I shoved Michael backward along the slick floor and scrabbled back myself, shouting, “It’s not Will! Run, Michael!”

Michael lay where I’d pushed him, staring in horror at the un-bleeding, mutilated hand. A hand made of something dark and solid and definitely not human flesh.

Stuck between Michael and the not-Will thing, I took another swipe with the knife at the creature. It ignored the blade once again, stabbing a handful of light at me that jammed into my shoulder. I jumped back, right into Michael as he struggled to his feet, clutching the counter for support.

I stumbled and ducked, using the maneuver to scoop my purse up from the floor where it had fallen. Then I swung around fast and smacked the heavy leather bag into the creature’s face.

It stumbled back a step.

I grabbed Michael’s shoulder and hauled him all the way to his feet. “Get the hell out of here!”

Dazed, he lumbered out of the kitchen as I turned back to the monstrous thing, which was now coming forward again. My shoulder burned and I dug my fingers into the ache, not taking my eyes off the not-Will, and hooked my fingers into the energy that had lodged there like a broken blade. I yanked it out and felt it ravel away. Then the thing lurched at me.

I slashed the knife at the first thing that came toward me and saw one forearm fall away. But that didn’t slow it any more than losing the fingers had. It wasn’t losing blood, just substance, and it didn’t seem to care. The arm on the floor writhed, though the chopped fingers had stopped wriggling and were turning a chalky brick red color.

It was some kind of golem—like the thing I’d seen in White Horse Alley but full-sized—and it would keep on coming for me so long as it held together. So I’d have to take it apart and hope the smaller pieces would die off faster. I chopped at the other arm, at the neck and face. Bits fell away. I jammed the knife into its chest and ripped a hollow in the unreal flesh. Something fluttered to the ground. I stooped and swung at the legs, taking a chunk out near one knee as I scooped up the fallen object.

The thing lurched sideways and kept coming. But it was slower. I rose, threw the knife into the wreck of its face, and whirled to bolt.

Right into Michael’s chest as he stared from the hallway. I grabbed his arm and propelled him around. “Run, damn it!”

“It’s—it’s. it’s not bleeding!”

“Damn right it isn’t! It’s a golem. It doesn’t bleed! It just keeps coming until it falls down! Go!” I added, shoving him forward.

He stumbled and began running down the corridor to the stairs. I was right behind him, stuffing the stiff bit of paper I’d snatched from the kitchen floor into my pocket.

We raced down the two flights to the ground floor and burst out into the courtyard. I heard someone scream behind us and looked back to see the shambling horror that had counterfeited Will Novak pursuing us as one of the neighbors stared after it.

“It’s still coming!” Michael gasped.

“And we’re still running!”

But the golem wasn’t the only problem.

As we dashed out onto the street, hot columns of red energy erupted along the street and the ghosts of London turned to look at us. Then they screamed.

I remembered that whatever the golem saw, the man at the other end saw, too. And that man was Will. If he were under duress he’d tell whoever had him exactly what he saw. So whoever controlled the golem knew where we were right now. I forced my mind into escape mode: We’d gotten out of the flat, but we still had to lose the backup crew. Or I had to. They could have had Michael anytime, so it wasn’t him they wanted—but I wasn’t going to abandon Will’s brother to whatever force was chasing us, and not just because dumping Michael would give them another lever to use against me. I liked Michael and I wanted both Novak brothers safe.

As we ran down the road toward the teeming bustle of Trafalgar Square, spikes of vampiric color darted from the buildings nearby and sped toward us: cat’s-paws and demi-vampires—the daylight assistants and slaves to things like Edward. And they were coming after us.

“Who are those guys?” Michael panted.

“Villains,” I shouted, grabbing his hand and pulling him along. I kept more than half my sight tuned to the Grey, looking for holes in their net and bolting through them, twisting through their perimeter. I hauled Michael along, not sure which way to turn as I saw another group of red flares go up among the crowds below Nelson’s Column, between the fountains in the open plaza of Trafalgar Square.

I spat a curse.

“What?”

“More. In the square, around the fountains,” I panted.

“How do you know?”

“I just do!”

“C’mon,” he yelled, jerking me sideways.

We paralleled the square and dodged through a tribe of red buses, bumping through tourists to cross the next street, jinking into a wide alley and across another open courtyard. Steps. We leapt down them and flew across another wide avenue with a huge building—a columned horseshoe of white marble—on our left and another open space ahead.

“Where are we going?” I shouted.

“Horse Guards. St. James’s Park.”

“Parks aren’t good! Too open!”

“Crowds, museums on the other side. Westminster Abbey, the Tube, the bridges, lots of ways out. ”

I followed Michael’s lead and we sprinted down into Horse Guards Parade, an open, paved area between the road and another big white building on the left with some kind of soldiers’ memorial and the ponds of St. James’s Park on the right.

A large group of ghostly horsemen cantered along the road in an orderly square while a milling crowd of tourists wandered obliviously around the green. We cut across the park, through the thick stands of trees along the southern edge. Our pursuers were falling behind. But the ghosts among the trees turned to follow us with their eyes, and those that had any will at all screamed as we passed. The vampire minions shifted to follow the sound.

“They’re still coming!” I yelled, running across a bridge over a swan-dotted pond with Michael now in tow.

“Who? How?”

We dashed off the bridge, and Michael started left as I started right. The ghosts turned toward him and shouted.

I grabbed him and hauled him toward the gurgling song of the Thames. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel its rolling presence in the Grey.

“It’s you,” I panted. “They’re tracking you. You have something. on you. ”

“I’ve got nothing!”

“Keys, pocket change, bus tokens! Anything Will gave you in the past week!”

We dove out of the park, crossing a road with wide sidewalks and into a narrow defile of stairs.

“St. James’s Tube!” Michael shouted, pointing diagonally right through the buildings beside us.

We stumbled out of the stairs and down a street. I yanked Michael to a stop near a statue of Queen Anne at the intersection, our trackers momentarily behind and blinded by the buildings.

“Empty your pockets.”

Wide eyed, winded, Michael turned the pockets of his jeans inside out, letting everything fall to the pavement. In the pile was a gleaming rectangle of blue and white plastic. I kicked it with my toe.

“Get the rest. Leave that.”

“But—”

“Now!”

He snatched the keys, his wallet, and change from the ground and shoved them back in his pockets, staring at me as if I’d just confirmed I was totally insane.

“C’mon!” I ordered, pulling him around the corner and into the nearest doorway. I pressed him back and we both peered out.

The local spirits stared toward the lonely bit of plastic and screeched as if in pain. A pair of red-crowned men ran down into the intersection and stopped below Anne’s statue, stymied, looking around until one of them spotted the thing on the pavement. I would have sworn the statue glowered at him, though it didn’t move an inch.