Midnight Beauties (Grim Lovelies 2)

Viggo held up another collar. “Your turn, Beau.”

Anouk couldn’t watch, even though she knew Viggo was only doing what they had all agreed to. She wondered if he had any idea what it felt like to be anything other than rich and beautiful, if he knew how often she had craved even a day of his lavish life.

Hunter Black, attached to the chain, also eyed Viggo closely, but with a different look of longing.

“Does he know how you feel?” Anouk asked quietly.

Hunter Black’s dark eyes flashed to hers, and for a second she was afraid he might growl at her, but then his eyelids lowered. “He knows.”

Anouk felt her heart sink. They all knew that Viggo was attracted to girls only, but she still wished the best for Hunter Black’s doomed love life.

He continued, “All that matters is that he knows I’d kill for him. I’d steal for him. I’d die for him.” Hunter Black paused before adding, “As I would for any of you.”

This surprised her so much that she nearly stumbled. “Hunter Black, do you mean that?”

He slowly nodded.

Before she knew what she was doing, she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed him hard. If she could, she’d spare him all the pain they were about to endure. If she could, she’d spare them all.

“There.” Viggo interrupted them by clicking a chain to the collar around Hunter Black’s neck. “Now, try not to kill each other, everyone. And remember, I’m your friend. You don’t need to bite me or scratch me or piss on me.”

“No promises,” Cricket said.

Luc touched Cricket’s shoulder reassuringly, then went around to all the beasties, pressing his forehead to each of theirs, giving each of their shoulders a good squeeze.

“Okay.” Luc turned to Petra. “Do it.”

The five of them joined hands, their five ropes connecting them all to Viggo. He pulled on the backpack and took out an umbrella with a sharp point. Clearly, it wasn’t meant for rain.

“This is going to work,” Petra said, sounding like she was trying to reassure herself as much as anyone else. “I can do this, and Viggo has that amethyst chess piece that Rennar imbued with the beastie spell. As soon as you can, send word through Saint that you’re human again.”

A train rumbled by in the next tunnel over. The utility lights flickered. Dust rained down again. The train’s roar was so deafening that Anouk couldn’t hear the words Petra began to whisper. Suddenly it all seemed to be happening too fast. What if Petra got a word wrong? What if they’d botched the elixir? The train began to squeal. The lights flickered faster. Beau was squeezing her left hand tightly, and Cricket her right. Her vision began to swirl as she twisted to look down the far end of the tunnel. So black. Nothing was that pure black. Except the Noirceur.

She was about to scream for Petra to stop, but suddenly the squealing and rumble of the train disappeared, and the flickering lights vanished, and the pressure from Beau’s and Cricket’s hands was gone, and the blackness had swallowed her whole.

Part III

Chapter 29

Anouk woke with the sound of wings beating in her ears. She blinked groggily. Overhead, orbs of light swayed from side to side like a sky hung with pendulum moons. Walls pressed in on every side, giving her the unnerving sense that she was waking up in a coffin. She sat up with a gasp for air.

At first everything was blurry and she took in only strange, whimsical shapes—?figures with no arms or heads, lumpy bones twice her size, vibrant sprays of oranges and blues. When her vision cleared, the shapes still didn’t make sense. Marble statues that were missing heads and limbs. Fossils of femurs that must have belonged to prehistoric creatures.

With a yelp, she realized she was lying in a coffin.

It wasn’t like the tombs in Paris’s catacombs that the Goblins had used for makeshift dining tables. This one was curved in the approximate shape of a person and was covered in flaking red and gold paint. A sarcophagus.

A chill ran through her. She tipped forward, trying to climb out, but she wasn’t prepared for how weak her limbs were. She collapsed back.

“Hey, watch out, you’ll hurt yourself!”

Viggo appeared by her side with a damp cloth. He dabbed at her forehead with a tonic that smelled of rosemary and sweet orange, then thrust a steaming cup of tea in her hands. “Here. The tea will help ease the lightheadedness. You’re the first one awake.”

She stared dimly into the cup. Tiny leaves floated in dark brown liquid. She blinked and looked around the room. It was filled with bizarre antiquities. A suit of Japanese armor made of chain mail and lacquered iron. Masks with beaded headpieces. One whole side of the room was taken up by a stage set: a frozen lake made of glass, a painted backdrop of a forest that was only half finished, ballet costumes, buckets of artificial snow.

There were three more sarcophagi. Like hers, the heavy stone lids had been pushed back. In them were Cricket, Luc, and Hunter Black, one in each, their hands folded over their chests, which rose and fell with their breathing. Next to the last sarcophagus was a cardboard box filled with crumpled newspapers. Beau slumbered in that, one arm thrown clumsily over his eyes.

Viggo gestured to the box sheepishly. “We ran out of sarcophagi. Found that carton in the back.”