Levi would recognize that red hair anywhere. He’d been waiting in the middle of this tiny backwater town for over a day, asking the locals if they’d seen Cary or knew where her father’s house was. No luck on either account.

He sprinted across the empty road as Cary recoiled from him. Why would a jumper go shopping at the local grocery story? Unless it trolled for a new human-snack… but… wait—

Cary didn’t have an aura… Not even a hint of silver light surrounded her.

Had the paranormal trackers made a mistake? Or was this a new beast? Regardless, if a demon was inside her, he’d destroy it. But fuck, why hadn’t he picked up the signs first thing yesterday morning and pieced it all together?

He should have known something was wrong when he’d woken up and she was gone. He should have been able to read the signs. And he should have gone to her motel immediately to help her before Brent got involved. Now, he pictured Cary cornered by a possessed person, hurting her before the demon claimed her. Suddenly, the shirt around his torso seemed to suffocate him. Not enough air reached his lungs.

He crossed over to her and grabbed her wrist. “Cary.”

She wrenched her arm free and stumbled backward a few steps down the sidewalk.

“Don’t run away, please. I can help,” he pleaded. “I can help.” He studied her, trying to make sense of what he was dealing with.

She hesitated, the panic in her eyes mirroring a spooked animal. “Look,” she said, “I can explain everything.”

Her voice sounded normal. No huskiness or speaking in tongues. No demonic vibe rippling down his arms from touching her. But he wouldn’t fall for it. “Cary, your soul is in danger and I’m not about to lose you to some demon.”

Grasping Noose from his belt, he turned away from the people entering the grocery store so they wouldn’t see the weapon. Shit, he hadn’t intended to do this in public, but she needed him.

“Argos issued a bounty warrant, saying you’re taken.” He lowered his voice, studying Cary, searching for any sign of possession: yellowing eyes, unusually strong resistance, growling. There was nothing.

Her gaze flicked to his weapon and back. “Levi, it’s me. I’m not possessed. Brent made a mistake.”

“Of course, you’d say that. The demon possessing you read your memories, desires, fears, and it would know about your past.” Levi was convinced Cary cared for him—she’d said as much—and the number one rule of demon hunting was to understand that the possessed said whatever it took to get out of a sticky situation.

“I’m serious, Levi. Let me go.” She sighed. “I haven’t eaten a decent meal since yesterday and I’m starving. At least, let’s go get breakfast.” Her glare could have scared off a legion of demons, and what exactly had the demon inside her eaten yesterday? Someone’s soul?

“Not a chance.” With an arm wrapped around her shoulders, he pulled her tight against him and guided her down the narrow passage alongside the store where the buildings blotted out the sun. She stumbled alongside him, tripping on the weeds that grew along the path. The demon was trying to get Levi to lower his guard. Well, that wasn’t going to happen.

She elbowed him in the gut and jerked away. “God, you’re being an ass.”

Grunting with pain, he snatched her wrist back again. Maybe now he’d see some demonic action.

“Piss off,” Cary said sharply.

A sudden, excruciating pain fired up his arm. He flinched and found blood bubbling down his forearm from several puncture holes.

“Fuck!” He wiped the blood away. “Did you bite me?”

“No! What? You would have seen me do it.” She scowled. “Are you hallucinating?”

He kept glancing from his bleeding arm, with bite marks too wide to be human, to Cary’s lips, trying to spot blood. “How did you do this?”

She shrugged. “Maybe you should get that disinfected before you get rabies.”

“Rabies?” The more she spoke, the more he was convinced she had been contaminated by a demon. The lack of an aura was a ploy. He wasn’t standing next to Cary. Nope. Not his sweet Cary, the woman he’d dreamed about, the only one he could ever spend his life with, but he was never ready to make the big move. And now… His muscles tensed.

“Come with me willingly, or I’ll trap you and carry you back. Please, Cary. If you really aren’t possessed, then you won’t make a fuss and you’ll do the right thing.”

With his cuffs and salted, holy water vials in hand, he was ready to do whatever it took. He wiped the small bead of blood rolling down his arm. “Just a scratch. It’d heal in no time.”

“Levi, believe me, I’m not possessed.”

“I’m going to get you out of this mess, safely,” he said. Silently, he promised himself to finally tell her how much she meant to him. Faced with the threat of losing the one woman he cared for… Maybe more than cared for, so fuck yeah, he’d deal with whatever the demon threw his way.

“Levi, don’t do this. It’s me. You’re scaring me, and you’re pissing me off.” Her skin glistened with sweat. She looked at him, eyes open wide, on the verge of tears.

He clicked open Noose, his heart pounding against his ribcage.

Cary threw shoulders back. “This is all about you collecting your money and being the hero bounty hunter, isn’t it?”

“This is about me trying to save your… Cary’s ass.”

Her free hand was doing a strange patting through the air alongside her.

Cary must be fighting for control of her body, he thought. “I have to help you.”

“I can’t return to Argos with you.” Her eyes glistened when she glanced up at him. “They’ll kill me.”

“Yeah, you’ll die, but not Cary.” He lifted Noose’s lasso above her head. When she spoke, though, he would have sworn it was Cary.

“I have things to tell you, but, not what you think.” She shoved the loop away, shaking. Her wavering voice speared his heart. “Please, don’t do this.”

Something crashed into Levi’s side, and he stumbled into the wall, losing his grip on Cary’s wrist. Noose fell to the ground. He looked left and right, finding nothing but the empty lane. “What the shit?” He snatched his weapon back up.

Cary brushed down her top. “Blinkie doesn’t like you man-handling me.”

“Who the fuck is Blinkie?” Levi surveyed the area, stepping away from the wall. “There’s no one else here, but I was definitely shoved.”

She whispered, “Blinkie is… It’s...” She bit her lip, struggling to get the words out. “He’s my hellhound.”

“What the…” Levi glanced around, fighting against the fear pinching his chest. “Hellhounds don’t exist. Otherwise, someone at Argos or other hunters would have mentioned it.” He picked Noose up off the ground.

Cary’s shoulders curled forward. She made a serious face, half fear and half regret—the kind Levi would expect on someone about to declare the apocalypse had hit. “You may need a stiff drink,” she said. “How about we go over to the pub to talk?”

“Fuck that.” He shook his head. “Is someone playing a practical joke? It’s crossed my mind. You being possessed, hellhounds… What’s next—aliens?”

“Look, you stubborn ass.” She put her hand on his arm. “You’re not listening to me. I don’t want you to freak out.” Her voice was clipped and loud.

“I’m way past freaking out,” he admitted. “I’m so close to snapping. I don’t know what to believe.” He made a visible effort to pull himself together. “No. This is a trick. The demon’s trying to confuse me.”

Cary pulled her hand back. Her face quivered, her nose creasing. She looked like she was about to cry. “Fine. You want the truth? I’m not possessed by a demon. I never was. But I’m not entirely human, either.” She couldn’t fight back the tears any longer, and they slipped from her eyes, trickling down her cheeks. “My dad was born a cambion,” she admitted. “He is part demon, just like his father. So am I.” She looked up at him, still crying, but defiant. “Are you happy now?”

“Well, that’s a first,” he said. His skin itched, the way it always did when he sensed a lie. “Say whatever you want, spawn. I’m not falling for it.” He curled his fists, ready to fight.

“I’m part demon.” She shrugged, and smiled a little. Those moves, that face, belonged to his Cary, but the girl just declared she was a monster.

“A sucker is born every minute, right?” Levi said. “I sure as hell won’t be one today.” His head ached from the strange mix of information—from Cary being possessed, to the bullshit about being part-demon, nothing was making sense. “If Cary was this so-called ‘cambion’, why would she slay her own kind? You’re lying, demon.”

“Levi, I’m human. I’m just like you, like anyone. Well, except that I can smell demons, which is a bonus, and I heal quickly.” She exhaled loudly as a light breeze blew her hair over her shoulders. “I hunt demons because I don’t want them hurting innocent people any more than you do.”

“Are you joking?” His mind buzzed. “I’m just thinking about everything that Cary, the real Cary and I have been through. The way that jumper had bounced off her, and the speck had tried to drag her away. Demons hate her. And she has battled hundreds of demons, if the rumors out of Argos are anything to go by. No way she could be a demon.” But, staring at her, Levi struggled with the desire to accept her words. “There’s never been a cambion, anyway… No one’s ever seen or heard of one. Explain that.” Please, he thought. Please have an explanation.

“My father and grandfather were real, and so am I. I have fought all of those demons. Honestly, a lot more—I’ve been fighting them since I was a kid, and I didn’t report half of that to Argos.” She looked down then, patting at the air beside her. “And, well, my father apparently had a hellhound as a pet, and now it found me. Only I can see Blinkie. He’s actually a kind of ugly-cute, despite his sulfur burps.” She smiled hopefully. “You’d get along with him.”

“This doesn’t make any sense.”

She moved closer. “Let me prove it to you. Give me Noose.”

“No!” His voice crackled.

“Let me prove there’s no demon living inside me.”

Levi was torn. One side of his brain demanded he ignore the demon’s lies and cleanse her now, instead of bringing her in. (Fuck, Argos. This was Cary!) He’d never forgive himself if he didn’t take action. But the other part of him wanted to trust Cary. This wasn’t adding up.

“I’ll do it,” he said. “I’m not just trusting everything you’re saying.” She nodded.

He clicked the weapon open, widened the loop with both hands, and threw it over her head. The leather fell to her neck and he tightened it, carefully.

Her nose scrunched more and her complexion turned ashen, but otherwise, she didn’t move.

“Six,” she said out loud, looking into his eyes.

Levi waited.

“Five. I’m not possessed,” she said. Her words quivered, and Levi’s hands unfurled, eager to reach out.

“Four,” Cary continued. “My mother was human, my father was part demon. Anything holy hurts like a bitch because I was born a cambion.” Despite the twitching that had started beneath her right eye, and the taut muscles in her neck, she refused to break her gaze with him.

There was something puzzling in the way she held her composure. Whatever demon possessed Cary wasn’t an ordinary kind.

“Three. My choices were grim. But I don’t eat people’s souls.” She took a breath. “Two.” Pain trembled though her voice. “I pay my taxes, have a mortgage, and live a normal human life.”

Levi sucked in a long breath. Any second now the fiend inside her would be flushed out, unless there was a gang of them—maybe. Was that possible? He rehashed every single moment he’d spent with Cary, in his head: getting lost in her company, adoring her insistence to have the final word, the sensation of her skin against his fingertips, and not wanting to live without her.

Cary’s hand quivered uncontrollably, her knuckles white against the handle of Noose.

Six seconds had passed, and no demon had been expelled. “What the fuck is going on?” he asked.

Tears tumbled down her cheeks and she whimpered for a moment. “You need to see me for who I am,” she said slowly. “I’m the same person you’ve always known.” The flesh around her neck turned a purplish-red.

And still no black miasma poured out of her body.

“No. Argos put a hit out on you and in all my time working for the company, they’ve never made a mistake when it comes to demons.”

If she told the truth, then he would have seen clues before now. He scratched his head, unsure of anything in that moment. There were the times she flinched when she touched Noose, her unconventional method of attacking demons, the piss-weak prayer on the phone. They were his clues… But he never put them together. Or was he falling for another trick?

“Brent lied, Levi,” she whispered.

He could see the suffering and affliction twisting her expression were real.

“I’m just like you,” she cried. Her knees buckled and gave out. She slid down to the ground.

With her back pressed against the brick wall, she blinked her glistening eyes to chase away the tears. “D… Don’t take me to A… Argos. Please.”

Levi grabbed Noose’s handle and removed the loop from around her neck. In one click, he retracted the weapon and tucked it into his back pocket.

She didn’t respond, but streams of tears threaded down her cheeks.

Heaviness settled on his shoulders. “Okay, Cary,” he said softly. “What are we going to do now?”