Leonie and I braved bumper-to-bumper traffic along the highway and out over the Portman Bridge, its coiled steel cables stretching like sails above the cars.

Eyes closed, she tilted her face toward the open window, her straight red hair streaming and her Sexy Ruby perfume scattering the scent of apricot and jasmine through the car.

The cool nip of the morning summer breeze had burned away by the time the car bumped over the pothole-ridden dirt parking lot for Eddy’s Scrap and Salvage Yard, located out in the valley. Heat shimmered up in waves from the endless lines of cars.

Throwing the car into Park and cutting the engine, I pushed my oversized, black vintage sunglasses up my nose and winced when I touched my cheek, flushed from the sun streaming on it during the drive. Damn. I really needed to remember to sunscreen or I’d look like a Coppertone toad.

“You got it?” Leo scrambled after me, her flip flops thwacking softly.

I popped my trunk and unlocked a small iron box. A blue velvet bag was nestled inside. “Curious to see what a cursed diamond looks like?”

“Like that’s a question.”

I turned away so the reveal wouldn’t affect me but at Leo’s “Whoa!” glanced back.

The diamond was the size of a fat chestnut, uncut and flawless. I leaned in to admire it. To adore it, grateful that this puny being could bask in its splendor.

Leo smacked me across the face, snapping me out of the gem’s compulsion. Good thing. I didn’t have time to rip her to shreds for ownership, which had almost happened with Rohan when we’d first retrieved it.

I rubbed my cheek. “Thanks, you sadistic freak.”

“Humans,” my half-goblin bestie scoffed. “So weak.” She put the diamond away, stuffing the velvet bag into her orange cotton sundress, and lovingly cupping her now oddly-shaped tit. “I always wanted a Cubist boob.”

I snorted.

We made our way to the entrance of the salvage yard, my Sketcher high tops becoming more black-and-brown than black-and-white. I scanned for any hint of motion. The zizu demon we’d come to see would sense the diamond’s presence any moment now and come for it.

“Hi.” A cheerful middle-aged guy in a faded ball cap, his beer gut straining his dirty green coveralls with the word “Eddy” stitched in black across his heart, stepped out of a small trailer at the front gate. A wooden sign with “Office” painted on was nailed to the dusty aluminum siding. “Looking for car parts?” He chewed a toothpick between fleshy lips.

If Eddy was the demon, he should have been acting twitchy, trying to get to the jewel, but he looked like the last time he experienced tension was being squeezed out the birth canal.

“Transmission,” I said as Leo chimed in with “Engine.”

Eddy’s brows creased, but he shrugged. “Well. Sounds like a car in need of some TLC.” He took out his toothpick and jabbed it at the lot. “Use whatever you need. Engine hoists, wheel carts, we have it all. Let me know if you need a hand.”

The hoists, strewn around the lot, resembled primary-colored metal swing sets mounted on fat tire wheels. In the center of each was a lift secured with heavy chain and huge hydraulic pulleys.

“Thanks,” I said. “It’s a bit of a project. Might take us a while to find what we need.”

A boy and a girl, maybe five years old, both with wheat-blonde hair, barreled out of the office. The two stared at me with identical grave stares, dressed in gender-assigned T-shirts and shorts. Aw, the universal color-coding of fraternal twins.

Then the girl whipped a red foam block at her brother. Yup. That was universal, too.

Without missing a beat, he grabbed it, yelled, “Mine!” and ran.

Memories.

Setting his toothpick back into chew mode, Eddy grabbed the boy with one meaty hand, spun him around, and nudged him back toward the office. “Tony, Clea, cut it out. Both of you.”

He herded them back inside and shut the door.

“Hug right wall?” I asked.

Leo nodded and we strode onto the lot. “Guess what?” she said. “I learned that pap tests can suck my dick.”

“Mazel tov. My little girl is a woman.” I pressed my hand to my heart. “I’m all verklempt.”

She elbowed me in the gut. “Laugh now, but wait till you have to undergo the vaginal probe. You’ll fry the poor doctor and end up locked in a military compound while they run tests on you as the Brotherhood quietly celebrates.”

I shrugged. “A strong possibility. But maybe I’ll find that doctor to marry that Mom had always hoped for. I’d make a beautiful Stockholm Syndrome bride.”

We snickered, clearing the first long line of cars, some parked intact, others flattened and piled in high stacks. Sweat ran under my breasts and down my back. I lifted my arms up, flapping them to air out my pits. “It’s four hundred degrees out here. Where’s the stupid demon?”

We rounded the corner into the next wide row, trekking back the way we’d come.

Someone giggled behind us. I spun around with a “Boo!”

The two kids shrieked in delighted laughter.

“Are you supposed to be out here? It’s kind of dangerous.” I held out a hand. “Come on, we’ll take you back to your dad.”

The munchkins ran off. Also typical.

“It’s fenced.” Leo fiddled with her silver eyebrow ring. “They can’t get out.”

I was already dialing the office number. It went to voicemail so I left Eddy a message about his little Houdinis.

We picked up the pace. “Here, zizu, you jonsing motherfucker. Come get the pretty diamond.” I glanced back in the direction the children had gone. “We need to wrap this up.”

“Agreed.” She pushed me forward a few steps. “Stay in front of me. I’m pulling out the big guns.”

“I hope you mean the diamond and not your boobs,” I said.

“You’ll never know.”

I slowed down, my shoulder blades prickling, dying to turn around and gaze upon the jewel.

Leo poked me in the back. “Keep moving.”

“Don’t drop the merchandise,” I said sourly. “I don’t have time to track down another flawless cursed diamond.”

Rohan, Kane, Ari, and I had spent the past couple of weeks tracking the gem down using intel gleaned from David Security International, the Brotherhood’s public persona. Actually retrieving it had been a bitch of a mission involving oversized crab demons and a taste of being buried alive.

I placed my hand on my head as a makeshift hat against the relentless sun.

“You should have bought me a Popsicle,” Leo said.

“Hand over the ten bucks you owe me and you can pick your flavor.”

“A real friend wouldn’t have me pay up.”

“Be sure to mention that when you find one.” I wiped sweat off my brow, silently chanting eyes front. “Renege and I start charging interest. I’m not a good person like Rohan is.”

“Yeah, yeah. You have the best boyfriend in the world.”

“I do.” I veered around the jagged edge of a rusted door that was sticking out of a stack of crushed minivans. “Plus, he knows I’m no dilettante.”

“Okay, you need to stop with the app.”

“Expanding my vocabulary is an interesting and useful endeavor.”

“Nee.” She spun me around, the diamond behind her back, and turned her heart-shaped face up to mine, her brown eyes suffused with pity. “This isn’t your parents with Ari. It isn’t even Cole. Rohan doesn’t want a Lily imitation. He wants you.”

Any heartfelt sentiment I was about to spew was kiboshed as an araculum, a spider demon the size of a kitten, skittered across my foot, training its creepy rows of eyes on me.

I screamed, jerking back so hard I smacked my tailbone on an engine hoist. “Fuuuck!”

Leo crouched down by the araculum.

“Don’t touch it!” I yelled.

“I’ve touched worse.”

“That’s on you for hooking up with Drio.” I hissed through the burn, rubbing my back.

The demon scurried off under a VW camper and I heaved a sigh of relief.

Until he returned.

With buddies.

My first thought was “The kids!” then I had no time to think because dozens of araculum poured from the cars, swarming us. I burst into a full-body electric current, doing a cartoony jig so they couldn’t crawl up my legs. My normally ghost-pale skin turned blue, animated lightning bolts sliding over it as I slammed the monsters with everything I had.

Only once I’d dispatched the last of my attackers did I see Leo’s blood-covered hands. She clutched an araculum and was exsanguinating the fuck out of it. The demon was literally deflating, its legs spasming, and its body shriveling in on itself. Its fur was so soaked, the demon resembled a bloody sponge. The run-off dripped over Leo’s wrists, falling with quiet plops on her cute blue pedicure and running into the dirt next to the velvet bag laying at her feet.

Hot copper filled the air and my stomach heaved. Way to make me not care about the diamond.

With a soft pop, the final araculum winked out of existence, sucked dry. Leo had activated the sweet spot to kill it.

I forced myself not to step back and injected as much not-wigged-out cheer into my voice as I could. “Wow. Can you scent me when I’m on my period? Like a shark?”

Leo’s eyes flashed red as she licked the blood off the inside of her wrist, dainty, like a cat. “No.”

A tense silence fell over us, broken only by the crackle of Leo halfway unwrapping a power bar she’d stashed in the pocket of her sundress. Gotta love a dress with pockets. Even one with bloody fingerprints now dotting it. She crammed a piece of it into her mouth, barely chewing it before swallowing. “This is why I have to eat all the time.” I looked blankly at her. “The redcap goblin thing. If I don’t eat?” She ripped the rest of the bar open. “I crave blood. Probably have to rampage and pillage to satisfy it.”

My eyes bounced around for a safe place to look because the savagery of her bloody hands and feet were an unnerving contrast to my adorable friend. “That would suck,” I said carefully. “Hard to fit that in to your school schedule.”

“And work. Rampaging doesn’t give me extended medical.”

“What happens if you do get all bloodlusty and don’t satisfy it?” I braced myself. I wasn’t going to electrocute my bestie but her eyes still had a slight red haze to them.

She swallowed the other half of the energy bar and the haze faded. “I’d feel inclined to sport a hat kept wet with blood. The hottest accessory for any fashion-conscious redcap.” She twisted the torn wrapper, her bleak eyes at odds with her flippancy. “I’m scared one day I won’t make the right choice.”

I’d never seen Leo’s goblin magic and she’d never volunteered, so I’d never pushed her on it before. Seeing my best friend vamp out didn’t even phase me in the grand picture of what my life had become. What did phase me was the grand picture of what my life had become.

I should have reassured her that she’d always make the right choice, because at my continued silence Leo scooped the velvet bag off the ground and stomped off. “This is why I didn’t want you to ever see it. Because you can’t unsee it. Like that good-one-side dolphin we found on spring break.”

I ran after her. “I shoot electricity, my twin suffocates people with shadows, and I’m dating Ginsu Man. We’re all freaks, Leo. You’re not a half-rotted aquatic mammal. You’re my best friend and I love you.” I pointed at her chin. “You got a little schmutz there.”

Leo licked the blood off, her guarded eyes trained on mine.

I yawned and cocked an eyebrow.

A long, assessing look later, my bestie gave me a very shark-like grin that I swear involved too many teeth. “You scared of me?”

“Little bit. Yeah. Happy?” We ended up in the back left corner of the lot, a large unused space that had been bulldozed into uneven dirt in anticipation of more car storage.

“Yup.” She stuffed the wrapper in her pocket, then glanced at her hands. “It’s been way too long. I needed that fix.”

“Don’t make yourself sick. If you need to, suck ’em dry, baby.”

“I always do,” she said.

“Phrasing.”

She patted my cheek, leaving a sticky, bloody smear. “Should have set up a safe word.”

I spun in a circle, sunlight winking off the cars and cooking me alive. No signs of zizu demon life at all. “Now what? Either the diamond is a dud or the demon isn’t–”

More giggling from the two chubby, and now grubby, kindergarteners. Sunlight caught their baby-feather hair tufting off their heads. Wait. Zizu had feathers. These kids had been following us for a reason and it wasn’t because they were little dorks.

Bingo! “Leo! Show the diamond!”

She was already opening the bag.

Tony and Clea giggled and ran off. Nope. I wasn’t playing hide and seek with a couple of demons.

I chased after them, clouds of dust kicking up at my feet. They zipped around the corner and I put on an extra burst of speed to catch up. Closing the distance, I flung my magic at them, scooping them up in my electric net.

“Kids!” Eddy skidded to a stop, his voice an anguished howl. He dropped his yellow tool box and sledgehammer.

“Back off, demon,” I snarled at him.

“Nava!” Leo’s face had drained of all color. “What have you done?”

The kids thrashed and screamed in my net.

Really terrified, really human screaming.

I’d just attacked human kids.

I carefully set them down on the ground with shaking hands, shutting down my magic. “I’m sorry,” I babbled.

I’d been so sure.

The kids were ugly crying with snotty sobs. Eddy ran toward them but Leo reached Tony and Clea first, trying to calm them down.

I’d been so wrong.

I ran my thumbnail hard enough over my cuticles to rip them off. Blood welled up in half-moons.

Tony grabbed the diamond out of Leo’s hand, right as Clea kicked her in the shins. Leo yowled and ran after the little spawn, but they remained two steps out of reach.

“You little assholes!” I blasted the kids, who’d morphed wings and were zigzag running trying to get lift-off. I whirled on Eddy, convinced I’d find papa demon, but he was still human, his expression glazed with pain.

“You don’t understand,” he said. “They’re just children.”

“They’re demons.” A ball of magic danced in my palm. “How about you?”

He held up his hands, cautiously stepping forward. “They’re not evil. They’re just scared.”

Was he for real?

Leo snagged Tony by his leg, his blue outfit shredded over his bird body, and brought him crashing down. He tossed the diamond to his sister.

“Riddle me this,” Leo said. “What’s up with the purple magic?”

Tony snarled and called her a bunch of names that were troubling when said in a clear, high voice.

Clea clutched the diamond to her chest and flew to the top of a bright green engine hoist.

“Answer me.” Leo raised her bloody hand. Still struggling, Tony turned his still-human, little boy face to hers, his eyes pooling with tears. Leo hesitated and the demon yanked free.

Eddy rushed me, knocking into me like a roaring bear. His ball cap sailed into the dirt.

“Quit it!” I twisted left, stumbling over my feet and barely avoiding frying the guy, my magic going wild to scorch the hoist Clea was on.

“Daddy!” Clea flew down to Eddy.

Winding my current around the boy demon’s leg like a lasso, I swung him high into the air. Clea gasped but I only had eyes for Eddy. “Tell one of them to answer the question or they’re toast.”

Eddy wrapped a protective arm around Clea, sledgehammer at the ready. “I’ll kill you before you hurt another feather on either of them.”

I used every ounce of willpower to keep up my tough-girl bravado when with each of the little guy’s cries as he dangled there, my heart broke into smaller and smaller pieces. My expression hardened. “You sure you can?”

Clea tugged on Eddy’s sleeve. “Make her put Tony down.”

Eddy glanced down at her, seeing the diamond for the first time. He blinked and reached for it. “Clea, give that to me.”

“No, Daddy.” She hugged it tightly, hopping away on needle-sharp talons.

Eddy lunged for her so I shot the ground at his feet. “You. Stay.”

The kidling demons were starting to molt in distress, blond feathers drifting down to the ground.

I swallowed past the lump in my throat. The demons were the only leverage I had, so I increased the voltage pouring through Tony. Silver-blue sparks danced through the air.

He screamed.

“I’ll answer!” Clea cried.

I released my magic and Tony plummeted to the ground. He hit, rolled twice, and lay still. If I could see him, he wasn’t dead, but I still felt like a fucking monster.

Panting, I brushed stinging sweat from my eyes. “Purple magic.”

“Witch and demon magic,” Clea said a voice strung high with fear.

“Thanks. I’ve used crayons before. A partnership or coercion?”

“No true demon would willingly help a human,” she spat at Leo.

“I’m special.” Leo waved a bloody hand at Eddy, who’d been edging closer to the diamond. “You really want to listen to your kids and stay back.”

He stopped, holding himself in check with visible effort.

“Less insulting my friend. More answering.” I planted myself over her brother’s body.

“Forced,” she sneered. “Magic isn’t crayons, it doesn’t automatically combine. One magic must become submissive to the other for that to happen.” Interesting.

“Binding demons.” I checked Tony’s chest. Still breathing. His eyes fluttered but stayed closed. “I want to know who, why, and how.”

She inched closer to Tony. “I don’t know.”

I blocked her. “You’re lying. You zizu are oracles. What have you seen?”

“Let me be with my brother.” Clea trembled.

Grr. I was the biggest fool in the world. But I was also a twin. I stepped aside.

Clea knelt down and touched Tony, but he didn’t stir. Her eyes turned milky and her head jerked back.

“Tick tock, goes the clock, blood to rule the might.” She spoke in a singsong voice that caused goosebumps to break out along my skin. “Tick tock, speed the clock, the lovers reunite.”

Peachy. Creepy nursery rhyme prophecies starting with a clock metaphor always boded so well for a happy ending.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I braced a hand against a school bus, heat and magic overuse making me dizzy, but she didn’t answer.

Whatever. I had at least a partial answer to my questions and we were all going to walk out of here alive.

Eddy rushed Clea, swiping the diamond from her hand, and holding it aloft. His face was bathed in wonder.

Leo and I both sprinted for him, but Clea got to him first.

“Mine, Daddy!” She swiped the diamond away with one of her talons, slicing his flesh open. Blood was everywhere, on the ground, on the engine hoist, on dead husks of cars.

Eddy paled, clutching his arm, and crumpled to the ground.

Clea ducked her head. “Sorry.”

Eddy started convulsing.

“Poison.” Leo dropped to her knees beside Eddy, placed her hands on him, and shuddered.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“Drawing out the poison. Cool, huh?” She was sweating, a milky ooze bubbling out of his skin and over her hands.

“Die on me and you’re so dead,” I said.

She was coated in the toxin. Could there be residual effects for Leo? Some slow poisoning where we’d think she just had the flu and then bam! She’s dead? I had to trust she knew what she was doing, but I wanted to knock her aside and hose her down, because in the scheme of Leo versus this guy, there was no comparison. If that made me selfish, so be it.

“All good,” she said in a shaky voice. “You should get your cholesterol checked,” she said to Eddy, scrubbing her hands with dirt to remove the toxins.

He turned his head and vomited.

I swallowed hard against the taste of metallic bile. Tony was still unconscious, his little boy features slack, and Clea, lip trembling, kept apologizing to her daddy. I couldn’t leave these demons alive. Human life trumped demon and Eddy had already had one brush with death.

The more firmly I entrenched myself in this fight against evil, the more my moral compass was more of a moral tightrope.

“Is Daddy going to be okay?” Clea asked.

“Yeah.”

She nodded and returned to her brother, trying to shake him awake.

Coward that I was, I waited until her face was bent down towards Tony’s and I couldn’t see her eyes before killing her. The fact that I dispatched of both demons with two quick strikes was little consolation.

Eddy cried brokenly, his entire body racked with sobs.

“I’m sorry.” There was no forgiveness in the hate-filled glower he shot me. I picked up the discarded sledgehammer and stalked off.

Waves of anxiety rolled off Leo, running beside me to keep up, the diamond clutched in her closed fist.

I waited until Eddy could no longer see us, and then I wailed on the first intact car I found, obliterating its windshield and smashing its doors until they crumpled and broke off their frames.

I tossed the sledgehammer away with a shriek, my chest heaving.

Leo hugged me. “You had to do it. Him wanting to parent them, knowing they were demons? It wasn’t normal. It couldn’t work.”

“What’s so wrong with wanting normal? Maybe he couldn’t have kids any other way? Maybe–”

“No. We can’t obsess about maybe. This is the hand we’re dealt. Normal isn’t always in the cards and the sooner people face that fact, the better.” Her voice was steel. Someday I’d ask her how hard it had been to reconcile herself to being half-demon.

“Eddy playing dad to demons may have been deluded,” I said. “But wanting that connection? Not because of proximity or adrenaline rush bonding or because I’m the only female option in his Rasha life, but an unassailable certainty that Ro’s mine and I’m his? I mean…” Fuck it. There was no way to recover from that Freudian slip.

Leo blinked at me. “Wow.”

“I’m just saying it wasn’t deluded of Eddy to try for everything he’d ever wanted.” I spun around and walked out of the lot.