“What about now?” Leon asked. “Can I kill one? Just one. Please.”

Leon was extremely selective about shooting people, but the MII agents drew on me and Cornelius, and his protective instinct kicked into overdrive. If they raised their guns another two inches, they would die, and my cousin was doing his best deranged rattlesnake act to keep that from happening.

Leon wagged his eyebrows at me.

“No,” I told him.

“I said please. What about the kneecaps? I can shoot them in the kneecaps, and they won’t die. They won’t be happy, but they won’t die.”

“No.” I turned to Cornelius. “Is there any way to retrieve her without hurting them?”

He smiled and looked to the sky.

Cornelius Maddox Harrison didn’t look particularly threatening. He was white and thirty-one years old, of average build and below average height. His dark blond hair was trimmed by a professional stylist into a short but flattering cut. His features were attractive, his jaw clean shaven, and his blue eyes were always quiet, calm, and just a little distant. The three MII agents took one look at his face and his badass ensemble of light khaki pants and white dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves and decided they had nothing to worry about. Next to him, dark haired, tan, and lean, Leon radiated menace and kept making threats, so they judged him to be the bigger risk.

“This has been fun and all,” the older MII agent said. “But playtime is over, and we have an actual job to do.”

A reddish-brown hawk plummeted from the sky, plucked the monkey from the pole, swooped over the agents, and dropped Rosebud into Cornelius’ waiting hand. The monkey scampered up Cornelius’ arm and onto his shoulder, hugged his neck, and trilled into his ear. The chicken hawk flew to our left and perched on the limb of a red myrtle growing by the sidewalk.

“Well, shit,” the woman said.

“Feel free to report this to Augustine,” I told them. “He has my number.”

And if he had a problem with it, I would smooth it over. Augustine Montgomery and our family had a complicated relationship. I’d studied him with the same dedication I used to study complex equations, so if he ever became a threat, I could neutralize him.

The older of the men gave us a hard stare. His firearm crept up an inch. “Where do you think you’re going?”

I snapped my Prime face on. “Leon, if he targets us, cripple him.”

Leon’s lips stretched into a soft, dreamy smile.

People in the violence business quickly learned to recognize other professionals. The MII agents were well trained and experienced, because Augustine prided himself on quality. They looked into my cousin’s eyes and knew that Leon was all in. There was no fear or apprehension there. He enjoyed what he did, and given permission, he wouldn’t hesitate.

Then they looked at me. Over the past six months I’d become adept at assuming my Head of the House persona. My eyes told them that I didn’t care about their lives or their survival. If they made themselves into an obstacle, I would have them removed. It didn’t matter what I wore, how old I was, or what words I said. That look would tell them everything they needed to know.

The tense silence stretched.

The woman whipped out her cell phone and turned away, dialing a number. The two men lowered their guns.

Oh good. Everyone would get to go home.

Augustine’s people marched toward the river, the shorter man in the lead, and turned right, heading for the small parking lot where I had parked Rhino, the custom armored SUV Grandma Frida had made for me. They gave us a wide berth. We watched them go. No reason to force another confrontation in the parking lot.

We’d been looking for Rosebud for five days straight, ever since Cornelius took the case. Her owner, a twelve-year-old girl, was so traumatized by the theft, she’d had to be sedated. Finding the little monkey had trumped the rest of our caseload. We had accepted this job pro bono, because snatching a service animal from a child in a wheelchair was a heinous act and someone had to make it right.

Scouring Houston in hundred-degree heat looking for a tiny monkey took a lot of effort. I had barely managed five hours of sleep in the last forty-eight, but every bit of my sweat would be worth it if I could see Maya hug her monkey. My Monday was looking up.

Cornelius smiled again. “I do so love happy endings.”

“Happy ending for you, maybe,” Leon grumbled. “I didn’t get to shoot anybody.”

First, we would deliver Rosebud to Maya, and then I would go home, take a shower, and then a long, happy nap.

Cornelius shook his head. “Your reliance on violence is quite disturbing. What happens when you meet someone faster than you?”

My cousin pondered it. “I’ll be dead, and it won’t matter?”

Talon suddenly took to the air with a shriek, swooping over Buffalo Bayou River. Leon and Cornelius stopped at the same time. Cornelius frowned, looking at the murky waters to the left of a large tree.

Directly in front of us, a narrow strip of mowed lawn hugged the sidewalk. Past the grass, the ground sloped sharply, hidden by tall weeds all the way to the river that stretched to Memorial Parkway Bridge in the distance.

The river lay placid. Not even a ripple troubled the surface.

I glanced at Leon. A second ago his hands were empty. Now he held a SIG P226 in one hand and a Glock 17 in the other. It gave him thirty-two rounds of 9 mm ammunition. He only needed one round to make a kill.

“What is it?” I asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” Leon said.

“The hawk is scared,” Cornelius said.

The surface of the river was still and shining slightly, reflecting the sunlight like a tarnished dime.

The distance in Cornelius’ eyes grew deeper. “Something’s coming,” he whispered.

We had no reason to hang around and wait for it. “Let’s go.”

I turned right and sped up toward our vehicles. Leon and Cornelius followed.

Ahead the shorter of the MII agents was almost to the lot. The woman trailed him, while the taller agent brought up the rear.

A green body burst through the weeds. Eight feet long and four feet tall, it scrambled forward on two big muscular legs, dragging a long scaly tail fringed with bright carmine fins. Another fin—this one bloodred and crested with foot-long spikes—thrust from its spine. Its head could have belonged to an aquatic dinosaur or a prehistoric crocodile—huge pincher-like jaws that opened like giant scissors studded with conical fangs designed to grab and hold struggling prey while the beast pulled them under. Two pairs of small eyes, sunken deep into its skull, glowed with violet.

This didn’t look like anything our planet had birthed. It was either some magic experiment gone haywire or a summon from the arcane realm.

We would need bigger guns.

The beast rushed across the grass. The taller MII agent was directly in its path.

“Run!” Leon and I screamed at the same time.

The man whipped around. For a frantic half second he froze, then jerked his gun up, and fired at the creature. Bullets bit into the beast and glanced off its thick scales.

The two other MII agents pivoted to the beast and opened fire. I sprinted to Rhino and the combat shotgun inside it. Leon dashed after me, trying to get a better angle on the creature. Cornelius followed.

Augustine’s people emptied their magazines into the beast. It plowed through them, knocking them aside. Purple blood stained its sides, but the wounds barely bled, as if the bullets had merely chipped its scales.

The beast’s gaze locked on me. It ignored the agents and hauled itself toward me, two massive paws gouging the turf with red claws.

Leon fired a two-bullet burst from each gun. Four bloody holes gaped where the creature’s beady eyes used to be. It roared, stumbled, and crashed to the ground.

I halted. Cornelius ran past me to the lot.

The female MII agent rose slowly. Her tall friend stared at a bright red gash in his bare thigh. His left pant leg hung in bloody shreds around his ankle. He shifted his weight. Blood poured from the wound and I saw a glimpse of bone inside. The agent gaped at it, wide-eyed, clearly in shock.

“Holy shit,” the shorter MII agent muttered and snapped a new magazine into his HK45.

At the edge of the parking lot, Cornelius spun around and waved his arms toward the river. “Don’t stop! There’s more! More are coming!”

Green beasts poured through the weeds, a mass of scaled bodies, finned tails, and fanged jaws, and in the center of their pack, buried under the creatures, a dense knot of magic pulsated like an invisible beacon. The knot’s magic splayed out, touched me, and broke around my power, like a wave against a breaker. A sea of violet eyes focused on me.

The pack turned toward me and charged.

Whatever was emanating magic in the center of the pack was also controlling them. If I had a second, I could’ve fought it with my magic, but the cluster of bodies was too thick, and the beasts came too fast.

I turned and sprinted toward Rhino. The thing’s magic followed me, pinging from my mind like radar. I didn’t need to look back to know the entire pack chased me.

Ahead Cornelius jerked a car remote from his pocket. The lights of his BMW hybrid flashed. The hatchback rose and a massive blue beast tore out, a tiger on steroids, with glossy indigo fur splattered with black and pale blue rosettes.