Midnight Beauties (Grim Lovelies 2)

Anouk looked just in time to see Hunter Black disappear through the department store’s revolving glass door. Petra aimed her hands toward him and whispered, “Dorma, sonora precimo!” But she wasn’t fast enough to put him to sleep before the door stopped spinning. If there was any place where it would be nearly impossible to find someone, it was Pickwick and Rue’s.

Cricket and December grabbed Anouk around the waist and helped her to stand.

“Wouldn’t the Noirceur compel him to go to Big Ben?” Cricket asked. “Or stop the teams who haven’t finished collecting all the clocks?”

Petra adjusted her champagne sunglasses. “There must be something in the store that the Noirceur wants.”

Anouk felt her stomach plummet. “Beau.”

December gasped, clapping her hands over her mouth. “Wait, why would he go after Beau?”

Anouk raked her nails over her scalp as she put it together. “Because there are still a few teams out in the city gathering clocks. They’re using Beau’s sight to do it. If they didn’t have the sight, they wouldn’t be able to finish. Hunter Black doesn’t have to stop every one of the Royals—?he only has to kill Beau to stop them all.”

December gasped again.

Cricket threw back her jacket to have better access to her knives. “What are we waiting for?”

Anouk, Cricket, and Petra ran toward the revolving door. December skated ahead of them and slammed into it first. They crammed into the same partition, a tangle of limbs, and pushed their way in. The door spat them out into the lobby with its beautiful spiral staircases and tables laden with delectable treasures. Anouk’s stomach turned at the too-sweet smells. A thick layer of frost covered the perfume cases. The escalators and elevators were frozen too.

“There!” Cricket spotted movement on the stairs to the second floor. Hunter Black moved like a rippling shadow past racks of men’s suits. Cricket cast a whisper to topple the racks and block his path, but Hunter Black dodged the first rack, leaped over the second, and disappeared deeper into the store.

“Merde!” Cricket cursed.

“We have to divide up,” Anouk said in a rush. “Petra, you and I’ll go after Hunter Black. I’ll take the second and third floors, you take the fourth and fifth. Cricket, you look for Viggo—?he doesn’t know Hunter Black is possessed, and he’s likely to do something stupid because, well, he’s Viggo. December . . .” She stopped short, frowning down at the Goblin’s skates. “You can’t go upstairs with those.”

December groaned. “I know! These awful skates! It takes a special word to unlock them. I wrote it down and then lost it somewhere in Piccadilly Circus.”

Anouk tried a few unlocking spells, but without the code word, they only sparked off the roller skates.

“We’re losing time,” Cricket warned.

“It’s okay,” December said. “I’ll stay on the ground floor and see if I can’t catch him with a few spells from here.”

Anouk nodded. “Try not to hurt him. He can’t be blamed for his actions when he’s possessed.”

Cricket looked ready to contradict that but then sighed. “Ugh, fine, you’re right. He’s family. A shunned cousin or something, but still family.” She spun on her heel and disappeared into the department store.

Petra went to the staircase and climbed to the fourth floor. December clambered down to her hands and knees and looked under the closest display table for spiders to swallow as life-essence.

Anouk scanned the different balconies. Everything was as perfectly still here as it was outside. There was no sign of movement. All the mannequins and mirrors only tricked her eyes into seeing things that weren’t there.

She took the stairs to the rear of the second floor, the children’s department. She pushed past prams and weaved between cribs and poked through piles of stuffed animals, but Hunter Black wasn’t hiding in them. She climbed to the third floor, Accessories, and made her way through the handbag department. The only other department store she’d ever been in was Galeries Lafayette back in Paris, and a saleswoman had escorted her the entire time. Now, alone, every shadow made her jump. She caught a flash of movement and spun, raising her hands in a protective gesture, but it was only her own reflection in a mirror. She let out a tight breath, turned, and jumped as her own face again peered at her. Mirrors were everywhere, tracking her sunken eyes and messy hair as she made her way among the handbags.

Each purse reminded her of a version of Mada Vittora’s oubliette. Balenciaga wallets, Valentino clutches, Diane von Furstenberg purses. A heavy Gucci suitcase suddenly fell from the highest shelf and she ducked as it crashed into a display of wallets. She caught a flash of movement that wasn’t in a mirror. Charcoal hair and a black shirt. Hunter Black! He darted across the handbag department and took cover behind a stack of designer backpacks. Her heart raced. She swallowed a pinch of feather and ran after him, but when she reached the backpacks, he’d vanished. She raced to the end of the shelves and turned the corner just in time to see him disappearing around a display of ties.

She ran past a row of disembodied wooden torsos wearing silk ties to an enormous display of hats. Hats with feathers, hats with faux flowers, hats with lace and ribbons, hats that looked like they’d swallow a person whole. It was unsettling, seeing all these bodiless mannequin heads.

Without warning, one of the racks behind her started swaying. She collapsed to her knees and rolled out of the way a second before it would have crushed her. Shaking, she pushed herself back to her feet.

Another flash of movement came from the New Arrivals section.

“Hunter Black!”

He was moving strangely, his steps lurching. Even after downing a full glass of gin, he’d always been sharp. But now something else was moving his body, and Anouk had to hope that the small lag could give her an edge.

She took a step backward, looking around. A heavy gold bracelet glittered on a mannequin. She tugged it off and threw it across the room. When Hunter Black spun toward the clatter it made, she took advantage of the distraction.

“Lancae!”