Inside the main house—that seemed to be the logical place. But I needed a weapon before I stormed in there. If Payne had taken my phone, he’d certainly confiscated Lon’s gun and grabbed his own shotgun out of his Jeep. Gasping for breath, I surveyed the area, looking for something I could use. A board, a pipe, a shovel—anything at all.

Splash.

What the hell was that? I swiveled on a heel to track the source of the noise. My gaze lit on the wood fencing penning the pool. I quieted my heavy breathing and listened harder.

Splish. Plop.

The hair on my arms rose. Was Lon inside the fence? A familiar scent wafted past my face. Acrid. Funky. Gamey. And something else. Something I’d smelled once when I was a kid living in Florida. Memories of a school trip flashed inside my head. St. Augustine. The horrible musky smell of an alligator farm.

I circled the wooden fence until I spotted the pool’s entrance. Closed but not locked. Heart racing, I lifted the latch. Rusted hinges creaked as I slowly opened the gate and peered inside. A single kerosene lantern sitting on a round table lit the kidney-shaped pool. Old 1950s-looking chaise longues and patio chairs were haphazardly stacked in one corner, a tangled heap of metal legs surrounded by empty white plastic buckets. Empty beer bottles lined the fencing near the gate.

“Good of you to join us,” a voice called across the pool. Payne. I could hear him, but I couldn’t see him.

I snatched up one of the empty beer bottles and wielded it like a dagger as I searched the shadows at the other end of the pool. “Where’s Lon?”

“Right here,” Payne called out. “Would you like to say any final words? He’s got a minute or so left, I’d say.”

“Lon!” I shouted.

Payne’s dark silhouette shifted behind the diving board. “He’s lost control over his vocal cords, I’m sorry to say. The Eden boa’s venom paralyzes within a minute, so don’t feel too bad about getting here in time. He was a goner the minute you smashed my window.”

A lighter shape dragged behind Payne’s dark figure. And when he stepped out of the shadows, I saw what was happening.

Payne had stripped to the waist. His grizzled torso was darkly tanned and covered in hundreds of tiny white scars. And held up a few feet from his body was a massive, golden yellow snake. Longer than him and fatter than my thigh, it hung from a long pole, a set of metal tongs encircling the scaly flesh behind its head. The bottom half of its length was wrapped around a second piece of piping that extended from the tongs.

Payne’s scarred stomach became sunken with every labored breath, and it looked as if his scraggly frame might collapse from the weight of it. “Eden boa,” he said in a strained voice. “Named for the bright red apple shape on the back of its head. One of the rarest snakes in the world, and terribly venomous. I’m afraid she’s taken a nip out of your friend.”

My knees weakened.

It couldn’t be true. Payne was lying. Lon was—

On the diving board. I saw the gold in his halo glinting like glitter. He’d been laid out on the board, his arms dangling limply over the pool. His body jerked once, as if he was convulsing. Then . . . nothing.

For a moment, I forgot everything else and made a move to race toward him. Then I remembered Payne’s knack. Hard to save someone when you’re hypnotized. And I had no idea how far his range extended, but from my recent years of experience facing dozens of knacks in my demon-friendly bar, I’d guess that it didn’t extend this far.

“Come closer, child,” Payne said. “How can you tell this poor man good-bye from all the way over there? Don’t worry, I won’t let her bite you, too. You can say your last words in peace. It’s clear that you must care for each other in some manner or other, because he called for you before the venom took hold.”

“You’re insane!” I shouted, pacing along my side of the pool as I tried to decide what to do. Then I looked down. The pool was half filled with dank water, the source of the musky stink. Dark shapes rippled on the surface.

“Mind the edge,” Payne said. “Cottonmouth water vipers from Florida. They’ve got a nasty bite that will cause you to lose large chunks of flesh. They say fatalities are rare, but everyone I’ve ever thrown in there has proven otherwise.”

This couldn’t be happening. I didn’t give a shit about his pool of vipers—I was too busy panicking about Lon. Could this all be a sham? Was Lon just hypnotized and Payne only screwing with me to get me closer?

But I’d heard Lon shout. All the way across the canyon, I’d heard it. Lon doesn’t shout. Hell, Lon barely forms complete sentences some days. And was I going blind, or was his halo fading? I thought so, but I wasn’t sure. I just wasn’t sure!

And yet.

Even without those fragments of evidence, no way was I risking his life on an if.

Better to risk mine instead.

I exhaled a fast breath, calling out to the so-called abomination inside. Sound warped, and the landscape fell away. Magical current shifted under my skin as the transmutation began: the cool rush of scales, the prickly nudge of my rows of horns, and the slithering weight of my tail busting its way through the back pocket of my jeans.

No protective circle to keep my mom at bay. I paused for a moment to listen, remembering how it was back before my hospital stay, when she would tap into me. But I heard no strange whispering. No French-accented voice calling my name. At least, for the moment. Better take advantage of it while I could.