There was no emergency lighting here, but a small portable generator hummed on one side of the room, and some lamps and extension cords brightened the cavernous area from almost pitch-black to bar-lighting dim. There were also candles set up all over the place, which contributed both to the lighting and the creepy sense of atmosphere. As my eyes fully adjusted, I realized the candles were set at all the corners of an enormous pentagram that had been painted on the open floor space. There were symbols and characters within the pentagram, but nothing I recognized with my limited experience. I shivered, suddenly unnerved.
“I don’t like this,” said a cold, hard voice behind us. I spun around, caught between Olivia and the new voice. I squinted and made out a woman silhouetted against the doorway. She’d been waiting for us, and now I was truly trapped.
“You must be Mallory,” I said, still trying to make out the woman’s features. I needn’t have bothered—she stepped forward, into the light—and into my radius.
I gasped, hit by two perceptions at once. First, that this woman practically vibrated with power. She was as strong as Kirsten, maybe even stronger. At the same time, there was something about her magic that felt different from Kirsten’s—darker, somehow, or more…decaying? There wasn’t really a good word for it. I’d never felt anything like that.
As the light hit her, I also realized that she was horrifically scarred. She had long, gorgeous black hair, and her eyes, nose, and forehead were perfect, but all the exposed skin on her chin, neck, and chest looked like it’d been burned. Somewhat ironically, it looked like those parts of her skin were made from wet, flesh-colored clay. The scarring disappeared into her button-down shirt, which she wore under a traditional white lab coat. She leaned on some kind of cane, favoring her right leg. That was why she’d sent Olivia to take care of Rabbi Samuel. Samuel was a friend of the witches and a Jewish historian; he might have recognized the golem and known how to stop it. And Mallory couldn’t overpower a grown man by herself. They made a good team, the vampire and the handicapped witch.
“So Kirsten figured it out, finally. Well, good for her,” the woman said, nodding to herself. “I suppose it doesn’t much matter at this point.”
“Why not?” I asked, trying to keep my voice casual. Just having a little chat between us girls. They were both in my radius; it was time to make my move. My right hand drifted toward my back, but I paused. Think it through first, Scarlett. It would take a few seconds to pull up the long T-shirt and unstick the gun from my back. Another second to get the safety off. Olivia and Mallory would both realize what I was doing as soon as I lifted the T-shirt—did either of them have their own gun handy?
“Because Kirsten’s going to die,” Mallory was saying. “As are you.”
Fuck it. I had to try.
I was just shifting my weight to reach for the pistol when, with no warning, Olivia’s fist drove into my stomach. I gasped, doubling over so fast I lost my balance and fell on the floor, which jarred my aching back. Had Olivia seen the outline of the gun? I peered up at her, but she just smiled broadly. She’d been human, but she’d been so fast.
“What…was that for?” I panted.
“Sorry, darling,” Olivia said, with a sympathetic smile. “I know Mallory sounds scary, but you’ll actually be just fine. Better than ever.”
I didn’t answer, because for the second time that night I was struggling to remember the mechanics of breathing.
Mallory was looking at Olivia too. “It’s eleven thirty already. Are you sure this can’t wait until afterwards?” The way she said it made it sound like this was an argument they’d been having right before I arrived.
Olivia was too close to me to be a vampire, but she still bared her teeth in a feral, angry gesture. When she spoke, though, her voice was neither angry nor bubbly. “This was my condition,” she said simply. “I want her with me. I want her to be a part of this. You knew that.”
“Fine,” Mallory sighed. “I’ll prepare the IV. It’ll take a bit for the radiation machine to warm up.”
“What?” I gasped, but they both ignored me.
“How would you like her restrained?” Mallory asked Olivia, in a perfectly polite tone, like she was asking how Olivia wanted her eggs.
“The golem, of course.”
“Of course. I’ll go fetch it.” Mallory leaned on her cane and took a few steps away from me, toward one of the exam rooms. I felt her leave my radius. As she went I saw her pulling something from her lab coat pocket that looked like a paintbrush or a small stick. I was still too weak to care much. I managed to roll myself onto my butt, head between my knees, trying to figure out how to uncurl myself and get to the gun. But Olivia crouched down right in front of me, eyes searching my face, and I froze, shivering with cold and nerves. Would she see it on my face? Dammit, I was terrible at this. Bruce would be ashamed.
There was some mumbling from the exam room, and then Mallory reemerged, brushing her hands together. The stick had disappeared back into her lab coat pocket. I opened my mouth to say something—no idea what—when I heard the thudding steps coming from just behind her. And the golem emerged.
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 enou
gh 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.
Olivia was shaking her head, and I turned my attention back to her. “You never were a very good student. It’s the immune system,” she announced. “Your immune system suppresses invading disease, and your null aura suppresses invading magic. They’re tied together.” I’d spent months hanging around the cancer ward; I knew what the immune system did. I also knew that many cancer treatments—specifically chemotherapy and radiation—killed the immune system along with cancer cells. It was why cancer patients had to avoid being around sick people or little kids. “And when you abandoned me”—her eyes darkened—“I just happened to make a surprising discovery.”
My mind raced.
“Domincydactl,” I said softly.
Olivia took another step back to examine my face. She looked a little annoyed, like I’d ruined her punch line. “Perhaps you’re not such a bad student after all,” she said airily.
Mallory finally appeared at Olivia’s elbow. “I have to begin in fifteen minutes,” she told Olivia sternly.
My old mentor waved her hand dismissively. “You’re all prepared, it’ll be fine.”
Mallory’s mouth set in a frown, but she nodded and began tying a small rubber tube around my upper arm.
And it finally hit me. Olivia wasn’t planning to keep me around as her pet, and she wasn’t planning to kill me. She was going to do both.
She wanted to make me a vampire.
Chapter 28
“What about Eli?” Jesse asked, desperation seeping into his voice. “Does he know anything? Can I talk to him?”
Silence. Then Will said, “Eli is unconscious. It’s a long story, but he’ll be out at least until morning. I’m sorry; he can’t help.”
Jesse thought that over for a second. “Maybe you better tell me the long story.”
When he hung up a few minutes later, Jesse realized he was sitting down again, his head in his hands as he stared absently at his cell phone. What was Scarlett thinking? Scratch that, he decided. He knew exactly what she was thinking. In that moment, he realized that the little voice mail icon on his phone’s screen was blinking. Jesse frowned. When had that happened? His reception was terrible in the hospital, so it must have popped up when he’d finally gotten close to the windows. He pressed the screen and listened to the message.
“Shit!” he yelled, not caring that the two arguing men, the clawed intake nurse, and his newly minted ex were all staring at him. He couldn’t believe she was really going to just hand herself over to the vampire. Jesse jumped up and beelined for Runa. “I need a car,” he said bluntly. “You’re staying here with Kirsten and her husband, right? Can I borrow their car?”
“Did you find her?” Runa asked, without moving.
He shook his head. “She went after Olivia by herself. I have to go look for her.”
Runa raised her white-blonde eyebrows. “Do you know where she is?”
“No.” He shifted his weight, anxious to be moving.
“So you’re just going to drive around aimlessly and hope you find her?”
“Do you have a better idea?” he snapped.
“I might.” Runa gave him a strange, speculative look. “Does she have a car?”
“She’s driving Eli’s.”
“The bartender at Hair of the Dog?”
Jesse was surprised. He’d been under the impression that the different Old World factions didn’t mix much. “You know him?”
“Kirsten does.” She stood up from her seat, dug in her pocket, and dangled her keys. “I have a spare key for their car. You can drive. But I’m coming along. I can help.”
His brow furrowed. “I’m not trying to start a fight, but how can you possibly help me?”
She straightened her back, squaring her shoulders. “First of all, I was the one who spent all afternoon researching the golem for Kirsten. She delegated to me so she could get ready for the party. I explained everything to her while we were making the appetizers, but I’m guessing she didn’t have time to tell you or Scarlett before everything went to hell.”
“No,” Jesse said sheepishly. “Um, is there a second of all?”
“Second,” Runa said, with sudden confidence, “I think I can find her.”
Within a few minutes, they were speeding down the freeway to Santa Monica, where Eli had an apartment a few blocks from the beach. Christmas songs played on the radio in Paul Dickerson’s BMW, but Jesse was too distracted to pay attention. He had called and gotten Eli’s home address from Will. Runa was texting Kirsten’s husband to let him know she’d taken the car.
“Explain this to me again,” Jesse said, glancing over at Runa. “I get the thing about you being good at finding things, but I thought you couldn’t use that kind of spell on a null.”
“I can’t,” she replied, looking up from her phone. “But I can find the car. This would be easy if I’d ever actually touched it myself, but because I haven’t, I need a focus.”
“Which is like a smaller part of what you’re trying to find?”
He saw her nodding out of the corner of his eye. “With a person, a stranger, I need something of theirs. Hair or fingernails work the best—that’s how Kirsten does it—but I can use pretty much anything they’ve o
wned and cared about for a long time.”
“Wait,” he objected. “So we can’t just use one of Eli’s T-shirts, or something, because that would just lead to Eli himself, right? What exactly are you planning to use as your focus?”
“A spare key,” she pronounced. “The key might belong to Eli, as does the whole car, but a key is also part of the car itself, at least in the eyes of the spell. They belong together. It’s a little different from ownership, but what should happen is I’ll get two locations off the key: one for Eli, one for the car. And we already know where Eli is.”
“What if he doesn’t have a spare key? What if we can’t find it?”
“It’s LA. Everyone has a spare car key. Don’t you?”
“Well, yeah,” he said. “But still…”
“Look, it’s better than driving around the city, yelling Scarlett’s name out of an open car window like she’s a lost puppy.”
“Fair point,” he conceded. They drove in silence for a second, and then he couldn’t help but ask. “So you, like, never lose your keys, huh?”
When he glanced over, she was smiling. “You don’t know the half of it,” she said demurely. “Think of what I could do with a missing murder weapon.”
“Whoa,” he said, eyes wide. Stick to tonight’s problem, Jesse told himself. “Okay, so what do I need to know about this golem thing?”
He felt Runa looking at him. “What did Kirsten already tell you?”
“That the golem is animated by a witch, and then runs on her commands,” he recited.
“Right.”
“And Kirsten said it was indestructible. If you chop it into bits, the bits would keep trying to complete the command.”
She nodded. “And that’s assuming it will hold still and let you chop it. Golems have incredible strength, and if the witch commands it, they can hurt or kill anything that comes between them and their goals. Besides, this is a massive chunk of clay. You could take an ax to its arm and only make it halfway through on your first swing.”
Trail of Dead Page 24