“Where the hell is he going?” I muttered. “I’ve seen them vanish, so why not just walk into the guards’ change room and never come out? Do you think he knows we’re tailing him?”

“Possibly.”

Ransom turned down another street, this one industrial, with a building in the throes of demolition on the left.

“They can’t actually disappear, right?” I said. “It must be some kind of Jedi mind trick.”

“I believe you are conflating your fantasy worlds.”

“You know what I mean. He alters our perception so we no longer see him. Rather than actually vanishing.”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes. I want limits, damn it. I’ll accept omens and portents and second sight. I’ll accept giant black hounds and creepy ravens and magpies. I’m still working out the fae and Wild Hunt thing. But I draw the line at people disappearing into thin air. Don’t give me that look, either.”

“Look?”

“You’re laughing at me.”

“I’m quite certain I didn’t even smile.”

“I can feel the laughing.”

His lips twitched. That’s when Ransom did disappear, if only around the side of a coin laundry. I picked up my pace. Gabriel laid his fingers against my back. “Careful, Olivia.”

He was right—I’d left my purse in the car, to avoid checking it at security, which meant I was unarmed.

We caught another glimpse of Ransom as he turned into the gap between two buildings. Gabriel stopped me before I could follow. He surveyed the area and then swung his gaze back to that gap, his eyes narrowed. If he were a cat, his fur would have been standing on end.

“Trouble?” I said.

“We’ve been led up and down these streets. Now our target has vanished into a dark alley. I don’t believe it takes an omen to signal we’re being led into a trap.”

“So we retreat?”

“No, we proceed with extreme caution.”

The dark alley was actually a narrow road between buildings. It wasn’t all that dark, either, only dim from the shadow of one building stretching across to the other. It was still midday, and we could hear the shouts of men at a construction site a block over. The last dangerous place I’d ventured had been an abandoned psychiatric hospital at 2 A.M. This was nothing.

There was no sign of Ransom. When we got halfway down the lane, Gabriel pointed to the mouth of an adjoining alley. Which meant that Ransom could have gone that way . . . or be lying in wait there to pounce on us.

“I’m going to check,” Gabriel said. “Wait here and stand watch, please.”

When he reached the intersection, he peered around it. At a noise behind me, I glanced around to see a plastic bag tumbling my way. I turned back and . . .

No Gabriel.