Trail of Dead (Scarlett Bernard #2)(87)

But I lost the thread of that thought pretty quickly, as more pressing matters required my attention. Olivia had been saying something, like she was announcing some sort of a plan. “I’ll go restart the generator,” she said to Mallory. “Then we—”

“Quiet!” Mallory hissed suddenly. “I heard something.” All three of us froze, listening to the dark, but there wasn’t anything to hear.

“Let me get away from her,” Olivia whispered. “I can’t do anything if I can’t see.” She moved away from my side, presumably to get out of my radius, where she would have excellent night vision.

“Neither can I,” Mallory grumbled. “I’ll restart the generator.” She patted the golem’s arm, almost affectionately. And then every candle in the room went out at once.





Chapter 30


Let them be by her, Jesse prayed as he crept down the hallway. He’d seen Eli’s truck parked outside the clinic building—if they all survived this, it was going to take a ridiculous amount of driving to get everyone’s cars back to the right owner—and driven right past it, parking on the complete opposite side of the building, near the main clinic entrance. The door, when he came up to it, was wired with a serious-looking alarm. Not knowing what else to do, Jesse had called Dashiell on his cell phone and explained the problem.

“I don’t suppose you would wait until I arrived to go in?” Dashiell had asked.

“Not a chance.” Kirsten’s house was at least half an hour away, and if he’d returned to Pasadena, Dashiell was even farther.

“Fine. Give me two minutes, and then break whatever you have to,” Dashiell said. “I’ll be on my way.”

Jesse had actually timed out the two minutes on his watch, and then used the minicrowbar to shatter one of the waist-high windows near the entrance. He had thought the window would cause less of a racket than the full-length glass doors, but the shattering glass still seemed terrifically loud. If they were in the heart of the building, and Scarlett was close enough to neutralize Olivia and Mallory, they might not have noticed. Maybe. At any rate, there hadn’t been any sort of alarm. Dashiell really was scary like that.

Jesse crept through a big lobby area, grateful for the emergency lighting that gave him some sort of path to follow. He’d brought a flashlight, but the second he turned it on he’d give himself away, so he kept it off until he finally came upon a small wall map for the clinic’s interior. Holding the flashlight close to the map, he’d studied the exits and building interior and taken a guess at where Mallory and Olivia might be holed up. Then he did his best to follow the bright red pulse of the exit signs down the right hallways.

At last, Jesse heard voices. He froze, holding his breath as though that might give him away. The voices didn’t pause, however, and he figured Olivia, at least, must be inside Scarlett’s circle. He used the toe of one shoe against the heel of the other, working his shoes off, then crept forward silently in his socks.

When he peeked around the corner of the doorway, he could see them: Scarlett and two dark-haired women, on the opposite side of a large, open area where there must once have been desks for nurses. On the wall closest to Jesse, there was a small generator humming. Beyond that, an enormous pentacle had been painted on the floor, with a book and amulet left in the middle of it. Beyond that, he could just make out the women. Scarlett was talking but not moving, and it took a second of staring for Jesse to make out the shadow behind her, holding her wrists tight against her body. The golem.

He pulled his head back into the hall and thought for a moment. A direct assault wouldn’t work—Olivia might still have her gun. If he burst in there with his own weapon drawn, she could just step behind Scarlett and lift the gun to her temple, creating a classic hostage standoff. Instead, Jesse got down on his hands and knees and crawled into the room, toward the generator. He was grateful for his dark clothes and for the very dim candle lighting on this side of the room. If he stayed low, he had to be pretty much invisible to them.

Now he could make out the conversation on the far side of the room. They were talking about Kirsten, about going to her hospital room. One of the women was nearly shaking with anger as she talked about Kirsten, and Jesse figured this must be Mallory. She and Olivia were focused on Scarlett, their backs to the rest of the room. Scarlett said something in a low voice he couldn’t make out, and Mallory slapped her in the face. Jesse flinched, but a slap wouldn’t kill her, and he needed to stay focused. Then he heard something about an IV bag and squinted in the darkness again. Sure enough, there was a long silver pole standing next to Scarlett and the shadowy golem. Whatever they were giving her, it couldn’t be good: Scarlett’s head was lolling, and her words had a slight slur. Shit. He’d been counting on her to be able to help him fight as soon as she was free. Now he needed a new idea. Unconsciously, he reached up to touch the little bag around his neck. Runa was right: he knew what Olivia wanted, and she’d stay close to Scarlett. Mallory was the wild card. He needed to draw her out first.

Jesse looked around quickly and crawled to the nearest candle on the pentagram, a thick four-inch-tall votive in a simple glass jar. He slid it to the side very carefully and slowly, inch by inch, so that he could slide his upper body forward in the pentagram. He was holding his breath, not daring to look up at the women in front of him. Scarlett was talking again, so hopefully the other two still had their backs to him. He leaned farther and farther until his fingers touched the edges of the large spellbook. Jesse wanted both the amulet and the book, but when he lifted the book to slide it toward him the Transruah rolled soundlessly off the page and onto the carpet. He hesitated, but it was too much of a risk. The book would have to do.