by Dale Mayer
That she couldn't see any energy tracks was the real issue. She'd been so sure her group had landed here. If there was some underground method of traveling between houses or out buildings then she'd have to check each of the buildings for her friends' energy signatures. That could take all night. She didn't have the time. And neither did they.
Not wasting any more time, she slipped through the trees at the side of the property and moved to the next house. The doors were locked. The windows shuttered. Silent as everything else. There was no residue of energy anywhere. It was cold and lifeless. She moved on.
Five houses later, she turned to face the way she'd come, reassured at the energy trail she'd left behind. She wasn't imagining the lack of vamps or people. She was alone. Determined to check every place, and scared that she might not find what she was looking for, she ran across to the next house. This one was tucked up against another hillside. Why? She didn't get that philosophy. Sure, you could land on the hill and walk in through the upper balcony, but did that help in any way? In wintertime, the snow would pile up or avalanche on top of the house. In the spring, the runoff of melting snow would run into the house.
She shook her head and approached warily.
Things that didn't make sense to her didn't mean they weren't built that way for a reason.
She jumped to the front porch. The front door was locked. Descending the stairs slowly, she did yet another check on the sky and walked around the corner of the house. It was literally built into the hill. As in, she couldn't see the back of the house for the dirt cascading down around it.
How bizarre. I was almost as if the hill was eating the house. A landslide must have come down recently.
She couldn't see any other door. To be sure, she walked around to the other side. Again, no way in or out. If there were any, they'd been covered by the slide. She turned to leave and move onto the next house.
And stopped.
Something made her turn back.
She backed up so she could see the rooftop. And realized she should be approaching this from another direction.
She jumped to the top of the roof. She made it so smooth and so clean, it surprised her. She'd figured she'd be too tired, but she could feel her vamp heritage pulse through her veins, reminding her that these movements were natural. Instinctive.
It had taken no more effort to make that jump than it had to walk the path from one house to the other.
And it shouldn't.
She was a vamp. A damn good one.
She laughed and spun in a circle on the roof.
And damn near fell down.
She wasn't alone.
***
Jared walked through the house, alone and lonely. Yet the house was full. An ordinary looking home from the outside, there were several full-time residents and staff. Loads of bedrooms and several common rooms, plus the usual dining room – extra large, with an almost commercial looking kitchen and laundry. That was to be expected given the nature of some of the medical issues.
Still, while he was surrounded by people, he'd barely spoken to anyone. Except the damn officials, and they showed no signs of leaving him alone. Worry knotted his insides. A mess of people had gone missing from the blood farm. People who'd come to rescue him hadn't returned safely to their families. They'd all left in different vehicles. So much laughing and excitement…and horror. He'd seen them briefly but had been taken away by the authorities. He didn't know who had left with whom, or which vehicles had come or gone. In fact, he knew damn little. And that pissed him off.
The officials seemed to have no idea of who was missing and who wasn't. There could be five missing or fifty. The police weren't going to give him the details.
He ran a hand over his face, a fine tremor rippling down his spine. How could this have happened? Such a massive operation. Was life as the humans knew it about to end? Armageddon in a form no one had seen coming?
Damn. That was enough to stop him from sleeping ever again.
And so far he'd only spoken with human authorities. Had any of the many young vamps gone missing, too? Or were only humans targeted? Though why they'd want vamps, he had no idea. From the bits and pieces he'd gathered from Tessa's family and friends, he understood they'd found several vamps hanging in the blood farm alongside the humans. But connected to a separate machinery system.
He doubted authorities of either species had any idea how big this operation was, or how dangerous to their current way of life. He'd seen the vamps in action. These people hadn't.
Then there was Tessa. He'd borrowed another resident's phone to make several calls today. Sam was dealing with a new amputation of his right arm and didn't mind sharing. Since his aunt's visit, Jared hadn't been able to get Tessa out of his mind. He'd tried to call her several times. He'd also called several of his buddies. No one had heard from her…or about her.
In fact, many were just learning about what he'd been through in spite of the police attempts to keep a lid on this whole mess. As if. There was no way to keep this quiet. It was too big.
He worried about the kids he'd met after his escape. He knew them all on a first-name basis, but that was it. In the craziness last night, he'd been separated from them before having a chance to grab their cell phone numbers so he could stay in contact.
Once again, he felt disconnected from everyone.
If anything happened to Tessa after all she'd gone through to save him, well…
He shuddered. That couldn't happen. She had a lot of supporters and protectors, though. He had to trust that they'd look after their own. Like Cody. Thinking of how damn big and dangerous Cody had appeared, his mind soured. And how protective. Cody hadn't left Tessa's side once they'd all met up again.
He cheered, remembering it had been him she'd come running to.
They needed time to just be kids. To go out for a meal, hang at the mall, or even just sit in the hallway at school and talk. They'd both been through so much. And they really didn't know each other that well – yet.
He still couldn't believe she was a vamp. Now that he'd seen her with her vampire family, he didn't doubt it, but that wasn't the same as reconciling the two parts of Tessa in his mind
"Hey, Jared. The cops are here again. They have more questions."
Damn.
He turned to face the two men standing in the doorway. Human, yes. Cops? With the look on the one man's face…hell no. At least not a cop on his side.
***
Cody led the group through the door in the back of the room. He studiously ignored Xana, who was half leaning on Jewel. She'd woken up and had refused to be left behind. He shrugged. So what if she came? He couldn't in good conscience leave her behind.
But he wanted to. And he hated that he still cared enough to want that. She was a bitch. She'd done him wrong and that should be the end of it. She'd treated all males the same – like possessions to toss around at whim. But right now, she was as much a victim as he was. She didn't deserve his animosity. He'd have to try harder to be nice.
The rooms appeared to continue like a train set, and possibly laid out in a circle. He wondered if they just kept opening doors and walking through, would they end up at the first place they'd been locked in? A sobering thought. With a warning glance at the others, he swiftly opened the next door. There was one bed in it. The room was also shorter than the others. If this were a hospital, it would be a private room for some big shot. He walked over to the single man who had tubes running into his arms, the same as the others. Only this man had two other machines hooked up. What the hell?
"It's Councilman Trondjent!"
Jewel's shocked whisper had them all surrounding the bed to view the man they'd last seen in the vehicle taking them to safety.
"Damn. That means he wasn't in this mess after all. He's a victim, too."
David's harsh voice broke in. "Even worse, he's another of the ancient families. They want more from him than they do of the others."
"But for what?"
"I hate to say it, but his genes."
Everyone turned to stare at Ian. It was Cody who cautiously asked, "Genes?"
"As in the genetics that make up his line. That's the only reason to be interested in him. If they're doing any kind of research, genetic manipulation or gene therapy – then they need his DNA."
David motioned to the big machines at the side of the councilman. "How and what remains a mystery."
"Did they do something like that to my mother, then?" David asked, anger and a hint of fear in his voice.
"They might have. Or they might not have had time." Cody walked over to study the machine. "What should we do for the councilman? Unhook him? Or leave him?"
"I vote leave him," said Xana softly.
"Or kill him to put him out of his misery," Ian said. "I know which one I'd prefer after having been in his position once already."
"As much as I don't like it, I think it's too dangerous to unhook him from everything. He looks to be at a different machine," David said, moving down to the next door. "The best thing we can do is to leave him to rescue later."
Cody saw the sense of it, but… He glanced back at the door they'd just come through. "If we unhooked all the others and woke them up, we'd get some help on our side."
The three men stopped and looked at each other. Then turned to look at Xana.
She straightened, flung her long hair back over her shoulder, and glared back. "What does that look mean?"
"If they could recover as fast as you, we'd have a lot more allies to fight this war with," Cody said slowly, assessing her color. She'd always been stunning, like a diamond that glinted in the moonlight. For a while, like every other male vamp, he'd been taken in by the shiny new toy. It hadn't taken long to realize Xana was like her mother. She called the shots in a relationship, and when she left, it was to make sure the male was in shreds.
Recovery hadn't been easy. David had been a big help. And after Cody had finally seen Xana for what she was, he'd recovered faster. He was still angry, but he was also sad. For her.
She was a bitch. Had been raised by a bitch to be the top bitch. He couldn't wait for mother and daughter to duke it out. It would be worth the popcorn to watch it happen. But the male in him wanted to make sure he wasn't on the same continent when it happened.
Still, she was a product of her upbringing and he could understand that.
Cody added, "Think about it – they are big, old, and are going to be majorly pissed when they wake up. They also have connections we don't have. They would be a huge asset."
"But how long until they are aware enough to help?" David argued. "We're still missing Tessa, and who's to say our parents even made it out."
Jewel winced. "We could split up—"
"Hell no." Ian jumped in. "We stay together. Always from now on. Look what happens when we split up."
"And yet Tessa is still not with us, even though we were all together in that damn vehicle." Jewel took a deep breath and said, "I know that we might have been singled out for special treatment, but she's even more special. They aren't going to have her in a generic room full of vamps with a needle in her arm like the others. She's going to be like our esteemed councilman here, under special observation."
Cody sucked in his breath, hating the image of Tessa lying cold and unprotected while these assholes did whatever they wanted to her. "Then we move forward. Check that she isn't here. Then we come back and wake those guys up."
David, his tone grim and dark, said, "Damn it. See, if we unhooked them all now, they'd have some time to wake up – so when we came back, they might be of some value." He reached out and squeezed Cody's shoulders. "She's my sister, and my parents are likely to be here, too. I want to go forward. But we have to be sensible. We can't do this alone."
Cody fought for reason and control. But he didn't want to. Finally he swallowed an oath, and strode back the way they'd come. "Five minutes. We'll rip those damn tubes out and leave. That's all the time I'm giving this."
Ian ran behind him. "Let's hope that's enough."
He reached the door before Cody and opened it.
And came to a dead stop.
"Oh, shit."
***
Arriving at the blood farm, Serus sighed with relief at the number of vehicles sitting in the driveway. "This looks good."
"Does it?" Goran stared at the mix of human and vampire cars. "Can we trust that these people are here to help?"
"No, but we can trust that some of them are." He glared at Goran. "Definitely not all of them. I'd say that whoever gave the orders to snatch the kids came from here."
Goran's face was a chilling sight. "Then let's go find him."
They exited the SUV, gloves on and coats over their heads.
"It's the same old issue still. How do we tell the good from the bad?" Serus pointed to several Ministry of Vampires' SUV's lined up on one side. "Can we trust any of the other council members? Or take it for granted all are suspect?"
"All are suspect. Unless we can find the ones that were captured. I think those we can trust as being on our side."
"Good enough."
Serus approached the first vehicle with the double doors in the back open. "Another alternative – why not kill them all? Then there won't be any confusion."
Goran laughed. "That's one way."
Serus smiled, his fangs glinting in the dark. "And maybe the best way."
The first vehicle was empty. The doors open and the stretchers missing. The two men looked at each other. "So they are below bringing up people from below?"
Serus frowned. "According to Taz, they may not be able to unplug the people for weeks until they can figure out the damage to their systems. The humans don't have the facilities to keep this many comatose people. They are going to have to proceed slowly."
They approached the next vehicle and then walked to the third. Serus was starting to get a nasty suspicion. He sure hoped he was wrong, but…
"Where the hell is everyone?" Goran stood in between several of the parked cars. "Surely there should be people and vamps moving in and out of the place. There's no one here." He walked around, motioning to the half dozen vehicles that were empty. Reaching out, he placed a hand on the hood of the first one. He frowned. "Cold." He walked to the next and then the next. "They're all cold."
"That means everyone is below." Serus walked over to stare at the big mausoleum of a house. Should they check it first? "And have been for a while."
"That's not good." Goran checked the hoods of the ministry vehicles. "Three of these are warm."
"They could have just arrived for a meeting." The more he thought about it, the more he realized that was all too likely. "Think about it. No one has ever faced something like this before. There are all kinds of logistical issues." He spun around to look at the outbuildings, where the floor connected to the nightmare below.
"I suppose," Goran grumped. "We better go down and see then."
"Yes, but I'm thinking we better go down real quietly."
The two vamps exchanged dark looks.
Serus smiled slowly, savagely. "Just in case."
Tessa crouched behind the chimney. Figured – she'd been searching for someone, anyone, and they'd found her first. Damn. Why had she assumed that if she couldn't see them, they couldn't see her? Idiot. Of course they'd have some surveillance system. That only made sense.
She switched on both types of vision to see the energy surrounding the person. The energy clung low and dark. Vamp. And a strange one. Shit. Good or bad? Duh.
"Well, finally. We've been waiting for you to show up." He grinned, the moonlight twinkling off his teeth. "Took your sweet time, didn't you?" That grin flashed again. This time darker and more snarky. "Did ya think we left you behind for no reason?"
They'd been waiting for her? What the hell?
She straightened, her muscles tense, and asked slowly, "And why were you waiting for me?"
He laughed. "To see what you could do. S
ee, the guys didn't get how you could screw up our perfectly working system." He shook his head. "But somehow, you did."
"Yeah, so sorry about that." She snorted. So not. "I guess the system wasn't all that good to begin with."
"It worked for a hell of a long time." He fisted his hands on his hips. "But when you fell into our hands again, they left you behind on purpose. And kept an eye on you."
That horrible sense of being watched. She'd been right. And how wrong was that?
Ugh. "You watched me?" She couldn't get her head wrapped around this. How and where? What did they think she was, some kind of super vamp? She snickered. Then realized with her changing her clothes they may have gotten an eyeful. And that just made her skin crawl. She curled her lip. "What a bunch of pervs."