by Dale Mayer
Ready? Cody's voice filtered through her mind. His warm tone bolstered her flagging energy. "Everyone stay focused. We aren't alone."
She glanced over at him.
"This looks like the last group. Motre and the others just finished theirs and so have the elders. They'll attack from the outside. We just have to stay alive a little longer."
Ian's voice, exhausted but still game, said, "A little longer I can do. These bastards are tough, though. With them having spikes, it's all about speed. Get them before they get you."
David added, "We need a better way to attack."
Just as he said that, a wave of black filled the room. Cody swore, "Shit. There are more."
"Ours or theirs?" muttered David.
Tessa turned to Cody. "Can you fly low and scrape the spikes along their backs? I can jump and get one or two, but if we split up and attack on all sides…"
"Two in the air. Two on the ground. A scratch might not kill them, but it will slow them down a lot."
"Good. Let's do it."
Ready?
Absolutely. She'd rather go out in style, fighting to the end. And she'd rather die than face life without her family and know she'd caused their deaths. The guilt would be far worse.
One…two…
And they both took to the air. Tessa couldn't jump high from a standstill, but she gave it her best shot. She jumped up smoothly then glided low. The silver spikes stuck out from between her fingers as she slashed and punched at the backs and heads of the group surrounding her brother. David and Ian came in low and dispatched the stumbling vamps.
Woot! Tessa pumped her spike-laden fist in the air.
That bunch is done. I'm going over to help my father. Cody took off to the fighting going on at the right, where the damn doors seemed to let in even more vamps.
Tessa landed and spun around to make sure she wasn't under attack, checking to make sure David and Ian were fine. Ian was breathing hard but appeared unhurt. David raced over to Jewel, who struggled with one last vamp. David stabbed him in the back and stepped over the still-fiery ashes to tug Jewel into his arms.
On the opposite side of the room, Motre and his men were dispatching the last of the vamps. Quickly, efficiently, and ruthlessly.
She closed her eyes and groaned as the last vamp fell. Then again, she was doing a slow slide to the floor herself. She wanted to giggle as her butt hit the floor but she just had no energy left. And from the looks of it, her friends weren't in much better shape.
David had his arms wrapped around Jewel, who was barely able to keep standing. But she wasn't ash on the ground, so all was good. At least, as good as any of them could be. She searched behind Jewel to find her father in conversation with Goran. They'd both been through so much and for so long. She was amazed they looked as strong as they did.
Ian was on the other side, bent over, chest heaving with exhaustion. He looked wasted.
It was over.
It had to be. Surely they'd finally purged this farm of bad guys.
Surely?
She ran a shaky hand over her forehead, wondering if they'd actually managed to get through this battle unscathed.
It would be unbelievably lucky if they had. There were many piles of ashes, but she couldn't bear to think of anyone she knew as being one of them.
She started counting heads. Motre was there. Good thing. He'd been a godsend in this war. And his cronies didn’t do too bad either. Although he appeared to be surrounded by a smaller group now than before. Yet…there were still a dozen or so.
She could see both elders. David and Jewel. Ian. Cody? Where was he?
Ice formed in her stomach. She bolted to her feet and searched left and right.
Her panicked gaze searched the clusters of people for his familiar face. Bile raced up her throat and her heart constricted in fear. There was no sign of Cody.
Cody? Cody!
"Cody?" Tessa screamed as loud as she could. "Where are you?"
In her mind, she whispered, Damn it, Cody, please answer me.
Silence. Inside and out. There wasn't a sound in the room – except for the raspy breathing of the survivors as they stared around the smoky room with dawning horror.
Tremors started from her toes and slowly worked their way up her spine He had to be fine. He had to.
She couldn't lose him now that she'd finally found him.
"Cody? Stop fooling around. Where the hell are you, boy?" Goran bellowed, fear beginning to show on his face. He pivoted and searched the men in the room.
"He was over by the door the last time I saw him," David said, already striding to the door. "Maybe he went out to carry on the fight."
En masse, everyone raced to the door. Tessa was slightly behind, her muscles slow to react as the shock of impending disaster warred with hope. She couldn't help take a last glance at all the still smoldering piles on the floor.
So many dead. So many gone and no one would be able to identify the remains. Did they all have families who would now wait endlessly for someone who would no longer come home?
She might be able to deal with that...as long as they weren't her family and friends. Selfish? Yes, and she didn't care. Trying to ignore the smoldering piles, she ran behind the others.
In the large outer room, they separated and spread out to search for Cody.
Except Goran. He'd halted several yards in, and hands on his hips, roared, "Cody? Where are you?"
Only there was no answer.
Tessa, after the initial panic had drained what little energy she had left from the fight, could barely think with the fear still snaking through her. Cody had to be alright. Anything else didn't bear thinking about.
But there was no sign of him. Tessa stood in the middle of the cavernous room when the shakes started. She didn't know when she tumbled to the ground. Next thing she knew, she was on the floor with her knees up to her chin.
David came running over to her. "Tessa, are you okay?"
She looked up at him, her voice heavy with pain. "Where's Cody?"
The worry lines on David's face deepened. "He'll be here. He has to be." He crouched down and gave her a hug. They stayed like that for a long moment as the others continued to call out Cody's name.
Goran came back, his steps heavy, his face aged and full of agony. "He can't be dead. I'd know if he were."
David started. He pulled back slightly to look at Tessa. "Tessa?"
Confused, she stared up at him. "What?"
With a glance around to make sure that the others couldn't hear him, he said, "Have you tried to talk to Cody using mindspeak?"
She blinked up at him. "I'm not even sure that’s what we're doing." She took a shaky breath. "And I've been trying, but I'm not hearing him."
He leaned closer. "Can you sense him? Anything at all that indicates he's alive?"
"Tessa?" A deeply pained voice sounded behind her.
She twisted slightly to see Goran standing there, a ravaged look on his face.
"Can you try again? Please?"
Damn. Still, she had to get past her own fear to be able to talk to Cody. "I don't know if it will work," she warned. "It doesn't always."
"Try," said David.
With a last worried glance at the room full of smoldering ashes, she nodded and closed her eyes.
Cody, where are you? Can you hear me? Are you alive? She waited several long minutes but heard no response.
A shudder slid down her spine. She looked at David. "I can't hear anything."
"Try again. Please. He could be unconscious. What if he's been kidnapped this time?"
"Oh no," she cried out softly. And yet why not Cody? She'd been in trouble several times. So had Jewel and Ian. Then there was her mother, who had been injected with some kind of mind-altering drug. So it was quite possible for Cody to have been overpowered, or injected with something to make him lose consciousness.
Unfortunately, even C
ody could be overtaken. It had already happened once. David and Cody had been drugged and taken to the platform up high. Instinctively, her head tilted back and she stared at the cavernous ceiling high above. Why hadn't she looked for his energy? God, she was a fool. She turned on both sets of vision as she bolted to her feet.
"Sis? What's up? Can you hear him?"
Goran took a hopeful step toward her.
"Not at the moment. If he's unconscious, then I don't think I could anyway." She held up her hand as both Goran and David started to speak. "But I should have looked for his energy trail."
She spun around, but the energy was a crazy mess. "Goran," she snapped, "Get everyone to stand still. I need to sort out the different signatures."
With Goran bellowing at the top of his lungs, she crouched down to see better. She realized that she was standing in the middle of a large ball of energy. Straightening, she backed up and stopped at the doorway. From here, she could see most of the large room laid out in front of her, the vamps frozen in position. There, she squatted again to search the smoky mess of energy.
It twisted and mixed on the ground in front of her. Slowly, she was managing to read the story. A fight had spilled out into this huge room.
There. Cody's energy.
"His energy is here," she shouted excitedly. She backed up slightly in order to see more.
Goran came running – and man, could he move! "David said he was here before the battle. Could that be what you're seeing?"
She shook her head. "No. It's too vibrant. He was in a fight here, on this side of the room and then..." her voice trailed off as she moved slowly to the left in Motre’s direction. "The fight brought him over here."
The energy blended into one confused mass. She stopped and turned around slowly, looking to pick up the trail. "But I can't see where he went next," she cried out in frustration,
"That's okay. Take your time. If you saw that he'd been over here, then he wasn't incinerated in the same room where we were. That's what matters. Take another look. He might have been thrown over someone's shoulder. Would that change the energy pattern? Would you need to look higher?"
"Higher?" Her gaze shot upward. She turned in a slow circle. Cody was a flier. "If he'd managed to get airborne, he could have gone anywhere."
"But he'd have come back here if he could have." Goran was absolute in that statement. Cody wouldn't have left them to fight alone.
"Yes," she said slowly as she continued to study the air. "Several fliers came in from that direction." She lifted her arm and pointed. "There was a skirmish of some kind and all the energy mixed..." She gasped. "Cody, with at least two fliers, went that way." This time, she pointed back toward the area under construction. The way they'd come.
Goran ran to her side and stared up into the air. "Do you recognize the fliers?"
She frowned. "The energy is murky. For all I know, there could be more than two as I can barely separate them at this point. But I can see Cody launching upwards, not very strongly, injured maybe." She ignored Jewel's horrified gasp as she tried to decipher the meaning of the energy. "Maybe as an attempt to get away from whatever fight was going on below, but he ended up cornered by fliers." And he struggled hard. But she didn't say that out loud. "His energy doesn't look good. I can see it, but it's pale."
"Pale? What does that mean?" Goran's voice rose to a roar at the end.
Tessa winced at the sudden ringing in her ears. "Sorry. The energy looks slack and lifeless, almost as if he's hurt. Or maybe he's been drugged. It's possible he's not flying at all, but that someone else is flying him away."
"Then I'm going up there and finding those assholes. They'll be damn sorry they ever decided to touch my boy."
"Whoa. Hold on." Serus said, his quiet authority evident as everyone turned to look at him. "You're tired and injured and although we grabbed some sustenance at the hospital, you've burned through the bulk of that already. You can't go alone. Not if there are more than a couple of these fliers around."
"There aren't enough fliers here to stop me." Goran snapped. "And if you think you're going to stop me from going and saving my son, you're not the man I thought you were."
"I'm not going to stop you. I'm trying to find a way to get a team to go with you." Serus growled. "Any more cracks like that and I'll slug you."
The two ancients glared at each other, the air fairly crackling with testosterone.
"Hey, you two. Knock it off. Let's try to help Cody instead of wasting time." Tessa didn't realize she'd yelled until David walked over to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
"Easy, Tessa. We'll find him," he said.
She closed her eyes and buried her face against his shoulder. Damn. She hated reverting to that helpless Tessa. That Tessa who couldn't do anything. But she needed a moment. Just one. Okay, that was enough. With a headshake, she threw off the weakness and took a deep breath. Then she stepped away from her brother's protective arms.
"I'll be fine." She threw him a confident smile before turning to face the others. And she would be now that she knew Cody hadn't died...yet. "If you two are done...?"
Serus gave a snort. "That's my girl." He reached out and smacked Goran on the shoulder. "Let's go."
While the others stood and watched, Goran took to the air, with Serus not far behind.
"We have to give them ground support," Motre called to the rest of them. "Let's go."
"Already gone," Tessa called back as she picked up speed and went past him. Behind her, she heard Jewel laugh and call back to her brother. "Come on David, or you'll miss the party."
"Like hell."
Tessa grinned. She quickly lost it as Motre and Ian steamed past her. She barely had the energy to do what she was doing. How the hell were they beating her? And they hadn't had a meal in how long? Damn. They'd fought hard too.
"Shit." She was such an idiot. They were drawing energy from their vampire heritage. Although how long that would hold out, she didn't know.
Why the hell couldn't hers just kick in automatically? She mentally ordered her body to draw on that side of her DNA to power up. Before long, she was coasting along smoothly. She grinned. Now if only they could find Cody alive and well...
Damn it, Cody. Where are you?
Then she heard it. A moan, deep and dragging inside her mind. "It's Cody," she yelled. "I can hear him. He's alive!"
*.*.*
Cody groaned. At least he thought he did, but no sound came out. And maybe that was a good thing. His brain was too scrambled to figure out why. Besides, everything hurt too much to care. Especially his arm. Damn it. Had he broken something? Surely a break couldn't hurt this much. He should have already healed. Unless he'd just broken it. And that brought him back to nothing making any sense again.
He tried to shift his shoulders and moaned.
Silently.
Cody? Can you hear me?
Tessa's worried voice screamed through his thoughts. He winced as the power of her voice bounced around his brain. Still, just knowing she was there made his heart beat louder. He struggled to get his thoughts coherent enough to answer her. Tessa?
Yes! Are you okay? You don't sound so good.
I don't know. Just coming back to consciousness, I think.
Be careful. You might have been drugged.
Drugged? Oh shit. I can't remember.
Yes. The battle is over. Only we couldn't find you. I think other fliers must have captured you
At her words, images and sounds filled his mind. Emotions thrummed through his veins. Panic, screaming. The sound of vamps dying. Sounds of friends crying. The fight had been intense. He'd gone to help his father and Serus by the door. That had led to more fighting outside. He'd been surrounded. Had fought hard, then bolted up as high as he could to catch his breath. And then...and then nothing. He didn't remember anything after that point.
Damn. She was right. He'd had to have been taken by other fliers.
>
That's what I figured when I saw the energy trails.
He cracked his eyelids open a sliver and tried to see where he was. He tried to lift a hand to rub his burning eyes, but it was locked down at his side. Lying on his back, the truth slowly sank in. He was strapped to a bed or table of some kind. His left arm burned. His aching wings were folded under him. Slowly, trying to make the motion natural as if he were asleep, he let his head roll to the side and froze. Yards of tubing crisscrossed his view. Christ. He strained to hear anything.
Was he alone?
His heart pounded. If he was, he was getting the hell out of here. But what if he wasn't? The last thing he needed was a heavier dose of drugs. And this was his second time. Shit. Double Shit. He had to get out of here. And hope his wings weren't paralyzed like Ian and Jewel's were. That would so not be good.
Do you know where you are? Your dad is flying, trying to follow your trail. The rest of us are on the ground looking for you
He started to smile, but held it back at the last moment. He didn't want to give himself away. But damn, it was good to know the cavalry was coming. He'd hoped they'd all survived.
We did. We're here. We’re coming for you.
Good. I'm going to get out of here – somehow.
Do that. But be careful. Those drugs are deadly.
Yeah. I hear you.
Pissed now, Cody opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. A white tiled ceiling, like so many he'd seen before. He fisted his hands and tested his bonds. Both wrists were bound and his wings were killing him. It was not comfortable, with him lying on top of them. And with that thought, they started to throb. Shit.
He shifted his legs and almost sighed with relief when they moved. They ached something awful, though. What the hell had the assholes done to him? He lifted his head slightly and took in the room with a glance. Empty. Good. Now to free himself.
Tessa. I'm in a room, strapped to a bed. So far I'm alone.
Damn. Get out if you can.
Working on it.
And he was. But he wasn't getting anywhere. In fact, a strange lassitude was filling his veins. He wasn't tired, but foggy. Confused. He shook his head to clear it. His eyes really hurt too. It had to be the drugs. Or the lack of food. Damn, he didn't dare go down that pathway. He didn't want any of the blood from this farm. But it wasn't like there were any synthetics available.