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Voices came from an eastern room--maybe an office or lab. To the west, Jeremy caught the sound of coughing and the occasional moan. More than one patient? He couldn't tell. He hoped so, though, because he was catching at least eight distinct human scents, and we really didn't want to be dealing with seven people guarding Bryce.
The main stairs opened into the upper hall. From there, we could see into the lower hall, meaning it wasn't the easiest place to sneak down. Or the easiest place for me to lurk while Jeremy and Adam snuck down. I followed them at a distance, then crouched behind the massive banister and listened.
I could see a closed door to the west, leading into the hospital area. Adam checked the door, then gave me a thumbs-up, letting me know it was unlocked.
To the east, I could make out a desk through the open doorway. Then, with a squeak, a chair wheeled back from the desk and I caught sight of a man in a lab coat . . . at the same time he caught sight of Adam.
A shout. Then a thump. A woman yelled, "The door. Get the door!" Another thump, this one from the direction of the hospital. Then a metallic clang. I leaned out to see a mechanical steel door sliding closed over the door into the west wing. Sealing off the hospital.
I raced down the stairs. I grabbed the steel door and wrenched, but it was like a solid elevator door, and it wasn't stopping. I managed to squeeze through.
I swung around, my back slapping against the now closed steel door. A knockback spell flew to my lips. And just as fast, I flipped open the switchblade I'd grabbed at headquarters.
I was in a small area cut off from the rest of the room by a hospital curtain. To my right was a sink and medical supplies. A handwritten sign hanging off the curtain warned FULL PROTECTION REQUIRED BEYOND THIS POINT. Disposable gloves and masks were piled on a trolley, with a bin for discards.
I tugged back the curtain and found three hospital beds, a sleeping form in each of them. The lights were dimmed. Monitors bleeped and blipped beside each patient.
Across the way was a closed door. There was no sign of anyone except the patients. I was about to step out when my phone vibrated. I quickly texted Adam to say I was searching and couldn't talk yet.
I slid from the curtained area and crept over to the sleeping forms. The first was a woman, lying on her back, rasping as she breathed, deep in sleep. The last in the row was dark-haired--male or female, I couldn't tell, especially since there was something draped over the patient's face. The dark hair told me it wasn't Bryce, though.
The middle patient was a young, light-haired man. The dim lights meant I couldn't see more than that, so I tiptoed over to the beds. I started slipping between the two and knocked into a bucket on the floor. The stink of vomit wafted up. I covered my nose, retreated, and circled to the other side of the bed.
I was all the way up near the top before I was sure it wasn't Bryce. I started to back out, then stopped. Something was wrong with the patient. He looked better than the sickly pale woman on his other side. No wheezing or rasping or coughing . . . No sounds at all. That was the problem--the patient lay perfectly still, sheets tucked around his body with hospital precision, as if he hadn't even twitched since he'd been put there.
Yet there were machines hooked up to him. I couldn't tell what they were--I can only recognize heart monitors and there didn't seem to be one with the familiar mountain-range display. But lines on the machines were moving and numbers were changing.
Comatose? I looked back at the woman in the first bed. Was this an infirmary for sick group members? That made sense--when you're planning a huge movement, you're going to need facilities for illness, especially if they're supernatural and can't be shipped off to the nearest hospital.
It seemed like a lot of secrecy for an infirmary, though. I remembered what the man in the alley said.
A war is coming.
Was the hospital a preparation for war? For the casualties of war?
The bigger question right now was: Where's Bryce? I looked at the door across the room and took a step toward it.
Something touched my arm.
"Help me," a voice rasped.
I stumbled back as the dark-haired figure in the last bed sat up. It was a woman. Gauze covered the top of her face, and what I'd thought was a white shirt or gown was more gauze, crisscrossing her body like a half-wrapped mummy.
She pawed at the bandage on her face with hands so thickly bandaged they were like clubs. She managed to catch the bandage and yanked it down enough for me to see one eye, swollen and leaking, surrounded by scrapes and cuts.
As if she had tried to scratch her eyes out.
I shivered and tried to yank my gaze away, but instead saw the other scratches now, the ones radiating out from the hastily wrapped gauze on her body. Scratches and gouges everywhere.
"It burns," she rasped. "It always burns. Please help me. Make it stop."
She started pawing at her body, her thickly wrapped hands desperately trying to scratch, to rip, to tear. I glanced toward the closed door as she mewled in frustration. I pushed her back down on the bed and assured her I'd get the nurse, that we'd get something for her, just relax. But she shoved me, flailing and grunting until a liquidfilled tube overhead clicked and beeped and discharged a dose of something and, after a moment, she went still again.
I waited until I was sure she wasn't moving again, then I headed for the closed door to the next room to continue my search for Bryce. I paused at the door. If there was a nurse in here, that's where he or she would be. I readied my switchblade and eased the door open. From within, I could hear the sigh and whir of machines, and the steady beep-beep-beep of a heart
monitor.
It looked like a mirror image of the room I was in. Three beds against the far wall. Only one patient, though. Bryce lay in the first bed, eyes closed.
