Stolen

CRISES

"Doctor Carmichael wants her upstairs now," Tucker said.

Xavier kept walking, so I followed. I glanced in each cell as we passed. Armen Haig sat at his table reading a National Geographic. Leah napped in bed. The Vodoun priest's cell was empty. Had Matasumi "removed" him from the program? I shivered at the thought, yet another reminder of what happened when captives outlived their usefulness.

When we came to Savannah's cell, Xavier reached for the door handle.

"Don't you dare," Tucker hissed, striding toward us.

"Relax, old man. You'll give yourself a heart attack."

"I'm in better shape than you'll ever be, boy. You're not taking this… young lady into that cell."

"Why? Afraid of what'll happen? Four supernatural beings in one place. Imagine the incredible concentration of psychic energy," Xavier said in a passable imitation of Matasumi.

Xavier pushed open the door. Savannah and Ruth sat at the table, heads bent together as Ruth drew imaginary lines on the tabletop. As the door opened, they jerked apart.

"Oh, it's just you," Savannah said as Xavier stepped inside. "What's the matter? Can't zap through walls anymore? That'd be a shame, losing your one and only power."

"Isn't she a sweetheart?" Xavier said, looking back at me as Ruth shushed Savannah.

Ignoring the older woman, Savannah stood and craned her neck to see behind Xavier.

"Who's with you?" she asked.

"A guest," Xavier said. "But if you're not going to be nice-"

Savannah dodged past him and looked up at me. She smiled. "You're the new one, the werewolf."

"Her name's Elena, dear," Ruth said. "It's not polite-"

"A werewolf. Now that's a real power," Savannah said, shooting a look at Xavier.

"Come in, Elena," Ruth said. When I did, she embraced me. "How are you, dear?"

"Surviving."

"I heard the most awful thing about that poor Miss Bauer-"

"So what happens when you change into a wolf?" Savannah asked. "Does it hurt? Is it gross? I saw this movie once, about werewolves, and the muzzle came right through this guy's mouth and ripped his head-"

"Savannah!" Ruth said.

"It's okay," I said, smiling. "But we don't have much time. They're taking me upstairs." I glanced at Ruth. "Is everything going well?"

Ruth looked at Savannah. A beam of pride penetrated her exasperation.

"Very well," Ruth said.

"Tucker's getting restless," Xavier said. "We should go."

"Bring her back sometime," Savannah said, returning to her seat. "I'm out of Mars bars, too."

"And remind me what should compel me to do you these favors?" Xavier said. "Your boundless charm?"

Savannah gave a mock sigh, eyes twinkling with a cunning that was half-child, half-woman. "Fine. Get me some candy bars and I'll play Monopoly with you. Since you get so bo-o-o-red."

"I don't think that's such a good idea, dear," Ruth whispered.

"It's okay," Savannah said. "He's a really shi-crappy player. We can both beat him."

There was still something I needed to say to Ruth, but I had no idea how to do it without Xavier overhearing. I didn't dare ask to speak to Ruth in private. Even if I could, where would we find privacy in a glass cube?

"You're having trouble contacting Paige," Ruth said.

I jumped and glanced over at Xavier. He was still bantering with Savannah.

"He can't hear me," Ruth said. "Don't answer aloud, though. The spell only works for me. Just nod."

I nodded.

Ruth sighed. "I was afraid of that. I spoke to her yesterday, but when I tried this morning, I couldn't contact either you or her. Perhaps it's because I'm concentrating too much of my energy on the child. I had no idea how powerful Savannah would be. Her mother had great potential, but she never lived up to it. Too undisciplined. Too inclined toward… darker things. With the proper training, this one could be-" She stopped. "But that's witch business. I won't bore you with it. Just please make sure you get her to Paige. After what I'm doing, Savannah must not be left on her own. As for renewing contact, try to relax, dear. It will come. If my energy returns, I'll communicate with Paige myself and get a message to you."

"-poker?" Savannah was asking me.

"Hmmm?" I said.

"Do you play poker," she said. "Xavier says he won't play because we need a fourth person, but I think he's just scared he'll get beat by a girl."

"Good night, Savannah," Xavier said, ushering me out of the cell.

"Not the dark Mars bars," Savannah called after him. "They give me zits."

Xavier chuckled and pulled the door shut. Tucker still stood in the hall, arms crossed.

"So?" Xavier asked him. "See any unidentified flying objects? Did the walls come crumbling down?"

Tucker only glared. Xavier grinned and led me toward the exit.

"You don't believe that psychic energy explanation?" I asked as we walked. "What do you think it is? A poltergeist?"

"Pol-?" he started, then his lip curled. "Leah."

"She seems to think-"

"I know what she thinks." Xavier opened the security door. "Her poltergeist theory."

"There you are! "a voice called.

I looked to see Carmichael bearing down on us.

"You," she said to Xavier. "I should have guessed. I asked for Elena over twenty minutes ago."

"If it was an emergency, you'd have come yourself," Xavier said.

"It's an emergency now." She waved him off. "Go make yourself useful for once. Maybe you can help-"

Xavier vanished. Carmichael sighed and shook her head, then grabbed my elbow and propelled me to the elevator. As we headed down the corridor to the infirmary, I caught a few snatches of conversation from behind a closed door. Soundproofing muffled the voices nearly to the point of obscurity, even for me. One sounded like Matasumi. The other was unfamiliar, male with undertones of a lilting accent.

"Vampires?" the unfamiliar voice said. "Who gave him permission to capture a vampire?"

"No one needs to give him permission," Matasumi said, his voice a near-whisper, though nobody except a werewolf could possibly hear through the soundproofed walls. "With Sondra incapacitated, he's starting to throw his weight around. He wants you to tell us where we can find a vampire."

"He" had to be Winsloe. And the second man? Bauer said the sorcerer was helping them find potential captives. Was this the elusive Isaac Katzen? I slowed to listen as we passed the door.

"You're wasting your time with this, Lawrence," the man said. "You know you are. You have to put your foot down. Tell him no. I gave him two werewolves. That's enough. We have to stick with the higher races. Werewolves and vampires are common brutes, driven entirely by physical needs. They have no higher purpose. No higher use."

"That's not entirely true," Matasumi said. "Though I agree that we should concentrate on the spell-casters, the werewolves are providing invaluable insights into the nature of physical and sensory power. A vampire might be useful for-"

"Goddamn it! I don't believe this! You're as bad as Sondra! Seduced by…"

His voice trailed off as Carmichael propelled me down the hall. I pretended to stumble, giving myself time to hear more, but the voices hushed until I couldn't stall any longer and followed Carmichael into the infirmary.

There was no emergency. The spot where Bauer had injected herself was gushing a thick, stinking, blood-streaked pus and had swollen to the size of a golf ball, which threatened to cut off circulation to her lower arm. Okay, maybe that would normally seem like a cause for alarm, but in the metamorphosis from human to werewolf it was only one of several dozen potentially life-threatening hurdles. Again, I advised Carmichael against fancy medical cures. The transformation had to run its course. Simple, almost primitive medicine was the only solution. In this case, that meant draining the wound, applying compresses to reduce the swelling and watching for temperature spikes. During it all, Bauer stayed asleep. She hadn't once regained full consciousness since collapsing in my cell. Nature had taken over, shutting the brain down to divert all resources to the body during this crucial period.

Once the crisis passed, Carmichael decided I should move permanently into the infirmary. Hey, I wasn't arguing. Anything to be out of my cell and one level closer to freedom. Naturally, Matasumi wasn't fond of the idea. He argued with Carmichael and, as usual, lost. I was given a cot in the infirmary and round-the-clock guards, one in the room and two outside the door. Then I made a demand of my own. I wanted my manacles removed. If Bauer regained consciousness, I needed to be able to defend myself. The three of us argued over this, but Matasumi and Carmichael finally relented, agreeing to remove my handcuffs in return for posting a second guard inside the room.

Still convinced I'd hear from Paige, I mentally compiled a list of questions to ask Jeremy. There were so many things I couldn't recall from my own transformation. I remembered him explaining that he couldn't give me anything for the pain, constantly reiterating the "nature must run its course" line, but on one occasion he'd administered sedatives. Why? I couldn't remember, but it meant there must be exceptions to the "no drugs" rule. So what were they? How bad did things have to get before not drugging Bauer would be more dangerous than drugging her? What about the restraints? How tight was too tight? How loose was too loose? Madness added strength, but did that make Bauer stronger than an experienced, physically fit werewolf like myself? And what about the saliva transfer? A bite injected a limited amount of saliva. Bauer had overdosed. Was that a problem? Would the fact that she'd injected the saliva instead of receiving it through a bite cause problems? I was sure Jeremy would know. All I needed to do was talk to him.

It didn't happen. I lay awake as long as I could, but after thirty-six stress-filled, sleepless hours, I couldn't fend off slumber for long. Paige never contacted me.

The next day began with back-to-back medical crises. First, more seizures. Then, before Bauer recovered from that, she stopped breathing. Her throat swelled and the muscles thickened as she started to change from human to wolf. Her underlying anatomy wasn't ready yet for the transformation, so while her neck altered, the inside of her throat-windpipe, esophagus, whatever-remained human. Don't ask me for specifics. I'm no doctor. Even Carmichael seemed baffled. The point was that Bauer stopped breathing. If we spent time wondering why, she would have suffocated. I tilted her head back, straightening her windpipe, and massaged her neck, pressuring it back into human form. That worked, but too slowly. Carmichael began worrying about oxygen deprivation, and I had to agree. So she performed an emergency tracheotomy. Lots of fun. Once Bauer was breathing, we could relax. For a while.

Being in the infirmary had more advantages than I'd imagined. Not only was I closer to freedom, but after the first day people treated me much the same way they did Tess. I became not an inmate, but Carmichael's assistant, unimportant enough in the overall hierarchy that my presence was ignored. In other words, people talked around me as though I were part of the furnishings. Matasumi talked to Carmichael, the guards talked to one another, Tess talked to the cute janitor. Everyone talked. And I listened. Amazing what I could pick up, not only tips about the compound and its organizational structure, but petty things like which guards had a reputation for slacking off. Fascinating stuff.

Later that day, I even got to see Armen Haig again and the Vodoun priest, Curtis Zaid, who was still very much alive. I didn't have much luck with Zaid. If, as Bauer had implied, Leah had befriended the Vodoun priest, she had even better social skills than I thought. When I tried talking to Zaid, he blocked even such pleasantries as "good morning" with baleful glares and silence. Definitely not a potential ally. Armen, on the other hand, was a very promising prospect. He not only wanted to escape-and wanted help-but he'd been doing his homework. He knew the security system, the guards' rotations, and the compound layout. Better yet, he managed to convey this information to me right in front of Carmichael, working it into such banal conversation that she never even noticed. Observant, canny, and extremely bright. My kind of guy… for an escape partner, that is.