So I stuck to my job: reporting the news, not becoming it. I found a likely target-the youngest officer, buttons gleaming, gaze following the news cameras, shoulders straightening each time one promised to swing his way, then slumping when it moved elsewhere.

As I approached, his gaze traveled over me and his chin lifted to showcase a square jaw. A smile tweaked his lips. When I took out my notebook, the smile ignited, and he stepped forward to intercept me, lest I change my mind.

“Hello, there,” he said. “I haven’t seen you before. New at the Gazette?”

I shook my head. “I’m national.”

His eyes glittered, envisioning his name in Time or USA Today. I always felt a little bad about that. True News was a national publication, though…a national supermarket tabloid.

“Hope Adams,” I said, thrusting out my hand.

“Adams?”

“That’s right.”

A flush bloomed on his cheeks. “Sorry, I, uh, wasn’t sure I heard that right.”

Apparently, I didn’t look like this officer’s idea of a “Hope Adams.” My mother had been a student from India when she met my dad at college. Will Adams, though, was not my biological father, and half-demons inherit their appearance from their maternal DNA.

As I chatted him up, a man lurched from behind the cenotaph. He peered around, his eyes wild behind green-lensed glasses. Spying us, he strode over, one black-nailed finger jabbing.

“You took him, didn’t you?”

The officer’s hand slid to his belt. “Sir, you need to step back-”