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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 throatwindpipe, esophagus, whateverremained 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
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