Six ignored him. She walked over to a group of police officers. “You need to get these people out of here,” she said. “Those things are going to attack.”

The officers laughed. Six stared at them. “I’m not joking around here. Those things are real.”

“Sure they are,” one of the officers said.

“Wait a minute,” another one said. “You’re the girl from the security footage. You were riding one of those things in the hotel.”

“Yeah,” Six said. “I was. And you saw the damage they did in there. The fires. The injured people. The goddamn bodies.”

The officers stared at her, saying nothing.

“Are you hearing anything I’m saying?” Six said, her voice rising.

“I think you should come with me.”

Six turned. Another officer was standing behind her.

“Finally,” Six said. “Look. Those things are going to—”

The officer reached for his belt and unhooked a pair of handcuffs. “Maybe you didn’t hear me the first time,” he said.

Six realized what was happening. “You want to arrest me?”

“According to the Cirque des Étoiles folks, you pretended to be one of their cast members, stole one of their animatronic critters and caused a whole lot of trouble,” the officer said. “And like Officer Herren said, there’s video to back it up.”

“I was trying to stop them,” Six objected. “Nine? Tell him—”

She looked around, but Nine was nowhere to be seen.

“Where the hell did he go?” Six said to herself.

“All right,” the officer said, reaching for her arm. “Let’s just go down to the station and—”

Six shoved him. He flew backwards. Behind her, she heard the sound of guns being drawn, followed by three voices saying, “Hands up!”

She went invisible. The officers shouted. One reached out to touch where she’d last seen Six standing. Six darted out of her way. She didn’t have time to deal with this latest problem. Whoever was helping the Mogs was obviously orchestrating a setup of some kind, distracting anyone who could actually help from doing so.

Well, Six was going to do something. At least she was if she could figure out where the hell Nine had gone. She was scanning the crowd for him, when she heard an excited roar go up. She turned around.

Eleni had appeared, floating over the crowd on some kind of hovering platform. She looked like something out of a science fiction movie, dressed all in black with her platinum-blond hair streaming around her. In one hand she held a staff tipped with a glowing blue orb. In her other, a fireball swirled.

She maneuvered so that she was just above the heads of the three monsters, who stood beneath her swaying from side to side, as if they were in a trance. All around the plaza, cameras flashed. The news crew turned their attention to her, a reporter talking excitedly as the camera operator filmed the proceedings.

“This isn’t good,” Six said to herself. “Come on, Nine. Where are you?”