hurry up and get your ass over this wall then,’ Cyrus answered.
‘Hang on,’ said Jamieson, vanishing in a dazzling golden spray. A monkey appeared on the sidewalk in front of them.
‘No, that’s subtle,’ Cyrus remarked. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Wait,’ Flic shushed him.
In the next instant Jamieson – or rather the monkey - had swung himself up onto the top of the wall. It then shimmered and Jamieson reappeared, straddling the top of the wall, grinning at them lopsidedly.
‘That was fun,’ he said, reaching a hand down to Flic. She took it and he hauled her up.
Cyrus scaled the wall without help, his hands finding grips as though he was born to climb sheer rock faces. He grinned smugly as he joined them. Flic rolled her eyes at him, though Jamieson looked ready to shoot him a high-five.
The three of them dropped in silence to the flowerbed on the other side of the wall and started edging along the perimeter of a garden.
‘Will they scent you, do you think?’ Jamieson asked Cyrus.
‘Better start praying not,’ Cyrus whispered back, all his senses prickling as though ice cubes were sliding over his skin. ‘What you going to shift into,’ he asked Jamieson, ‘if they see us?’
‘Something that can run very fast,’ Jamieson answered. ‘A cheetah probably.’
‘Go with a falcon. Originals can run but they sure as hell can’t fly.’
If only they all had the flying option, Cyrus thought to himself. These things were fast. If they sensed him beneath Flic and Jamieson’s unhuman scent, he was in trouble. They were all in trouble. Even monkey boy. Flic looked like she could handle herself and he’d heard she was a good fighter, plus she had the whole invisibility thing working for her, but against however many unhumans there were on the other side of the wall?
His plan, however, wasn’t to count them, wasn’t even to go near them. That was all a ruse. Really he was here to verify what his mum had said was true – that a new gateway had sprung up in the garden of a mansion in Beverly Hills. Because if that was the case, then the shit storm they thought they were facing was more like a shit hurricane.
And if that psycho Victor found out about the gateway still being open for business he would undoubtedly leap to the conclusion it was because Evie hadn’t been the one to walk through it, and that would just create even more hassle for him to deal with. Which was why he’d sent Victor to the front of the house with Vero and Ash.
He, Flic and Jamieson reached the far perimeter wall and ducked behind some bushes.
‘We’re just doing a headcount, right?’ Jamieson asked, looking as nervous as a suicide bomber.
‘Yeah, just a headcount,’ Cyrus reassured him. ‘Then we run.’
‘If they want a fight, they got one,’ Flic muttered.
Cyrus twisted to look at her. ‘If they want a fight, you run, do you hear me?’
She gave him a look.
‘I mean it.’
Flic stared at him stonily, her eyes softly calculating.
‘No heroics, Flic,’ Jamieson said. ‘Listen to the man.’
Flic turned abruptly away. Cyrus stared at her back, at the well-worked muscles running down her lean arms. Damn it, he thought, another girl who never listened.
‘What are we waiting for?’ Jamieson asked, eyeing the wall.
‘That,’ Cyrus answered as a gunshot rang out, blasting through the silence.
Another shot swiftly followed.
‘What’s happening?’ Flic asked. ‘Who’s firing?’
‘Ash. He’s drawing them out.’
‘He’s going to have the police here in thirty seconds,’ Flic hissed.
‘That’s all the time we need,’ Cyrus said, his hands already finding grip on the wall and scooting up it. ‘Give me a boost,’ he whispered.
A strong shove sent him flying over the wall. He tumbled to the soft grass on the other side, his blade in his hand. Jamieson – in wolf form – landed softly beside him in the next second and Flic followed behind, landing in a crouch, her blade outstretched.
The three of them froze where they were, their attention drawn instantly to the blinding white light emanating from the far side of the beautifully manicured lawn.
‘What the hell is that?’ Flic asked in a shaking voice, her blade falling limply to her side.
Cyrus grimaced. His mum had been right after all.
Chapter 33
Lucas was sweating by the time they made it across the city. On foot it had taken them nearly three hours, Issa stopping every fifty metres or so to look ahead, her eyes filming over while Lucas stood guard. It was daylight,