“Sorry,” Chloe said before Tabitha went out and spent any money on what must surely be her “big break.” She didn’t want to offer any place of employment that could be fact-checked, so she fell back on a lie she’d used many times: “I’m actually scouting locations and cases for a new web series on unexplained phenomena.”

  Tabitha’s young face froze between expressions, as if her brain was too busy tabulating her chances for future fame to keep up. “Oh.” She seemed to settle on shrewd. “You’ll need a local to show you around, do interviews, that sort of thing.” She put her palms flat on the table and leaned forward. “And I’m really good at acting scared.” She looked into the distance with an expression of slightly constipated terror.

  “I’m starting to like her,” Ramses said.

  Chloe resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “But if you’re having to act scared, then there’s nothing to the story?”

  Tabitha sucked in her lip as if realizing she might have talked herself out of a fortune. “No, no, there is. I’ve seen it. I just thought, like, if you had to, you know, have some filler. Like in ghost shows.” She went from terror to worry really quick, though the constipation was still there.

  “I can’t promise anything until I see what there is to see. Can you show me exactly where the creature appeared?”

  “Sure can. You finish up. I’ll go get some snacks, and we’ll do a proper stakeout tonight.”

  “Whoa,” Chloe said before she could dash off. “I only need you to show me on a map, maybe answer a few questions. I won’t be filming anything this trip.”

  “That’s fine. I can still be helpful. Like an assistant.” Or a burr. Her smile seemed to add, you ain’t getting rid of me.

  She nearly ran out of the room. Chloe wiped her hands and spoke to her sandwich. “An audience, just what we need.”

  “I don’t know. If she sees a real monster up close, it might scare her into leaving the ‘unexplained phenomena’ alone and going into something physically safer but still scary, like politics.”

  “And if she snaps a pic of us fighting a monster? Or of you moving something around invisibly? Or what if there’s a ghost, and she gets possessed? Goddamn it, Ramses, what if the Southern Mothman eats her?”

  He rubbed his chin. “Hmm, yes, there is that.”

  “We’ll just have to get the info, pray for an unproductive evening, and try again tomorrow.” Hooray. Maybe she would get more time to work the job that paid the bills.

  Ramses crossed his arms and frowned. “And we’ll hope that if anything spies us, it doesn’t guess at our purpose and run away.”

  That was preferable to anyone being eaten.

  Chapter Six

  Sitting in the Camry, Chloe tried not to stare in open-mouthed shock as she watched Tabitha eating sour gummy candy and obscenely hot chips at the same damn time. It was her mouth, not to mention her stomach, and she could treat both as she liked, but something in Chloe’s very soul rebelled at this diet. She felt really old all of a sudden, even though there were only five years or so between them.

  But damn, what a difference five years made.

  “What?” Tabitha asked around a mouthful of horror.

  “Nothing.” Chloe looked back out the windshield at a dark field, the first stop on the Southern Mothman tour. A rancher had supposedly spotted the monster in this area first and held it responsible for the mutilation of one of his cows. Tabitha had said the rancher put it down to aliens, and she seemed just as excited about that as she did about any of the hundred harebrained identities she’d come up with for the Southern Mothman.

  God, Chloe had to stop thinking of it that way, or she’d end up blurting it out, and Tabitha would run with that name all the way to BuzzFeed.

  “I think this is a bust,” Chloe said. The only lights for miles sat atop distant poles, marking where the shitty pavement gave way to gravel driveways, the pretty orange sparkle of some kind of factory or refinery in the distance, and the steady glow of the freeway leading to the larger glow of Dallas.

  And the blue light coming from Ramses as he wandered around the field. The ritual that bonded them didn’t allow him to go far from her, at least while on the mortal plane, but he could see a little better at night and was searching for clues. If she had to leave quickly, he’d be pulled along with her. Which was kind of funny, but Chloe wasn’t in the mood to laugh.

  “Give it a few more minutes,” Tabitha said as she jiggled one of the chip bags over her mouth, shaking in the crumbs. “What’s your hurry?”

  No hurry. I just want this evening to end before you get eaten. But as Tabitha slurped on another candy, Chloe reconsidered that a tiny bit.

  Ramses walked back toward the car, his arms slightly out as if to signify that he hadn’t found anything.

  “I told you. I’m just a scout for the show. Empty fields don’t make for good viewing.”

  Tabitha shrugged, the lights from the dashboard turning her face into a mass of slightly ghoulish shadows, fitting for her snack choices. “There’s an abandoned barn where it’s been seen a few times.” She pointed down the road. “Let’s try there.”

  Chloe took her time buckling her seat belt, waiting until Ramses got in the car. If he concentrated, he could stay in the back as easily as he could on a stationary chair. He’d once said he’d learned the knack after trying to ride a horse with one of her distant ancestors who’d ridden off and left him hovering in the air too many times for his dignity to allow. The ancestor had apparently laughed himself sick over it.

  “Nothing,” Ramses said. “No physical clues, no magic of any kind, except some stuff that feels far too ancient to be our current beastie.”

  Shit. She wanted to respond, talk it out, even just ask more about this ancient magic, but with Tabitha there, all she could do was nod slightly.

  “How is our companion?” he asked.

  She coughed around a snort. “How you doing for snacks, Tabitha?”

  “Great.” Her teeth gleamed in the meager light. “I’ve got some sour worms and gummy apricots and some ranch-flavored jalapeño chips if you want some.”

  Chloe looked at Ramses in the rearview mirror and widened her eyes, hoping that answered his question.

  “Good gods,” he said, frowning deeply. “Makes me glad I’m dead and can’t smell it.”

  “No, thanks,” Chloe said. “Just checking on you.”

  “Aw, aren’t you sweet?” She crunched another chip and grinned. But there was something sly in her smile, too, something that said, “If you’re trying to butter me up in order to leave me behind, you can forget it.”

  Fair enough. Chloe drove where directed, but this time, they would have to pull down a gravel road, park, and walk into a field that looked as bare as a silver lake in the moonlight.

  “I’m not sure about this,” Chloe said. “I’d rather scout in the daytime.” Without you.

  “The barn’s farther in. You park under some trees off the gravel and then walk in,” Tabitha said, pointing.

  Chloe pulled over where the gravel met the pavement, preparing to turn around. “Then I definitely want to wait for daylight.”

  “But it’s only been seen at dusk or at night,” Tabitha said with a whine. “Come on, it’s not bad. The owner of the field doesn’t live around here, and people go to the barn to party all the time. It’s easy to find.”

  Yes, more of an audience, exactly what she wanted on this expedition. She thought fast and settled on an excuse that had gotten her out of many a tight corner. “No, I’m sorry. You’re not covered under my liability insurance, and they might even object to me taking avoidable risks.” She turned the car and started back the way they’d come.

  Tabitha glared. “You’re not coming back here without me, are you?”

  Chloe could have promised, but she really didn’t like lying. “I’ll have to see what my bosses say.”

  “Is that me?” Ramses asked, sounding amused that she couldn’t object.

  “But they can’t argue about me coming with you tomorrow during the day,” Tabitha said. “It’ll be safe enough, then. I can give you some local history, and I know who owns the land. You’ll need their permission to film there, right?” She crossed her arms as if she’d just closed the deal of a lifetime.

  Which would have been true if Chloe was who she’d claimed to be. “I don’t—”

  “Wait,” Ramses said from the back. “I saw something.”

  Chloe slowed. “Where?”

  “Where’s what?” Tabitha asked.

  Shit. “I, um, saw a possum, I think, wondered…where that came from.”

  “Behind us,” Ramses said, “heading into the suspect field. Far too large for local wildlife.”

  Tabitha was sitting as far forward as her seat belt would allow. “I don’t see anything. Was it just a shadow, or did you see a…wait, did you see the creature?” She reached squirrel level decibels again with the final word.

  “No, it was just a, a…” She looked at Ramses in the mirror.

  “If you can linger a moment, I’ll take a look,” he said.

  “You did see something,” Tabitha said. She wrenched around in her seat, and Chloe knew she’d been caught staring. Tabitha grinned, seeming to grasp at the wrong straw entirely. Her belt was off and the car door open before Chloe could get a word out.

  “Holy shit, Tabitha.” Chloe jerked the car to the side of the road and stepped out. “Get back here.”

  Tabitha was nothing but a collection of shadows under the trees. Chloe heard the gravel crunch as she ran down the road. “Ramses, stay with her.” As his blue glow ran after her, Chloe wished he could possess Tabitha and walk her out, but the only person he could possess was Chloe, part of their bond.

  She threw open her trunk and grabbed her satchel, slinging it crossways around her body. She wished she had a trunkful of weapons like on a TV show, but she’d been pulled over one too many times to risk such things. And most mythical creatures wouldn’t be defeated by guns and knives anyway. A person had to be smart with their ratios of salt or cold iron or silver, blessings or curses by various deities or spirits. Sometimes, she felt more like an alchemist than a monster hunter, though she did carry a knife for emergencies.

  Using the flashlight app on her phone, she ran after Tabitha, cursing the gravel that skittered under her sneakers, the larger rocks that threatened to trip her up. Music played in the distance, a thumping bass, and she could see Ramses’s glow ahead. He turned right sharply, and she kept her light angled that way, hoping she wouldn’t miss where he’d gone.

  When she saw two pickups, she realized she needn’t have bothered. This had to be the impromptu parking lot the local teens used when sneaking out to the old barn. She ran past them, a stitch forming in her side before she even got to the barbed wire fence that separated the field from the road. A giant gap between two rows of wire spoke of many instances where someone had put their foot on the lower and pulled on the upper so another person could pass through. Chloe scooted through with only a stoop.

  Ramses had probably run right through it. She could still see him in the distance, approaching a hulk of a barn with a small campfire burning behind it. Music and laughter filtered through the air, the sound cutting off as Tabitha called something. Good, maybe she was warning them away. Maybe they’d go with her, especially if they’d all heard about the slaughtered cow.

  Chloe slowed, trying to catch her breath. She didn’t want to arrive in the middle of a bunch of teenagers and have to lean on her knees and recover while they made fun of her. If there was something at the barn, maybe Ramses could distract it long enough to—

  The night erupted in screams, and several forms leapt to their feet around the fire, scattering like flies. Inside the barn, something roared.

  Chloe went cold, shuddering to a stop. That wasn’t the Mothman. Not a griffin, either. It sounded like someone had combined the shriek of a large bird, the trill of a housecat, and the deep-throated call of a leopard, put it all in a metal bucket, and shaken it.

  At least, that was how she’d thought of it when she’d first heard a recording her grandfather had made, the only time she’d heard the roar of a wyvern.

  The only other time.

  “Oh fuck, fuck, fuck.” She ran again, yelling, “Run,” over and over, hoping no one would question it. A griffin wouldn’t notice people unless they pissed it off, preferring to eat cows, horses, and bison, but a goddamned wyvern? Legend said they were always hungry, always grouchy, and had a massive inferiority complex because they only had two legs like a bird and not the four granted to their cousins, the dragons. They hailed from the mountainous areas in Europe, ate everything they could and destroyed the rest, and everyone thought them extinct.

  So what the fuckity fuck was one doing in Texas?

  Chloe dashed to the side of the barn and put her back to it. She could still hear screaming and the strains of music disappearing into the night, but something was moving around inside the barn, too, something large. Good, that meant the wyvern wasn’t chasing the kids. Bad, that meant she’d have to go in there and deal with it in close quarters.

  Maybe it was tired. Or full. Two words that had never been associated with wyverns in any lore. Maybe it really liked the ruins of this barn, God knew why. The rough wood, worn and pitted by sun and time, snagged at Chloe’s hair and clothes. Gaping holes pocked the second story, and she could see the metal beams of the roof silhouetted against the moon.

  She breathed slowly as she stepped toward the rear of the barn and the fire, her nose full of the smell of old hay, wet tin, and ancient manure. What did she even have to fight a wyvern with? Moments ago, she’d prided herself on her bag of herbs and thread and iron filings, but now all that seemed like Baby’s First Magic Kit. Wyverns might be harmed by guns and knives, but their hide was thicker than a whale’s and tougher than an alligator’s. She would have needed a lightsaber to cut through one. Or a shoulder-mounted missile launcher.

  Her grandfather had tricked one into eating a poisoned sheep carcass. Pity she didn’t currently have one of those in her bag. Could a person DoorDash poisoned carcass?

  Wyverns were said to be a little intelligent. Maybe she could convince it to bugger the hell off. Or at least come back later.

  She peeked around the corner. The campfire was surrounded by bare earth, but the teens had laid blankets around that, and those were festooned with beer cans and snack bags. The door was missing from this side, leaving a massive hole framed by sheets of corrugated tin as broken and jagged as a dragon’s smile.

  Fitting.

  Something huffed inside, followed by what sounded like a wheeze or a cough. Chloe couldn’t believe a wyvern had simply wandered into this neck of the woods. Someone had to have brought it. Had it escaped? If it was sick, maybe they’d simply dumped it.

  Bastards. If she ever got her hands on them…well, Ramses would kick their asses with her body, but she’d be egging him on from the inside.

  “Chlo.”

  Her heart shot out of her mouth, and she leapt into the air as Ramses poked his head through the wall. She put a hand to her chest to stop the latest of many heart attacks and glared at him so hard, it hurt her face. Before she could unleash her fury, he put a finger to his lips.

  Oh, sure, for now. But later, she was going to yell so hard.

  “Come inside,” he said. “Softly. It’s sick.”

  She tiptoed into the rear of the barn. The roof on one side was mostly torn away, the second floor little more than a few boards crisscrossing a sliver of moonlight. A shape the size of a VW Bug stirred from a heap of old hay gathered at the back, hints of firelight glinting off dusky green scales. A sinewy neck lifted, revealing a reptilian head with short horns going back over the skull and large frills just behind the ear holes.

  Chloe’s terror fled as milky eyes blinked at a spot near where she stood, the nostrils flaring and streaming with snot. The scales seemed to be molting in great patches, and as it coughed again, she caught sight of yellowing broken teeth and the scent of old meat and musk.

  Old, probably blind, it didn’t seem like a threat to anyone. It had no doubt returned to the barn, its home for now, and had only roared to scare those damn kids off its lawn.

  Slowly, Chloe backed up, out into the open again. The wyvern might be old and sick, but it could still snap her head off. She couldn’t risk getting close out of pity.

  Ramses followed, looking grim. “It’s a bit sad.”

  “I know.” She shook her head. “Here I was thinking we’d have to find a claymore or something so you could have this big epic battle, but, ugh.”

  He nodded. “I think it will die if we just wait a little while.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Really?”

  “I must confess, I don’t know for sure,” he said with a sigh. “There’s not a zoologist alive who could tell us if it has ten years or ten minutes.”

  Chloe thought back to everything she’d heard about the wyvern since arriving here and everything she’d read about them in the past. This one had mangled a cow, sure, but a healthy wyvern wouldn’t have left even a scrap of meat behind. And it hadn’t killed—or even really bothered—anyone, except for scaring some teenagers. Simply being a tad annoying was definitely not in the average wyvern’s MO.

  “Will you think less of me if I say I want to walk away from this one?” she asked.

  “Of course not.” But he tilted his head, and she knew he was prompting her.

  “And you know I won’t.”