by Dale Mayer
Bending down, Cody picked up a plastic tip. Like the kind that protected the end of a needle. Worry turned to fear. "Look what I found."
Rhia stared at it uncomprehendingly. Then her eyes widened, fear turning them to dark obsidian. "Please no."
Cody stared at the piece of plastic, unable to look away. Just the thought of a needle being used on Tessa made his heart pound in fear. Who knew what they'd do to her?
"Dear God, I hope not," he whispered. He spun around. At the back was a door. They'd checked it earlier. He thought it was just a supply cupboard. But it was the only other way for Tessa to have left this room…willingly, or not. He raced toward it, calling over his shoulder, "Go get the others."
"Oh, my God!" Rhia raced out to get help.
***
Tessa opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was the tube in her arm. She frowned, blinked several times to clear her vision and then reached for the tubing. Her hand touched the needle taped to her wrist – her eyes widened in comprehension. She tried to close her fingers around the needle, to pull it free. Her fingers didn't want to work.
Drugs dripped steadily into her arm. Pulling at her, drawing her down, deeper and deeper.
Oh, dear God, no!
She screamed – endlessly – soundlessly – in her mind.
CHAPTER ONE
Shit happened. But why did it always happen to her?
Tessa rolled over for the umpteenth time as nausea washed up the back of her throat. Dry heaves wracked her long spine as her body rid itself of the drugs coursing in one arm. She made a feeble attempt to wipe her mouth with the corner of the sheet. All the bedding was going to need to be changed soon. How could anything be left inside?
"Hey, now. No more of that," snapped the disgusted voice beside her. "What the hell is wrong with her? None of the others ever puked like she has been. It's gross."
She shuddered at the gravelly voice and hard arms that twisted and yanked her around. Why couldn't they leave her alone? Let her sink back into nothingness? Huge hands gripped her shoulders and held her head off the side of the bed as she gagged yet again. Cold, exhaustion and drugs had stolen her voice.
If it weren't for her mixed vampire heritage she'd have been unconscious since the beginning. They obviously didn't know about her and her unique genetics, or they'd have used different drugs. And as much as she'd welcome oblivion, she needed her wits about her.
Her family had to know she was missing by now.
Surely, they'd be here soon.
Wherever here was.
***
Cody watched, his fists clenched and his spine rigid, as both Tessa's father and his father argued about how to proceed. Time was racing by. Tessa had to have been missing for at least a half hour already. They should be out searching now.
"Hey, will you two stop it?"
Rhia, Tessa's mother placed a calming hand on his forearm. "You know this is how they work best."
"This isn't working at all." Cody shot her a look of outrage. Turning back to the two tall ancient vampires in stark black, he called out, "Hey, elders."
They ignored him.
"Serus and Goran?"
Still he couldn't dent their argument.
With that, his frustration peaked. He screamed, "Hey, old guys!"
Silence. Both elders spun on their heels. Shocked and irate, they glared at Cody. Rhia choked back a snicker. Serus frowned at her before turning his icy stare on Cody. Drawing himself up to his full height, the elder looked down his long nose and opened his mouth to speak.
Cody's father jumped in ahead of him. "Did you just call me old?"
"Hell, yes. You are old. You're also wasting time. Tessa has been kidnapped. From right under our noses, and once again you two are more concerned with winning an argument then you are about her fate."
Rhia gasped.
Too bad. Cody was long past caring about other peoples' reactions. This war had changed him. It had changed all of them. And it was just gearing up.
Tessa's mother was a good person, but she was all about her Serus. Goran, Cody's own father, was too protective and focused on him.
"That's a terrible thing to say." Rage contorted Serus's face.
"Is it?" Cody said, his lips itching to curl into a sneer. "I don't mean you don't care, but Tessa was right. You're all talk and no action." Straightening and fisting his hands on his hips, he added, "Now she's the one in trouble, and I can't let you get sidetracked."
The stuffing went out of Serus with a whomp. His shoulders slumped. His skin sagged, and he seemed to age under Cody's watchful gaze. "The team will be here in twenty minutes. I can't leave the kids here. Goran, please, take the others. Go find my little girl."
Rhia gripped Serus's arm. "I'll stay. You go find our daughter."
"That isn't going to work." He pinched his lips together. "I can't leave you alone in case there are more of these assholes around. I can't leave any of the kids here, either. No. Everyone else go. As much as I wouldn't admit it at any other time, Goran is the best flier, and he'll cover more ground faster."
"Goran." Rhia's bottom lip trembled. "Please find my daughter. I need to stay here for Jared. He's too sick to travel, and I don't dare leave him. Besides, one adult needs to be here for the others."
"All right." With a gentleness Cody rarely saw, his father wrapped Rhia in a tight hug. "Cody and I'll fly out and see if they've left any trace. There could be another level to this building, too. Maybe split up the others and send half of them to search for Tessa." He turned as if to leave.
Cody caught him before he'd taken a full step. "There's another place I want to check out. He spun around. "At the time I'd assumed it led to more storage space, but now..." Glancing back at his father, he added, "Why don't you fly alone and see what you can find? You might see a vehicle. They can't have gone too far. Besides, one flier will attract even less attention than a few."
David walked over. "What are you thinking, Cody?"
"I'm thinking she's been stashed somewhere close by. I don't think they could've taken her very far in the time we've missed her. It's possible she's still inside this warehouse… or in the mausoleum above ground."
With a sharp nod, David said, "I agree. Let's break into groups, with one staying here. Another will go up, and the last will head out to search for lower levels."
"Good plan." Serus stepped in. "David and Jewel, search the house. Cody, you stay here with Rhia and search with Ian. Goran, if you wouldn't mind doing an air search, with everyone checking back say within..." he checked his watch, "an hour. That should be enough time to figure out which way they might have taken my daughter."
Spinning around, Cody nodded to Ian, and then led the way out of the room. Finally, some action. But damn it, why hadn't they done this ten minutes ago? Not wanting to waste any more time, he headed toward the door he vaguely remembered seeing.
"Hey, wait up," Ian called. "Jesus, slow down. Geez, you're as bad as your father. He's always racing around at top speed."
"I can't." Cody slowed just long enough for Ian to catch up. "Tessa's running out of time."
"I know there're a couple of smaller doors we didn't open, but at the time, we assumed they weren't important." At Cody's hard look, he quickly added, "But we will now."
"Damn straight. Tessa led us here to find Jared. We're not losing her, too." Worry ate at him. Poor Tessa.
They walked hard and fast toward the room where they had last seen Tessa.
By keeping his gaze forward, Cody could almost avoid the sight of the hundreds of bodies hanging in their macabre midair dance. All of the victims were blind and dumb to their fate – and yet alive. He slowed his feet. He sure hoped they had no idea of their fate.
Ian spoke up, "Funny how this all came about. Look at us. We're fighting a war we didn't even know existed, and all because Tessa went to a friggin' movie where her date got kidnapped."
As much as Cody hated to dwell on Tessa's date with Jared, he couldn't de
ny the sequence of events that had set off this mess. Tessa had fought her parents and the vampire Council, then looked for Jared on her own when she couldn't drum up help. In the process, she'd transformed herself from a naive schoolgirl into a classy vamp.
He shook his head, remembering how his blood had fired at the first sight of the mysterious vampire who'd walked so confidently through the vampire Council gathering. Christ, she'd been hot. Every male eye had turned her way. He'd followed her out of the house, questioned her, and let her go. Only something about her had been hauntingly familiar.
Then he'd seen her signature crab hop up in the trees and had known the truth. His heart had recognized the true Tessa but his hormones had been sidelined by her hot new look. His mind hadn't been able to reconcile the two parts. Even now, he was still trying to figure out just who and what she'd become. And he desperately wanted a chance to find out.
He had to find her.
His jaw clenched. He wanted a couple of minutes alone with the damned asshole who'd snatched her up while she'd slept. She must have been so exhausted after days of hunting and finally finding Jared that nothing could have woken her.
The asshole who did this to her had a surprise coming. Tessa was his, damn it. And he wouldn't let anyone else have her.
He stopped, and Ian slammed into him.
"Hey, what the hell?" Ian peered around the corner.
Cody shook his head. "Sorry," he muttered, rushing forward again. His own thoughts about Tessa shocked him. He'd never thought about a girl like that before. At sixteen, Tessa had been his best friend's kid sister – up until now.
They reached the door. A harmless door, like all the rest. Cody sniffed the air. An odd scent lingered. Someone had been this way recently, but who knew how recently? He jerked the door open.
A staircase. With an excited look at Ian, he started down into the darkness.
***
David raced up the long white hallway that would take them to the surface with his father and Goran. Jewel had elected to stay with his mom.
"Do you think Tessa could still here?" he asked. His kid sister had really showed her colors these last couple of days, and damn - he was proud of her. To think someone had taken her now, from right under their noses, bit into his gut like he wanted to bite into the asshole responsible. She didn't deserve this. But then, the thousand or more people suspended like never-ending blood bottles in that warehouse didn't deserve their fate, either.
"I hope so. Finding her outside could be brutal."
Glancing up at his father, David asked, "Didn't you put some kind of electronic tracker on us when we were little?"
Serus half laughed. "We tried, but we found it hard to justify the problems the electronics stirred up in your systems. The devices were meant for humans, and your bodies fought the implants. Tessa was the worst. Her body kept trying to get rid of it. She went through a bad time until we had it taken out."
He exchanged a grim look with Goran. "Too bad now."
They passed through several doors in the empty hallway.
Goran slapped his best friend on the shoulder. "We'll find her. She might even get free before then. She's got gumption, that girl. And brains."
David grinned as they went through the last of the doors and finally reached the weird garage floor thing they'd found when they'd first arrived. He couldn't help remembering it was Tessa and Cody who'd figured out how the entire floor lowered. He hoped the three of them would be able to figure out how it worked. That would be their last hurdle before reaching the surface.
They studied the mechanism at the far end of the loading area. Both elders looked over David's shoulder.
"How does it operate?" his father asked.
"Cody did something like this." David put his hand on the metal plate and pushed hard. Instantly, the entire wooden floor rose up slowly. He grinned. "Easy."
Within minutes, the mechanism ground to a halt at the top. The windows were so dirty, he couldn't tell how much light shone outside. Was it day or night? The three men walked forward cautiously.
Daylight.
Shit.
CHAPTER TWO
Tessa lay quietly on her side. Her guards sat at the other end of the room. Every once in a while, one of them would walk over and poke her. She hadn't reacted since regaining consciousness. She needed time. Time to think. To plan. To escape.
She'd seen no sign of her mom or her dad, or David and Cody. She vaguely remembered lying down on a bed across from Jared to grab an hour or two of sleep. The extraordinary physical exertion she'd expended would have dropped a human a long time ago. But not her. Then again, she wasn't exactly human. Neither was she a vampire. Her weird throwback genes had left her suspended somewhere in between.
As far as she could tell, she was alone in this room except for the guards. When she'd woken, only one had been there. A second one had arrived about an hour ago, while she was tossing her cookies. Or she would have been, if she'd had any cookies left in there. She couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten. Another symptom of her mixed heritage. She needed food. If she could find nothing else, blood would do. And she had to have nothing else available for her to drink that.
Now David, her brother, loved blood. In slushies, in coolers. Even mixed with juice. Tessa cringed at the memories. Where was David? And Cody.
Her heart hiccupped at the thought of her brother's best friend. Cody, tall and dark like all vampires, was one of the ancient ones. And like his father, he was a flier. His sideways grin and the flash of sheer animal magnetism in his eyes were what had caught her. And she didn't even know how or when.
Somehow in this last week, Cody had gone from simply being her irritating older brother's best friend to something so much more. She just didn't know what yet.
But she desperately wanted to.
She definitely didn't want to spend the rest of her life hanging like a side of beef.
The men's voices rose. Closing her eyes, Tessa tried to hear what they were saying. The first voice belonged to the new guy.
"You shouldn't have taken her. She's gonna be trouble."
"She's already trouble. And what was I supposed to do? These interfering SOBs come in like they own the place and grab everyone. I heard one of them on the phone calling in a team."
Tessa gasped softly. He'd been there, where the rest of them were, listening in. She remembered him as being huge. Every time she'd tried to fight him off, she'd felt as if she were trying to arm wrestle a tank. She didn't even know if he was vampire. Although given the circumstances, he had to be. Or maybe he was that new breed Cody had mentioned. A turned vampire. They had been outlawed centuries ago. Yet, so had attacking humans. Thanks to that, the two species had co-existed peacefully for over a century. Until now.
"Yeah. See, that's the part I really don't like. I get that they aren't our people," the first man said. "So who are they? Council members? Not our Council members, obviously. And why are they here? How'd they find this place, anyway?"
Tessa's hopes plummeted at the words 'our Council members.' Talk about betrayal at the highest level. Wait until she told the elders.
"Let's ask her, okay? Right now."
An alarming silence fell over the room, followed by scrapes and bangs from the men rising and pushing back their chairs.
Tessa froze, her heart sliding up the back of her throat as they walked closer.
***
Cody paused in the stairway for Ian to catch up. The steps appeared to go on forever. That they were already hundreds of feet below ground gave the flier in him claustrophobia. As if the ground was pressing down on him and the air was thicker and heavier.
"Why did you stop?" Ian peered around his shoulder to see. "Does this thing ever quit?"
"Has to somewhere. I can't imagine why we're still going down. Why anyone built something like this. You'd think they had enough space all around without carving deeper into the rocks." Cody smoothed a hand over the stone wall next to him, so cold it
appeared almost moist. "How deep underground do you think we are?"
"Who knows?"
"Let's keep going. It can't be too much further." Cody continued his mad dash down into the darkness, never more grateful for his vampire vision that allowed him to see through the blackness. "They must be vampire to work down here without lights."
"Or there could be lights. It's not like we looked."
True enough. Ten more minutes of continuous descent left him dizzy. The air had chilled, and he could almost feel a breeze. That had to mean access to fresh air.