As a weapon would.
It was as this thought occurred that the great, gloomy monolith appeared on the horizon like something out of an Edgar Allan Poe story, the center core anchoring two enormous wings of open loggias. The exterior was discolored from what had to be a hundred years of weathering, gray stains drooling down from the slate roof, the brick appearing wrinkled as a result of the vertical stripes. The structure was still solid, however, nothing listing or crumbling, proof that back then builders had constructed things to last. He had overheard that humans had first used it as a hospital for tuberculosis patients, the afflicted set out on the five levels of porches to take the air, the dead removed out the back via a subterranean body chute. After that era, it had housed the insane for a time, and then later, the site had been abandoned.
Assessing the front entrance, with its steps rising to a set of inset doors of considerable, if faded, majesty, he quickly moved on to the banks of windows on either side. The sashes were all down, but the occasional pane was broken, not that it mattered. All he had to do was get close, confirm the interior of one of those rooms, and dematerialize in, as long as there was no steel mesh. Or he could go off to the wings on either side. The open porches would be safe to re-form on and he could navigate downward.
Or maybe the roof was where he needed to start.
Except then what. Once he was inside, he had no idea where to go. Or where to locate Nadya.
Reaching into the banks of his memory, he tried to remember where the guard who had taken him from his bed had dragged him to. His awareness at the time had been hazy, and he had passed out, only to come to at the terminal of a long corridor. There had been guards, and Apex and the others, and—
A rustle of leaves behind him had Kane pointing the gun at the sound before he looked over his shoulder.
Apex was standing there, still in his dirty, bloodstained prison togs, the tunic and loose pants so worn and thin they were nearly transparent. As the wind blew in, the ghostly garments moved against his body, turning him into a specter, and this seemed logical. As aware as Kane was, he hadn’t scented the male. Or sensed him.
If it had been a guard, with a weapon, Kane would probably be dead.
“We go right in the front.” Apex nodded at the grand portal. “The rear is where the drugs come and go, and that’s where the guards will have to be. We took a lot of them out on the way to the exit, so the head of those males is going to have to prioritize her staffing. Besides, this whole level is blocked off. We’ll be safer.”
Between one blink and the next, Kane had an image of a tall, powerfully built female in a black uniform. He had no recollection of her face or coloring particularly, but the muscled body he could recall in detail—and he would recognize her scent anywhere.
“I want to go in the back,” Kane said as his fangs descended. “Besides, if this floor gets us nowhere, why waste the daylight.”
“Because I know a way to sneak down and where to go from there. Plus this is the only way I’m going to take you in and you need me.”
“The hell I need you.”
“I know this fucking place like the back of my hand, and you’re lost in there. Unless you got up out of that bed and had a wander no one noticed?”
As their stares clashed, Kane had to remind himself that the male before him was an ally who was being reasonable. Not an enemy. And in the back of his mind, he recognized that Apex, for once, was not the unhinged one.
“Where’s the wolven?” Kane asked as a way to derail the focus. His own focus, that was.
Apex looked around the scruffy acreage surrounding the hospital. “He’s here somewhere.”
Kane started marching for the heavy double doors, like they were an adversary he could punch. And when his arm was snagged in a hard grip, he bared his fangs, and kept right on going.
Apex’s voice was sharp. “We don’t want to kick the hornet’s nest right away. That’s not going to help.”
“I thought you liked to fight.” Kane yanked free and reached for one of the tarnished brass handles. “And that you—”
The door opened wide.
The white-haired wolven with the powerful body was on the far side, looking like he was already tired of saving the day. “Welcome back, Kotter.”
Kane blinked. “Who?”
“Guess you don’t watch a lot of TV in this place.”
“How the hell did you get in?” Kane flared his nostrils to test the interior scents that were wafting out into the night. “Don’t answer that, I don’t really care—”
“Open window.”
“Aren’t you a genius.”
Kane barged past the wolven—Callum, his brain supplied—and did a quick survey of what appeared to be a lobby. The open area had a high ceiling and many overturned chairs. A reception area was off to one side, running down a wall, and as he looked at the slots for folders, and places for mail, he could sense the orderly way things had once been run.
“This way,” Apex said as he headed for one of the corridors that radiated off the central core.