Undefeated: Blood Bond: Parts 13, 14 & 15 (Volume 5) (Blood Bond Saga)

by HELEN HARDT

  “Why the he—”

  “You’re welcome,” I said, my voice a low growl. “One more word and I’ll leave you here.”

  The two women stood and didn’t resist as I touched the ashes to their foreheads. Finally, the man allowed me to smear the ash on him as well.

  “Lead them out, Dante,” my father said.

  “Who’s that?” Abe Lincoln asked.

  “Nothing, Abe,” I said.

  “I heard—”

  “You heard me,” my father said. “The others can’t hear me. I’m Dante’s father. Don’t let on that I’m here.”

  “Are you—”

  “What did I just say?” my father roared, his voice thundering through the cell.

  Abe shut his mouth and said nothing, though his eyes shone with a mixture of fear and something else I couldn’t identify.

  He stayed quiet, though.

  I opened the door. “Follow me and don’t make a sound. Absolutely no talking. I can’t protect you if you make any noise.” I didn’t know if that was true, but it sounded good. Besides, I didn’t want any distractions.

  “Take them back through all the doors and out the way we came in,” my father said.

  That’s a lot to remember. I didn’t say the words. That would only invite questions. I could remember, though. Back to the door leading here, and then back through the second sterile place, through the hospital, through the outer room, and back out through the tunnel leading to the ladder and the manhole.

  Sure. No problem.

  “You’ve been here before. You’ll remember,” my father said, seeming to sense my apprehension. “Trust yourself. They won’t be seen. They are shielded. Bea assured me that this will work.”

  Was I shielded as well? Just to make sure, I dabbed a bit of my father’s ashes on my own forehead. As morbid as the act was, immediately I calmed, as if a ray of sunshine shone down on me.

  And I knew.

  We were shielded. We would get through this maze, and these people would escape their fate.

  She was around, of course. As were the thugs, though perhaps they were still out cold from my beating. I’d won every fight she’d forced on me when I was here.

  I was undefeated.

  I would remain undefeated as I led these innocent people out of hell and back to their lives. I would prevail.

  I would also prevail against her and anyone else in my way.

  I would get these people to safety. I’d release all the women and get them to safety. Then I’d find my uncle, save him, protect him, and get him to safety.

  That was why I was here. Why I’d come back into hell.

  And why I would leave it behind forever once I’d accomplished those goals.

  Chapter Eight

  Erin

  Lucy scampered down the hallway, slipping on the tile floor.

  “Easy,” I said. “You’re recovering. Remember?”

  She didn’t slow down. Logan and I followed her down the hallway to a closed door. She pawed at it.

  “In here,” I said to Logan. “Lack of opposable thumbs getting you down, Luce?” I opened the door.

  “Unlocked,” Logan said. “Interesting.”

  “Why would it be locked? Everyone here works for Bonneville.”

  “This is… I’ve been here before. I think. But I can’t remember why.”

  “Maybe you have been, and she glamoured you into forgetting.”

  He raised his eyebrow. “You said I was resistant to glamouring.”

  “What makes you think I know what I’m talking about? That’s just a theory based on how you reacted to River. You can be glamoured, Logan.”

  “So can you.”

  “I know. Which is why we can’t get caught here.”

  “Then we’d better be quiet.”

  “Lucy will warn us. She’ll hear anyone coming long before we do.”

  “How?”

  “Dog ears, genius. Her sense of smell and hearing are heightened when she’s in wolf form.”

  “And you know this because…”

  “Jesus, Logan. Let’s just see what’s in here.” I found a light switch on the inside wall and flipped it on.

  Logan followed me into the room, Lucy at our heels.

  “This is a file room,” Logan said.

  “What was your first clue, Logan? The file cabinets? Good thing the computers were here to confirm your genius theory, huh?” I sat down at one of the computers and tried to log on, but access was denied. Big surprise there.

  “No need to get rude, Erin.”

  I scoffed at him. “What did you want to show us in here, Luce?” I asked.

  This time Logan scoffed. “Good luck getting an answer out of her.”

  I ignored him. “Is there information in here we need?”

  Lucy did her nodding thing.

  Where is it? I bit my lip to keep from asking. Plus, it was a stupid question anyway. The information was either in the file cabinets or in the computer database. My guess was the computers. The file cabinets probably housed old files.

  Old files.

  An epiphany hit me. Old files. How long had this hospital been down here? Doctor Bonneville was only forty or so. Who built this place?

  I walked over to the file cabinets and pulled open a drawer. The smell of musty paper wafted up.

  Yep. Old files. The manila folders were yellow with age. Each file had a name on it, but I didn’t recognize any of them.

  Logan sat down at the other computer and started tapping on keys.

  I turned. “Logan?”

  “I’m in,” he said.

  I rushed to him. “How?”

  “Hell if I know. I just knew the access code.”

  “If you do work down here, you must enter records,” I said. “Then she glamours you into forgetting.”

  “Maybe.” He tapped the keyboard. “Here we go. Patient files.”

  “See if there’s one on Lucy.”

  “I’m looking. Here it is. Lucy Cyrus.” He clicked. “It’s empty.”

  “Shit. Let me see.” I sat down in the other chair and wheeled over to him, pushing him over so we could both see the screen. “Go back.”

  The list of names reappeared.

  Most I didn’t recognize, but some I did.

  Cyrus, Lucy

  Downey, Sybil

  She was the appendectomy who had disappeared.

  Doyle, Patty

  Doyle, Baby Girl

  Yes! Now I knew for sure that Patty and baby Isabelle Erin were here.

  I continued glancing down the list, which was in alphabetical order by last names.

  More names I recognized.

  Gabriel, Braedon

  Gabriel, Dante

  Gabriel, Emilia

  Gabriel, Julian

  I froze.

  The next name.

  Gabriel, River

  He was here. He’d descended right into her trap. “Logan, we have to find Riv—”

  But then I turned to ice.

  Hamilton, Erin

  Chapter Nine

  Dante

  We’d stepped over the thugs who still lay unconscious outside one of the doors.

  We’d walked quietly down the hallways of the hospital. A couple of staff members had passed us without reaction.

  She had been nowhere in sight, but if we’d come across her, I knew instinctively that we would get by undetected.

  I trusted myself.

  I had faith.

  The word I’d dreaded for so long—I finally understood its true meaning. Faith was freeing. It freed me to believe in myself and do the right thing.

  We even passed Jay and River, who stood outside the blood bank. I motioned for them not to speak, but neither of them reacted at all. Not even a brow lift. They didn’t see us, and that finally convinced me.

  I truly believed and had faith that we were shielded.

  We moved through the hospital, through the attached rooms, until we finally came to the tu
nnel that would lead us to the ladder and manhole.

  “You’ll need to join hands,” I said quietly. “We need to go single file, and it’s dark. Your eyes will adjust, but just in case, stay joined.”

  I led them through the dark, dank tunnel until the ladder appeared in the distance.

  “Abe,” I said, “go up the ladder. You’ll need to move the manhole cover at the top out of the way. It’s heavy, but you can do it.”

  I nodded to the other man. “You go last. I want the women between you. It’s a long way up, but you can all do it.”

  “Aren’t you coming with us?” the older woman asked timidly.

  “I can’t. I still have work to do here. Abe, I’m counting on you to take care of these people.”

  “They’re just going to capture us again,” the teenager moaned.

  “They won’t,” I said. “You’re shielded.”

  “But what if the shield doesn’t work?”

  “It’s worked so far, hasn’t it? No one noticed us as we walked out of there.”

  She nodded, gulping. “I’m scared.”

  “You’d be nuts if you weren’t,” I said. “But trust me. You are shielded from ever being brought back down here again.”

  Was I telling the truth? What if they washed the ashes from their foreheads? I didn’t dare ask my father. I wasn’t even sure if he was with us any longer.

  I warmed as a feeling of supreme peace settled over me. They are protected. In the depth of my bones, I knew. This shield would hold for as long as necessary.

  “Thank you,” Abe Lincoln said. “We all owe you.”

  “You owe me nothing. Just get out of here and live your lives. Get off the streets, Abe. You were made for better.”

  “The streets are all I know,” he said.

  “Then learn. And stop letting the Claiborne vamps feed from you.”

  “But they—”

  “They aren’t your friends, Abe. They brought you here. Do you know why?”

  He shook his head.

  “Do you think it’s normal for ‘friends’ to take you somewhere and lock you in a room?”

  “When you put it that way…”

  “Right. Your life was in danger down there.”

  “But I—”

  “Damn it, Abe!” I pulled him away from the others so we were out of earshot and whispered urgently in his ear. “They were going to kill you, cut off your head, and hang it over trapped vampires so they’d be forced to drink human blood.”

  He stiffened against me, his eyes wide with fear.

  “Get it? Finally?”

  He nodded.

  “Now go.”

  He returned to the others and began to ascend.

  I stayed until all four had reached the top and the manhole cover had been placed back over the entrance.

  “Good work, son.”

  My father wasn’t visible.

  “You were here the whole time?”

  “I was.”

  “River and Jay didn’t seem to notice us. Isn’t that strange?”

  “Not at all. You were shielded. You were their protection.”

  “No. It was your ashes.”

  “My ashes helped, but you were the main shield. You, Dante. Your belief. Your power.”

  “But I felt that it was— How could I have been wrong? I told them they’d still be shielded above! How could you let me lie to them?”

  “Because it wasn’t a lie, son. It wasn’t a lie.”

  “But—”

  “Have faith in your strength. They carry your protection now.”

  Chapter Ten

  Erin

  “You want me to open it?” Logan asked.

  A cloak of ice continued to envelop me.

  My name.

  I hadn’t been here, so why did I have a file?

  I didn’t want to know.

  Yet I needed to know.

  I nodded slowly. “Open it.”

  The first page was simply my name, age, and physical characteristics. Nothing out of the ordinary. But why was I in this database at all? My skin crawled with invisible caterpillars. I felt violated. Really violated.

  “Keep going,” I said.

  “You want to look at it yourself? I can step back.”

  “Yeah, if you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all. Though you did peek at my records.”

  He had a point. Plus, his medical opinion might come in handy. “Actually, please stay. Just scoot over and let me have the mouse.”

  He obliged, and I sat in front of the desk while he stayed beside me in another chair.

  The next page was my medical history. I’d been pretty healthy, so this was just current physical exams and meds, my annual gynecological visits, and my birth control pills.

  Next, though, was a family history.

  Jay was listed, as were my mother and father.

  Then,

  Maternal Grandmother: Sharlene Ray Bennett Jackson (Bennett line vampire)

  Bonneville knew. She knew about my ancestry.

  “So you’re…?” Logan said.

  “A quarter vampire. I’ve got you beat. You’re only an eighth.”

  “I wonder why I don’t have a record?” he said.

  “My guess is she’s only interested in male vampires, not descendants. But females… Are all of us descended from vampires?” I clicked back to the page of medical records.

  Sure enough.

  Lundy, Bella

  North, Cynthia

  Among other names I didn’t recognize.

  “She’s taking women who are descended from vampires. She can’t produce a vamp baby from a female vampire and male human because vampire females are so rare and can only reproduce once every couple of years.”

  “So she’s…?”

  Logan truly didn’t know.

  “She’s trying to produce a vampire by mating a human and a vampire,” I said. “We already figured that much out. It has something to do with B positive blood. Now it looks like there’s a second criterion. The woman must be a vampire descendant.”

  “This is crazy,” he said.

  “True enough.” Then something dawned on me. “Where are River and Jay? They were outside Lucy’s hospital room, but when we left, they weren’t in the hallway.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Panic rose in me, but then I looked over to Lucy, who was standing sentry at the door. Surely she would know if River was in danger. Or would she? She was a wolf, not an empath. Could a wolf smell fear and danger? Or could she only smell creatures?

  “Luce, is River okay?”

  She didn’t respond.

  “Okay, nod yes if you smell him.”

  She bowed her head slightly. Good.

  “Nod if you smell him strong, shake your head for light.”

  She cocked her head to the side.

  “All right. He’s here, but he’s not close to us. Is he okay?”

  No response.

  She didn’t know, but she didn’t seem overly concerned, so I went back to the computer screen.

  The next page was entirely devoted to my physical characteristics and blood type.

  Skin: fair

  Hair: dark brown

  Eyes: green

  Height: 5 feet 7 inches

  Weight: 135

  Blood type: B

  Rh: positive

  VO: positive

  Genetic screening: negative

  What kind of genetic screening? That could mean anything, though I hoped “negative” was a good sign.

  “Logan, what does ‘VO’ mean?” I pointed.

  He studied the screen. “I have no idea.”

  “Are you sure? Something to do with blood? Think back to med school. Hematology. Did you do a hematology rotation?”

  “Yeah, I did, actually. I’ve never seen anything called ‘VO’ related to blood. We studied diseases of the blood. Stuff like that.”

  “It’s got to be some sort of genetic marker,” I
said, “but I’ve never heard of it before.”

  “There’s no search engine in this database or on this computer that I can see.” Logan took out his phone. “I’ll do a quick search.”

  I bit my lip as he tapped on his phone.

  “Nothing’s coming up on the search engine relating the initials VO to anything blood related.”

  I opened a new window and pulled up Bella Lundy’s file.

  Blood type: B

  Rh: positive

  VO: positive

  Genetic screening: positive for BRCA1

  BRCA1 was the breast cancer gene. Not great news for Bella Lundy, though it wasn’t a guarantee of contracting the disease. Bella had been returned—possibly because the genetic marker for breast cancer made her an unsuitable subject?

  What about Cynthia North? I opened another window.

  Blood type: B

  Rh: positive

  VO: positive

  Genetic screening: positive for ApoE4

  “Logan, do you know what this genetic marker is?” I pointed to the screen.

  “ApoE4. Yeah. That’s Alzheimer’s.”

  Another unsuitable candidate. Poor Cynthia.

  I scrolled back to Sybil Downey and Patty Doyle.

  Both had negative genetic abnormality screenings and were VO positive. Apparently why they were still here.

  A quick look through the rest of the records showed that all the other women were VO positive with negative screenings for genetic abnormality…and all had a vampire somewhere in their ancestry.