* * *
We made it to the end of the hall, but another howl forced us inside a nearby door. I realized where we were in an instant. There was a red line of tape on the floor, and huge medical equipment on the room’s far side—this was the room with the MRI.
I moved to stand in front of Gideon. The red line on the floor marked where it was safe to stand with any metallic object. If I crossed over that line, it’d start tugging the metal on me, the buckles on my purse, the grommets on my boots. If Gideon crossed over it, it’d pull Grandfather right out of him.
The room stank like cigarette smoke, and a man stood up from where he’d been sitting, on the MRI’s bed.
“Hey, lady. I wondered if you would show up. I heard about you.” It was Y4’s erstwhile daytimer patient, Mr. Hale, smoking in his hospital gown.
“Who are you?”
“Just another daytimer,” he said with a greasy smile.
Gideon started forward and I pressed him back. “No, you’re not.”
“Okay, you caught me.” He clasped his hand to his breast dramatically, as if shot. “I’m from House Grey. I think you already heard of us, from that whining were-brat.”
This was the first time I’d ever met a House Grey vampire. “Why are you here?”
“To help control those pathetic were-distractions outside.” He tapped his head. “House Grey specializes in fucking with minds. Which I’ll show you, as soon as I get near. Without your Shadows to protect you—” He made a tsking sound and shook his head as though I was in trouble. “Did the Rose Throne really think we were going to let her rise go unchallenged?”
“Who?” I pretended not to know.
In the blink of an eye he was two steps closer. Even though he was a daytimer, he’d had vampire blood yesterday. That made him stronger-faster-everythinger than me. He pointed an accusing finger at me. “I witnessed your trial, so don’t pretend you don’t know who I mean.”
I swallowed. I didn’t like being reminded of being stabbed by vampires just now. “Anna,” I said, taking another step back as he took a corresponding step forward.
“Yes. Her. That’s why we’re here. For the blood. But I bet you knew that already.” He stubbed his cigarette out on the MRI table at his side and gave me a heavy-lidded grin. “Who knows, if I kill you—they might give me some of it.”
“You need to stop right there.” My gun was down, no way I could lift it before he’d cross the distance between us. I reached into my pocket that had the darts.
“Sorry, lady, but I can’t have you interfere.” He stepped in front of the MRI.
I backed up again, shoving Gideon behind me. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I said, trying to look as helpless as possible.
“Why? How are you going to stop me?” He gave me an amused look.
“Because I know something you don’t.”
“Really?” He laughed. “Lady, I have lived for a long, long time. I survived smallpox and the black plague. I won’t be dying here.” Then all his humor faded, and his eyes focused on me. “But you will.” Gideon leaned forward in warning against my back.
I pulled a trank dart out of my pocket and threw it at him. It raced toward him like a javelin, seeking to mate with the superpowered magnet on his far side. Picking up speed, it punctured him, making a clean hole at the level of his heart. It tinged cheerfully when it hit the MRI.
He appeared aghast, and then he crumpled, joining his own cigarette ash on the floor. I stepped forward to stomp on the pile of dust. “Oh yeah? The MRI is always fucking on, asshole.” I ran back and grabbed Gideon’s arm. Together we hobbled back the way we’d come into the room.
* * *
We got to the end of the hall and came up the stairs to the ground floor. Three more hallways down and we found ourselves at the transfusion lab’s back door. I waved Meaty’s badge around in front of the access panel, but the lock didn’t click. Gideon shoved me aside.
“Edie?”
I turned back and Sike was racing down the hall. “Edie!”
“Shhhh!”
“I came as soon as you texted. What the hell is going on? It’s full of weres outside.”
“They’re after the—” I began, and stopped. Would she help me, or hinder me, in what I was about to do next? I wouldn’t know till I knew. The door unlocked for Gideon, and I opened it. “Just come inside with me.”
I closed the door behind us, and Gideon set to locking it again. The entire room thrummed with electricity—power running to refrigerators, microscopes, testing equipment—things that a hospital always needed to be on. County was a twenty-four-hour operation. Now it was like a science lab in a ghost town, empty and eerily still except for the were-shadows running back and forth outside. The far wall of the room was lined in skinny 1960s wire-glass windows. Past that, they were protected by metal bars.