He dropped from Jenks’s hand to land on the island, and my thrill turned to unease. “They wanted a statue,” Jax said. “Didn’t even know where it was. Nick called up a demon, Dad.” Dust sifted to make him look as if he was in a sunbeam. “He called up a demon and the demon told him where it was.”

Okay. Now I’m officially worried. “Did the demon show up as a dog and turn into a guy wearing green velveteen and smoked glasses?” I asked, setting my pen down and holding my arms to myself. Why, Nick? Why are you playing with your soul?

Jax shook his head, green eyes wide and frightened. “It showed up as you, Ms. Morgan. Nick was mad and yelled at it. We thought you were dead. It wasn’t Big Al. Nick said so.”

My first flush of relief turned to a deep worry. A second demon. Better and better. “Then what?” I whispered. Rex jumped into Jenks’s lap, nearly giving me a heart attack since I thought she had been going for Jax. How Jenks knew she hadn’t been eluded me.

The dust rose and fell from Jax. “The demon, uh, took what they agreed on and told Nick where the statue was. A vampire in Detroit had it. It’s older than anything.”

Why would a vampire have a Were artifact? I wondered. I glanced at Jenks, his hands keeping Rex from falling over while she inexpertly cleaned her ears.

Jenks puckered his brows, his smooth features trying to wrinkle but not managing it. “What does it do, Jax?” he said, shocking me again with how at odds his youthful face was to the tone of his voice. He looked eighteen; he sounded like he was forty with a bad mortgage.

Jax flushed. “I don’t know. But we got it okay. The vampire had been staked in the 1900s, and it was just sitting there, forgotten in the slop.”

“So you found it,” I prompted. “What’s the problem? Why are they hurting him?”

At that, Jax took to the air. Rex’s eyes went black for the hunt, and Jenks soothed her, fingertips lost in her orange fur. “Uh,” the pixy said, his voice high. “Nick said it wasn’t what they said it was. Another pack found out he had it and made a better offer, enough to pay back what the first pack paid him to finance the snatch, plus a whole lot more.”

Jenks looked disgusted. “Greedy bastard,” he muttered, his jaw clenched.

I took an unhappy breath, leaning into my chair and crossing my arms over my chest. “So he sold it to the second group and the original pack wasn’t happy about it?”

Jax shook his head solemnly, slowly drifting downward until his feet hit the map. “No. He said neither of them should have it. We were going to go to the West Coast. He had this guy who could give him a new identity. He was going to get us safe, then give the first pack their money back and walk away from the entire thing.”