Seeing Molly in a prison situation left me momentarily speechless, but Jesse filled in the silence. “Is anyone coming down with us?” he asked Abigail a little awkwardly. I could practically see him trying not to look at the wheelchair.

Her brother, who was leaning against the wall, quirked his lips in amusement. “No. We need to stay up here and keep watch, in case any of our afternoon staff shows up early. But we’ll both be monitoring from here.”

“Is it recording?”

Abigail shook her head and reached down near one leg to tap a large hard drive. “We render our footage once every month, which means the cameras are offline for about an hour, one area at a time. We were due for an update three days from now, but Dashiell has asked me to move it forward.” She sniffed, and I realized that to her, Dashiell’s precautions would look a lot like mistrust. Crap. Abigail already disliked me, both because I constantly messed with her security—they had to redo all the wards and witch bags every time I stopped by—and because she thought I was a huge liability, a security breach just waiting to happen. It also didn’t help that every time I was with Abigail I got nervous and made bad jokes, which she saw as a symptom of my general immaturity/uselessness. And now I was giving her more reasons to be pissy. “You better get down there,” she said in a frosty voice. “You’re already late.”

Hayne stepped forward. “I have to search you,” he said, a little apologetic.

He was extremely thorough, but professional about it. Jesse and I had been expecting this and left our weapons in the car, though I felt jittery without my Taser and my knives. The Polaroids and the address book were in the pockets of my excellent new jacket, but Hayne let me keep them after a quick flip-through. He was searching for weapons, or a way to help Molly escape. He wouldn’t have cared if I’d brought Molly porn, so long as there wasn’t a metal file hidden inside it.

After checking Jesse, Hayne walked us through the door to the east-wing basement. He didn’t speak—he never was a big talker—but at one point he reached over and gave my arm a quick, subtle squeeze without looking at me. I nodded my thanks. Hayne belonged to Dashiell in a lot of ways, but he wasn’t unsympathetic to my situation.

I had never actually been in the basement of Dashiell’s mansion, and I have to admit that a little part of me had been picturing some sort of medieval dungeon, with torches along the wall, lots of black iron, and, I don’t know, maybe hay on the floor? At any rate, I was disappointed. The basement under the east wing was sparse and efficient but clean, with white drywall and low-pile utility carpeting. It looked like the kind of space where suburban moms would send their kids to roughhouse, knowing there wasn’t much damage they could do.

I expanded my radius as we walked, hoping to give Molly a few extra seconds to acclimate before we arrived. When we reached the cell door, I sidestepped Hayne, who was fumbling with a set of keys, so I could stand on my tiptoes and look inside the viewing window.

Most vampires are really rattled when they get close to me—Molly herself once described the sensation as waking up from a coma only to realize you’d been beaten half to death. But Molly had lived with me, so she was more accustomed to daytime wake-ups than most vampires. When I peered through the glass she was already sitting up on the cot, her eyes trained on the door, waiting for us. She gave me a weak smile, which I understood perfectly. Oh, this again. I worked to swallow the lump in my throat. She looked so small.

Jesse and I crowded inside the tiny room, and Hayne took a step backward. “I have to lock you in,” he said, not unkindly. “I’ll be back at ten to one, and you need to be ready to move.” Nodding briefly at Molly, he turned on his heel. I heard the sound of the heavy-duty bolt grinding over.

Molly looked past me, forcing more effort into her smile. “Hey, Jesse. Long time no see. Thanks for coming.”

He reached out a fist, gently bumping it against hers. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

Molly looked at me. “What did I miss?” She was trying to conceal it, but I saw the hope glimmering in her eyes. “I don’t suppose you’re here to sneak me out.”

“Sadly, no. We’ve got some questions. And some news.” I sat down next to her on the bed. Jesse leaned against a wall, trying not to loom over us. “First off, Dashiell believes you were being controlled by someone else,” I told her, and began summarizing the recent events. Molly was so relieved to hear about boundary magic—something she’d heard of, but knew little about, much like myself—that silent tears leaked down her cheeks when I explained it. “So I really didn’t blood-gorge?” she whispered, her fingers encircling my forearm tight enough to bruise. She was human at the moment, too. “Are you sure?”

I was taken aback. With the exception of the previous night’s freak-out, I’d never seen Molly so intense about anything. “I’m positive you didn’t blood-gorge,” I told her. “And this boundary magic thing is the only alternative that makes sense, so . . . yeah. I’m sure.”

She released my arm, tears of relief pooling into the collar of her dress. It was the same baggy piece I’d hastily grabbed from her apartment building, although someone had taken away the belt.

Then she shook herself, and the solace faded out of her expression, replaced by sorrow. “They’re all still dead, though. No matter what happens going forward, they’re all dead because of me.”

Jesse and I exchanged a look. “Not exactly,” I said. I told Molly about the news report we’d seen on the bodies, that only eight of the twelve had been found.

She must have put it together a hell of a lot faster than any of the rest of us, because as soon as I explained the numbers, I could practically see her blood pressure drop. Her pale skin turned the color of snow, and her upper body began to rock a little, like a stiff breeze was about to tip her over. “Molly? Are you okay?”

“Someone’s turning them,” she whispered. “Oh, God. It’s the midnight drain.”

Chapter 17

Before I could ask what that meant, one of her hands darted out to touch the wall for support, and the other clapped over her mouth. “I think . . . I’m gonna . . .”

I stood there, stupidly staring, until Jesse grabbed my elbow and steered me to one side, making way for Molly to stumble past us to the small sink in the corner of the room. She leaned forward and began retching.

Whoa. I’d seen vampires react badly in my presence—they aren’t used to even very mild shock symptoms, so getting terrible news next to a null was pretty much two kicks in the teeth. But in all the years I’d been around the Old World, I had never seen a vampire throw up, Molly included.

She was having a hard time with it, too. There was no food in her stomach, of course, but her system was insisting it needed to purge, so dry heaves wracked her thin frame. I hurried over and scooped her black-and-blue hair out of her face, holding it back as she convulsed and spat bile into the sink. When her body finally relaxed, I turned the sturdy faucet handle so she could rinse her mouth and splash water on her face.

“Are you okay?” came out of my mouth, even though I knew the question was inane and useless. Of course she wasn’t okay. “I mean, um, can you breathe?”

Molly nodded, and I let go of her hair so she could straighten up. Keeping a hand on the wall, she tucked herself into the corner next to the sink and slowly let herself slump down to the floor, staring at nothing.

I just stood there for a moment, suddenly very aware of my physical presence. Should I stand there in the middle of the room? Sit on the bed? Go put my arm around Molly? I had no context for this situation, no frame of reference for how to handle it. After a moment, Jesse went to one side of the bed and perched right on the edge, so I did too, shooting him a grateful smile.

“Which four?” Molly asked from the floor. Her voice had taken on a hollow, mechanical tone. It was just how she’d sounded back at the house, when she was still covered in tacky blood. “Wait, let me guess. Hailey, for sure. Taylor, Louisa, and . . . probably Harper.”

I hadn’t remembered their names, but Jesse had read the online news report. He was nodding. “How did you know?” he asked.