scrambling of civilian feet all around him-- both the ones getting the hell out of his way and those few daring souls who came out from behind their monitoring stations or meeting-room doors to have a look at the dark, dangerous stranger stalking through their midst.
The facility director led Tegan and Elise deeper into the place, through one after another set of secured doors. Finally, they turned down a long concrete hallway and stopped in front of a heavy steel door marked Treatment Center. The director punched a code into a wall-mounted keypad, then put his face in front of a scanner and waited as a light took a quick read of his retinas. This way, he said, sniffing almost imperceptibly down the length of his nose as he held the door open for Elise and Tegan to enter yet another hallway.
The space inside was dimly lit and quiet except for intermittent moans and feral-sounding growls not quite masked by the soft classical music piped in through overhead speakers. Closed doors lined either side of the hallway, some with small windows that looked in over the room's occupant. A few of the rooms were empty, but others held Rogues in various stages of consciousness, all of them strapped into full body restraints. Heavy steel bars equipped with electronic locks held the doors closed, sealing the patients inside their rooms.
Tegan glanced into one of the windows as he passed, taking in the pathetic sight of a drooling, blood-addicted Breed vampire, its limp body stuffed into a soiled white jumpsuit, head shaved bald and still sporting tiny contact pads from a recent bout of electroshock therapy. The Rogue's fiery amber eyes were at half-mast, rolled back into its skull from whatever sedative it had been given.
So, this is the Darkhavens' version of Betty Ford, eh? Tegan gave a humorless chuckle. And you people have the balls to say the Order has no mercy.
Elise shot him a quelling look, but Kuhn ignored the jab completely. He walked them toward the last of the holding cells, pausing to enter an access code. As the admittance light blinked green above the door, the director said, Since the feeding is still under way, we will have to wait in the observation room until they finish. It should only be another few minutes.
Tegan followed Elise inside the vestibule, and was there to hold her steady as she physically recoiled the instant she got her first glimpse of the procedure taking place on the other side of the shaded one-way glass.
Good Lord, she gasped, one hand coming up to her mouth.
In the adjacent room, the Rogue named Petrov Odolf was strapped down on a custom- rigged examination table like a specimen under a scope. He was naked except for the multiple sets of thick metal clamps that held him at each limb, around the torso and neck, and across the width of his brow. His shaved head was wrapped in a leather-and-wire-mesh mask that held his jaw and massive fangs stationary for the tube that was running fresh blood into his mouth from the Host who had the unpleasant task of feeding him. The Rogue had pissed himself at some point during the procedure, leaving a puddle of urine beneath the table that only added to the degradation of the whole thing.
And then there was the woman.
Tegan exhaled a ripe curse as his gaze followed the blood-filled tube running from the Rogue's mouth to the inner forearm of a young woman lying on another exam table a few feet away from him. Garbed in a white clinic jumpsuit without sleeves, she lay very still on her back, calmly in fact, but her freckled cheeks were stained with tears.
You sent a female in there with that beast?
She's his Breedmate, Kuhn replied. They'd been together for many years before he succumbed to Bloodlust and turned Rogue. She's been coming in every week to feed him, and to take her own nourishment from him as well. She must keep her own health and longevity in order to continue to care for him. Truly, he's lucky to have her devotion. Most of our other patients have no Breedmate to look after them, so they must be fed from human donors.
Elise inched closer to the glass now, obviously as transfixed by what she was seeing as she was repulsed. How do you find those other donors, Director Kuhn?
He shrugged when she glanced back at him over her shoulder. We never have to look