told us that the White Lady wants ol’ Pete in trade.”
“We won’t get caught,” Piotr soothed. His vision was fluttering wildly and he was staring at the spot where Elle was standing, hoping against hope that she wouldn’t move and leave him addressing empty air. “Wendy’s destroyed hundreds of Walkers in the past three months. A few weeks ago you yourself were saying how few we’ve seen lately. How many could she have left? Ten? Twelve? Between your skills and Wendy’s abilities, cornering the White Lady and discovering what she did with the rest of the Lost will be simple.”
“Says you! You just said that all the White Lady really wants is your head on a platter. What’s it to Wendy here if one more ghost goes toes up if she gets her fall guy home? Or her momma? Who, by the way, just happens to be Lightbringer
In the corner Wendy stifled a strangled snarl; her lips were pressed tightly together, her eyes narrowed and blazing. Elle smirked at the reaction.
“Stop the insults, please,” Piotr pleaded. “Eddie’s…nice…and I’d like to get his soul back just as much as Wendy would. It’s not just Eddie; it’s Wendy’s mother and our Lost too, can’t you see that? There’s more at stake here than just your wounded pride, Elle. We promised to protect the Lost. Let’s go do that.”
She snorted, turning her face away. “I’ve had an earful, Pete. I still think this one’s taking you for a ride.”
“Perhaps,” Piotr said evenly. “But it may bring Dora back, and I think that’s a risk I’m willing to take. What about you?”
Elle considered them in silence for several seconds before answering. “Maybe Pocahontas has a point about revenge being best served chilly. If nothing else, I ain’t exactly keen on you walking into Walker central with only this piker at your back. She’s likely to shiv you when you ain’t looking. So I’m in. But only till we get the Lost out. Then it’s back to sixes and sevens with us. You copasetic with that?”
Sighing in annoyance, Piotr threw up his hands. “Thank you!”
“You’re welcome!”
“Lily? James?”
They glanced at one another. “We’re in,” James said, tucking his hands behind his head. “But I’m not working with the death dealer. She goes on another team.”
“Great,” Piotr said, almost laughing with relief. He had expected a much tougher fight from James; the fact that he’d accepted so readily meant that he saw the necessity of them sticking together. “All for one and one for all? We have but four hours until sunset. Let us figure out a game plan.”
“I’ll scout ahead,” James offered. “Meet you at the edge of the business district in two hours?”
“Sounds good,” Piotr agreed readily and stripped the dagger from his belt. “Take this for protection. Be careful.”
“Always am,” James said, tucking the dagger into a rough loop secured at his waist. “Keep an eye on Lily for me.” Then he was gone.
“So talk,” Elle commanded, jerking her chin at Wendy. “What’s the plan?”
Wendy waited for Piotr to nod, releasing her from her promise, before she began speaking. “I went to the Palace Hotel two years ago for one of Chel’s cheer camps. I’m not really much for the rah-rahs so I had time to explore. I took the tour and everything. The Palace is
Wendy held up a hand and started ticking off points. “A king and a president both kicked the bucket there. A couple murders, a couple suicides, nothing any other hotel wouldn’t have, but San Francisco’s a mighty dramatic place. Death, excitement, romance—you name it, it’s happened right there, or at least in the area. So that hotel isn’t just an emotional hot zone, it’s an emotional war zone.”
“I am unfamiliar with this area of town. What does this mean?” Lily asked.
“It means that, since the Palace Hotel was hit by the earthquake of 1906 and the subsequent fires dropped the original building to the ground, it’s been built from the ground up at least twice, not counting all the renovations. Blood, sweat, tears, frustration—emotions, Lily, and lots of them, from the residents of the area who had to put up with the noise, from the contractors building the place, and from tourists. Also, the business district grew up around it, so not only do you have the emotional insanity of all that happened inside the building itself and the layers of renovation emotion, you have all that business-related angst surrounding it. Like a big boiler, over a century of human living simmering on high.”
“Yeah, so?” Elle rolled her eyes and twirled her hand in a hurry-it-up gesture.
“That means the White Lady trapped herself. Yes, she picked a powerful place to set up shop, but there’s also the little fact that the Palace Hotel is still in business today. And it’s popular. That means the White Lady can’t send Walkers all over the building—even if they don’t mind crowds anymore, they’d still get badly burned. Because the building is so old and has such an emotional history, no one—not just us, not just her, none of you—can just walk through some thin spot on the Never side. I’ve been down there; those walls are rock solid in the Never. No ghost could pass through. You have to take the hallways just as if you were living.”
“So she must be lurking someplace in the building where not a lot of people go or would be expected to go,” Piotr theorized. “The attic or basement?”
“Exactly. Which means if we can keep her Walkers away, we’ve got her trapped. We can force her to tell us where she’s keeping the Lost.”
“Holy crow, the piker’s got a good plan,” Elle said, stunned and musing. “I was thinking that going down there’s gonna be like storming Little Bighorn, ’cept our head squaw’s a pill this time around.” She glanced at Lily’s irritated expression and rolled her eyes. “Oh dry up, Pocahontas, it ain’t like you were there. ’Sides, your guys won that one.”
“Piotr and I will take the north entrance,” Wendy continued, ignoring the animosity between Lily and Elle. “Elle, you should go with James to the south side, Lily, take the west. It’ll be strictly divide and conquer: if you see a Walker, put them down. If there are two, try to lure one away or ambush them. If you have to, run for it.”
“We are leaving the east side unattended?” Lily frowned, strapping her matching daggers to the loops she’d wrapped around each wrist. “I do not feel this is wise.”
“I’ll take the east,” Elle said. Hopping up, she gathered a supply of ghostly weapons—her bow, several bundles of arrows, and a wicked looking dagger that hung from her hip nearly to her knee. “I’m sure baby James can handle a few widdle Walkers without me.”
“It’s a good plan,” Piotr said when it seemed Wendy would protest. He squeezed her hand meaningfully, glancing at the vast array of weapons Elle was strapping on. “She’s tiny, but Elle can handle her own, I promise. Spare some steel, Elle?” Piotr held up a hand and Elle kicked a much smaller dagger in his direction.
“Okay if you say so,” Wendy said, accepting Piotr’s advice without question. “We don’t have much time until sunset. Let’s do this.”
Piling into her father’s car accompanied by the ghosts, Wendy had to turn the heater on full blast to counteract the frigid cold buffeting her. Traveling from the pier to the hotel would have taken little time had they boarded a Muni train, but Wendy wanted an easy getaway. It was her bad luck that rain-slick Embarcadero Street was blocked off due to an accident. Her bad luck held: Wendy struck west, eventually turning onto Mason, where traffic kept them locked at a snail’s pace for nearly thirty minutes. Dodging trolleys wasn’t Wendy’s strong suit.
By the time they spotted James at the edge of the Financial District, standing helpfully near a miraculously empty parking spot along the road, Wendy was frazzled and irritated—Elle had kept up a stream of snide insults about Wendy’s driving the entire way from the pier. When Piotr’s hand dropped on her shoulder, Wendy had had it. She jerked away and glared fiercely, uncaring that it was Piotr who was receiving her ire.
“Is it just me or are those new?” Piotr asked. He pointed up and Wendy blinked in confusion. At first she couldn’t see what the fuss was about—part of her thought that perhaps he was having a joke at her expense—and then she spotted the fine interlocking mesh high above, the thin wires of spiritual energy blanketing the Financial District in an effervescent web that filled the sky. Fear rolled in her gut; Wendy’s fury drained away.
“Spirit webs.”
“Spirit webs,” Piotr agreed. “Thousands of them.”
“Traps for the unwary,” Lily said. “Snares for the rabbits among us. Look.”
At the roof level, over two dozen Shades hung by ankle and wrist, some twisted into mummified shapes by the essence-draining webs, some stripped down to their very bones. All were cocooned by the webs, each one
