Grim Lovelies (Grim Lovelies 1)

One dived off the cresting, talons aimed for her eyes. She dropped the watering can, jumped in the car, and slammed the door hard just as the crow collided with the window.

Beau hit the locks.

In the car. Safe. Looking out the windshield at the crows. Another one landed on the hood ornament. One pecked viciously at the door handle. Whispers filtered through the air vents, speaking in no earthly language. “They’ve seen into the windows,” she said. “They know she’s dead. They’ll follow us.”

“Like hell they will.”

The car roared to life beneath Beau’s hands. Anouk clutched the edges of her seat. She twisted to look behind them. The crows were taking wing and swooping down from the rooftops toward them.

“Beau, go!”

He jammed his foot down on a pedal and the car tore into the street. Anouk struggled to keep sight of the birds. Dozens of them glided on the night air, dodging street signs and trees with ease.

“They’re everywhere,” Anouk breathed.

Beau glanced in the rearview mirror. His face was grim, but there was a confidence in the way he gripped the wheel. He turned down a one-way street, sharply. Anouk’s fingers clutched the leather seat harder. It felt like the car was hurtling impossibly fast. He whipped the wheel again, and there was a squeal of brakes. For a second, the skies were clear, and her grip eased. But then the flock of birds appeared over the nearest roof.

“They’re still coming!”

The crows weren’t limited by streets and traffic signals. They could soar over trees and houses, travel from one city block to the next in seconds. Beau didn’t take his eyes off the street, curving sharply around a closed brasserie on the corner, red-and-white awning folded for the night and chairs stacked beneath it. He pressed harder on the gas and they zipped past closed-up shops, then turned onto a cobblestone alley so narrow the side mirrors nearly scraped the buildings, the car bouncing violently. Anouk’s heart clattered in her throat with each jolt. We’ll be okay, she told herself. I made a wish. We’ll be safe. We’ll make it . . .

Something thunked on the car roof, and she shrieked. The sound of hundreds of flapping wings came from somewhere overhead, along with sharp caws and chilling low whispers l

ike a swarm of bees. Another sharp beak pecked at the roof of the car hard enough that it dented the metal ceiling.

Beau spun the car onto another street, still accelerating. How fast were they going? Eighty kilometers an hour? Ninety? They sped past a bar with thumping music and flashing lights and writhing dancing bodies. Past a supermarket with all its lights on, blindingly bright. And then the car shuddered and the sound of the road changed. Anouk pressed her face to the glass. A bridge. They were driving over the Seine. From here, she could see a wide stretch of the city. Buildings reflecting in the water, and a tower—?a soaring metal structure that curved into a point. Hundreds of tiny lights on it, shimmering like champagne bubbles. Her breath fogged the glass.

The Eiffel Tower.

But as beautiful as it was, a dark shadow on the water stole her gaze—?a black cloud of flapping wings.

The car shuddered again when the bridge ended. Other drivers were honking at Beau, yelling out their windows as he whipped around them, darting in and out of traffic. The Eiffel Tower disappeared behind clouds. Beau drove faster, taking sharp turns, and her stomach objected. The world was moving too fast. Too many sounds, too many sights. The smell of Mada Vittora’s blood on her clothes.

Anouk leaned forward in the seat, covering her mouth with her hands.

“It’ll be okay, Anouk.” Beau gripped the wheel tighter. “I can lose them. I was made for this. To drive.”

She shut her eyes. As the car raced along the dark streets of Paris, it was all she could do not to throw up on the polished silver trim of the Rolls-Royce’s floor.

* * *

“You can open your eyes now,” Beau said. “We’ve lost them.”

Anouk slowly opened one eye, then the other. The world beyond the windshield had gone strangely dark, not the thin black of night, but closed in by some sort of monstrous scales. A loud but rhythmic whoosh-whoosh surrounded them as the scales moved back and forth.

On closer inspection, she saw that the scales were made of the same plastic material as her mop.

“We’re in a car wash near the Porte de Clichy,” Beau said. “We have seven, maybe eight minutes until the rinse cycles are done.” He gave a shrug. “I couldn’t think of any other place to hide.”

She nodded. This was all Beau knew—?the world of cars. The brushes helped. They closed off that terrifyingly big world. Water rained down on the windshield like a spring shower, and she felt like she was back in her turret bedroom during a good hard storm. She breathed in the comforting smell of cleansers.

“We lost the crows?”

Beau ran his hand over the steering wheel fondly. “I told you I could drive.”

She cocked her head, looked at him a bit differently. Her whole life, he’d been like a brother to her, the kind who teased her about dust bunnies. She’d never seen this side of him: confident behind the wheel, dangerously fast. What else didn’t she know about him?

The brushes outside swayed in their rhythmic dance back and forth.