The lights were off out here tonight but that was fine, it provided me coverage for sneaking across the private bedrooms of the clinic’s staff and over to where the sliding glass doors led to a grand living room. I stopped and gripped the handle, ready to slide the door open, when red light flashed from inside. I frowned and leaned into the glass to look inside—my eyes widened. One of the other women, her name was Rachel or something similar, was stepping out of a small pool that had been built into the wooden floor. The water in the pool was bloodred. My stomach turned. It sloshed like blood, because blood was thicker than water. My mouth watered like I was going to throw up, but I managed to swallow it down. That had to be a trick of the light. Or wine. It could have been wine. Azazel wasn’t American. He’d always had unique and intriguing ways of doing things.

But then Rachel stepped forward into the beam of moonlight streaming in through the sliding glass doors and my heart stopped. She was naked and every inch of her skin was stained red and shimmered like satin paint. There were three symbols drawn on her body: on her forehead, over her heart, and on her pregnant belly. All three symbols glowed neon-red like spotlights. Rachel threw her head back and sighed. When she lifted her head, my whole body turned ice-cold. She had little black horns and her eyes were entirely red.

She turned to Azazel standing beside her and kissed him. “Thank you, Azazel,” she purred.

He pressed his hand to her belly, then gestured behind her. “Liam, Rachel is ready.”

Liam was Morgan’s husband. They ran this clinic and had hired Azazel to take care of us. But as I watched Rachel push up on her tiptoes to kiss Liam on the lips, I started to wonder just what the hell kind of clinic this was. Liam was married to Morgan, a nice and kind woman. Why was he making out with a pregnant woman who wasn’t his wife and had definitely just kissed Azazel? Liam took Rachel’s hand and led her through a doorway into the private bedrooms I’d never seen inside of. Except now I did look. I crouched down and waddled over a few feet to look through the glass in the bedroom. My jaw dropped. The room had no furniture whatsoever. Black candles had been lined up to make a massive circle on the hardwood floor with that same symbol drawn in what looked like blood.