We followed him out of the examination room, down the hallway, to a door leading to the outside. Luther pulled a key chain out of his pocket, flipped through the keys with one hand until he found the right one, and unlocked the door. We stepped out onto a private concrete balcony running along the side of the building for about fifty feet. In front of us a large lot stretched, secured by a twenty-foot stone wall topped with coils of razor wire. The wire had some silver in it and the light of the rising moon coated it in a bluish glow. Trees dotted the lot, some normal, some odd and twisted. On the left, black tar-like goo oozed from one of the trunks. On the right, a group of bushes with small red leaves sprouted two-foot-long bright orange thorns. Tiny blue spheres floated in the grass, moving in different directions. Magic pooled and coursed through it, twisting between the trees and leaking from the leaves and spiraling into the ground. Even the ground itself was changed. Sharp outcroppings of translucent citrine-colored crystal cut through the surface like the fins of mythical sea serpents swimming under water. Here and there small veins of pale white rock stretched to form knobby protrusions about a foot high and buttressed to the ground by thin roots.

“What is this?” Julie asked.

“The dumping ground. This is where we put things we want to study,” Luther said.

“This is where they put things when they have no idea what they are or what to do with them,” I told her. “Luther, don’t bullshit my kid.”

Luther rolled his eyes. “Yes. What she said.”

“What if they get out?” Julie asked.

He pointed up. Julie leaned out. I knew what he was pointing at, but I glanced over all the same. Massive catapults and guns lined the roof of the building, pointing at the dumping ground. Anything that tried to leave would be pounded to a bloody pulp.

I stripped off my jacket and pulled off my boots.

“So why do you keep a ghoul in there?” Julie asked.

“Because he used to be one of us,” Luther said. “Mitchell was a brilliant guy. He studied ghoulism and we all thought he would crack it. Turned out he was a point zero zero zero two percenter.”

“Oh.” Julie nodded. “That makes sense.”