He stood up as I arrived, automatically holding out his arms to steady me. “He’s in surgery,” Cliff reported. “The doctors aren’t optimistic, but . . . he has a chance. I sent Laurel home to be with her family. She was exhausted.”

I processed all that quickly, and said breathlessly, “We need to get in there. I think Lucy may have told the skinners where to find Jameson.”

“How?” he demanded. “When would she have had time?”

“After Jameson shot Arthur,” I explained. “If she called Malcolm and told him about Jameson betraying her, and if he googled the closest ER . . .”

“Shit.” Cliff scrubbed his hands through his hair and started toward the big airlock door that led into the patient area. “Come on. We’ll see if we can talk our way—”

The sound of gunshots burst into the relative calm of the waiting room, and the intake nurses looked up in alarm. I started toward the door leading into the hospital, but just then lights on the wall began to flash, and a siren wailed. Someone had pulled the fire alarm.

The waiting room occupants began to rush toward the exit. Then the airlock door I’d been about to enter slammed open, and a flood of people rushed through it, nearly trampling each other.

“We gotta get in there,” I yelled to Cliff over my shoulder.

He caught my upper arm, the one still oozing blood. I cried out, and he let go instantly. “Sorry! But look, you’re never gonna be able to get back there—”

“Are you coming with me or not?” I demanded. I was already beginning to push against the wave of people.

Cliff clenched his teeth, but he nodded. I wormed my way through the doorway, snarling at everyone who tried to shove me. It probably helped that I looked like I’d just run through a blood sprinkler. I wove my way through the panicking stampede, following the signs to the surgical suites.

This hallway was already deserted. Cliff and I exchanged a look, and he drew a handgun from the small of his back. I followed suit with the Glock. We crept forward, stopping at each doorway, where I would hang back and Cliff would do a quick sweep of the room. We checked three doors on the left and two on the right. They were all empty, although two of them had lots of instruments and discarded gowns. Probably the surgeons had wheeled patients out of there when the fire alarm sounded.

Then we found a surgical suite that wasn’t empty.

“Oh my God,” I breathed. Cliff, who had swung the door open, motioned for me to stay back, but I ignored him and forced myself to step inside. My legs felt like lead posts in damp jeans.

There were three bodies in surgical scrubs on the floor, all dead of obvious gunshot wounds. A fourth body leaned against the wall in the far corner. If there had been anyone else in here when the shooting started, they had fled.

I stepped over them and approached the table. Jameson’s large body was stretched across it, partially covered by a gown. His chest and upper legs were exposed and bloody where the surgeons had started to extract the buckshot. His eyes were closed, and his face looked peaceful.

He didn’t seem at all troubled by the three new gunshot wounds in his chest.

I knew what I’d find, but I had to check anyway. I stepped up and put trembling fingers on his wrist to feel his pulse. I waited. Waited.

Nothing. I began to sob.

A gentle hand was placed on my arm. “He didn’t feel anything,” Cliff said quietly. “He just went to sleep.”

I shook my head, the tears pouring down my cheeks. I was so tired. And dizzy. Was this even real? Hadn’t I just been checking the ground for cottonmouths, and now I was in the middle of a hospital massacre? This couldn’t be right.

In the distance, we could hear the wail of sirens. The fire engines. “We need to go, Scarlett,” Cliff added in the same careful tone. “He’s gone.”

I reached up and touched Jameson’s cheek, below the black eye. He was still warm. He felt like he might wake up at any moment, but I knew better. I went on tiptoes and leaned forward to brush a kiss on his forehead. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, though I didn’t even know what I was sorry for. For sending him to the hospital without me? For the shitty hand he’d been dealt as a null? Or was I sorry that we hadn’t gotten a chance to see what this was? We could have loved each other. It felt like we had been on our way there.

I turned to Cliff, but just then the dizziness rose up to take me. I let it.

Chapter 39

“Scarlett. Wake up, babe,” came the familiar, teasing voice.

I bolted upright, but of course Jameson wasn’t really there. Instead, Cliff and I were in Dashiell’s Jeep, where I’d passed out with my head leaning against the glass. Some of my hair was still stuck there with tacky blood.

“Yes, sir.” Cliff was talking on the cell phone, but he glanced over at me with concern on his face. I shook my head. “We’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.”

I let my eyes drift closed again, and didn’t open them until Cliff pulled open the door and held out a hand to help me climb down. “Where are we?” I croaked.

“Regional airport just outside Vegas,” Cliff reported. We had driven right onto the tarmac. He pointed. “That’s Dashiell’s plane.”

I didn’t bother to nod, just rested my head against the glass and stared out. From the outside, it looked like a mini version of any other aircraft, but when we climbed the steps and crossed the threshold, I saw that the inside was configured as a nice lounge area for humans and awake vampires. Instead of rows of seats, there were groups of four soft leather armchairs that could be swiveled around to form conversation clusters. There was a separate room at the far end, and I knew without checking that it would be full of airtight sleeping pods—Dashiell didn’t like the word “coffins”—for vampires. I stumbled to the closest chair and collapsed.

Cliff had climbed up behind me and was standing in the doorway, shifting his weight from one foot to another. “Dashiell and Wyatt are smoothing things over at Erson Station,” he said, using the slow, cautious tone that one reserves for the mentally ill. His shirt was damp where he’d carried me out of the hospital. “Apparently the Holmwoods had already dug a big pit out back for bodies. Dashiell and Wyatt will bury everyone and make it look like an exploding water pipe caused all the damage.”

I think I nodded.

“I know you’re in shock,” he continued. “But I need to check on your injuries. Um, your physical injuries.”

He stepped toward me, but I shrank back, shaking my head.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Leave me alone.”

“You might have a concussion,” he insisted. “And the bullet wound on your arm is still bleeding.”

When he tried to come close, I cringed away from him, hearing a voice say, “No, no, no, no.” Oh. It was my voice. Cliff said something else, but I’d stopped listening. Eventually he put a blanket over me and went to sit somewhere else.

I just sat there for the longest time in my bloodstained clothes, staring at nothing. After a while, the plane’s inside door opened again, and I heard footsteps on the ladder. Without really thinking about it, I instinctively felt for two vampires in my radius, but I sensed only witch magic. Powerful witch magic.

I blinked, looking up. Sashi Brighton was in the doorway, looking down at me. “Hi,” she said, her voice cracking a little. She was wheeling the little first-aid suitcase I’d seen in her house. “What happened to your shoes?”

I looked around, without really seeing anything. “They’re . . . somewhere.”

“Cliff says you won’t let him check on your injuries.” I just looked at her. “I can’t use magic on you, obviously, but I’m still a proper physician’s assistant.” Sashi glanced at Cliff.

On cue, he stood up. “I’m just going to take a look around outside.” He squeezed past Sashi and climbed down the exterior stairs.

Sashi looked around for a moment before swiveling one of the large chairs so she could sit right across from me. I sat passively while she took my blood pressure and shone a light in my eyes.

“Do you feel light-headed?” she asked, pulling on sterile gloves. “Headaches?”