A middle-aged man shouldered his way inside the restaurant, followed by a young woman and a boy who looked about seven. I glanced at the woman and had to click my mouth shut. She looked to be in her late teens, right on the cusp between a girl and a woman. Her body, full in the bust and hips, slimmed to a narrow waist. Her long slender legs carried her with a natural grace. Her hair streamed from her head in a shimmering cascade so precisely matching the color of gold, I would’ve sworn it was gold if I didn’t know better. Her face, a pale oval, was angelic. She glanced at me in passing. Her irises were an intense deep blue and her eyes were decades older than her face.

She was beautiful.

She was also not human. Or she had bargained with something not human for that body.

Curran was watching her. His nostrils flared a little as he inhaled, sampling the scents and I felt a punch of jealousy right in the gut. Well, this was a new and unwelcome development.

Ghastek focused on the woman as well, with the kind of clinical interest usually afforded to an odd insect. “Here come the grieving parents. I’ve met them before.”

“Is that her sister?” I asked.

“No, that’s Mrs. Aurellia Sunny, her mother. The boy is Amanda’s brother.”

Not human.

The middle-aged man saw the female navigator, whose body the People had just loaded on the gurney. “Amanda! Jesus Christ, Amanda! Baby!”

“No!” Aurellia cried out.

He dashed to Amanda. “Oh God. Oh God.”

His wife chased after him, the boy in tow. “Don’t go near her!”

The man grasped Amanda’s hand. The golden band of the necklace popped open. An eerie soft light ignited within the necklace, setting the gold aglow.

“Oh Go—” Amanda’s father fell silent in the middle of the word, transfixed by the necklace.

His hand inched toward it.

“Stop!” Curran barked. The man froze, arrested by the unmistakable command in that voice.

I was already moving.

The golden-haired woman pushed past him, yanked the necklace from Amanda’s neck, spun, and thrust it at the boy’s throat. The gold band locked on the child’s neck, adhering to his skin. I missed it by half a second.

The boy gasped but didn’t die. His father shook his head, as if awakened from a dream.

Aurellia stared at me with her old eyes and smiled.

“Are you out of your mind?” I snarled. “That necklace just killed your daughter.”

“This isn’t your affair,” she said.

“Take it off. Now.” Before it kills again.

She sneered. “I can’t.”

She knew exactly what that necklace did. She had made a conscious choice between her husband and her son.