanded the kladenet to attack as the demon hovered in the air, but with several great pulls of their wings, they were off beyond the treetops.

  The kladenet returned before it reached the limit of the magic that tethered them and settled in Helen’s hand.

  “Thank the fucking universe,” Chloe said as she put the pentacle away, stripped off her gloves, and picked up the tarnkappe. “Ramses,” she said to Helen, her eyes wide and worried. “Have you seen him?”

  Helen pointed around the other side of the building. Chloe gave a strangled cry as she turned the corner. With a lunge, Helen caught her arm before she could run for where Ramses stood imprisoned. “Don’t. The spell might catch you, too.”

  “Just what I was about to say,” an older woman said as she joined them. She had Chloe’s dark hair, her light brown skin, and the same pointed chin. A relative, maybe even her mother, judging by the protective, warning look she leveled at where Helen held Chloe’s arm.

  Helen dropped her hand but had to find something to say to Chloe’s stricken expression. She still felt a pull between them, and they hadn’t parted on completely antagonistic terms. Besides, Chloe had helped Ligeia, one of the creatures that most paranormal killers would be happy to see dead. “I’ll help you figure it out, don’t worry.”

  Chloe looked so grateful, Helen almost hugged her, no matter her mother’s dagger eyes. But even her mother seemed distraught as she joined them and looked at Chloe’s pharaoh.

  “Ramses.” Chloe’s mother breathed the word as if she’d just discovered that a long-lost friend was still alive. “I never thought I’d see him again.” She joined hands with Chloe, and the moment felt so weighty, Helen had to look away.

  * * *

  Chloe dragged her fingers out of her mouth. She’d already bitten one nail to the quick, and if she let herself, she’d have ten bloody stumps instead of fingers. But Helen had been pacing around the prison that held Ramses for ten minutes instead of actually doing something, and Chloe was about to crawl out of her skin.

  Fatma and Ali watched Helen from a distance, muttering to each other. A fairy flitted about Helen’s shoulders, speaking in her ear. And the injured siren had recovered and begrudgingly stomped into the forest with a bandage supplied by David pressed to the side of her head.

  The fact that Helen trusted Chloe enough to send one of her allies away did something to her insides.

  “We shouldn’t have let the siren leave,” her mom said. Her insides were clearly the same as always. “She’s probably bringing reinforcements.”

  “For what?” Chloe said. “The fight’s over.”

  Her mom’s sigh said she was still so naive. “Us, Chlo.”

  She shook her head, too nervous for real anger. “Helen wouldn’t be helping Ramses just to turn on us.”

  “She could be faking, stalling for time. Maybe she plans to steal him for herself somehow.”

  Ludicrous. Paranoid. And maybe Chloe had the emotional space for some anger, after all. “She’s not.”

  “How do you know?”

  How? She…just fucking did. But she couldn’t say that, didn’t want to have this entire conversation. She wanted to get Ramses back, have a different conversation with Helen, then…make out with her for several days.

  She pulled her finger from her mouth again.

  “She is pretty impressive, I’ll admit,” her mom said.

  The understatement of the year, but Chloe was glad someone else could see it. She was less glad when her mom stepped between her and the view with her lips pursed in a, I know what you’re thinking, and you should know better look.

  Chloe still said, “What?” in the faint hope that she was wrong.

  “Chlo.”

  “Mom, if you lecture me right now, I swear to God, I will bite my nails down to my wrists.”

  Her mom gently removed her hand from her mouth. “Okay, I’ll put the speeches away.” But another look said they’d be back.

  Yay, something to look forward to. At least for the moment, she got an unobstructed view of Helen. Pity it came with the sight of her best friend trapped in a hazy bubble, but even he would say beggars couldn’t be choosers. After he’d reassure her and tell her to get him the hell out of there.

  Gee, it was almost like she didn’t need to hear him.

  But she couldn’t cheer herself up with bad jokes. She wanted him back like she needed a warm jacket on a cold morning. She’d forego making out with Helen forever in exchange.

  Ramses would say, let’s not be too hasty. Forever is a long time.

  And she’d say—

  She wiped a stray tear from her cheek, but there was another of the damn things right behind it, and her mother’s hand on her shoulder was about to let more of them out, so she trudged away to see how David and Jillian and Damian were doing, knowing she probably looked like a grumpy toddler but lacking the mental energy to care.

  David and Jillian had bound the thugs with zip ties taken from the thugs’ own belts, but there didn’t seem to be any need. They were docile as lambs under Damian’s thrall. The sigils on their necks might have protected them from a siren’s song, but that magic didn’t do squat against a demon.

  Of course, since they seemed to have a few demons on their team—or in charge—that could be by design.

  David and Jillian both wore holy symbols around their necks. Damian stayed a good fifty feet away while they worked, but they still avoided looking at him. He didn’t move back in until they’d shuffled away, and the thugs sighed at him as if he were a spring breeze.

  “I know,” Chloe said when Damian opened his mouth. “You’re very useful.”

  He preened and gave a shallow bow. “I am, yes.”

  She rolled her eyes and nodded at the thugs. “They’re not going to wither and die under your power, right? Or pine for you forever once you’re gone?”

  “We incubi do feed on sexual energy, but doing someone to death is just greedy.” He waved. “Besides, just existing on this plane is like an all-day buffet. Humans think about sex a lot.” He glanced between Chloe and Helen and smirked.

  Her cheeks burned like the Sahara. “Ugh, stop.”

  He shrugged. “They’ll be normal again after about twenty-four hours away from my presence.”

  Chloe sighed, relieved, even though she had no idea what they were going to do with these thugs anyway. It wasn’t like monster hunters had a jail. And she wasn’t about to murder anyone, even if they might not have the same qualms.

  Just another question she had no answers to.

  “What kind of demon was that one?” She pointed toward where the other had been. “Another incubus?”

  He snorted. “Hardly. Many demons have the ability to take other guises, but her true form wasn’t nearly stunning enough for one of us.” He flipped his shoulder-length hair back.

  She couldn’t help thinking of the “popular” crowd in high school and feeling a jolt of not-so-long-ago loathing. “Are we all stuck-up in the incubus club?”