Midnight Beauties (Grim Lovelies 2)

“The ruby isn’t for the rabbit.” Viggo was so excited by the fact that he had valuable information that he had temporarily forgotten about the bleeding scratch on his arm. “It’s an old Goblin trick. They’ve been known to feed their pet rats talismans that they want to hide. They get the talisman back eventually. You know.” He raised his eyebrows suggestively.

Cricket made a face.

“When it craps it out,” Viggo finished.

“Yes, we all got it without you having to explain,” Anouk said dryly.

“Anyway,” Viggo continued. “The rubies work only for witches. He must be safeguarding them for the Coven.”

“Then we can’t let the witches get them.” Anouk started after the hare, but Cricket grabbed her sleeve.

“We need to stop Sinjin first, before he goes to Big Ben to warn them!” She tugged Anouk in the direction of the loading-dock door, and Anouk dug in her heels.

Luc shoved between them. “Listen, we’ll split up. Beau, Hunter Black, you two go after Sinjin. Cricket, Anouk, catch the hare. I’ll stay here and stitch up Viggo.”

Beau’s eyes lit up with an idea. “Hunter Black, remember how we stopped that Pretty who tried to steal the Benz on the trip to Lisbon?”

Hunter Black’s mouth drew back in a grim smile. “Let’s go.”

The two of them disappeared in the same direction as Sinjin. Cricket prodded Anouk’s shoulder and handed her a bag of eucalyptus. “Take this.”

Anouk bristled. “I can’t use it. I lost my magic, remember?” It pained her to put it into words.

“Just hold it for me, okay? In case I lose my supply. Grab some of those white feathers too.”

Anouk shrugged off her jacket and hung it on the back of the throne for safekeeping, then followed Cricket as she weaved around the crates that formed a maze through the basement. It had only been a few hours since they’d woken up in the sarcophagi, and her limbs still felt stiff. The pizza was a lump of grease in her stomach. They darted past workrooms filled with specimens and half-constructed exhibits. They peered in boxes of dinosaur bones and checked behind ancient tapestries brought to the basement for cleaning. There was no sign of the hare. Cricket ran past a roped-off staircase, but Anouk grabbed her sleeve.

“Wait!” Anouk picked up a clump of fur that was stuck in a crack in the stairs. It shimmered with golden strands. “The rabbit must have gone up the stairs.”

“Good thing you have a knack for spotting dust.”

“Thanks. I think.”

They climbed over the velvet rope and up the stairs, then through a door that opened into the museum’s main entry. The overhead lights were off, and with the eternal night outside, not much light came through the glazed windows. A round ticket counter sat in the center, flanked by two curving staircases. An enormous banner hung from the ceiling and proclaimed: Special Exhibit Coming Soon: The Original Nutcracker Set Comes to London! Anouk grabbed a pamphlet that included a map.

Something creaked in another room.

“That was too loud to be a hare,” Anouk said darkly.

Cricket grimaced. “The dead?”

“I don’t want to find out.” Anouk bolted the basement door behind them, and they ran in the opposite direction, past a giant stone head and into the Early Greece wing. Shards of pottery and replicas of mosaic artwork were encased in glass displays, forming a maze that they navigated as fast as they could, searching under exhibits for the rabbit. They checked the World of Alexander, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Nereid Monument.

Another creak came from an adjacent room; it was followed by a scrape of stone, then a dry, hollow moan.

Cricket shuddered. “Let’s head upstairs. Hurry.”

They carefully checked around corners until they found a staircase and made their way to the second floor. Here were artifacts from Iran and ancient Mesopotamia, Anatolian and Assyrian tablets and pottery. A hum of magic emanated from some of the objects. Cricket eyed a carved bowl covetously, her long fingers twitching, but then something else caught her eye.

“Over there!”

She pointed to the entrance to an exhibit on the Heart of Alexandrite, a forty-five-carat color-changing gemstone rumored to be the most valuable jewel in the world. Anouk looked just in time to see a flash of gold fur. They chased the hare into the special-­collections room, where the walls were painted in all the hues that alexandrite could take on: purple, blue, yellow, green, pink. Heavy iron bars surrounded the glittering jewel. Security cameras pointed at it from every direction. They darted between informative panels after the hare.

“Rapi blok,” Cricket whispered.

The hare leaped into the next exhibit, the history of illuminated manuscripts, before her trapping spell could grab it. Cricket and Anouk raced to the end of the darkened room and then froze.

A few steps ahead of them, a shadow stretched across the floor in the light of the moon. It moved haltingly, dragging its feet like the flesh had long ago worn off the bones. The s