The ropes were tied so tightly, they ground painfully into my wrists. With my hands and arms strung up over my head, my fingers were stiff and numb. It wouldn't be long before I lost feeling in my hands and arms. Struggling against my bindings only made the coarse rope dig deeper into my skin. Too much movement caused me to bump my head and back painfully against the trunk of the tree. On the bright side, the gash on my chin had stopped bleeding.

I counted six disgusting monsters sitting around the rocks and tree stumps dotting the clearing. A glacial fog had coasted in from the shore and had begun to penetrate my thin cotton t-shirt. Without my arms to protect me from the cold, a chill was creeping into my bones. One thing was certain about my captors. They were not exactly a well-oiled team. For the most part, they seemed to hate and mistrust each other. Which made sense. Considering Vapour's realm was filled with the worst examples of humanity, I was sure the place wasn't exactly brimming with harmony and loyal friendships. There had been more than three arguments about what to do with their newest victim. It was easy to determine what the lip licking creep wanted from me and the thought of it made me want to throw up. Equally easy to read was the giant who eyed me as if I was edible. I was sure he was the murderous cannibal from the nineteenth century. My father had told me about many of the colorful, demented souls in Vapour's realm. And now it seemed I was seeing them all firsthand.

"What are we supposed to do now?" The slimy gangster who had grabbed me at the portal seemed the most agitated by his newfound solid form. He paced the forest floor as he fidgeted with the buttons on his coat. The foot I had flattened was perfectly fine now. I'd been hanging on the tree long enough to put my mind to some use. I was confident I'd figured out the entire weird splayed foot event. It was a nugget of information I hoped would eventually help me out of my predicament. Although my will and strength were evaporating fast.

"Charlie, sit the fuck down," the cannibal barked. "Tired of watching you hop around like a cat on hot coals."

A movement in the trees sent them all to their feet. They all had knives tucked in their belts. Whatever it was it was big. I was sure no forest animal would come near the clearing. I hadn't seen even a bird twitter in the branches above me. Animals were smart. They knew that there wasn't anything natural or normal about these guys, and they stayed far away. But as the branches in the distance became more agitated, it was clear something giant was coming our way. All I could think was that I was tied to the damn tree, completely defenseless. Wouldn't it be ironic to be kidnapped and held captive by six semi-zombie serial killers and in the end get torn to shreds by an angry bear?

My captors reached quickly for their knives. It helped fortify the theory I'd been working on that these creeps were not as strong as they looked. They might have looked human, with all the curves and ridges of solid muscles, but the gangster's foot had proved something was off about them.

I found myself with no place to go as I backed up a few inches and met with the rough, splintery bark of the evergreen tree. The fog made visibility limited, but it was easy to see the massive figure that walked out from the trees. A whimper of relief shot from my lips as my tired, dizzy mind convinced me it was Maximus. Then the man stepped farther into the clearing and that same whimper returned. Only this time from disappointment.

"Hey, boss," Charlie sniveled with forced cheer as he scuffled on his shiny black shoes toward Paygon. "We've been waiting a long time." Any moment of hope I had that Paygon was here to rescue me or send these goons back to the underworld was quickly dashed by the fact that all of them, with the exception of the vicious looking cannibal, were fawning over Paygon as if he was their leader. One of the creatures, a quiet man with horribly thin lips and a yellowish pallor that seemed to indicate he'd died of liver disease, hurried over to join the others in greeting. As he stepped over a fallen log, his leg suddenly disappeared into a thin stream of smoke. He yelled out as he fell over. The others watched in horror as the man slowly dissolved into smoke. Seconds later the smoke was sucked down in to the ground.

Paygon's gang of weirdoes stood frozen in place, as they stared at the concave spot left behind in the soil. They looked to Paygon for an explanation.

Paygon shrugged. "Told you that your days were numbered. That's why we needed that damn ferryman." He glanced around the clearing, but with only one eye and a thick fog, he didn't notice me dangling from the tree.

The white cuffs popped out from Charlie's pinstriped coat as he eagerly pointed my direction. "I did just like you said. I caught her coming out of the portal."

Paygon stomped closer. Again, I found myself futilely moving back, only to be stopped by the tree . . . and my bound hands, hands which I could easily forget because I could no longer feel them.

My dad had always described Paygon as the big, bumbling idiot brother of Feenix. The few encounters I'd had with him had solidified that description. But big and bumbling as he was, he was also ruthlessly mean and strong. And it seemed I could add corrupt and traitorous to the list, since he had obviously decided to overthrow his brother.

Paygon's sense of sight had been badly damaged when Stryker stabbed out his eye in a fight to save Willow from being forced to marry Feenix. He had to move closer to get a good look at me. He turned his head slightly so he could look me up and down with his remaining eye. He had covered the gaping hole on the other side with a patch that appeared to be made from the scaly hide of a large reptile. It fit the rest of him perfectly.

His big, grubby hand reached forward. He lifted a strand of my hair and let it fall from his filthy fingers. "Who is this tasty tidbit and where the hell is the ferryman?" He spun around to a group of confused faces. His crew had not yet recovered from the rather instantaneous disappearance of their buddy. It seemed they all stood a little less confident, worried they too might turn to smoke at any minute.

Charlie was the first to respond. "Why, boss, that is the ferryman. Only she ain't no man, as you can real plainly see."

"Fools. Useless, damn fools!" Paygon roared. "This is not the ferryman. Without the ferryman's hair and skin cells, there is no way for you idiots to use the portal. It reacts only to the ferryman's touch."

Charlie wrung his hands together and looked almost as if he now welcomed the idea of turning to smoke and being whisked back to Vapour's realm. "I swear to you, boss, she came out of that portal. Sure as the nose on my face."

"I saw her fall through it a few days ago." The man who had watched me in the forest stepped forward. He was quieter and less bizarre looking than some of his buddies, but there was no mistaking the cold, dead eyes of a murderer.

Paygon turned back to me. "Who the hell are you? Where's Trex?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know anyone named Trex. These men just yanked me out of the forest."

"She's a liar," Charlie squealed. "I saw her. She even tried to go back through to escape me. That's when she cut her chin on the rocks."

Paygon turned his meaty face toward me again.

"I swear I don't know what any of you are talking about." I put an extra tremble in my tone.

"Vapour will be mad as fuck when he hears that you idiots screwed up," Paygon snarled. "Guess I'll head back to the damn portal myself and wait for Trex."

"What about the girl?" the cannibal asked, adding a little saliva sound to his words.

"Kill her." Paygon turned to leave.

"Seems like a shame to waste a pretty thing like that without some fun first," the white haired creep sneered.

Paygon stopped. His laugh sent the white haired guy stumbling back. "You don't actually think your century old dead cocks can be used for anything, do you? But now that you mentioned it—" Paygon's face swung back my direction. "It would be kind of a waste. I'll let you boys watch so you can see what you've been missing all these years. Then you can kill her."

Paygon stomped back toward me and roughly grabbed the front of my shirt.

I had so few options, I decided to shock him with the truth. "No. They're right. I'm Trex. I'm the ferry captain."

"Sure you are." The fabric on my shirt ripped open, and the cool night air brushed over my skin.

His yellow teeth gleamed as he lifted his upper lip in excitement.

"Steemer," I said quickly. "Catch and Steemer—they are my friends."

"Feeling kind of insulted that you didn't list me first." The deep voice drifted through the mist, and the magnificent man followed.

This time it wasn't just a whimper of relief on my lips, it was a full, loud sob. "Max."