“It’s a figure of speech, touchy. A way to break news that might not be completely welcome. Go drink your cocoa in the bath that has been lovingly prepared for you, then get some sleep. You’re far too grouchy for company.”

  “I take back every mean thought I’ve ever had about you.” And she did, too, now that a bath and a hot drink and bed were all in her future again. But she did feel the need to add, “And I’m not grouchy,” over her shoulder. “Overworked? Yes. Stressed? Most definitely. Do those add up to understandably vexed? Absolutely. But grouchy is a whole other world, one where only cranky children live.”

  She decided to ignore the muttered, “Sounds about right.”

  * * *

  After a long day spent doing nothing but recovering, Chloe felt much better, even if she had to do that recovering in a shitty motel room. “I’m glad we decided to start staying an extra night after ghost cases,” she said as she gnawed on a breadstick. “Even if it strains the budget.”

  Ramses didn’t take his eyes off the laptop that sat between them on the bed. “I always found a day of rest essential after a battle.”

  “But you had lots of wives to help you unwind after a hard day.” Not that she was jealous, no sir.

  He snorted. “It’s cute that you think multiple wives didn’t come with their own problems.”

  “But lots of benefits.”

  He rolled his eyes. “If it’s companionship you seek, finish your pizza, don your finest come-hither outfit, and we will take this town by storm.”

  Chloe barked a laugh. She’d never taken anywhere by storm, and even if she owned a come-hither outfit—whatever the hell he imagined that to be—she hadn’t packed it. And this town didn’t look like the friendliest place for “young woman seeks same.”

  But he knew all that, and after a moment, he dropped his arm and gestured to where her phone sat on the nightstand. “Or you can research our next target.”

  “I can’t help but notice the lack of a ‘we’ in that sentence.” But he’d already gone back to his show. Chloe sighed as loudly as she could, picked up her phone, and began scrolling through her internet alerts, mostly new posts on sites that focused on strange and mysterious happenings. Even years into it, she sometimes had a tough time sifting the actual cases from the BS, the one true ghost or creature in the list of “30 Bizarre and Unexplained Phenomena that Will Keep You Up at Night.”

  The emails about her day job clients were always getting buried.

  “Anything good?” Ramses asked.

  “Good, maybe, but here’s one that’s definitely close. A very small town outside Waxahachie. A flying creature. People in the area are calling it everything from a huge owl to a giant bat to the Mothman going south for the winter.”

  “Ah, the Mothman.” He smiled fondly. “I remember that one with your mother. Think this is another griffin?”

  “Let’s hope so.” She knew where she was with a griffin. “Or nothing at all. That would be even better.”

  “Oh yes. So we have a nice vacation in scenic Middle-of-Nowhere.”

  “Ha. I don’t know. I could have some time to work on tech journals, a leisurely dinner, a warm bath, and be in bed by ten.” God, she was too young for that to sound as good as it did.

  Ramses gave her a flat look, one that said even he was too young for that to sound good. “And there’s always figuring out why we’ve had so many new sightings. As perplexed as Goodspeed seemed by his surroundings, I’m certain he was summoned.”

  So was Chloe. But so far, no spell or fellow monster-hunter had revealed the key to why there’d been so many ghosts and beasties lately. And if her mother had the answer, she hadn’t said.

  Not that Chloe had really asked. Please don’t point it out, she thought.

  “You know,” Ramses said, “your mother might—”

  “Ugh. Yeah.” But she’d been trying to lean on her mother as little as possible. She was still mourning Jamie, the loss of her powers and purpose, and her marriage.

  Plus, there was the little fact that Chloe didn’t want to hear what a shit job she was doing. Not that her mother ever said that, not in so many words.

  Double ugh. Now she couldn’t sit still. She jumped up and started gathering her things and stuffing them in the battered blue suitcase she’d had since 2003, before they’d started putting four wheels on the damn things, but it still worked, and the voice of her father that she carried in her head wouldn’t let her simply abandon it.

  God. Maybe she should call her dad, too. How long had it been? The thought was enough to send pain oozing through her lower intestine. And she fought monsters, for fuck’s sake.

  With a huff, she left off packing and grabbed her phone again, pointedly not looking at Ramses, even though he was no doubt pointedly not looking at her. She ducked out the door and stood on the warm walkway in front of her room.

  The lesser of two evils first. At least her mom would never put on the type of brittle cheeriness that her dad favored. And she was never far from her phone.

  Her mom answered on the second ring. “What’s wrong?”

  Nothing like the, “Hey, kiddo,” of her dad’s habitual greetings. But their relationship went smoother when they kept it all business. Her mom never said so, but Chloe knew she hated being on the periphery of “the family gift.” And she had to miss Ramses, too, though she’d doubtlessly rather try to eat her own face than admit such a thing. “Um, nothing urgent. I was just wondering if you had any more thoughts about, you know, the uptick in, um, monster stuff?” Yeah, that was some confident, ghost-banishing shit right there.

  Her mom sighed. “I’ve been watching the internet. I’ve never seen so many reports.”

  Chloe froze in stunned surprise. If her mother didn’t know what was going on, then Jamie probably wouldn’t have—

  Damn, she had to get a grip.

  “Maybe we should find an oracle or something,” her mother said. “I think there’s supposed to be one near Memphis.” Though she sounded like she’d rather eat lemons than rely on any “magical bullshit” for help.

  Other than Ramses, of course. It had to have felt like he’d died on her just like Jamie had, though he’d been dead a long time.

  Chloe rubbed her temples. “Maybe.”

  “But I don’t like it. Neither did your sister.”

  Aha, it only took four seconds to mention Jamie this time. “I know…and oracles are fucking creepy, Mom.” Deeply professional, that was.

  “Well, if we want to find out what’s going on, we might need a guide. Ramses is limited on where he can go and what he can tell us.”

  “Lucky he isn’t out here to hear you.”

  “Tell me about it.” They shared a laugh, but there was an undercurrent of sadness. Her mom was alone most of these days.

  “Did you read about the Waxahachie case? Looks promising,” Chloe said, sticking to business, but whether she did because it made sense, because she rarely defied her mom, or because of guilt, she couldn’t say. “It’s not far from here, so I can get on it.”

  “Good girl.”

  Dependable. Right. And she was back to fighting her own damn feelings again.

  “You be careful, you hear?” her mom said.

  Chloe swayed back around to feeling loved. When it came to her mom, she suspected her brain would always be spinning like a compass needle at the North Pole. “I will.” She played with the drawstring on her yoga pants when silence fell between them like a steel wall. She started to say, “Well,” right as her mom said, “I,” and they both chuckled awkwardly.

  When they spoke again at the same time, Chloe slipped in the word, “love,” and thought she heard it in turn before her mom said, “Good luck.”

  Like a moron, Chloe said, “You too.” She hung up rather than bask in her idiocy.

  “What did she say?” Ramses asked when she came back in. “Consult an oracle?”

  She glared. “You could have just suggested it yourself, you know.”

  “You wouldn’t have listened to me.” He sounded half-indignant, with more than a hint of bruised feelings.

  “I know I should listen to you,” she said, hoping she sounded conciliatory and not like she was laughing at him. “You’ve been around for thousands of years.”

  “All that experience—”

  “Wasted on mere mortals.”

  His mouth twisted wryly. “I am completely unappreciated in death.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I appreciate you all the time. I’d buy you a diamond tiara if you could wear it.”

  He stood and stared her down, the crown of Egypt manifesting on his head, and she knew she’d gone a bit too far. She’d be very dead without his help. More than that, if he hadn’t been guiding her family for generations, she would have never existed.

  As he turned away, crown still in place, she said, “You know, the Houston Museum has your exhibit on right now.” She always tracked its travels.

  He shrugged, and she knew exactly what he was thinking as if he was possessing her.

  “I’m not trying to placate you,” she added.

  He snorted. “Like offering some child a treat.”

  “I just thought it was cool that they’ve got a new set of short films with better CGI, and a very realistic model made from scans of your mummy. I really want to see it. You might get a kick out of it. Maybe after the next case?”

  He glanced over his shoulder, looking thoughtful, no doubt wavering between affront at being mollified and maybe touched that she’d put some time and research into it. “That could be amusing.” The crown faded back to the striped, cloth nemes he wore most of the time.

  She smiled, genuinely relieved. He’d bound his spirit to her family generations ago in order to follow them wherever they were and for ease in possession, but he could still come and go as he liked. She knew he’d never abandon her in battle, but she’d be terribly lonely if he only showed up for that.

  And her mom didn’t even have that anymore.

  What did I tell you, asshole brain?

  Moreover, she didn’t actually want to hurt Ramses’s feelings.

  That’s better.

  “Thanks for putting up with my moods,” she said.

  He smiled, his eyes saying all was forgiven. What would it have been like to be in his company when he was alive, to have him as her pharaoh, to have been one of his many children?

  He tilted his head. “Why so sad?”

  She sighed, hoping her expressions didn’t make her an open book to everyone. “Not really sad, just thoughtful. Thankful.”

  He put his spectral arms around her, and she could feel the tingle of his energy in place of warmth and pressure. “I’ll always be here for you.”

  At least until she got too old, then she’d have to choose a protégé from her extended family to take over. And that thought just made it easier to kick that decision farther down the road.

  Chapter Five

  The problem with hunting mythic creatures instead of ghosts was the lack of a starting place. Ghostly activity could always be traced to a statue or monument or other 3D representation of the ghosts themselves. But with creatures, Chloe had to sort through a ton of bullshit just to get started.

  Internet rumor had led her to a tiny farm town just south of Waxahachie—itself a town of around fifty thousand south of Dallas—but after she parked her beat-up 2013 Camry in the parking lot of a Waffle Hut, she sighed and gave a lazy flick through the online journal that contained the clues she’d managed to glean so far:

  Flying monster seen at night.

  County Road 276, a length of road inhabited mostly by cows.

  Witnesses had been near this Waffle Hut.

  The first was no help at all. The second sounded promising, but the road was too long to stake out all at once, even between her and Ramses. The third was the most promising, and she’d only managed to pick it out in a blurry photograph of the monster in question, so out of focus, it could have been anything from a griffin to the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The Waffle Hut in the distance close to a freeway had been clearer.

  So under the guise of an intrepid reporter, she would start asking questions here. She’d emailed the author of the clickbait article, asking some follow-up questions but hadn’t said why she’d wanted to know. It hadn’t helped. The author had seemed more interested in getting info from her, asking if she’d seen something similar, talking about reposting rights, and so on. Chloe hadn’t bothered to reply.

  At two p.m., the Waffle Hut was mostly dead, the lunch rush over, and the early dinner rush of old folks yet to begin. Chloe chose a table close to the server’s station, which the cute blonde in the brown uniform seemed to appreciate if the grin was any indication.

  “I wish I could eat,” Ramses said after Chloe had ordered a soda. “Breakfast food looks so decadent.” He scanned the pictures on the menu pinned under the clear plastic tablecloth.

  “Not for me,” she muttered, not looking at him. “It’s either too sweet or too salty.” She ordered a club sandwich when her soda arrived, then took out her phone and pretended to dial before she held it to her ear so she and Ramses could talk without attracting attention. Still, she kept her voice low. “I don’t suppose you feel anything here in the Hut, and we can clear this up quickly and leave?”

  “Nope. If the server is hiding under a glamour, I’d sense it, and I don’t feel any ghosts hovering around in the in-between places separating the mortal realms from the underworlds.”

  She sighed and rubbed her neck. “Any thoughts?”

  “Only about breakfast.” He toyed with the end of his striped nemes. “How exactly does one stuff French toast? Is that just a clever name for a sandwich?”

  She snorted a laugh. “If you’d ever tried my cooking, you wouldn’t ask me food questions.”

  “Oh yes. I’ve seen the evidence.”

  She almost threw her napkin at him before remembering that she’d just be throwing trash on the floor to anyone watching. “Shut up.”

  He looked up at her, eyes narrowed. “Why are you so touchy?”

  “I don’t know.” Her gloomy thoughts from earlier hadn’t entirely left her, but more than that, the feeling that something sinister was at the heart of all her latest hunts had grown now that the seed had been planted. She felt like hundreds of invisible eyeballs were trained on her. But Ramses was right. They would both sense it if any creature was using magic to hide from their sight; the powers that infused their family line saw to that. And Ramses could sense a haunting even when the ghosts wouldn’t show themselves. Still, she felt like squirming in her seat. “Maybe because the cell bill is due soon, and I still need to complete a few day-job contracts to cover it.”

  He gave her a sympathetic look, but she could almost hear what he no doubt wanted to say: that he and her ancestors had hunted just fine before cell phones, and she could do so, too. Thankfully, he didn’t actually say it. She did not want to try to do this job without roaming data.

  “There do seem to be more recent sightings, not just here in the south but around the world,” he said. “Some seem deliberately put in our path.”

  “How?”

  He shrugged. “Just a feeling. It has to marinate more to become an idea.”

  She rubbed the bridge of her nose and fought the urge to press her shoulder blades closer together. “Makes me wish we could roam wider in our work. Or that we had more contacts. I know my mom knows some scrupulous monster hunters, but lots of them are just after trophies or sell monster bits on the black market.” She shivered. The purpose of banishments and killing monsters was to keep people safe and return spirits to their proper rest, not turn a profit.

  “Well.” He sat back and waved regally. “Not all are as noble as us, of course.”

  And just like that, Chloe was glad she hadn’t thrown her napkin at him. “And even if we knew more critters were popping up around the world, that wouldn’t tell us why. Maybe someone opened a gate of some kind, something like Pandora’s box but for monsters and ghosts. God, that would suck.”

  He nodded. “But if it was something so simple, we could close it.”

  True. When her sandwich arrived, Chloe set her phone down, digging in while Ramses went back to commenting on the menu. When he glanced over her shoulder and stared at something, Chloe froze. “What?” she asked around her sandwich.

  “Did you tell anyone but your mom that we were coming here?”

  She set her food down and fought the urge to twist in her seat and gawk. “No. Well, the author of the article might have gotten…oh shit.” She sighed as his eyebrows rose. “She’s here, isn’t she?”

  “I never saw her picture, but someone has been staring at you since they walked in, and now they’re talking to the server, and…yep, here she comes.” He clucked in irritation as a cute redhead pulled his chair out and sat on top of him.

  “You’re Chloe, right? Who wrote me about my story?” She held out a hand. “Tabitha Milton.”

  Chloe shook her hand briefly as Ramses drifted to another seat. Tabitha might have been pretty, but in three sentences and a handshake, she already oozed too much enthusiasm and the kind of “up and at ’em” attitude that exhausted Chloe just by looking at her. She couldn’t be any older than twenty, and her entire posture screamed, I am ready.

  “How did you know?” Chloe asked. She didn’t see any point in lying. A source was a source, after all.

  “You’re a new face around here. I gave it a guess.” She nodded toward the door. “And I told Kylie to text if anyone but a local or a trucker stopped in.”

  Et tu, cute blond server? Chloe glanced over her shoulder, but Kylie didn’t seem inclined to meet her eyes anymore. “Do you mind if I eat while we talk?” She wasn’t about to let a good sandwich go to waste.

  Tabitha waved as if shooing all good manners away. “You’re a reporter, too, right? Who are you with? A paper or just a website?” Her green eyes got huge. “A TV station? From Dallas? Or, like, a national affiliate?” Her voice got higher with each guess until only squirrels had a chance of understanding.