Page 61 of Saint of the Shadows

He shrugged.

“I can work,” she replied with a wince.

Dr. Foster held out her smartphone and clicked through it. “Great! I’ll have the supervising nurse schedule you.” She followed them into the lab.

“Sorry. For this mnemonic thing to work, we need as few people as possible,” Tobias said.

Suddenly, Marisol and Tobias smelled fishy. Dr. Foster wiggled her nose. “Okay?” Then herpager beeped. She checked the message. “Let yourself out.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Tobias said. The doors clicked behind them. Marisol waited for Dr. Foster’s footsteps to disappear. Then they tiptoed through the darkened hallway of the labs, lit only by the exit signs and emergency lights.

As they turned the corner near Annie’s lab, it felt like someone else’s legs carried Marisol as her limbs trembled numb. She placed a shaking hand against the lab’s window. Her pulse pounded in her ears. In a blink, she could see pooling blood, Annie’s lifeless hand, but in another blink, she saw the sheen of the clean tile. The memory of Annie was washed away. She closed her eyes and rested her forehead against the locked entrance.

Vincent’s voice echoed in her memory, soothing her. “You’re having a panic attack. I’m going to hold you. Copy my breathing.” She could hear his slow heartbeat and controlled breathing. She opened her eyes, that level of control now coursed through her.

Marisol turned the lab’s door handle to confirm that the security program kept the door locked. It didn’t budge. Of course, security locked it. The only time she was allowed in was when Annie opened it from the other side.

From the inside.

Annie had opened the door to the Bloodsucker. She knew him! Not only knew him but also trusted him enough to open the door of her lab at threea.m. Annie, how could you? And now, Marisol was the asshole, victim-blaming her best friend to absolve her ex of guilt.

A shriek traveled from the hollows of the basement. The mouse. Tobias turned on the flashlight function on his phone and led them down the stairs. Marisol used her phone as a flashlight, too, as they inched down the cave-like hallway toward the screeches.

“If that doc checks in with the precinct, she’ll figure out that we’re full of shit,” Tobias said. They followed screeching noises, but that’s what bothered him?

“I’m in mourning, and you’re helping me out. The story’s got legs. Besides, I know the person whose name is on the building.” Though if her keycard situation was any indication, name-dropping Vincent Varian might not be the “Get Out of Jail Free” card she was hoping for. They’d definitely be charged with trespassing and the worst crime of all: admitting she needed Vincent.

“Yeah, know him to be a real tool.” Tobias stopped. He furrowed his brow and lifted a finger to his lips. “Sh.”

She braced herself yet heard nothing. Then a few clicks, and the heating system thundered through the building. She sighed with relief. “The heating.”

Tobias shook his head.

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.

“What was that?” Tobias shined his flashlight in the direction of the claw sounds. Nothing. He tilted his head toward the sounds and gripped Marisol by the wrist, pulling her down the hallway.

The scratching led them to the door to the boiler room. Tobias jimmied the handle. No movement. It was a dead end.

“Didn’t think far enough ahead. Damn.” Mouse-duty would have to go to Vincent. She did need him.

Tobias moved his flashlight up and down the walls of the hallway. He stroked his chin and settled the light over a fire extinguisher. Using the base of the extinguisher and brute force, he bent the door handle of the boiler room, busting the door free. “We’ll get Mr. Name on the Building to buy a new door.”

A stench wafted from the room. It was a wave of sulfur and the bacterial farts of rotting animal carcasses.

“Think it’s in here?” Tobias asked. He held a hand to his nose.

She stretched the neck of her sweatshirt across her nose. She moved the flashlight over the expanse of the room. Its beams captured small chunks of fur and flesh. Annie’s mouse had been down here devouring whatever poor rodents made their way into the room. “Yep. Definitely looks like it made a home here.”

They crossed the threshold into the boiler room. Their phones shut down. Tobias violentlytapped the power button to restart his phone. Without a light source, only the faint aura of the exit sign lit the room. She backed into the wall. It served as her guide as she moved in the red-tinted darkness with shaking limbs.

“I think something just crawled over my foot,” Tobias announced.

“Don’t say that!”

“I’m not saying it to freak you out. Something actually did.”

The screen on her phone lightly glowed as the power returned, and she aimed the weak beam toward Tobias.

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