Midnight Beauties (Grim Lovelies 2)

Viggo seemed riveted. “I’m impressed. I have to admit, I gave us only a fifty-fifty chance of even surviving the mummies.”

More clocks appeared, pouring in from different neighborhoods, all accompanied by matching colored flashes.

The smoke was up to their waists now. Viggo coughed. “How much can we breathe before we’re poisoned?”

Anouk turned to the Genevar motorcycle parked outside of Pickwick and Rue’s. “I don’t know, but it’s time for me to take care of it.”

They’d tied an audio player on the back of the motorcycle with Hermès scarves from Pickwick and Rue’s and wired it to the motorcycle’s working engine. She jabbed her finger on the Play button. The Clash erupted from the speakers. Around her, the smoke swirled in tight little eddies that moved toward the sound. She braced herself before cranking the volume to 10.

The rock music blasted out the back of the speakers. She could feel the vibrations spreading up her legs, and the smoke must have felt it too, because the wisps curved sharply toward the motorcycle. Big thick billows of it floated toward them, rising around Anouk and Viggo, moving up to their chests. She could barely even see the motorcycle.

Viggo pressed his sleeve to his face, though a scrap of fabric wouldn’t protect anyone. “Godspeed, Dust Mop.”

“Thanks, Corkscrew.”

“Corkscrew?”

“If we’re naming each other after the household items we use most . . .”

Viggo snorted. He saluted her before returning to the department store. Anouk took a seat on the motorcycle, already feeling wobbly. She flicked the ignition on and set the clutch as Beau had taught her, then twisted the accelerator. The motorcycle lurched forward so suddenly that she let out a shriek. Damn Beau and his noble sacrifices. But as it roared ahead, she got it under control and aimed it in the direction of the river. Pellets of snow stung her face. The blaring music pounded behind her. In the silent city, The Clash’s beats reverberated against the tall buildings, booming back at her even louder.

When she dared a glance behind her, the black smoke was following in billows. It moved the way she imagined a sandstorm would, rising and falling in ominous waves. She swallowed a lump in her throat. She could feel the smoke at her back, moving faster than her. She bit her lip and cranked the motorcycle to its full speed, but the low layer of smoke ahead obscured the streets, and she was sure that any second she was going to collide with a curb or a bicycle and then be consumed by the smoke entirely. Her heart thundered.

She spotted Westminster Bridge and veered toward it sharply. The smoke rushed with her, rising in another awful wave, but as soon as she hit the bridge, the smoke fell off on either side, plunging into the frozen riverbed below.

“Et voilà!” she cried out.

She tore across the bridge, throwing glances at the river below. The smoke was gathering on the water, and as soon as she hit the other bank, it surged up in a twenty-foot wave behind her.

“Merde!”

She’d bought herself some time, but not much. She roared past the Lambeth North station and onto the A201. Here she could go faster, trusting that the street was wide enough that she was less likely to hit any objects hidden by low-lying smoke. Down every side street, she glimpsed fresh waves of smoke hurtling toward her, drawn to the pounding beats of the Clash. It rushed at her in twenty- and thirty-foot swells, spilling out into the wider highway. She cranked the engine. Sharp pellets of snow bit at her. Ahead, she caught a glimpse of green lights crackling like lightning. She was nearing the Westminster neighborhood, so it had to be Rennar performing the transference spell. She thought of the other teams spread throughout the city. The more noxious smoke that followed on her heels, the more likely it was that the others would succeed.

That was little comfort as she hit a roundabout, wasting precious time circling when the smoke didn’t have to obey traffic signals. It burst into the roundabout, clouding everything in sight. The full force of the wave slammed into Anouk and she coughed violently. Her throat burned. All she could see was smoke. Her eyes stung. It was so thick that the street completely disappeared beneath her. Pain throbbed in her throat and eyes and she thought of King Kaspar crying black tears. She revved the engine as hard as she could and burst out of the dense smoke and back onto the A201.

She swerved sharply to avoid a city bus frozen in the middle of the road.

Her hands were shaking. She was pretty sure she’d screamed a time or two, but she couldn’t hear anything between the blasting Clash and the pounding blood in her head.

She just had to make it to Gravesend. Twenty miles from the city center, Gravesend was a port where the Thames joined the start of the ocean. There, outside of the city limits, it wouldn’t be snowing. The world wouldn’t be frozen. Everything would be untouched by witches and Royals alike. If she could get the radio onto a boat—?something viciously loud, like a barge—?the smoke would follow it toward the North Sea, where it would dissipate into the vast wide-open air, diluted enough to be harmless.

The Genevar tore through Southwark, past a golf course plunged in shadows, past a sprawling grocery store with its lights lit, even though the people in the parking lot were frozen. Flashes of red light appeared in buildings on either side of the street. The Crimson Court was in Southwark. That was their magic, flashing block by block, as they cleared out the clocks. She adjusted her rearview mirror and instantly regretted it.

The smoke was now a tidal wave behind her, towering fifty feet and rushing fast as it gained more volume. Sweat broke out on her brow. She leaned in to the curves on the highway. The motorcycle was already going as fast as it could. She narrowed her eyes against the stinging snow. With a curse, she twisted the mirrors around so she couldn’t see the dark wave behind her.

A tiny flicker of hope hit her as she neared the city limits. Snow was barely falling here. The Pretty World was beginning to move again, though sluggishly. Once she crossed onto the A2, the snow stopped completely, and shockingly, the world went from night to day in the blink of an eye. A bright sun hung in the sky. Cars were moving beside her at normal speeds. A station wagon carrying a large family. A couple kissing in the back seat of a taxi. Didn’t they see the ti

dal wave of smoke behind her? None of these Pretties knew about the plagues just across the city line in London, where it was eternal night. They didn’t know that their fates rested in the hands of a witch on a motorcycle.

She roared forward amid honking horns and swerving cars, and then there it was: Gravesend. The river. Ahead, a bridge spanned the port, and she searched the ships until she saw a barge about to depart. She skidded onto the bridge and slammed on the brakes in the very middle. The barge below was headed toward her. She pulled out a knife and freed the audio player and then hurled it over the bridge as the barge passed underneath; it caught in some of the machinery. The wave of smoke swerved to follow the music. She shrieked and covered her head as the smoke rolled toward her, but at the last moment it diverted sharply to the barge below, trailing the ever-more-distant sounds of The Clash.

She collapsed against the motorcycle, breathing hard. Cars honked and swerved around her.

“You’re welcome,” she cried out, though no one could hear her above the traffic, “for saving all your lives!”

She drew in a few deep breaths of wonderfully fresh air and leaned back against the motorcycle. Closed her eyes. Tried to calm her heart. And then groaned and stood up.

London awaited.