Grim Lovelies (Grim Lovelies 1)

Tenpenny stroked the pet rat perched on his shoulder, considering this. “I have a few ideas. None of them pretty, mind you, none of them guaranteed. But there’s a chance.”

“We only have until midnight.”

“Oh, then it’ll certainly not be pretty.” He waggled a finger at them. “Listen closely, my beastie friends. For the past three years, the five grandest witches of Britain have been clearing London of Goblins. They call themselves the Coven of Oxford. Chasing us out or slaughtering us—?they don’t care. A few months ago they succeeded in ridding the city of the last of us, and we came here to Paris in exile. We need you to help us retake our city.”

The elevator reached the bottom floor with a sudden lurch. Anouk’s heart leaped; she grabbed a brass sconce to steady herself.

“Well, beasties? Do we have a deal?”

Ding.

Anouk, thinking of the vicious Marble Ladies, sputtered out, desperately, “Yes.”

Tenpenny danced eagerly from one foot to the other. The pet rat mirrored him, scampering from one of his shoulders to the other. The doors opened to the foyer, and Anouk took everything in: The gleaming white walls. The ivory desk. The wall of glass with the single turnstile. And the Marble Ladies. Not immobile now.

Four alabaster faces turned like clockwork when the elevator rumbled open. All too fast, they came striding toward the elevator, arms raised, stone hands reaching.

“They’re coming!” Anouk cried.

The Marble Lady in the fr

ont slammed one stone hand against the doorjamb, holding the elevator open. Another behind her swiveled her head toward Anouk. Her features remained motionless, but her hands curled into fists. Anouk shrieked and scrambled as far back into the elevator as she could.

“Tenpenny!”

The Goblin unlatched his pet rat’s collar and held the creature up so they were nose to nose. With a great sigh, he said, “I’m sorry, old friend, but we both knew it would come to this.”

Just as Anouk was about to yell again for him to do something, the rat made a heart-wrenching final squeak and Tenpenny bit its head off. A revolting crunch as the spine snapped. Someone—?one of the boys—?screamed. Blood sprayed from the rat’s neck, decorating the elevator’s mirrored walls with garlands of red. Anouk couldn’t get away in time. Blood speckled her apron. A vile-tasting bubble pushed up her throat as she pressed a hand to her mouth, staggering backward into the corner of the elevator. Viggo tried to go to her, but a Marble Lady grabbed him by the back of his shirt. Hunter Black hurled himself against her arm, but he might as well have been fighting iron bars. The Marble Lady didn’t flinch.

Tenpenny spat the rat head on the gleaming floor and then tipped the little furry body over and gurgled down its blood.

“Transfixa petrifie,” he whispered. “Transfixa . . .”

The third Marble Lady stepped into the elevator. Cricket dodged her just as the lady’s fist smashed into the mirror, sending broken bits of glass raining down. It happened so fast that Anouk wasn’t sure if she’d been cut or not. All she could feel was shockingly solid fingers clamp down on the back of her skull, gripping her painfully by the hair.

The Marble Lady had her.

It’s too late, Anouk thought.

But then Tenpenny dabbed blood from the corner of his mouth with a handkerchief and pronounced the final word of the whisper.

“. . . Petrifie.”

The Marble Lady clutching Anouk’s hair froze.

All four of the Marble Ladies were as still as the statues they should have been. Except, of course, that Anouk had never heard of statues that were posed for a fight with clenched fists. She winced; even frozen, the statue’s fingers coiled painfully around her ponytail. She disentangled herself with care, tugging the last few strands out by force, and rubbed her stinging scalp.

The other beasties looked equally stunned and equally spattered with blood.

It was perfectly quiet in the foyer, with the Marble Ladies suspended in time like a drawing in a book, never to break their poses, until Anouk exclaimed to Tenpenny, “You killed your rat!”

“Yes, my dear, that’s what Goblins do.”

Beau started for the exit, but Tenpenny tsked. “Not so fast. It’s raining.”

“So?” Beau said.

“These boots are suede!” The Goblin poked at a collection of black umbrellas in a stand by the door until he found the one he was looking for and pointed the end toward Beau. “Now, dear boy, we make our escape.”