by Dale Mayer
She didn't know how to take that, so she ignored him. She pointed to the monitors. "Wonder if the monitors were to keep an eye on the hanging children or on the workers."
"Both."
She nodded and motioned to a door behind the rubble. "We should check out what's behind the door."
"Why? Maybe we should just go home and leave this behind."
She knew he was tired. So was she.
"I'm afraid the younger versions of your family will be in that next room." She sensed his surprise in her mind. She watched as he turned to consider the issue.
"They were all the same age," he said. "All relatively young, but not very young."
"Exactly. They were older than the ones we found hanging. Did we get them all? Or is another batch maturing and trying on clothes as we speak?"
Cody stared down at her, distaste twisting his edgy features. "What a horrible thought.”
"But we have to consider it," she added. "They were grouped by age. The group that attacked us and then the group that was hanging. If we found two groups at those ages, why wouldn't there be younger upcoming ones? Not older as they would have already been sent into battle." She waved a hand at the mess of ashes. "Goran took care of the next batch, but it would be foolish to consider there aren’t younger variations maturing even now."
That was enough to set Cody forward to clear a path to the door. "You look for more doors. Who knows how much more of this shit we're going to find?"
She turned to study the walls around them. How many rooms were here? It made sense to have an embryo room and something like a nursery for young vamps. If these guys were clones – the only observation she could make in this case – then the doctors would have to have a large clean lab big enough to include embryo storage until they were needed.
That would require exclusive equipment and specialists to keep this army production on track. Yet once established, it would be easy to maintain. A couple of doctors and several minions for all the labor work were all they needed
So a layout to minimize movement from one stage handling area to the other made sense.
Cody shifted enough debris and pushed the door open enough to see in. She peered over his shoulder. "Is there anything in here?" she asked.
"I can't see far enough in." Pulling back, he cleared away more debris. She pressed the door wide open and stepped over the mess on the ground and into the room. A room virtually unaffected by the tremor. The room was an organized embryo system. Canisters full of greenish liquid filled the left side. On the other side were larger containers holding vamps not ready to be hung on their own but definitely past the embryo stage. Large silver canisters lined the far wall. Not big enough to hold a full size person, but maybe enough for embryos at half the age. She shuddered. She really didn't want to know what was in them.
They would need a fair bit of time to reach the stage like those that Goran had killed in the main room. Could that mean another room full of those in an in-between stage? Or several other rooms? Was it likely they had a succession of rooms like the tunnel ones they'd been in before, where each stage could be moved into the next room. Like a damn assembly line.
A shocked cry had her spinning around. Goran stood behind Cody at the open doorway.
There was so much pain and horror on his face she didn't know what to say. Thankfully Cody handled it.
"Easy, Dad. We don't know if any of these are viable. The power is off. Whatever was taking care of these things is offline now. The longer the power is off, the closer these things are to being dead all on their own."
She hadn't considered power. But he was right. The pumps were silent, the fluids were still inside the tubes.
Could anything still be alive?
She hoped not. She moved through the room, checking the contents and wondering with amazement at the highly scientific level of the process in place even as she winced in revulsion at the contents.
How could they do this? Were they actually playing with DNA to create the next batch? To create their next wave of designer army vampires?
"Where are the others?" cried Goran. "There must be more. Older ones than these." He waved his arm toward the canisters. The cold anger in his voice scared her. There was a detached ferocity that said he'd find every last one and kill them all.
She glanced over at Cody. He shrugged. "I don't know. Yet."
Tessa watched Goran's gaze search the room, searching for the next place. He stopped as his gaze landed on a glass window of some kind opposite Tessa. She hadn't made it to that side of the room. She raced over to the window. "They are in here."
And the window shattered in front of her.
*.*.*
"What the hell?"
Harsh laughter followed the cry.
Jared ducked behind a large boulder, his breath caught in his chest. Well, he'd found the soldiers. But no vampires. What were the soldiers up to? He heard more laughter, but the voices and footsteps were moving away.
They were still moving down the tunnel.
He took a chance and ran behind them, hiding behind another boulder.
He tried to keep close enough to hear their conversation.
"At least they were all dead."
"What do you mean at least?" A low growl came from one of the heavier set army men said.
"I wanted to kill them myself. What good is it if they are already dead?"
More laughter.
"There will be plenty for all of us. Who knows, maybe we'll get lucky and the Human Council will decide to exterminate the Vamp Council. Hell, we could kill them all while they sleep during the daytime. One well-organized day and they'd be all gone."
"Not all of them, there are vamps everywhere."
"Yeah, but not here. Just think, we could have a vamp-free city. Once we put out the word, no other vamps will want to come here."
"Only until they realize what we've done and then we'll have a full scale war on our hands."
"Good. That's just what we need. Be a huge boost to the economy. Plus if we take over the vampire businesses, the humans will do much better, too."
The voices headed further down the tunnel.
Jared didn't follow. He was too stunned to think. A vampire extermination? He wanted no part of that. God help them all if that happened.
And what dead vampires had they found?
Please don’t let it be his friends. As the tunnel resumed its tinny silence after the soldiers moved off, he heard something else. Glass breaking.
Shit.
Now what?
Stay and find out, follow the soldiers, or retreat?
At the murmur of voices and the sound of more glass breaking, he searched the wall for where the sounds were coming from. He spotted a hole in the wall high up behind him. He'd missed it earlier. Boulders and rocks had piled up around it. And it was back slightly from where he was crouched. That could be where the men came from. Except that didn't make any sense. They said everyone was dead.
Did that mean dead vamps and humans? Or both? If that was the case, then why the voices and breaking glass?
Had some of the army group stayed behind to wait for vamps to show up?
He groaned but darted to the hole in the wall. It was dark inside but there appeared to be some light in the space above. Creeping forward, he clambered over rocks and made his way through the hole. It connected to some kind of stairs, but they'd fallen into a twisted steel mess. As he searched for a way forward, the sound of the voices grew louder.
He popped his head through the hole and came face to face with Ian.
A very dead looking Ian.
*.*.*
At Goran's bellow, Serus raced toward the back of the room. He hated leaving Ian and Jewel but knew he could count on David to keep an eye on them. In the state Goran was in, anything might happen and someone needed to keep a lid on him. Not that a lid was possible. He was the strongest bullish vamp Serus knew. And that
was saying something.
He came to a skidding stop at the edge of a pool of blackish liquid. "Shit. I almost forgot about this mess." Turning his attention to the narrow strip of floor close to the wall, he picked a way through to the open doorway. And came to a stop.
What the hell?
He bolted forward. "What's going on?" There was glass everywhere and Goran appeared to be rampaging through a second room killing...killing something. Serus couldn't actually see what that was, and that scared him more than anything.
"Dad? I'm over here." Tessa called to him. She was leaning against a wall, Cody by her side.
Serus rushed over. "What the hell is going on?"
Tessa pushed off the wall and pointed to the next room. "Goran lost it."
Serus could see that for himself. He took several cautious steps forward to see his best friend stomping tubes into the ground and stabbing life forms of all sizes. A nasty smell permeated the room. He lifted his nose experimentally then winced. "Gross."
"I think the embryos were affected by the blast." Tessa took two cautious steps forward to stand by his side. "Once Goran saw this other room, it's like he had a lifetime of rage to release."
"He probably does. Tyson's lifetime."
Tessa's small gasp resonated in the quiet space. "Finding out about him had to be devastating."
"It was." Serus could only imagine the mix of pain, guilt, and regret that his friend was dealing with right now.
"And I killed him. I wonder if he'll ever forgive me?"
Serus glanced down at her. "He blames himself not you. Feels he should have been there more for him. Taught him better. That he should have seen something in his son. Something he could have stopped before it was too late."
"Do you think that’s possible?" she asked, curiosity in her voice.
He turned to look at her fully. She was so young. And yet so worldly. He struggled to answer. "There is no way to know. A parent's job is never easy. We do the best we can at the moment, but every child is different and every instance is unique. I really liked Tyson. But he's been a stranger these last few decades, and I didn't recognize the child I knew in the man that died."
Her gaze narrowed. As if she was looking inward or outward. As if she somehow had access to another way of thinking like she had another way of seeing. Or maybe that was the difference. Maybe her different way of physically viewing the world outside had given her a different way of viewing the world inside too. A different perspective.
This precious daughter of his was very special. She had much to teach them all. It was galling to admit that his way, the way of vampires for centuries, was being shown up as old, stale, inefficient, and dull. As if she was a breath of fresh air in an old system. A dying system. One that had long ago run its best race…and lost.
"What's with the depressed sigh, Dad?"
Depressed? He hated to think his own daughter could read him so well. Then again, Rhia could, so maybe she'd passed that ability on to his daughter. Or maybe she'd come by it naturally. Regardless, she was still waiting for an answer. Those striking green eyes stared up at him in warm loving concern. Her capacity for caring went beyond anyone he'd ever seen. Her mother was close, but years at the hands of the merciless vampire women she called her family had given Rhia a harder shell, a more protective stance when dealing with the world.
Tessa had been dealt some hard blows herself but she'd gone quiet and let the others do their thing. She'd hidden inside – coming out periodically to test the waters and see if her environment had warmed up enough that it was safe to come out. If Jared had never gone missing, he wasn’t sure what she'd have done. She wouldn't have hooked up with Cody, that was for sure. His gaze flew to the young man who'd captured his daughter's heart.
Cody. The young man stared at his father. His fists clenching and unclenching helplessly. As hard as it was for Goran to deal with this mess, he wasn't doing Cody any favors here. Goran needed to stop and think about his other son. He needed to remember that Tyson had been Cody's brother, too. Cody had enough issues to deal with without Goran creating more.
Serus glanced down at Tessa. "Cody needs you. I'm going to calm Goran down. Give us a few minutes."
Her gaze widened in surprised understanding. She turned to look at Cody and her gentle features softened yet again. He waited until she approached Cody, slipping her hand into his clenched fist. Cody turned in surprise to gaze down into her upturned face,
As Serus watched, Cody enfolded her in a tight hug and buried his face in her hair.
Serus nodded. They really were well matched. For the moment.
He turned his attention to his fiercely angry and hurting friend.
Someone was going to have to go in there and stop him.
And that someone was going to have to be him.
*.*.*
Wendy shifted uneasily at Rhia's side. Rhia worried about her. It was one thing for Rhia to die trying to save her family, it was quite another for Wendy to face the same fate. Even if she'd volunteered. She hadn't fully understood what she was getting into.
Rhia had seen humans in action before. Sometimes they were the worst of all the animal species.
The group of men watched their leader leave the immediate area to make his call. As soon as he moved up the tunnel and away from the wall of glass, the first one pushed his gun against Rhia. "Stupid vampire bitch. Do you really think any of us gives a damn that you are on the Vampire Council? You should be dead like all the other vampires who did this. As of now, the only good vampire is a dead vampire," he said, bitterness rolling through his voice. "These people didn't deserve this."
"No," she agreed. "They didn't. But then we didn't do it to them. And you know that."
Another of the men stepped forward, "Why do you say that?"
She turned her cool gaze on the new male. They needed to understand, or every vampire on the planet was in danger of finding their way of living going through yet another massive change. And although the vamps had always prevailed, the humans had a lot more technology available to them this time around. She knew the vamps could survive, but she didn't want to see them have to retreat and turn back into being hunters again. But they would if they had to. And that would mean the end of the life as humans knew it as well.
Humans would go from peace loving, believing they were the big predators on the planet, back to what they'd always been and had chosen to forget – prey.
"Because there is no way that this big an operation involving this many human victims could happen without humans helping," she added softly, just loud enough for them to hear, "A lot of human help."
Silence.
Then the room exploded with exclamations and shouts of disgust.
"No way."
"Like hell."
"Fuck."
She watched the awareness, disgust, and disbelief settle on several of the men's face.
"Exactly. So just like there are nasty vampires who did this," she waved an arm toward the disaster around them, "there are also nasty humans who helped them. The very ones who should have been protecting your people not only turned their backs on them but helped the vamps hide their tracks and removed all the missing person's cases – before it was ever brought to anyone's awareness."
"That's a lot of accusation going on." said the second in command. "Without proof, I might add. It doesn't make the vampires any less culpable."
She shook her head and said sadly, "No. It doesn't. But it wasn't me. And you people could be just as guilty."
"Hey, I had nothing to do with this," said the same male.
"Or me," spoke up someone in the back. "And you're just trying to save your ass."
"If you want us to believe you are not one of the human traitors," Wendy said reasonably, "then you also have to believe us."
Indecision warred on their faces. Rhia watched the expressions carefully. These men were justifiably angry. They wanted targets to smash, enem
ies to kill, anything that would allow them to vent their anger and to feel like they've meted out justice. She couldn't blame them. If their positions were reversed, she knew she'd have killed them all instead of asking questions.
If they hurt her family, she still might.
Wendy gripped her arm and murmured, "Easy."
Rhia settled back. "I'm fine. Tired though and impatient to find the rest of my family."
Some of the aggression had disappeared from their faces. They stood more relaxed, their guns loose in their hands.
She appreciated that.
"We have to wait for Stan to return."
Rhia studied the area, trying to remember where the other exits were. She couldn’t help but feel like time was running out.
Stan's face popped up in the window coming down the hallway. She wondered at the design that allowed the vamps working here to see an intruder long before they arrived inside the warehouse. They really should have a warning system when the door at the top was activated. And maybe they did.
She waited for Stan to arrive.
Hard footsteps warned her of his arrival. As he came into view, he hitched up his gun to point directly at her and said, "We've got a problem."
Tessa wandered into the destroyed room, looking for anything that would give them an idea of what else was going on here. On the other side of the window, Serus was once again trying to talk Goran down off his mad. Cody wandered silently to her side. She understood his pain. There'd been so much death already, he had to be wondering when this would all end and who'd be left standing.
Hell, she certainly was.
As she bent over to check out a lab book on the ground, a wave of dizziness had her swaying in place.
Shit.
"You can't keep doing this," Cody growled behind her. "You have to eat."
She knew that. She'd come back here to look for clean blood and had found nothing clean about this place. Just more evidence of the nastiness of some vampires. In the background, she could hear Goran and Serus talking. Cody's name popped up several times. She looked over at him, but he seemed oblivious.