Sweet Legacy

Grace deflates. “Shoot.”

“Looks like we’re doing this the old-fashioned way.”

If only I knew how. I can book it with the best of them, but here I need to make it through the crowd of creatures and back again—with a Nick-sized dead weight over my shoulder. Maybe there’s another way in.

Dipping down, I look up at the ceiling: nope, no skylights. I won’t be rappelling down into the warehouse. There goes that possibility.

“If I can distract them,” Grace muses, her voice distant, “how fast can you get to him and get out?”

I don’t question how she intends to distract them. After a quick mental calculation—seven seconds to run across the floor and three up the stairs, five to cut Nick loose, and twenty-five to carry his limp body down the stairs and back across the floor—I say, “Forty seconds, give or take.”

Grace nods. “If we can find the electrical panel, I can give them something else to think about for a minute or two.”

“Good,” I reply. “Let’s find it, then.”

Sillus climbs back to ground level ahead of us.

“Oh, one other thing,” Grace says as she follows me down the stack of crates. “You might have to do it in the dark.”

No problem. If Nick’s life depends on it, I could do it blindfolded, with both hands tied behind my back and an Indos Worm wrapped around my ankles. I guess that sums up how I feel about him.

Now I just have to rescue him so I can tell him—in slightly more straightforward terms.

“Now, there might be a few sparks,” Grace says as she pulls open the electrical panel near a side door to the warehouse. She smiles at me. “That’ll be your cue to go.”

I nod and, just because I feel the urge, give her a quick hug.

“Thanks,” I say.

She squeezes me back. “You’d do the same for me.”

She’s right; I would. In a heartbeat.

“Go,” she says. “Get ready.”

I move into position next to the door. A twist of the handle confirms my suspicion that it would be locked. I give Grace the agreed-upon hand signal, and she nods, waiting for me to deal with the lock before proceeding with her distraction.

There might be more elegant ways to defeat a locked door, but I only know one.

Once this war is over, I definitely need to acquire some lock-picking skills.

Pulling a dagger out of my boot, I slide it between the door and the jamb, moving it down the crack until it connects with the shaft of the bolt. I hold the blade steady with one hand, angling down into the door, and then slam my palm into the end of the hilt.

The dagger jolts down halfway. One more palm to the hilt and the blade swings free, the deadbolt shaft severed in half. There are some definite advantages to super strength.

I smirk at the thought that this door will never lock again. The monsters will have to either repair or relocate.

Turning to Grace, I give her the thumbs-up.

She turns her attention to the electrical panel. I resheathe my dagger and then wait, hand on the doorknob, for her next signal. Seconds later, she squeals as the panel erupts in a spray of sparks.

Inside, the fire alarm roars to life, pounding out an ear-splitting siren.

“Okay, go!” she shouts.

But I’m already gone.

Inside, the main lights are out, but the faint glow of emergency backups is more than enough to illuminate my path. Enough to see the hypnotized human army staying utterly—and creepily—still while the monsters around them erupt in chaos.

No one notices me as I sprint from the broken door, through the field of human statues, to the spiral staircase. I climb three steps at a time, making it to the top winded, but in three seconds—right on my estimate.

Pulse pounding, I scan the office as I run through the door, finding it empty except for Nick.

“Nick,” I bark as I spin his chair around and lift a dagger to the rope. “Wake up!”

He doesn’t even groan.

Sawing through the ropes takes several seconds more than I guessed. My heart races faster the longer I take. I’ve just cut through the last rope when the alarm stops.

I curse. “Nick, Nick, come on.”

I shove my dagger back into my boot as I haul him up out of the chair, ducking down so I can heft him onto my shoulder. Fine. I can do this.

I turn to leave.

“Going somewhere, huntress?” the boss asks, an ugly smirk on his ugly dog face.

The weapon in his flipper—what looks like a pistol that’s been modified so he can fire it without fingers— stops me more than the two Cacus bodyguards at his back.

“Thought I’d take this off your hands,” I say, nodding at Nick. “You have so much on your plate already, what with the plans for monster world takeover and everything. You should be thanking me.”

His face contorts with what I think is rage.

Odds are not in my favor. With Nick over my shoulder, I’m not agile or nimble. I can’t reach my daggers. I can’t get the smoke bombs from my left pocket or the flash bombs from the right. All I have is my wit, and that only seems to make him angry.

“Oh, I do thank you, huntress,” the dog boss says, “for walking right into my trap.”

I shrug one shoulder. “I do what I can.”

“Boys,” the boss says, nodding at his bodyguards.

They step around him, reaching for—

An explosion rocks the entire building. The boss stumbles back, and his bodyguards, caught off-balance, tumble to the ground.

I can only hope this is the second wave of Grace’s distraction plan.

I don’t hesitate.

Securing my arm around Nick’s waist, I leap over the guards and knock into the boss on my way to the staircase. I’m a third of the way down when I see the boss fall past me, landing on the concrete floor below with a sickening crunch.

Then I’m sprinting across the floor, toward the door that Grace is holding open. Sillus is sitting on her shoulders, waving at me to run faster.

“What was that?” I ask as I blow through.

“You were behind schedule,” she says, panting but keeping pace next to me as we sprint down the pier. “Figured you could use some help, so I blew the transformer.”

There’s no time to maneuver Nick into a car seat.

As I pop Moira’s trunk, I give Grace a grateful smile. “Thanks.”

Before she can answer, Sillus is in the back, Nick is secured, and Grace and I are speeding away from the warehouse. I watch in the rearview mirror as the boss’s bodyguards come chasing after us. I floor the gas and leave them breathing my exhaust.

With adrenaline filling my bloodstream, it’s no wonder I’m driving a bit wild. Grace is gripping her seat belt with both hands, knuckles white, with a frightened look on her face. I take a quick survey of our surroundings and realize that we’re on a direct path to the most tourist-dense part of town.

It’s as good a place as any to get lost for a minute.

I cut left on Market and then merge right onto Geary. Barely stopping to snatch a parking ticket from the gate, I speed into the garage beneath Union Square Park.

When I cut the engine, I release a breath I think I’ve been holding since we squealed away from the pier. Grace releases the death grip on her seat belt.

Without waiting for her to make some comment about my driving, I jump out of the car and run around to