The others hovered there, circling us, growling and eyeing the fallen boy, uncertain.

“Mickie,” the girl said. “It’s me, Sara.”

He pushed to his feet, lips still drawn back. His dark eyes flickered, then flashed orange. Sara stumbled back against me. I put my arm around her and held her there.

“It’s okay,” I murmured. “It’s the drugs.” I glanced over at Mom. “Can we dispel them?”

“Not without the ritual.” She hefted her sword. “Or this.”

“You kill the children if you use that,” the boy—Mickie—said. He was no more than fourteen, with a scarred lip and uneven cornrows. The oldest of them. The others watched him, waiting for a signal.

“Okay,” Mom said to the boy. “So I can’t use the sword. I saw what you did to that guy in the motel. I’m not stupid enough to fight the lot of you. So, if you let my daughter and the little girl go—”

Mickie cut her off with a sneering laugh. “You think the Tengu are fools? You would not give yourself to us so easily. We will not let your daughter go. They say she is valuable, too. You will wait here with us until the necromancer is found. Then you will come with us or we kill all the children. One by one, we kill them.”

The girl started to scream. It took me a moment to realize why. I guess that’s what comes from living my life—I hear a threat and it rolls off me until there’s a good reason to suspect it may be serious.

I put my arm around the girl as Mom pretended to negotiate with the leader.

“He—he said—” Sara’s thin body shook so much she could barely get the words out. “He’s going to kill us. Mickie’s going to kill us.”

“He doesn’t mean it. It’s the drugs. We won’t let anyone hurt you.”

“I want to go,” she whispered. “Please, can you make them let me go?”

“Just hold on.”

“I know how to …” She whispered something I couldn’t catch, her voice too clogged with tears and snuffles.

I bent down. “What’s that?”

“I said I know a way we can …”

She motioned me down so she could whisper in my ear. I leaned over.

“We can—”

She grabbed my hair and sank her teeth into my neck, just above the bandage. I flung her away. She stumbled back. A flap of my skin hung from her teeth. Blood dripped down her chin. Her eyes flashed orange.

I lunged, grabbed her by the scruff of the neck, and threw her toward the others just as the boy behind me charged. Mom slammed him with a knockback that sent him flying sideways. I grabbed his arm and yanked him aside, giving us a clear path out.

When a girl tried to run in front of us, Mom hit her with an energy bolt that dropped her, howling and clasping her stomach. Another raced forward. Mom brandished her sword.

“You don’t think I’ll use this to protect my daughter?” she said. “Try me.”

They stopped. The one behind her crept forward. My hand shot out. A knockback spell hit the kid so hard he sailed into a tree.

“Go, Savannah,” Mom said, her gaze on the kids. “Use your sensing spell to find Jaime, then get out of here.”

“I—”

“Savannah …” She didn’t look over at me, but I felt like I was ten again, when we’d been walking back from dinner, and a group of supernatural thugs stepped into our path. She’d been right to send me away then. But I wasn’t ten now and even with my sporadic spells, I could fight. Hadn’t I just proven that?

“We can take them,” I whispered. “Two are already injured.”

The children shuffled forward.

“Stay where you are!” Mom said, her sword cutting through the air.

The children hissed and snarled, but their gazes followed the sword, and they stopped moving.

“You saw that operative,” Mom whispered back. “That was a supernatural. A trained guard. We’re not—”

One of the boys charged. I launched a knockback. It failed and I was about to jump forward when Mom swung her sword. The boy was still at least five feet away. A warning strike, I thought, but then the tip sliced through his shirt and an orange glow oozed through. Mom deftly skewered the demon and yanked the sword back. The boy collapsed. The Tengu was impaled on Mom’s sword, a glowing miasma of red and orange, rolling on itself, a glimpse of eyes and teeth and claws appearing, then vanishing so fast they seemed a trick of the mind.

The sword sliced the orange and red cloud in two, a shriek rending the air, then fading as the two halves evaporated.

I looked down at the boy, still on the ground. His chest rose and fell. Unconscious. There was a line of blood on his shirt, but a thin one, a flesh wound.

“Anyone else doubt I’ll use the sword?” Mom said.

The children had gone still.

“I need you to get Jaime,” Mom said to me. “There might be more of them out there. She needs help. I’ll be fine.”

She was right. The first Tengu’s scream had brought others running, but that didn’t mean there weren’t more still searching for Jaime.

“Okay,” I murmured.

“Thank you, baby.”

I backed away until I was sure Mom had the mob of demon children under control. Then I loped down the path.

ELEVEN

One advantage to being in the forest? I knew my sensing spell was working. In the police station, a negative result could mean either the place was empty or my spell failed. The forest is never empty. I got back plenty of small blips.

It didn’t work every time. In fact, it fizzled more often than it sparked. But as I searched, I stopped casting it every few feet and used the spell judiciously.

I picked up one ping that was larger than a rabbit, but not big enough for Jaime. It could be a deer, but I hadn’t seen any signs of them, so I guessed it was another child. I steered clear. No sense fighting if I didn’t have to.

The Tengu inside Sara said it could detect Jaime’s scent in the woods. That could mean she’d buried herself under leaves, as we’d tried with the sword. But diving into rotting vegetation would definitely be Jaime’s last choice. I had a good idea what she’d done. It was a simple ruse that wouldn’t fool most humans, but the Tengu weren’t accustomed to tracking anyone in our world.