"You're a nasty little man," I said. "And I'm getting pretty tempted to give your nasty little groin a kick."

"Blood," he reminded me, and then leaned over and licked up the side of my neck. "Ohhh. Fresh is so much better than scattered all over a courtroom."

I shied away, my stomach jigging violently. Nielsen clapped her hands. "Bentley! I hardly think Ms. Swann is your type. Get her moving. I'll get the children."

We frog-marched into the next room, another low round hump under the earth, bricked over and slimy with mold and plant growth. "Where are we?" I demanded.

"China tunnels," Bentley said. When I looked blank he heaved a sigh. "Sailors get shanghaied? For ships in port? They took them through here. It lets out at the harbor. After that, it was girls and bootlegging until the Hex Riots closed the old sewer system down. Now it's just us down here, and a few ghosts."

He pulled a switch to an overhead lamp, and I let out a yelp.

Matthew's body lay on the floor.

I shied away from it, quivering, and Bentley laughed. "Don't act so scared. That's just the original. The improved model is alive and well. You met him at the party last night."

"I… I did?" The prosecutor's body was bloated from the damp, and a fine spray of mold had crept from the corners of his nose and mouth. A congealed red-black gash in his neck spoke to his last moments at Bentley's hands.

"You did," Nielsen agreed. "And I must say, he was quite taken with you."

"He's got three more days, maximum," Bentley reminded her in a bored tone. "And that blood in the rotter there isn't going to be any good for a new spell."

Nielsen strolled across the room like she was on a runway and kicked at the body with the toe of her Jimmy Choo. "Hm. You're right. Fortunately, I think I can convince Judge Battleaxe to declare a mistrial. What with the bombing and all. Matthew won't have to show up in public much longer. And then a car crash, I think. Tragic, nothing drunken or debauched. A fire to destroy all the exterior spell markings."

"Oh, dear gods!" I exclaimed, my voice bouncing off the bricks. "You're replacing people with your glamour constructs! That's disgusting!"

"The shoe drops," said Nielsen. "We like to keep them alive, but Matthew here was untenable. He gave Bentley quite a fight."

Leaving me to chew over that, Nielsen went to an intercom box on the wall and snapped, "Get down here. We're all waiting on you."

Bentley herded the children around the perimeter of the room, and then jerked my shackles, bringing me to the center. I looked down at the black paint traveling over the floor. I was in the center of an enormous working circle.

Terrific.

An ancient pulley-operated elevator groaned to a stop, and three of the vapid socialites I recognized from the party last night—tonight? I had lost all sense of time underground—stepped out, clad in plain white cotton pants and tunics, with bare feet. It was all very Jonestown. I hoped the Kool-Aid was cold.

"Bentley." Nielsen snapped her fingers, and her little toady scurried forward with three vials of blood.

"What on the Hexed black earth are you planning?" I asked Nielsen. She wagged her finger at me.

"Now, now, Miss Swann. I know better than to spell and tell."

"Oh, you are too cute. I might vomit," I muttered. Bentley shoved me to my knees in the center of the circle.

Nielsen carefully lifted the emerald off her neck and set it to one side. I felt the magick in the room spike—Bentley's tainted blood-fueled power, Nielsen's hard, glittering brand of caster magick, and the children, every one of them, bright as candle flames in the dark. The three puppets waiting patiently at the edge of the paint ring had a few echoes, nothing special—just enough to hold down a charm or two.

Neilsen pulled a sleek ivory caster from her pocket and held it, turning it concentrically in her fingers. She started to pull down power and it lay over me like a wet wool blanket, hard to breathe, musty with the edge of deceit in her workings.

"I see the future," she said. "I see what should be. Do you see?"

"We do," the three at the edge returned. Nielsen cracked an eye.

"Children, what do we say to Ginger?"

"We see for you," they chorused unevenly. Their concentration sharpened, poured into her power well. Those poor kids. One of them swayed and fainted. Bentley scurried over and slapped him awake.

Nielsen unstoppered the blood vials and dipped her finger into each one, smearing it down her face. "I take the power to shape the world to what I see," she said. "I take it now."

One by one, the three witches came forward and let Nielsen anoint their heads. The air around them shimmered as the glamour fought with reality, bruise-purple. I shivered. Blood and caster magick should never combine like this. It was filthy.

"Gets you going, doesn't it?" Bentley hissed. "Imagine what I did with your blood, Glinda."

"Go Hex yourself," I hissed back at him.

The witches groaned and cried out as the glamour took hold, and their bodies changed. One grew tall and bulging like Fisk, the defense attorney, one turned into a prison guard in a uniform, and one turned into Trotter.

Nielsen stepped back, lowering her caster and surveying her work. "You'll do." She passed the guard a keycard. "That will get you into the ad-sec wing at Los Altos. Make sure to keep your face out of the cameras."

"Yes, ma'am," said the witch in a high female voice. Nielsen sighed, and I felt her power spike again. The glamours cemented, all the little details sliding into place—bags under the eyes, messy hair, suits missing a cuff button.

Nielsen was good. Too bad she was such a bitch.

She turned back to me. "We'll just freshen you up, Miss Swann, and then we'll be done here."

Whether or not Done here ended with me lying next to poor Matthew, she didn't give away. I decided that I couldn't let her get to that point. Bentley produced a knife, sliding the blade open and locking it. "You were tough, I want you to know," Nielsen said. "Not only looking right, but smelling right. You and that stupid mangy cousin of yours."

"Gee, I'm so glad I provided a challenge for you," I said, shying from Bentley's blade. "My biggest ambition in life, you know." I was going to have one shot at this, while the magick was up and I had to make it count. Fortunately, I needed only a little, hardly enough for an ego case like Nielsen to notice.

I pulled the magick down to me, feeling it spiral from my forehead down to my fingers. I shut my eyes and thought about locks. Bentley grabbed my wrist and exposed the underside, the veins, and I felt the swoop of air as the knife came down.

Locks. Open. My locks. How I wished I'd paid more attention to Luna…

Focus. The pin, the tumbler, the latch. The magick found the mechanisms of the handcuffs, struggled in amongst them—gods, I wished I had the kind of memory Luna did for details—and formed my magick into a key.

The shackles snapped open and I let go, twisting in Bentley's grip and bringing my other fist around to whack him right below the belt buckle. It wasn't the kick I'd wanted, but it would do.

He let go of me, air singing out of him. The knife dropped. Nielsen reached for her necklace instead of her magick. I wasn't about to tell her that if she'd just pulled down more power, she could have dropped me. She was stronger and a hell of a lot more skilled.

I let her grab for the spell-jammer instead. I was too busy running.

Up the elevator, the pulleys groaning as I hit the lever and set them free, down a maze of hallways through the Hanover house, and out onto the street.

Bluish morning, the sun not quite up yet. Cars and delivery vans poking through the street. I ran into the middle of the road and flapped my arms like a lunatic, attracting the attention of the nearest van driver. "You okay, sweetie?" he called.