“She left last night. I can’t believe I was in the same room as her. I talked to her! Do you think—do you think she might have done something to me? Made me evil, too?” A whimper. “I’ve never killed anyone. I did some bad stuff when I was alive, but it wasn’t my fault. I always picked the wrong kind of friends. Do you think she infected me? Turned me into a murderer?”

“She can’t turn anyone here into a murderer.”

The nymph turned her wide eyes up to mine. “Are you sure?”

“The only people in the ghost world are dead, hon. You can’t kill them.”

“Oh, right.” Her shoulders relaxed. “That is such a relief.”

“I’m sure it is. Now, you overheard Ross and the Nix talking…”

She nodded. “They were discussing a plan. Mr. Ross said—”

Something crackled in the undergrowth. The nymph jumped like she’d been shot. I scanned the jungle, but saw nothing.

“No one’s here,” I said. “It was probably an animal.”

“What kind of animal? Oh!” She shivered and looked back to the house. “I shouldn’t be doing this. If Mr. Ross found out he could—he knows some scary stuff.”

“So do I. Now, you were saying?”

Her fingers wrapped around my forearm, tugging me farther into the jungle. When I hesitated, her lower lip wobbled and her eyes filled, as if she might cry from sheer terror. Obviously she wasn’t talking until she felt safe, so I let her lead me. After a few steps, she mumbled something.

“Hmm?” I said.

She kept muttering, her face forward as she pulled me into the forest. I caught a couple words of Latin and knew she wasn’t talking to herself. She was casting.

I yanked my arm back. Her grip only tightened.

“Hey!” I said.

I tried to shake her off, but she just looked over her shoulder, fixing me with eyes that had lost every trace of girlish innocence. Her lips kept moving in their cast. Once more I tried to fling her off, unable to believe this sudden show of bionic strength. She yanked back, and I flipped forward, nearly falling.

As I twisted up again, I snarled my own cast. A binding spell. I finished it…and she only smiled, her own incantation still flowing. I started a knock-back spell, but the first words had barely left my mouth when the air around me started to shimmer. The unmistakable first sign of an opening portal. Shit! Again I struggled to pull my arm from her grasp, but couldn’t budge. Demonic strength. Only thing with demonic strength was a demon. Or a demi-demon.