Trail of Dead (Scarlett Bernard #2)(79)

It was shorter than I would have expected—maybe five foot six, only an inch taller than Mallory. It was gray and clumsy looking, with thick, long fingers, and it had been dressed in enormous baggy scrubs that strained against its wide body. A surgical cap was perched on its head, which turned slowly in my direction. Suddenly the pain in my midsection seemed awfully unimportant. Mallory had sculpted a crude nose onto it, probably so it would appear human from a distance, and she had gouged in bizarre flat holes where eyes should be. Does he need to see where he was going? I wondered. But she hadn’t bothered giving the golem a mouth, which was the creepiest thing about it.

I imagined a halting Frankenstein walk, but the step that it took toward me was fluid and natural, if a little slow, like it was counting out paces. A bit of gray dust sprinkled down as it moved. The next step was the same. And the next. There was an aura of careless brutality about it. I wouldn’t have been surprised if it suddenly picked up a kitten and snapped it in half. Now, I decided, would be an excellent time to actually friggin’ do something. Shooting it wouldn’t work, but I was still a null. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the outlines of my power, expanding my circle slowly until it reached the clay man. I felt the buzz of the spell enter my radius—

And the golem kept coming.

My eyes popped open. Had I done it wrong? A few steps later, he was inside the limits of my regular radius, and I narrowed my eyes at him, forgetting everything else and concentrating on the buzz of magic. It felt strange too—sort of detached. From magic. Like instead of a spell, a small generator had entered my radius.

And the golem kept coming.

Sudden laughter startled me, and as the thing continued forward I saw both Olivia and Mallory chuckling happily at each other, exchanging a look of “we got her!” like I’d fallen victim to a sorority prank. More quickly than I had expected, the golem closed the distance between us, and I felt crude fingers wrap around my left upper arm. I had expected the thing to be made of wet clay, given that it was moving, but its fingers felt dry and cold against my skin. It lifted, dragging me to my feet, and the strength of that movement was petrifying. There was no give to it, no fleshiness, no jerking. It was one smooth move, like being pulled up by the Terminator. “What the hell?” I demanded, forgetting that I was supposed to be playing Meek Scarlett. “How is this possible?”

Olivia frowned at me. “I believe we’ve talked about language, Scarlett.”

I bit back what I wanted to say and forced my voice to sound contrite. “I’m sorry, Olivia. I just don’t understand why her spell is still working.”

“Isn’t it phenomenal?” Olivia asked, beaming at me. “She’s found a loophole.”

The golem shifted around behind me, grabbing my other wrist. He shifted his grip to lock both of my wrists tight against my body with his cold hands, his fingers long enough to hold my hips still along with my arms. I gasped. Handcuffs, I thought, and fought a wave of terror. Breathe, Scarlett. Breathe.

“What kind of a loophole?” I choked out, wanting a distraction as much as I just wanted to know.

Across the room, Mallory rolled her eyes and strode off to another exam room. But Olivia loved lecturing me. “The golem isn’t a normal movement spell,” she explained smugly. “Animation magic is a lot closer to physically changing an object than it is to simply moving it. Mallory uses magic to bring the golem to life, as it were, and give it a task. Then the golem is animated in its own right, until the task is done.

“Giving the golem instructions counts as magic, but completing its current task does not.” She gave an elegant shrug of her shoulders. “Like a windup doll. Your aura could stop her from winding it up, but once the windup has happened the little doll goes on its way regardless of what happens to its master.”

“A windup doll,” I repeated, dazed. The solid wall of clay behind me did not feel like any kind of children’s plaything. Experimentally, I tried throwing my weight back against it. It hurt like hell, both on my sore back and with the gun digging into my spine. Not only did the golem not rock backward, it didn’t even sway a little.

Fantastic.

Olivia’s voice rang with laughter. “Not to worry, Scar-bear,” she assured me. “It’s just going to hold you still for me.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked. I couldn’t keep the nervousness out of my voice. She patted my upper arm reassuringly.

She circled me until we were face-to-face and began smoothing my hair away from my ears, straightening the locks. “Do you know where our—where your—ability comes from?”

“Magic?”

She gave me an indulgent look. “Of course. But magic and science, they’re permanently intertwined. And as it turns out, nullness is intertwined with a particular part of the body. A particular system.” She paused. “You really have let this grow out, haven’t you? Do you get regular trims?” She picked up a loose strand, examining the ends.

I knew she was baiting me on purpose, but I couldn’t help but take it. “Please, Olivia, what do you mean by system? Like, circulatory and digestive, that kind of thing?”

“Exactly.” She stepped back, spreading her hands. “If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Your aura fights magic, fights to keep you normal and healthy and untouched by outside infection like vampirism or lycanthropy.” She looked at me expectantly, but I just shook my head. Behind Olivia, Mallory had returned wheeling an IV stand. A bag of unidentified fluid with a long IV tube attached hung from one of the pegs at the top, and Mallory had already hooked two more bags on the opposite peg. She was making her way toward us, pulling the stand as she hobbled along on the cane.