by Dale Mayer
"No, but we can trust that some of them are." He glared at Goran. "Definitely not all of them though. 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 Vampire SUVs 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 which had 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 that’s maybe the best way."
The first vehicle was empty. The doors were 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 this 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. That figured – she'd been searching for someone, anyone, and they'd found her first. Hell! Why had she assumed that if she couldn't see them, they in turn 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 energy and a strange one at that. 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 but 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. See, 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 put 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? Who did they think she was, some kind of super vamp? She snickered. Then she 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."
Wow, that insult hit home. His face twisted with a fury she'd rarely seen in her life. He strode toward her. "I'm no pervert. You're a lab rat. To be kept under observation. Now it's time to take you back to the scientists for a follow-up exam."
Not in this lifetime. She grinned, a fierce, warrior-like eagerness welling up. "You and whose army?"
He gave a hard laugh. "The guys and I, we bet on this. We figured you'd be easy without your councilman father here to back you up."
A frisson of fear jettisoned into her heart. "Where is my father?"
"For the moment, he’s free. But we'll take care of that real soon like we'll take care of all those other people. You might think you rescued those blood donors, but all you really did was sign a death warrant for everyone who came with you."
Oh, shit. Relief that her parents were safe was instantly overwhelmed as images of the group of humans and vampires who had come at her filled her mind.
He laughed. "Now you're starting to get the idea. There is no rescue. Just more volunteers for our blood farms."
"And how many of those do you have?" She needed to keep him talking somehow. "It's quite the operation you have in place. I presume my driver is one of yours, considering the strange place I woke up in."
"Maybe." He stopped a few feet away. "And the operation is just getting bigger with four farms and counting."
"Including the one I found?" she murmured, her thoughts reeling. Four?
"It is, and that’s because we fully intend to regain that one. It's the original and by far the biggest. We're not going to let it go that easily."
She swallowed hard. "Why do you need so much blood? It's not like you need to eat all that often."
"No. But we have plans. Honestly, all these humans running around free are just gross. Animals belong in the wild or penned up. Humans are an abomination of nature."
"So you're planning on farming all humans?" This was so much worse than she'd ever thought. "Have you really that many vampires in need to warrant so much production?"
"We will have." He stared at her, then tilted his head. "And there's nothing you or your friends can do about it."
She snorted, anger rising. "You call humans an abomination, and then say you're going to have more vamps, as in create more. Those designer vamps are the abomination. Not humans," she cried out, hearing a throb in her voice. "That's the big wrong here."
"Figures – you’re a bleeding animal lover. Too damn bad. Say goodbye to both species, because – as you didn't show any special abilities and only proved yourself to be the freak everyone thought – you won't be around to see any of it."
Her spine went rigid. "Freak?" she asked. Her mind raced for a way to get out of this situation. Were they still being watched? If she vanquished this asshole, was another – or worse, a dozen more – going to come to his rescue? She didn't have any better fighting skills than any other vamps, and against trained guards like this one, she wouldn't have much chance. Her best approach was escape or find a way to take him out immediately in a surprise attack. But how? There wasn't even sunlight to give her an advantage.
"Yeah, freak. We watched you do that weird jumping thing. You can't even glide," he snickered. "The lab is the right place for you to make sure no other vamps carry that same gene."
"So you want my DNA so you can make sure it's not passed on to anyone else." For some reason, after all she'd been through, that still cut.
She wasn't that bad. She might be different, but she wasn't an aberration of nature. Not like those designer vamps.
"Sure. We gott
a keep the blood pure."
"Pure? As in just the ancients?" That wasn't going to work out for most vamps, considering there were less than a dozen ancient family lines.
"That's the plan. They're testing blood, creating bigger better vamps." He reached an arm out wide. "I'm going to be one of those."
"Nice." Not. He had no idea that he was going to end up dead, just like all the other ones she watched go the same way. "So, what's the plan?"
"See, you're just not all that bright. I already told you I was going to take you to the lab for more tests."
"Just like that? I'm supposed to calmly walk to my fate?" she asked. "Really? Are you that stupid?"
He reared back. "I'm not stupid. I can take you. Besides, if you have some special skill I haven't seen before, I brought this. Just in case…" He pulled out a pressure syringe.
Fury whipped through her and then she went nuts. Jumping forward, she kicked him in the jaw while snatching the needle out of his hand in midair. Landing, she spun around, crouched, and waited. He'd stumbled backwards several feet, but seeing her holding the needle now in her hand, his eyes widened in horror and rage.
With a scream, he lunged at her.
Tessa twisted out of the way and…slipped. She landed on her butt, but managed to keep a hold on the needle. At least one thing was going her way. She hopped to her feet and went to turn, but was grabbed from behind. One of his gorilla arms gripped her hand with the needle. Shit. She tried to weasel free, but he held her too tight. No way was she going to let that needle go into her arm. No way in hell. She twisted and squirmed, panting and grunting with the effort.
"Stop it. You aren't going anywhere, so give it up already."
"Never!" She curled her fingers into his hands and extended her claws. To her surprise, they dug in deep, cutting through his skin.
"Bitch," he roared, loosening his grip briefly in surprise.
It was enough. She broke loose, spun around, and jabbed the needle into the big vamp's arm.
"Nooooo!"
She gave him a shove backwards, and then backed up a few steps. She watched him with a wary eye. "See how you like their drugs."
He stared at her, then at his arm, the empty needle rolling on the roof. He stumbled, took another step back, and fell on his butt. His shocked look became slightly unfocused, and his eyes glazed over. His eyeballs rolled up into the back of his head and he collapsed backwards.
She straightened, whispering, "Thank you." She turned in a slow circle, worried that his buddies would jump out at her. If the vamp had been right, and she had no reason to doubt him, she'd been under surveillance since waking up in the SUV. She didn't want to fight a second asshole if she could help it. Hiding was now paramount.
Leaving the vamp, she jumped off the house and into the trees. From her hiding spot, she could see the energy trail of her attacker. His energy went back to one spot by the hill. It was as if he'd popped out of the ground.
Unless he'd jumped from further away and landed there or had flown in. But he wasn't a flier and there was no trail of energy in the sky.
There must be an entrance to the hill up there and a tunnel, maybe.
She was going to have to take a closer look.
*.*.*
Cody reacted first. He couldn't see how many vamps faced them, and he didn't waste time counting. He lunged through the doorway and attacked the closest and largest of the vamps. He couldn't see clear enough for the details, but understood Ian and David had spread out and followed his lead. Cody didn't care. He had someone to pound into the ground.
Finally here was his chance.
His fist connected first, snapping the other guy's jaw up and back. The cracking sound was almost as satisfying as the power behind his punch. But he didn't have time to celebrate. The punch barely slowed the vamp's progress. He grabbed Cody and threw him against the wall. The blow momentarily stunned him as he stared at the huge male. How the hell had he gotten so big? That wasn't normal. Then the vamp turned his back.
Cody jumped into the fight. Damned if he was going to let this guy get away with beating him. Cody jumped on his back, caught the guy's jaw in his grasp, and gave it a sharp jerk. A bellow escaped from the giant, but the guy's head snapped sideways. Not loudly, not hard, but enough that the giant dropped to his knees. Cody hopped off and twisted the guy's neck even harder. The vamp fell face forward and lay still.
Panting from the effort, Cody spun around to see one of the two remaining vamps on the ground and the last one take a direct blow from David on the nose. The vamp collapsed.
"What are the hell are they doing that makes these guys so big?" he asked the others.
David shook his head, trying to catch his breath.
Jewel answered from the doorway where she was still half supporting Xana. "They have to be giving them something. There's no way this is natural."
"But what? Unless just a straight diet of human blood is doing it." Ian shook his head. "No, it can't be. Our ancestors lived on animal blood for centuries. We're actually bigger than they were."
David groaned as he straightened. "Is that due to our better overall health? Besides, these guys aren't normal in other ways. They're out of proportion, stronger, and maybe stupider."
"We did wallop them easily," Ian said, turning around to gaze at the prone attackers. "I wonder if this is what Tessa meant. It was something about designer vamps. Can these guys just order up design improvements or something?"
"Scary thought," Jewel said with feeling.
"We'd better figure it out and put a stop to it…fast. These ones might have been easy, but they weren't that easy. We need every advantage."
"As much as I wouldn't mind being bigger and stronger myself," Ian said, "I don't want any of their drug cocktails."
"Me neither," said Jewel. "But what do we do with these vamps now?"
David looked around at the bare room. "We need a space to lock them up. I don't want to have to fight them all over again."
"Any suggestions?" Cody didn't have one. "Outside of tying them to each other?"
"Is there any way to do that? We have no ropes or ties of any kind." David shrugged. "I wished I'd killed mine while we were fighting. It seems wrong to do it now."
Jewel shuddered, and then pointed out the beds. "We could use the bedding. Tie them up with ripped-up sheets."
Cody would've preferred something with a lock, but that wasn't going to happen. Instead they tore into the sheets and tied the three men head to toe and toe to head. They probably overdid it, but it gave Cody satisfaction to twist the knots a little tighter.
When they were done with the three men, they tugged and dragged them off to one side.
Cody strode through to the room where they'd left the drugged vamps. "Now, let's unhook the others and get moving. I'm worried about Tessa."
"Me too," David muttered. "She has to be here somewhere."
"And the sooner we find her the better." Cody had had enough of all these delays.
He pulled open the next door.
He released his breath when he realized they weren't facing another small army. "It's safe. Let's unhook everyone. If we find ones that we can wake up, we'll tell them what's going on."
"Our best bet is these couple of big guys. They'll resist the drugs the most unless the bastards doubled the dose for them."
That made sense, kinda, but it sure didn't apply to Xana, even though she might have been the last one to have been hooked up, having been at the end of the row.
It took longer than Cody wanted to walk through the beds and rip the vamps free of their needles and machines. He started with the biggest guy at the far end and worked down. By the time they'd run up and down the aisles and made it back to the first drugged vamp, the biggest of them was already stirring.
Jewel gasped excitedly as the vamp groaned. "Oh look, he's waking up."
They surrounded him and gave him another few moments. Eventually,
he opened his eyes and stared at them. "What the hell is going on?" he growled. He sat up, and then collapsed back down.
Cody placed a hand on his shoulder. "Stay down until you feel better. You've been drugged."
The vamp's eyes widened as he took in the roomful of patients. He sat bolt upright and stared at them in confusion. "What? How?"
"That's what we're hoping you can tell us."
The guy shook his head slowly as if to clear his mind. "I don't know. I just remember driving the councilman…" He stopped, glanced at their faces, then stood shakily to search the faces of those around him. He walked slowly over to a bed several over from his and pointed to the bed in front of him. "This is Councilman Bushman. I was driving him and several of these other people back to town. The conversation had been heated. It was hard to drive, actually. We came down the first hill and I remember opening a window to keep my head clear. The others were upset. They wanted the heater on to compensate for the open window. But there was something wrong with it. The vehicle was filled with smoke."
David jumped in excitedly. "That's what happened to us. So while we're all in the blood farm, they fixed the vehicles to fill with gas. Everyone goes unconscious and they can take us out."
"But why?" The big guy slumped against one wall, his legs splayed to keep himself propped upright. "Why take us all?"
"So we can't tell anyone else," David said. "So we can be drugged like they drugged my mother. They gave her mind-altering drugs along with a quick reprogramming so she thought she was with those assholes and not against them." He spun around. "Think about it. How many of us were taken at one time?" He motioned around the room. "What are we here? Twenty, maybe twenty-five of us. That's nothing. Loose, we can cause them problems, but contain the problem and convert us, and they gain allies."
Cody hated it. But it sounded like David was right. "And we don't know who is on which side. Half of the supposed rescuers at the blood farm could have been in on it."
The driver, his voice bitter, added, "And they would have ordered the attack on the rest of us."
"If you aren't for them, you're going to be counted as against them," Cody warned. "Just like us."