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.

EXIT

The next crisis was another bout of seizures. After we'd subdued Bauer, I couldn't sit still. I prowled the infirmary, touching this, playing with that, until my knee banged a steel cart and Carmichael finally looked up from her paperwork.

"Would you sit down?" she snapped. "Before you break something."

I walked to the chair, looked at it, then paced to Bauer's IV.

"Don't-" Carmichael began.

"What's in there?"

"It's a general solution, mostly water with-" Carmichael stopped, seeing that I'd already moved on, my attention now caught by the beeping heart-rate monitor. "Is it close to your time to Change?"

I considered it. I'd last Changed early Monday morning, five days ago. Like most werewolves, my cycle ran weekly. That meant, although I could Change as often as I liked, I needed to Change at least once a week, or risk having my body force a Change. Already I could feel the restlessness coursing through me. Soon my muscles would start to twinge and ache. For now, though, I could control it. I had a few days left. If I had to Change in this place, they'd probably put me in a secure cell with a full audience and a videographer. I'd endure a whole lotta aches and pains before I let that happen.

"No, not yet," I said. "I'm just restless. I'm not used to being in such a confined space."

Carmichael capped her pen. "I could probably arrange for you to take a walk through the compound. Under sufficient guard. I should have recommended some exercise in your program."

"Exercise?" said a voice from the door. "Don't be talking like that in my compound."

"Hello, Tyrone," Carmichael said without turning to face him. "Did you need something?"

Winsloe sauntered into the room and grinned at me. "Just what you've got there. Thought I'd keep Elena company for a while, let you do your work."

"That's very… considerate of you, Tyrone, but I'm afraid you'll have to wait if you need to speak to Ms. Michaels. I was about to call for some additional guards to take her for a walk. She's restless."

"Restless? Is she ready to Change?"

"No, she is not." Carmichael thumped her clipboard onto the counter and headed for the intercom.

"It should be soon. Maybe she needs-"

"She doesn't."

Carmichael hit the intercom button. Winsloe walked behind her and clicked it off.

"You said she needs exercise?" Winsloe said. "What about the weight room? Get some extra guards and I'll escort her myself."

Carmichael paused, looked from Winsloe to me, then said, "I don't think that's such a wise idea. A walk-"

"Won't be enough," Winsloe said, grinning his little-boy grin. "Will it, Elena?"

I considered it. While I'd rather walk and explore the compound, I also had to ingratiate myself with Winsloe, to give him a reason to keep me alive. "A weight room would be better."

Carmichael's eyes met mine, conveying the message that I didn't have to go with Winsloe if I didn't want to. When I glanced away, she said, "Fine," and punched the intercom button.

We left my two in-room guards at the infirmary, gathered the two at the door, and added three more, meaning I was guarded by more than double the firepower and muscle they'd left with Bauer. Skewed priorities, but nobody asked my opinion, and I'd only waste my breath offering it. I was surprised Carmichael didn't send all the guards with me and cover Bauer by herself.

The weight room wasn't any larger or better equipped than the one at Stonehaven. It was little more than fifteen feet square with a multi-use weight machine, free weights, a punching bag, a treadmill, a ski machine, and a StairMaster. We didn't have any cardio equipment at Stonehaven. No matter how bad the weather, we'd rather be jogging outside than running on an indoor hamster wheel. As for the Stair-Master-well, buns of steel weren't high on any werewolf's priority list, and from the looks of the dust on this machine, the guards didn't think much of it either.

Three guards were working out when we arrived. Winsloe ordered them to leave. One did. Two stuck around for the show. A girl lifting weights. Wow. What a novelty. Obviously they hadn't been to a public gym in a very long time.

I didn't pump iron for long. Every time I sat down, Winsloe was there, checking my weight load, asking how much I could manage, generally annoying the hell out of me. Since dropping a fifty-pound barbell on his foot didn't seem a wise idea, I abandoned the weights. I tried the treadmill but couldn't figure out the programming. Winsloe offered to help and only succeeded in jamming the computer. Obviously his technical know-how didn't extend beyond PCs. It didn't matter. I didn't want to jog anyway. What I really wanted to do was hit something-hard. The perfect outlet for that was in the far corner. The punching bag.