“Pfft, after all the pain they’ve caused us? Hello?”

  Just you wait. Chloe nearly had it.

  “I can’t simply—” Helen turned, her eyes widening as she locked gazes with Chloe. “No!”

  Well, time for plan B. Ramses used his energy to give the helmet a shove, sending it flying into Chloe’s hands. She didn’t think, only used the momentum to jam it on her head and scramble to her feet, hoping that neither Helen nor the siren could see invisible people.

  * * *

  Helen lurched toward the tarnkappe with a cry, but Chloe vanished before she got there.

  “OMG, that sneaky—”

  Helen held up a hand to stop Ligeia and listened. She tried to feel the ghost’s presence. If it was one of the Egyptian pharaohs, he was no doubt powerful. But why in the world was he here? Powerful spirits could sometimes travel to wherever there was a large collection of statues or other three-dimensional images of them, like museums, but she very much doubted that this field had its own Ramesseum.

  There, to the right, near where Fatma and Ali lay unconscious. Well, if he wanted to possess them, they wouldn’t get him anywhere. A ghost couldn’t get an unconscious body to move. That meant he was out of luck with the redhead, too. Ligeia’s magical nature made her immune, and Helen…

  Gods, let him try. She’d let him in, then pull him to pieces with her godhood.

  But he seemed attached to Chloe, had attacked Helen on her behalf. Hell, he could be serving as a distraction if he knew Helen could sense him. Then Chloe could get away. Or attack.

  Helen drew her kladenet. “Guard.” It hovered in a circle around her and Ligeia, twitching this way and that.

  “What are we gonna do?” Ligeia whispered as she tongued her lip piercings.

  Helen shook her head. Without the tarnkappe, they were never going to get the wyvern in the van. She eased her phone out of her pocket. Ligeia had already erased the footage on the redhead’s phone. Luckily, the cell service out here was too shitty for live streaming. This mission could still be salvaged if Helen could get ahold of the Sphinx and have her send some help.

  The wyvern stirred slightly.

  “Shit, that’s all we need.” Helen glanced around. “Where did I drop the tranq—”

  Ligeia’s shove took her by surprise, sending her tripping over her own feet just as the wyvern hurtled toward her. She curled into a ball, but when the wyvern sailed overhead and crashed into the barn, she rolled away. The barn shuddered, letting out an ear-splitting shriek of tearing metal and snapping wood.

  Helen ran for Fatma and Ali as one side of the barn gave way with a groan, falling to the side, the roof collapsing. She grabbed one ankle apiece and heaved, managing to get them out of the way before the wall crashed to the ground in a whoosh of air that sent up a cloud of ancient hay, dust, and manure. She put her hands on her knees, breathing hard as the remains of the barn settled in a hazy cloud, rattling and pinging.

  And…snoring?

  She came closer, trying to wave away the cloud. Yes, the wyvern sounded asleep inside the ruins. It must have been sick to sleep through that landing. Did it leap at her in its sleep?

  No, of course not. Helen snorted a laugh. Chloe had to have figured out how to use the superhuman strength that the tarnkappe conveyed. “You’re a clever one, Chloe.”

  “Would you call this thing off?” Ligeia cried. The kladenet was swiping at her before starting back toward Helen, then wandering near the barn before returning to swipe at Ligeia again. It was no doubt confused about who to guard or attack since Ligeia had pushed Helen, and the wyvern seemed no threat now.

  Helen held out a hand. “To arms.” The kladenet returned to her grip. “Thank you for pushing me out of the way, Lig.”

  “No probs. The Wonder Twins okay?”

  “I think so.”

  “Great. Everyone’s alive. Now what?”

  Everyone? “Shit, the redhead.” She pushed into the dust cloud, but the redhead was nowhere to be seen. Buried in the rubble? “But she was right here.”

  Unless she’d been moved, rescued while Helen was distracted. Again. She should have been angry, but that same sense of admiration filled her. Chloe was far more formidable than Helen had given her credit for. After lifetimes of being underestimated, she’d fallen into the same trap she’d sprung on many others.

  It wouldn’t happen next time.

  And there would most certainly be a next time.

  Chapter Ten

  This fucking helmet was amazing. Chloe could still see herself; her inherited abilities always let her see invisible stuff, after all. But she hadn’t expected the sheer power filling her limbs and begging to be used.

  She’d lifted a fucking wyvern. On her own.

  True, she’d only meant to wiggle it a bit, distract Helen and the siren. She’d managed that the first time she’d shifted it. She’d decided to try a little more, maybe stand it up so they’d come running. She hadn’t even doubted that she could. With the helmet on, she could do anything. Apparently without even meaning to because she’d hurled the wyvern hard enough to bring down the barn, almost squashing Helen, the two unknown intruders, and Tabitha.

  Still, Helen and the siren had seemed pretty damned distracted. And the resulting dust cloud had let Chloe sneak in, haul Tabitha over one shoulder like a sack of corn, and run like she had the devil on her heels.

  Now, it had to look like Tabitha was flying through the air, doubled over like Superman after a night of tequila-Kryptonite shots. She hoped no one else was watching and that Helen and the siren were too far behind to see Tabitha clearly.

  “Slow down,” Ramses yelled from where he barely kept pace.

  God, she’d never been as fast as him. That was squee-worthy alone. “The faster we go, the less chance we’ll get caught.”

  “It’ll be a wonder if Tabitha doesn’t vomit down your back with the way she’s bouncing on your shoulder.”

  Chloe slowed a little, trying to ignore the pull of the new strength. She could run like a deer, leap over trees, throw cars. Hell, she could have lifted the Waffle Hut and carried it down the freeway, bringing waffles to the masses.

  “Chloe!”

  “Right.” She slowed again. They’d passed the makeshift parking lot by the gravel road, hoping to throw off any pursuit. They were now approaching the corner of the field that would let them onto the paved road where Chloe’s car waited. She slid to a stop and grabbed the fence, wanting to lift it enough to pass Tabitha through instead of chucking her over the top. With this helmet, she might hurl her into the next county.

  When she pulled, several of the fence posts sprang from the ground with a loud broing, the barbed wire curling between them, vibrating in the air. “Oops.” She dropped it. “Didn’t mean to do that.”

  Ramses walked through the downed fence and beckoned. “As soon as we get Tabitha in the car, you have to take that helmet off.” He was right. She was more likely to bludgeon the masses to death with the Waffle Hut than feed them.

  “Gently,” she told herself when she reached the car. She opened the back door with her thumb and forefinger. “Now, slowly lower her to the seat.”

  But instead she tossed her hard enough to bounce off the upholstery and wind up in the floorboard.

  Chloe stared for a moment. “Good enough.” She took the helmet off and felt ten times heavier but just as relieved. That was too much power to have in one’s repertoire without practice, worse than a bull in a china shop. A bull in a china world.

  She hopped in the front with Ramses, threw the helmet onto the floor at his feet, and drove as fast as she dared down the dark country road. After a moment of silence, she and Ramses said, “What the fuck was that?” at the same time.

  “A siren and a human working together?” Chloe added.

  He shook his head. “That Helen must have god blood, might even be a demigod.”

  She snorted. “Yeah, right.” When he didn’t laugh, a chill passed through her, but she shook her head. “Come on, Ramses. We’re fighting gods now? And I suppose you believed all that stuff about me having the blood of Isis? Descended from a god, woo.” She wiggled her fingers at him.

  He stared out the window and said nothing.

  “Ramses?”

  “I thought you knew, that your mother told you.”

  “What?” Was this just one of a thousand lessons Jamie had gotten instead? “But there’s no way.” She felt sick. And intrigued. But mostly sick, though that could have been from the off-gassing of Tabitha’s remaining jalapeño ranch chips.

  “Are you okay?” Ramses asked.

  “Was anyone ever going to tell me?” She raised a hand before he could respond. “I thought our legacy was to hunt magic stuff, like we were born as an opposing force, but now you’re telling me we’re part of that magic?”

  “Well, you also hunt ghosts while working with one.”

  “That”—she tried in vain to find an argument—“is not what we’re talking about. How much of me is god, and how much is human?”

  He rolled his eyes. “There are no DNA-testing kits with a godhood edition, sadly.”

  “Okay, the sarcasm is completely unappreciated right now.” She took a deep breath. “Putting aside my own heritage for a moment, if Helen is a demigod, how the hell do we fight her? Find another demigod and ask them to do it for us?”

  He stared at her now, face stoney.

  “What?”

  “Find another demigod?” When she shrugged, he pointed to himself. “Hello?”

  “You’re not…are you?”

  His mouth fell open. “Seriously?”

  “What? I know the Egyptians used to worship pharaohs like gods, but…” His affronted expression grew with his glow. “Really?”

  He looked ahead at the road, his chest moving as if he was taking deep breaths that he no longer needed. The crown of Egypt replaced the cloth nemes on his head, the top of it poking through the roof of the car, but she didn’t dare laugh while he was clearly calming himself down. An anger-fueled jolt of his power could fry the car’s electrical system.

  But that wasn’t the only reason she wouldn’t laugh at him. She hadn’t meant to piss him off so much. Tears pricked her eyes, no doubt also from the fading of adrenaline and the aftershock of the exorcism, but there was more than enough guilt from having insulted her best friend.

  Her only friend.

  “I’m sorry, Ramses,” she said, taking her own deep breaths so she didn’t bawl like a baby and crash into a tree. “No one ever told me you’re a demigod.”

  “I would have thought it evident,” he said, his tone clipped.

  She thought of everything she’d learned about his life, the countless books she’d read, even when she’d thought she’d never hear or see him. She still had his long-ago note, now a laminated bookmark. “I guess it should have been obvious with everything you accomplished in life. I just never thought, oh, he was able to do all that stuff because he’s a demigod. It was more like, he was able to do it because he’s Ramses, unstoppable as the tide. After all, a demigod could still sit on their ass and eat chips all day and not accomplish anything, right?”

  His glow faded back to normal, the striped nemes once again adorning his head as he smiled softly. “Right.”

  He passed one spectral hand over hers on the steering wheel, making the hair on her arm stand up, a feeling she’d long associated with the comfort of having him around. “Thank you, Chloe. You’re forgiven.” He glanced over his shoulder. “And once we’re rid of Tabitha, I suppose I should tell you exactly what it means to have the blood of Isis.”

  And exactly why her mother had kept it from her.

  Chapter Eleven

  After a few phone calls and more than a few favors called in, the wyvern was finally loaded into the moving truck, courtesy of a troll who lived about an hour away and supported himself via an Etsy shop. He made pretty good money selling carvings made from the pieces of his rocky body that occasionally dropped off. Helen had to put in quite a few orders before he’d even agreed to drive out to meet her. Now he’d come and gone, and she would have to find somewhere for over one hundred figurines detailing the bulk of the cast from The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

  Still, it was worth it to get the hell out of this field. But not worth the loss of the tarnkappe.

  “I’m sorry,” Ligeia said again, no doubt reading Helen’s expression in the dim light of the rapidly dying campfire.

  She shook her head, staring at Fatma and Ali and wondering what to do with them. “I know. It’s all right.”

  “Ugh, you keep saying that, but it’s not true. You should have let me chase that woman with the ghost.”

  “She was gone before we could see what direction she’d taken Tabitha in.”

  Ligeia blew an obnoxiously huge pink bubble, the pop echoing. “I’m still sorry, whatever.” After a moment, she added, “Are we gonna, like, go or…”

  “These two seem well-informed about paranormal goings-on. I have a feeling they’ll keep dogging my steps if I don’t do something.”

  “Like?” Ligeia dragged a thumb across her throat. “I mean, it’s probably for the best.”

  “Oh yes? Well, go ahead.” She moved out of the way, too tired to lecture and in no mood for murder.

  “Me?” Ligeia took a step back. “No way.”

  “Why do you care if they live or die?” Helen asked, using one of Ligeia’s earlier questions against her.

  The tattoos on her hands glimmered gold as she crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. “Okay, I get it. None of us are mad-dog killers anymore. How many times do I have to say whatever? Life is precious, blah blah. But what do you want to do with them?”

  “Take them with us,” Helen said, the decision easy compared to the alternatives. “They can ride in the back with the sleeping wyvern. Maybe that will make them more inclined to talk when they wake up.”

  * * *

  The cargo area of the moving van stayed quieter much longer than Helen expected. After Fairfield, she was starting to suspect that Fatma and Ali were more injured than she’d realized, and guilt persuaded her to pull over in an abandoned weigh station to check.

  Ligeia didn’t comment, but her side-eye spoke volumes, all with the title: Helen’s Gone Soft on Humans.

  Worse still, Helen couldn’t recall exactly when that had happened. She’d been betrayed by them, disrespected, her entire history morphed until she was nothing more than a pawn of gods and men. And she’d killed more than a few humans in defense of her sanctuary and its denizens. She’d sunk whole shiploads without batting an eye, and now here she was, checking on two she didn’t even know.

  Maybe she was getting soft.

  She paused before opening the back of the truck. Instead of checking on these two, perhaps even letting them go, she could slit their throats. Her stomach churned at the thought, and she snorted at herself. She had no desire to add to the bloodshed in the world. In fact, she was willing to go quite out of her way to avoid it.

  Case in point.

  As soon as she lifted the door, two voices spoke over each other in a sort of whisper-yell:

  “Let us out of here.”

  “The wyvern could wake up.”

  “You have no right—”

  “I demand—”

  Helen began to lower the door again. If they were healthy enough to bitch at her, they were probably fine.

  “Wait, please.” Fatma’s voice, a tad more conciliatory. “We know who you are.”

  Interesting. Well, if they felt like talking. She lifted the door again, encouraged by the silence that greeted her. Except for the wyvern’s snoring, of course. “And who am I?”

  Fatma and Ali were sitting against the wall, their hands and feet bound in front of them with cord from the creature-wrangling kit Helen had brought. She and Ligeia had laid them on a moving blanket at first, and now, besides the purple bruises near their temples, they seemed no worse for wear.

  Helen handed them a bottle of water, and after both had taken a few sips, they glanced behind her, but they’d discover nothing but darkness, even with the dim streetlight overhead. Dawn was still a few hours off, and the freeway was largely silent at that time of night.

  “You run some kind of zoo,” Fatma said, disgust lacing her tone.

  Helen clenched her jaw and fought the urge to argue. She didn’t want to just hand over information. But a zoo? “Go on.”

  Fatma glared. “Sick old animals deserve better than that.”

  “And antiquities should stay in their countries of origin,” Ali added.

  Very interesting. And she agreed for the most part. But magical antiquities did not belong in human hands. “And here I thought you were common smugglers. I didn’t know you had convictions. Beyond the criminal, anyway.”

  “Are you going to lock this wyvern in a cage so your rich friends can gawk as it dies?” Fatma asked.

  “Yes, because I’m friends with Satan himself,” she said flatly. “I don’t think our intentions are as misaligned as they appear. The wyvern will be looked after and gawked at by no one.”

  They glanced at each other and said nothing.

  “What were you going to use the ambrosia for?” Helen asked. “You and your dealer with the fairy blood?”

  Ali smirked. “To tempt people like you, follow you, and raid your magical hoards.”

  Recalling the brief confrontation with Fatma in the alley behind the dry cleaners, Helen put on her own smirk. “Not exactly a success on your part, then.”

  Fatma looked a bit sheepish. “I didn’t realize you were…” She mashed her lips together.

  “Anyone important? Yeah, that’s kind of the point of a disguise.” But did it still grate? Oh hell yes. Worse, now she liked these two a little, even if they didn’t have nearly enough facts to be tinkering in the realms of the paranormal. But it wasn’t her job to educate them. “If I ask you to stop interfering with me, is there a chance that will work?”