In a heartbeat, I flick my shades up, stare deep into Nick’s dark gaze, and say, “You have somewhere else to be.”

His brows fall and he gets a blank look on his face. Success! Finally he’ll be out from underfoot. What good is having superhypnotic power if I don’t use it for my own benefit every now and again? Consider Nick a memory.

As I turn away, ready to forget him and figure out how to face the pair of monsters outside, Nick grabs my arm.

“Nope,” he says with that annoying smile on his utterly unhypnotized face. “I think I’m exactly where I need to be.”

You have got to be kidding me. The one guy who won’t take the hint that I’m not interested, and he’s the one person immune to my hypno-eyes? Something is not right about that.

I add it to the list of recent abnormalities and then file it away. No time to dwell on that at the moment. Right now, I have a pair of beasties with hungry eyes outside playing with their party-girl food. I need to take care of them before they decide they’re ready for their meal. And Nick needs to be gone before I do.

Pushing him away doesn’t work, and knocking him out would draw too much attention, so I’m left with only one option.

“Fine,” I say with a sigh, as if I’m giving in to his advances. “You can get me a drink.” I try to think of something that will take the most time, giving me the biggest window to send my unwelcome friends back to where they belong. “A virgin strawberry daiquiri.”

Surely the mixing and the blending will take more than half a second.

With a wink, he’s gone, and I’m heading through the court-yard door.

Thanks to my hesitation at seeing double, the pair of monsters has now bracketed the two drunk girls, and the critters are practically salivating at the prospect of a juicy snack. There are quite a few other people out in the courtyard, which means strategy is going to be critical. I evaluate my targets and quickly decide that, between the two, the serpent thing—Ophis pterotus is its official name, I think—will be the easier fight. No limbs or claws to fight back with. Fangs, of course, but I’ve got a pair of my own.

What I don’t need is a bunch of teen party hounds thinking they need to break up a fight. Or, worse, stepping in to defend me. Now is not the time to let the ordinary humans think for themselves, so I fold my sunglasses into a cargo pocket and walk over to the nearest group.

“Hey guys,” I say with a bright smile. Scanning my gaze over the several pairs of eyes now looking at me, I instruct, “Whatever you see going on over there”—I gesture toward the beastie-occupied picnic table—“you don’t need to get involved. We’ll just be playing around.”

Their blank faces nod, and I hurry on to do the same to the handful of groups scattered around the courtyard.

As I move to the last, a gaggle of giggling girls in the far corner, my heart begins to race, not out of fear but out of anticipation. This is going to be a good fight.

Not that I’m thrilled about the sudden change of rules, but monster hunting has become pretty routine lately. Sniff, find, fight, bite. Go home and take a shower. Repeat.

This fight should present a welcome challenge.

Everything will be fine as long as I follow the two carved-in-stone commandments of monster fighting.

First rule, never let them bite the right wrist, or the superhealing powers of the blood in that artery will give them a period of enhanced abilities and invincibility. The last thing I need is a monster that can’t be sent home. The left wrist is fine, because blood from that artery is deadly. But because humans are so often annoying bystanders, it’s best to keep that one protected too. Hence the Kevlar wrist cuffs.

Second rule, go for the pulse point. It’s different on every monster, but there is always a critical vein, one that feeds directly to the heart—or hearts—and assures an instantaneous trip back to their murky abyss. Other blood vessels work too. Eventually. But who knows what might happen to me or the innocent humans involved in the time my monster-transporting venom takes to make its way to the pumper. One stab in the key vein and the fight is over in a heartbeat. Literally.

I’ve put in my time studying the binders full of monster files Ursula has in the loft library, to memorize the target on every creature I might encounter. But I can’t remember everything. And they must be reproducing like bunnies in their realm, creating hybrids and mutant freaks no one has ever seen before, because there are always new, unknown and unidentified monsters showing up. Keeps the job interesting, anyway.

Before tonight, since it’s only ever been one monster at a time, knowing the pulse point never seemed imperative. Now, as I turn to face the pair, I kinda wish I remembered where to chomp down.

“No!” I shout as I watch the serpent thing bite down on the blond girl’s neck.

No time for strategy. In a flying leap, I launch myself onto the serpent thing’s back. It releases the girl with a shove, sending her to the ground. Twisting to get a look at its un-welcome passenger, the serpent thing unwittingly gives me a choice opportunity to introduce it to my fangs.

Reaching my head around what I can only guess is its neck region, I aim my bite right below its jaw. Before I can sink my fangs, the two girls formerly known as dinner start screaming. Arms clamped around the serpent’s writhing body, I struggle to make eye contact with the girls, hoping to quiet their attention-drawing screams before the unhypnotized masses inside catch wind of the trouble out here.

Even if they did, though, all they would see is me hanging on the back of some beefy slimeball, not some feathery snake.

I focus on the monster prey, trying to get the girls out of harm’s way. Not an easy task while clamped onto a giant snake that’s trying to violently dislodge me from its body. I hold on with a death grip and keep my eyes trained on the screaming girls, waiting for one to look at me directly.

Finally, one of them throws her wide-eyed gaze at me. Score one for eye contact. Before she can look away, I say, “Run! These guys were about to assault you. Get out of here!”

She screams louder. “They tried to assault me!”

The other girl looks totally confused, like her friend has gone instantly insane. Kind of true. But the hypnotized girl grabs her by the arm and drags her out of the courtyard at full speed.

By now, monster number two has realized what’s going on and has circled the picnic table vacated by the fleeing girls. It tries to grab me off the serpent’s back, but the serpent is moving too wildly for the griffin to grab hold. Besides, lions’ paws aren’t exactly dexterous. Still, it has poisonous claws I’d rather avoid.

The griffin clamps both paws around one of my ankles, yanking hard to pull me off the snake’s back. I manage a fierce kick to its beak with my other foot, sending it reeling back. It doesn’t lose its grip on my ankle.

“Come on,” I mutter, wondering if maybe I should have let one or two of the human guys help me out.

No, of course not. They’d end up getting hurt or killed, and I’d have to do a lot of hypno cleanup. And since the hypno power isn’t permanent, eventually there would be questions.

Telling myself to stay on track, I ignore the lion-bird behind me and try again for the serpent’s feathered flesh. If I can get one of them gone, I’ll be able to focus on the other. As I’m about to bite down, the griffin snatches my other ankle and tries to twist me around. My spine feels like it’s going to snap from the torque.

“Hey!” Nick shouts, running back into the courtyard. “Let her go!”

I should send him away too. Normally I would. But I’m feeling at a bit of a disadvantage—my training has never covered how to face two attackers, because we never thought I’d need to know. If Nick wants to save me from this pair of goons, then maybe I should let him. Can’t save the world from beasties if I become monster food tonight.

“Get the one off my feet!” I shout. If Nick can keep himself from being eaten for five seconds, I can get rid of snake thing and then take out the griffin before things get really out of control.

In a flash, Nick is across the courtyard and landing a solid punch in the vulnerable spot between the griffin’s eyes. Pretty good aim for someone who can’t see the monster’s true face. Stunned, the griffin lets me go. I take the opportunity to bite the snake’s neck. It disappears out from under me, flashing back to the prison realm where it belongs, and I fall to the ground, barely getting my feet under me to land in a crouch.

Guess I got that pulse point right.

I don’t understand all the details about the process. Ursula’s tried to explain it to me, but there’s too much magic and physiology involved for it to make any sense. All I really know is that something in my venom is a GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL card for monsterkind. Don’t really need to know the details, do I? I’m fine with calling it a mystery of mythology, so long as they go away for a good long while. Too bad there are always more to replace them.

With the serpent creature gone, I turn to help Nick.

He’s actually holding his own pretty well for a guy fighting an eagle-headed lion. The griffin is pinned beneath him, roaring and lashing out with four paws full of skin-slicing, poison-tipped, razor-sharp claws.

How on earth am I going to explain this crazy fight away? Especially since Nick appears to be the one and only human immune to my hypno magic.

“A little help!” he calls.

No time to worry about the aftermath at the moment. The griffin gets some leverage and flips over, reversing their positions so that Nick is pinned to the ground. The giant beak is heading for Nick’s beautiful face. Nick is holding it off—barely—but his arms are beginning to shake. He’s weakening.