“Dominic is crazy, but not crazy enough to fly over the Black Plains anyway,” Nero said.

“Hell, no,” Dominic called out from the front of the ship. “There are flying monsters out there. And giant monsters that grab things out of the air.”

“And you can’t fly us out because people would see you and know you’re here too,” I told Nero. “If Colonel Fireswift knows we’re coming, we won’t be able to get down to those relics. He will be ready. We have to catch him off guard, to sneak in when he’s not looking. But first we need to sneak past the paranormal soldiers and make it past the wall. But how…” The idea came to me, one simple, perfect idea. “We have to climb the wall.”

“If they turn on the magic barrier, we’re dead,” Nero told me.

“Come on, Colonel,” I said, grinning. “What’s life without taking a risk now and again?”

It was a crazy plan. And to make it work, we would need help.

We snuck down the streets, keeping to the shadows, taking shortcuts through houses, cutting through the old underground train tunnels, and hiding under bridges—all those little things I knew about that the paranormal soldiers didn’t. I was a town native, and they were just passing through, another stop on the career train. They came here for only weeks or months at a time before going home. And what little time they had here was spent mostly at the wall.

A bunch of them were clustered there now, but the wall’s Magitech wasn’t on. It burned too much power to keep it on all the time, so there was an alert system to decide when to turn it on, based on the monster attack risk level. Green, yellow, orange, and red were the alert levels. Green meant ‘safe’, and red was ‘apocalypse imminent’. At the moment, the alert board was yellow, which meant monsters had been recently sighted close to the wall but there were none in sight right now.

We wouldn’t be getting over that wall as long as the soldiers were standing guard at the bottom. We had to draw them away, and for that, I needed Calli’s contacts. She knew people who could be bribed to create a distraction so we could get out. I’d had contacts once too, but it had been too long. I didn’t know which people I could trust and which ones wouldn’t turn around and double cross us for a payment from the paranormal soldiers. But Calli had people who owed her favors and people she had dirt on. She could make them behave.

The problem was getting to Calli. Paranormal soldiers patrolled the sidewalks, streets, and lawn around my house. Colonel Fireswift must have thought I’d try to go home. The thick curtains were on the windows, so Calli was expecting me too.

“This way,” I whispered to Nero, leading him into the abandoned building across the street from my house.

We squeezed into what had once passed for a bathroom. I pulled up a hidden panel in the floor.

“Is it common for people in this town to have secret tunnels?” Nero asked, looking down into the dark hole.

We jumped down. The hole really was just a hole—with a single locked door.

“No, this is a Calli thing,” I said, entering the combination on the lock. “My mom dug this passageway herself in case we ever needed to make a quick escape. Or get in secretly like now.”

We followed the musty, dirty tunnel to its end, where another locked door awaited us. And then we were in the cellar of my house, surrounded by shelves of canned goods and other long-lasting treats.

“Is your mother preparing for the apocalypse?” Nero asked, looking around.

“Calli says the apocalypse already hit Earth once, so chances are good it will hit again. And she plans to be ready. It’s kind of her motto. She likes to be prepared for everything.”

Calli was waiting for us at the top of the stairs, dressed in a flour-dusted apron. “I was expecting you.” Her gaze flickered briefly to Nero before returning to me. “I was not expecting him.”

“Long story.”

“You can tell it to us at dinner. I was just about to put the food on the table. Gin, put two more settings at the table!” she called in the direction of the kitchen. “We have guests.”

“Did Leda come like you thought she…” Gin froze halfway through of the door, her jaw dropping when she saw Nero. She quickly retreated back into the safety of the kitchen.

“Do you have someone you can bribe to create a big distraction?” I asked Calli.

“How big?”

I slapped a fat wad of money into her hand. “Big enough to distract all the paranormal soldiers in town so Nero and I can climb over the wall onto the Black Plains without anyone spotting us.”

Most mothers would have fainted at that statement. Calli didn’t even blink. “You ask for miracles, Leda.”

I grinned at her. “And you always deliver miracles.”

She slipped off her apron, hanging it from its hook on the wall. “One of these days, I won’t have a miracle up my sleeves.”

“But not today?”

Calli wrapped her arm around me, leading me toward the dining room. “Don’t you worry about a thing. I have just the guy for the job. I’ll give him a call. By the time dinner is over, you’ll have your ‘big distraction’.”

Bella gave me a knowing smile as Nero and I sat down opposite each other at the table. Gin didn’t even have a look to spare for me. Her wide eyes were glued firmly to the angel who had come to dinner. My little sister looked like she couldn’t decide whether to faint or flee, so she just stared.