I freeze, not wanting to draw attention to myself by freaking out. I take a slow breath, paste a neutral smile on my face, and force my shoulders to relax. I need to get out of here.
At the next stop, I walk casually off the bus. As I step onto the concrete, I have that feeling again. I’m being watched. Kneeling down, I pretend to retie the laces on my Keds while watching to see if anyone else gets off with me.
The bus pulls away, and I’m alone on the sidewalk.
I stand, sucking in a deep breath. Whoever is sending the texts must be toying with me.
Luckily, I’m not far from the Lombard Gate entrance to the Presidio. As I walk toward the lush, wooded park, I decide that as soon as I find Thane—and convince him not to be a self-punishing moron—I will call my sisters and tell them about the texts.
Suddenly, being all alone in the city is a very scary thing.
CHAPTER 26
GRETCHEN
From the peak of Buena Vista Park, I can see and smell the entire Bay Area. If I want to get in a good sniff test to pinpoint the boss’s location in the city, I need the high elevation and the clear view. If he’s still in the area, I’ll be able to smell him from up here.
I only hope he is and that Nick is still with him.
I stand on my perch on the hill, close my eyes, and draw a deep breath in through my nostrils. I can smell Grace next to me. I never really noticed, but we have a bit of a distinctive smell, too. It’s not disgusting like the monsters—she doesn’t smell like burning flesh or sulfur or moldy bread—but something sweet, sugary, like the venom that runs through our fangs.
That fact might be useful in the future, in case I need to find my sisters. It’s like a built-in compass.
I can smell Sillus, too. He doesn’t smell nearly as sweet; more like sawdust and stale buttered popcorn.
Inhaling again, I smell beyond the immediate area. I seek out the boss’s unique scent. Drawing on olfactory memory, I can remember his odor perfectly—maybe too well: a repulsive mix of wet dog and decaying fish. I’ve never smelled anything like it before, so it shouldn’t be too hard to pick it out of the spectrum of smells that San Francisco has to offer.
Turning in a circle, I do a counterclockwise three-sixty sniff, covering every sector of the city. Not in Fisherman’s Wharf. Not in the Marina or the Presidio. Not in Golden Gate Park, Potrero Hill, or the Mission. I’m closing up the circle, sniffing over SoMa, heading for the financial district, when I catch the scent.
I open my eyes and find myself staring at the old harbor, a string of abandoned and abandoned-looking warehouse piers that used to manage most of the Bay Area imports before Oakland became the primary port.
“There,” I say, pointing across the city. “The boss is in there.”
Sillus claps.
“Okay,” Grace says. “Let’s go get him.”
“You can’t just burst inside,” Grace insists, wrapping a hand around my forearm as I start for the door of the rusty old building that is the source of the boss’s smell. “Trust me.”
With a determined look, she pulls me around to the side of the warehouse.
I shake my head and let her. She’s not usually this bossy, so I figure she must have a reason. When she starts up a stack of crates beneath a filthy window, I ask, “Grace, what are you—”
“Shhh!” She gives me a shut-the-heck-up look—I don’t think Grace is capable of swearing—and then waves me up the crate mountain.
When I get to the top, she points at the window and whispers, “Look.”
Why is she being so cryptic? I scowl at her before leaning forward to look inside.
“Bad,” Sillus says. “Big bad.”
“What the hell?”
The inside of the warehouse is wall-to-wall people and monsters and piles of stuff. The crates and boxes are covered with dust, and they look like they’ve been there for a decade or two. They’re probably not stockpiles of weapons, but anything is possible.
Besides the run-of-the-mill ranks of beasts—butt-ugly giants, dragons, hybrids, and every other creature in the bestiary—there is an absolute army of humans. They stand stock-still, utterly frozen in the middle of the room. There are so many of them that they have only a few inches of personal space in any direction. They are literally packed in like sardines.
“Greer and I came here when we were trying to capture a monster,” she whispers after scowling at me for my outburst. “We think they’re hypnotizing humans.”
“Obviously,” I say as I stare at row after row of zombie-like people. “There are so many.”
She nods. “I know. And there are even more now than before.”
“There must be hundreds.”
I knew that monsterkind was hypnotizing people in preparation for overrunning me and my sisters when we finally opened the door. I didn’t imagine they had accumulated quite so many.
And who knows if this is their entire collection of hypno-drones? They might have more hiding in other warehouses, on other piers. This is bad.
“We don’t have time for this right now,” I mutter. “We need to get in, get Nick”—if he’s here—“and get gone.”
Not bothering to scan the crowd below—Nick’s immune to my hypno powers, so I assume he’s immune to monster control, too—I search the perimeter of the space. The damn place is so cluttered, I wouldn’t see a bright orange Hummer if it was parked down there.
“Look,” Grace gasps, pointing inside at an elevated room at the top of a spiral staircase in the back of the warehouse. It looks like an office.
I squint to make out what’s inside. Through the open door, I see Nick tied to a chair. His body looks slumped, like he’s unconscious. My muscles tense and I feel the urge for a fight. It was one thing when
I quickly evaluate the logistics of the interior. There are no entrances immediately around the office, which means gaining access will take me straight through the middle of the hypno-horde and the monsters guarding them.
“How am I going to get him?”
“Huntress no go,” Sillus says. “Too many.”
“I’ll go,” Grace volunteers.
Is she crazy? “Um, no.”
“Not like that,” she says, giving me a stern look. “I can autoport in, grab Nick, and pop back out.”
“Pop, pop,” Sillus says.
I study Grace. She looks determined, like she’s excited to be able to do this, to use her powers this way. “You’re sure you can do this?”
“Yes.”
“Fine.” I glance inside at the ugly horde. “Get in, get out.”
Closing her eyes, she scrunches up her face in concentration. I’ve seen her do this before, but it’s still amazing to watch. One instant she’s here, and the next . . . she’s still here.
“Problem?” I ask.
Her eyes flash open. “I’m trying,” she says, looking around helplessly. “I’m focusing on the room, but it’s just not working.”
“Big magic.” Sillus presses his palm to the window, sending a ripple of glowing green waves across the glass. “Keep huntress out.”
