"The arrangement is secure. You are registered as visiting consultants for the Department of Pathology at the regional hospital. It is an old, four-story brick facility—exactly a ten-minute drive from your current flat, and less than five minutes from the eastern perimeter of Ohio University."
"And the laboratory tracks?" Julian asked, his spectacles reflecting the scrolling alphanumeric columns of her hospital layout.
"Closed-loop,"
Gadhi confirmed, her finger tapping her own screen to send the facility maps over the encrypted array. "I have personally secured the old surgical suite on the third sub-floor. The digital inventory has been modified. If any of the teenagers require an emergency cell transfusion or an alpha-level stabilization sequence, we can run the blood bags through the pathology chute without creating a digital footprint on the state network."
Adams's face pinched in deep frustration, his hand resting on his service belt as he looked down at the maps. "The university is under an active homicide sweep, Gadhi. Stephenson has the Vince Duchy cell running a fine-tooth comb through the student housing. Do we inform the teenagers that we are holding the baseline here? Been trying to get a read on the male vampire, Damon; if his metabolic core drops below the threshold while Jarvis is checking IDs, the whole floor collapses."
Gadhi paused, her towel draped over her shoulder as her gaze drifted toward the large windows of her loft, where the distant, gray silhouette of the campus dormitories rose over the tree line.
"They are trying to play the role of any civilian and Elder kael assured there won't be a need to worry, Arthur," Gadhi said softly, her voice tight with a chilling certainty.
"If we tell them we are here, Damon will try to structure his alibi around our clinical station, and Lira will use the girls for God knows what. I mean she's one hell of a crazy case once she looses it even though she the most reasonable amongst those elder kael has told us about."
She looked back at the screen, her eyes narrowing into cold slits. "But to answer your question about whether we should inform the other teenagers lying low..."
She didn't finish the sentence. Instead, her long fingers flicked across the validation panel of her interface, her voice carrying a sudden, authoritative finality that made Julian pause his typing.
"Let's add the primary voice to the line," Gadhi said smoothly. "She's been monitoring the regional gate logs since dawn."
With a sharp, geometric split, the gray tablet screen divided, and Athalia was pulled directly into the multi-layered call.
The third video window didn't feature a sunlit loft or a generic flat. Athalia was sitting inside what appeared to be the darkened rear cabin of an armored transport vehicle, the interior illuminated only by the rhythmic, amber flash of an active signal interceptor. Her sharp, aristocratic features were cast in deep shadow, her silver-rimmed eyes completely cold as she looked at the two senior professors.
```
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"The manual capsule has already cleared the boiler room," Athalia said without greeting, her voice a low, mechanical rasp that sounded like gravel being shifted by a boots. "Jarvis logged the validation matrix—*Alpha-Niner-Vince-Duchy-Seven-Zero*—at 0812 hours. The Slug is currently transporting the containment order toward Columbus through the old municipal vacuum tracks."
"Then Stephenson knows," Adams muttered, his fists clenching as he stepped closer to the tablet.
"He aware there is a high-tier executioner on the campus," Athalia corrected, her gaze tracking a digital waveform on her secondary screen. "He does not know the names yet. He thinks he is looking for an Elder's hound or a stray migration from the northern lakes which helps us buy time so that he doesn't realize that the architecture student in room 314 is currently eating salt-and-vinegar chips while his wound closes."
Julian adjusted his spectacles, his voice remaining perfectly flat, a dense counterweight to the tension vibrating through the digital array. "We have the clinical suite ready, Athalia. Gadhi has stabilized the sub-floor at the regional hospital. If the teenagers need to be pulled from the grid, the transit vector is open."
"They won't come willingly, Julian," Athalia said, a faint, bitter smile touching the corner of her lips before vanishing back into the shadows of the cabin.
"Lira spent three years building that cheer squad into a perfect alibi shield, and the Lancelot siblings are hell bent on locating the spy would leaked their location to the government.They believe they own the pieces of the puzzle."
"Then we let them hold the board until the twilight shift," Julian declared, his finger pressing the termination key with a cold, professional finality. "Arthur, prepare the diagnostic kits. We drive to the pathology department in ten minutes. The ledger is open, and the city is starting to bleed."
The road from the rented three-bedroom flat to the regional hospital was a short, dismal stretch of industrial concrete, bordered by old-growth maples that dropped wet, yellowed leaves across the hood of their black sedan. Professor Adams drove with a stiff posture, his eyes constantly checking the rearview mirror for any sign of Detective Jarvis's municipal cruisers. Beside him, Julian kept the large tablet resting open on his knees, the screen displaying a real-time monitor of the local emergency frequencies.
The hospital itself rose from the gray mist similar to a fortress of weathered limestone and soot-stained brick. Built during the industrial boom of the previous century, it had been expanded by successive additions of dark glass and corrugated steel, creating a labyrinth of contradictory corridors and blind stairwells that made it an ideal anchor for a clandestine medical unit.
```
[FACILITY INGRESS // REGIONAL HOSPITAL]
■ LOCATION: THIRD SUB-FLOOR // HISTORICAL SECTION
■ ENTRY AUTHORIZATION: VISITORS // AREA: PATHOLOGY DEPT
■ ENVIRONMENT: ISOLATED // AIR EXCHANGE: CLOSED LOOP
```
They entered through the rear loading bay, their visitor credentials pre-validated by Gadhi's digital override. The air inside smelled of industrial floor wax, old steam pipes, and the sharp, nose-stinging trace of formaldehyde that always marked the pathology quadrant.
They descended into the third sub-floor via an old freight elevator that groaned against its guide rails, the safety cage rattling with a heavy, mechanical *clack-clack* as it passed the active clinical levels. When the iron gate finally slid open, they were met by the cold, whitewashed stone of the building's historical foundations.
Gadhi Lauren was already waiting for them at the end of the corridor. She had changed out of her yoga clothing, her frame now wrapped in a dark blue surgical scrub set, a matching cap holding her long black braid securely against