She had given me directions to the San Mateo Clinic in Redondo Beach, which was a small, modern outpatient facility that had closed down in the mid-2000s. The once-prestigious clinic had grown famous for a perfect storm of controversy: within eighteen months, a corrupt chief of staff had set up an elaborate insurance scam and escaped the country, a huge sexual harassment lawsuit had been filed against a cardiologist on behalf of the support staff, and a little girl had died in a freak accident when she’d been climbing too quickly down a set of fire stairs. The clinic might have survived any one of those incidents, but not all three at once. The building’s owners got tangled up in legal repercussions, and even years later San Mateo stood vacant while the court battles raged on. It wasn’t much to look at: a squat, lonely brick building with a parking lot in back and faded No Trespassing signs to deter vandals and homeless people. Or, now that I thought about it, perhaps the deterrent was that anyone who wandered in would be eaten by vampires. I had to admit, it was an excellent choice for an evil lair.
I pulled Eli’s truck around the back of the clinic building, as instructed, and saw no signs of life: no lit windows, no cars in the lot, no sound from the building’s heating or air-conditioning systems. Cautiously, I followed the sidewalk to the clinic’s enormous loading dock and climbed up the short ramp that led to a human-sized door beside it. I knocked twice.
After only a second, I felt a vampire enter my radius from the other side of the door. Olivia had been waiting for me. Even though I’d walked into the situation of my own free will, I still felt cornered when the door swung open and she stepped forward. “Scar-bear!” Olivia cried gaily. “You made it!”
Like we were at a goddamned brunch.
I allowed myself to be enveloped, and even managed to hug her back. “Hey,” I said helplessly.
She took a step back, and her smile faded to a disapproving frown. “What on earth are you wearing?”
“Um, my clothes got shredded. Long story.”
“I see. Are you all by yourself?” Olivia asked, peering around behind me. She was a human at the moment, so her night vision wouldn’t be any better than mine, but I understood she had to make a show of it.
“Yes. Just like you said.”
“Wonderful!” she said, beaming. We were back to brunch mode. “Follow me, please.”
When the door had closed behind me she paused to type a code into a little numeric pad by the door. An alarm system. Her back was to me, and for a second I thought about just shooting her right there in the doorway. Could I do that? I wondered. Just shoot her in the back, cold-bloodedly? It didn’t matter: I still needed to know where the witch was and what they had been planning. I followed her into the clinic building.
There was still a bit of emergency lighting, and I was able to make out a couple of long hallways and a big waiting room with an empty aquarium. Olivia led me through the waiting room and into the center of the building, where patients had been treated. There was a long corridor of exam rooms and then a big, open nurses’ area with empty desks and metal file cabinets. This was where the vampire and the witch had set up shop.
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.