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I nodded and kissed his cheek. "I'll be careful. For both of us."
Step one: Inspect the grounds.
Clay, Paige, Adam, and I followed the overgrown service road for two miles, at which point the road looped north, away from the compound, meaning we had to finish the journey with a half-mile trek through thick brush. Once we were close enough to see the compound, we stopped and circled the perimeter, staying as far in the forest as we could while still being able to see the open strip of ground surrounding the building. We looked, listened, and sniffed for anyone outside the compound walls. According to Clay, from his earlier observations, people came outside for three reasons only: to smoke, to feed the dogs, and to leave the grounds. Leaving the grounds meant driving one of four SUVs stored in a nearby garage. No one left on foot and no one went for walks in the forest. Nature lovers these guys were not. Our walk around the perimeter confirmed that no one was outside.
Step two: Kill the dogs.
During Clay's earlier reconnaissance, he'd found the kennel. It was a cinder-block building tucked thirty yards into the woods, as if purposely placed away from the compound to eliminate noise. These dogs were for tracking and killing, not for guarding. As we drew near the kennel, I could tell why. Every few minutes one of the dogs would start a hellish racket, barking at something in the forest, barking at a cell-mate, or just barking from sheer boredom. Although the dogs wouldn't alert anyone to our presence, we still had to get rid of them. I'd seen what they were capable of doing to me as a wolf. I didn't want to think of how much damage they could do to me when I was in human form. Once the guards realized we were in the compound, someone would get the dogs, and they'd do what they'd been trained to do, namely rip us to shreds.
We circled the kennel from the south, moving with the wind. The building was roughly twenty by ten with a fenced yard half that size. As Clay had discovered on his earlier visit, no guards were posted at the kennel. Nor were there any security measures in place to protect the animals. Only a garden-variety padlock secured the gate.
Once we were downwind of the kennel, I counted the dogs by separating their scents. Three. As Clay, Adam, and I crept forward, Paige cast a cover spell. This was the same spell Ruth had cast in the Pittsburgh alley, meaning we were invisible only if we stayed still. When we moved, our images were distorted, but visible. It worked fine with the dogs, confusing them long enough for Clay to snap the padlock and the three of us to get inside. Clay and I killed our targets easily enough. Adam fumbled the choke hold we'd shown him. Not his fault. Most people aren't neck-snapping experts. The dog managed to graze four bloody furrows in Adam's arm before Clay finished the job. Paige tried to inspect the injury, but Adam sloughed it off and helped Clay drag the dog carcasses into the kennel building.
Step three: Disable the vehicles.
This was one thing Clay and I could not do. Why? Because we were both so mechanically challenged we rarely pumped our own gas for fear we'd somehow screw up and the car would burst into flames before our eyes. Here was Adam's chance to make up for the botched choke hold. After we snapped the door locks, Adam flipped up the hoods, pulled a few wires and metal things, and declared the vehicles unusable. All Clay and I could do was watch. Worse yet, Paige advised Adam on a few ways to make the damage less detectable, so even the mechanically inclined guards couldn't quickly deduce and fix the problem. Not that I was envious. Who cared whether you could change motor oil when you could snap a rottweiler's neck in 2.8 seconds? Now there was a practical skill.
Step four: Get inside the compound.
Okay, now things got tough. In the movies, heroes always get into seemingly impenetrable buildings through a heating duct or ventilation shaft or service entrance. In real life, if someone goes through all the hassle of creating an elaborate security system, they don't have a 3' x 3' ventilation shaft secured only by a metal grate and four screws. Unless they're really, really stupid. These guys were not. Hell, they didn't even have one of those massive air vents with the slowly rotating, very sharp fan that would chew us to bits if we didn't dash through the blades at exactly the right moment. Nope. None of that fun stuff. Not even old-fashioned windows. Just one way in and out. The front door.
When Clay had scouted the compound during my captivity, he'd discovered that guards engaged in that sacred ritual of workers every where--the hack pack: die-hard smokers condemned to huddle together against the elements. Obviously even nefarious secret projects were smoke-free these days. Having determined there was only one way into the compound, we needed to get past the security system. That meant we needed a valid hand and retina. Since we didn't need a good pair of lungs, one of the smokers would work fine.
We positioned ourselves in the woods beside the exit door and waited. Twenty-five minutes later, two guards came out and lit up. Clay and I each targeted one and killed him. Neither guard even saw us, perhaps being too enraptured by that first flood of nicotine. They'd barely finished a quarter of their cigarettes before we cured them of the habit.
We dragged the corpses a hundred feet into the woods. Then Clay dropped his and pulled a folded garbage bag from his back pocket.
"He's not going to fit in that," Paige said.
Clay shook open the bag. "Parts of him will."
"You're not--" Paige paled and I could almost see flashbacks of the "decapitated head in the bag" incident running through her mind. "Why can't you just hold him up to the security camera?"
"Because, according to Elena, we'll need to get past more security inside, and if you'd like to drag along a two-hundred-pound corpse, be my guest."
"I don't see why--"
Adam started to hum. As Paige turned to glare at him, I recognized the tune.
"'Little Miss Can't Be Wrong,'" I murmured ... and tried very hard to stifle a laugh.
Adam grinned. "Clay called her that once when you were away. If she starts getting bossy, sing it. Shuts her up every time."
"Try singing it again and see what happens," Paige said.
Adam's grin broadened. "What are you going to do, turn me into a toad?"
Paige pretended not to hear him. "Elena, did you know that one of the major accusations against witches during the Inquisition was that they caused impotence?"
"Ummm, no," I said.
"Not just psychological impotence either," Paige said. "Men accused witches of literally removing their penises. They thought we collected them in little boxes where they wriggled around and ate oats and corn. There's even this story in the Malleus Maleficarum about a guy who went to a witch to ask for his penis back. She told him to climb a tree, where he'd find some in a bird's nest. He did and, of course, tried to take the biggest, but the witch said he couldn't have that one because it belonged to the parish priest."
I laughed.
"Men," Paige said. "They'll accuse women of anything." She paused and slanted a look at Adam. "Of course, it's such an outlandish charge, one can't help but wonder if there isn't a grain of truth in it."
Adam feigned a gulp. "Personally, I'd rather be a toad."
