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“H i, Mr. Minegold. Good to see you. Hi, Robbie. Hi, Jesse. Oh, Genesis, I heard you got married—to a human, no less!” I greet the three vampires and the gargoyle as they approach the stand, then shake hands all around. Angela’s off getting us something to eat, heading over with Libby to get Chinese takeaway from the Jade Forest.

“It’s Mother’s Day this Sunday. Got to get my daughter-in-laws something. This is Charlotte’s first Mother’s Day as a mother, you see,” Mr. Minegold says with a proud look at Robbie. “A boy.”

“And Sophie and I had a girl! Father of two, can you believe it?” Jesse whips out his phone.

“Melinda and I are waiting a while,” Genesis proclaims, but his phone comes out, too. I’m lost in a sea of baby pictures and wedding pictures that would melt a heart of stone. Fortunately, I have a dragon’s heart, and I can get away with a few manly sniffs.

“I’ve got happy news myself, but I couldn’t get hold of Ian and my mother to let them know, so mum’s the word,” I say in a hushed voice.

“That brunette beauty? Ahh, I thought so. I am getting a sixth sense about these things. Whenever someone new moves in near Pine Crest Avenue or stays at Country Pines, I mentally prepare my welcome wagon,” Mr. Minegold says, picking up a deep black flower. “What’s this, Graham?”

“A New York Night Single Hellebore, Mr. Minegold. Sophie would love it. Now, for Charlotte, I think something brighter. Take a look at this new crossbreed phlox,” I direct Robbie’s attention to a spray of pink and white flowers.

“Excuse me. Excuse me, have you seen this woman?”

My attention turns and tingles at the words. The older man holding out a phone seems distraught, his voice frazzled, bordering on hysterical. Mr. Minegold and his “sons” stiffen beside me. Genesis gives me a quizzical look and moves away, back to his stand in the third row of stalls, closest to the pine forest that borders the lot. He can’t change form, and I suppose he thinks it’s safer not to be spotted by the man. Sometimes those teetering on the brink between madness and sanity see more than the average eye.

“Ohh. Um. I think I have seen her somewhere here tonight.” A kindly woman that I don’t know scans the crowd and guides the old man away as he clutches at her elbow.

“Thank you! Thank you, where?”

“Is she lost? Is this your daughter?”

“My daughter-in-law.”

“I don’t... I don’t like this.” I rub my chest. My gut feels off.

“Jesse, go get a look at that screen,” Minegold instructs.

“I... Rob, watch the stand for me?” I ask, voice barely audible. I look back to the third row and see Genesis talking to Milo, the big minotaur metalworker with a stand beside his. Libby isn’t with them. Angela isn’t with them.

They’re still getting food, just across the street, down the far side of the lot, I tell myself, breaking into a slow jog. I shouldn’t have let Angela out of my sight.

But there she is. She’s in my sight now, coming along arm in arm with the very pregnant Libby. Each of them carries a big brown bag with a printed Chinese dragon on it, a Lung. Maybe it’s a lucky omen. A sign that I’m being paranoid.

“There she is, sir. That’s your daughter-in-law coming across the lot with that blonde lady.”

“What?” I gasp.

Everything happens at once.

The doddering and distressed old man straightens up and strides ahead, iron in his spine as he leaves the helpful older woman behind him. “Miss Argento,” he calls out.

Angela freezes, and I break into a run. For all I know, I plow through people and knock over stands and stalls. Angela is all I see.

I change into halfling form as I run, clothes tearing as wings burst free and tail lashes out. I have my coat back at the stand, but I couldn’t care less about ending up naked. All that matters is that I get to Angela first.

Angela’s running, too, pulling Libby with her, back toward the Jade Forest.

“Stop running, Miss Argento, before someone gets hurt. Your father should have come to get you, but he’s... Well, he’s disappeared, hasn’t he?”

Angela freezes again. “Ronnie?” I can hear her weak voice ask, see her tears forming before they fall.

All at once, something snaps in my pretty princess, and she moves forward, running like a dragon about to take to the air. “What did you do to my father?” she screams, her manicured claws out.

“Maybe your mother will still be alive to make it to your wedding,” the man says, far too calmly.

That’s when I notice that men are coming toward him. Men that I don’t recognize. Human men, who wouldn’t set off any magical wards or protective charms.

Ordinary thugs with guns are near my mate—and in my town.

“Genovese!” I thunder, running toward him, talons ready to rip and tear—but someone beats me to it.

Chloe, the little banshee who owns the secondhand shop and has a stall right up front and center, whacks him with a vase, earning a curse and a cry of rage accompanied by the audible cocking of a gun.

Fuck, he’s going to shoot innocent people.

And I... I’m sorry about that, but Angela matters more. With a screech that sends smoke rolling and owls flapping out of the tall pines, I make it past Genovese with a flap of my wings and snatch Angela by the arm, hauling her into the air.

“He killed Ronnie,” she sobs, burying her head in my arm. “He has my mom. I know he has my mother, did you hear what he said?” she wails. “He has men with him, men with guns, Graham!”

“I know, but—” I look down as I fly higher, and see blue flames bursting into the middle of the Night Market. “But he’s not going to get away with it.”

***

M Y MATE IS TOO HYSTERICAL to comprehend what’s going on, and her vision is limited by human sight, but I can see for nearly a mile, and what I see now reminds me that Pine Ridge isn’t peaceful because it’s boring. It’s peaceful because people are willing to keep it that way. “We’re going to win,” I tell Angela, holding her tight as I move us back to the pines that line the lot.

“Huh?”

“Trust me.”

The blue flames surround Toby, a Reaper who’s got his three-headed cerberus-corgi mix herding thugs like an expert sheepdog. Ordinary folks, shopkeepers, and citizens are herding each other to safety while the three intruders with guns learn that you don’t mess with peaceable monsters.

Three sets of crimson eyes tell me Minegold and his boys are not above using their fangs tonight. Milo’s got his own weaponry in each hand, not to mention the fact that he could stomp a person into a puddle with one hoof. And Genesis? Genesis doesn’t have time for theatrics. He uses his whip of a tail to take Genovese to his knees and then bangs his head onto the asphalt, knocking him out cold.

“Come with us to the woods, please,” Minegold commands to the thugs who remain standing, his voice frigid. “Ah—and put your guns on the ground and pick up your boss. I don’t typically kill humans, but I’m not above biting them.”

“Angela, they’re coming this way with the Genovese and his men. We can ask where your mother is. We’ll get her back, I swear it,” I say, rubbing her back as she sobs. “I know we can’t get your father back, but we will save your mother, wherever she is.”

My Angela just huddles in abject grief. “He wasn’t a good man, but he was such a good dad. Oh, God. This is all my fault,” she weeps.

“Baby, you didn’t get him mixed up in this. He got you mixed up in this. If you remain free of it—he won’t have died in vain,” I whisper, swooping cautiously toward the ground—and halting in mid-air when three black SUVs with flashing rooflights barrel through the woods.

“This is the FBI. We have a warrant for Joseph Genovese on counts of money laundering, illegal use of a firearm, and drug trafficking,” says the first man out of the car, his badge held high in one hand, the other on his belt.

“Then I believe you will want this man, here,” Minegold motions to Genesis, and the gargoyle drops Genovese like a sack of garbage. “You will also want these men for disturbing the peace and attempted kidnapping.” Robbie and Jesse throw the other men down, and they wisely stay on their knees.

“Kidnapping of whom?”

“A Miss Angela Argento,” Minegold replies. “She was chased through our community’s Night Market, but she ran to the safety of the woods, and we were able to stop these thugs.”

“Where is she?” The FBI agent is joined by more of his ilk, piling from the first two cars with crackling radios and handcuffs flipping open.

“Sweetie, I’m going to have to put you down and go get some clothes, or they’re going to lock me up for indecent exposure,” I whisper. “You have to be strong and stay with the guys for a minute, okay?”

With a sobbing hiccup, she nods.

“I’m just going to set you down, go and get my coat, and be right back,” I promise with a kiss on her temple. I ease down into the third row of trees, and then slip silently away on foot as I hear her cry out,

“Here I am, officer. I’m here! You need to arrest him for murder, too. He killed my father, Ronnie Argento!”