by Dale Mayer
“What did you mean?”
She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. Instead she beamed and said, “I used Deanna’s and Hortran’s knowledge to drive.”
He stared at her, his mind swirling with the concept. Then he remembered that she hadn’t known how to drive before as her father had delayed teaching her. David had finished his training, but her father had been holding back on hers. Still, she’d driven down from the mountain perfectly. And neither Motre nor he had even considered it as anything other than normal. She did everything with skill now. Interesting. But it was you in control? he asked carefully, studying her face and looking for something to say it was Tessa, not Deanna.
She grinned. Absolutely. I was using her knowledge to drive. And it was so easy and natural.
And weird, he added dryly. I know that probably sounds like a good thing, but it needs to be something you use with control.
She nodded comfortably. Agreed. But this time it worked out just fine.
And no sign of Deanna?
She shook her head. None. The good news though is that I did sense Hortran inside. So he’s still with me.
Cody studied her, wondering how that could make her so happy. The thought of that creepy Ghost living inside of him made his skin crawl. And that’s a good thing?
It’s a very good thing. Her voice was calm and controlled. She believed in what she was saying. But she had before too. And look how well that had worked out for her.
He decided to ignore it for the moment, but inside rose the same damn question as to how could he tell for sure when it was Tessa? And once again, he came up blank.
“Cody,” Motre said. “Call David and see if he managed to find a connection from the hospital yet. I’m wondering if one of our teams shouldn’t go in from that direction. Catch the bastards between us in the middle.”
Tessa gasped. “Oh. Deanna’s memories say there is a long tunnel going from where she was a prisoner through town and ends up at Council Hall. All part of the plan to protect our species in case the humans destroyed the world above.”
The thought of the planet being a victim of mass destruction was a sobering thought. Vampires didn’t need much to survive, but they did need blood of some kind and if all the humans and animals died, then they would too. Unless they had…blood farms.
He leaned back, wondering if that’s how this mess all started. They could manufacture plasma now, but there would always be the purists who wanted the real stuff. And in the event of a catastrophe happening, then the blood farms and potentially the plasma were all the vampires needed to survive.
For the first time, he understood the drive to keep the species alive. They might not all deserve to survive, but there was no doubt that they needed a place in the event of something major happening on the surface.
“Let’s go to the hospital and come in from there, Motre,” he said. “If we divert a couple of teams in our direction as backup…”
“Right. You got a way to tell who’s on our side and who’s not given that Tessa just annihilated men I thought we could count on?”
Shit. Why was this never easy?
Tessa reached over and grabbed his hand. “We’re better off doing this ourselves. If anyone comes our way and they are on the wrong side, then they are going to radio ahead to the others and our element of surprise will be gone.”
He nodded. He knew that. He’d just hoped that for once, things would be easy. Still, if he had to go to war with only a few people, the ones he was with were the best. “We need to tell the ancients.”
She nodded. “They can decide where they want to go. With us or back to the Hall.”
“Send them to the Hall,” Motre said. “It’s going to get ugly there. And the ancients are the best at cleaning house.”
*
“The Hall? We’re to go to the Hall and they are going to the hospital. How the hell does that work?” Goran growled. “What does the hospital have to do with anything?”
“They will have a reason.” Serus lay with his eyes closed, listening to his friend as they drove behind the others.
“Then ask them so we know, too.”
But he didn’t have to. His phone was going off steadily as Tessa explained. He never understood why they didn’t just pick up the phone and call. No, that was a generational thing David had tried to explain to him years ago. It’s not that young people were averse to talking on a phone, but they were faster and more comfortable texting.
Well, he wasn’t.
Still, he could read, and as he scrolled through the texts from his daughter followed by several from his son, he explained the gist of what the kids had found out to Goran.
“I think we always knew that the hospital was connected underground to other parts of town,” Goran said in a contemplative tone. “The trouble is I think we as a species have forgotten more than we know about our heritage. Isn’t someone supposed to be keeping track of that information at the Council?”
Serus looked over at Goran. “That was Gloria, wasn’t it?”
The two exchanged glances. “That would make sense then.”
“She had access. She’d known about the other facilities. She was the leader on this side of the blood farms. Too much to hope that she’d been the only leader.”
“No, there was definitely someone above her.”
Serus agreed. “So they are going to the hospital to come in from that side. And we’re to go directly to the Hall.” He brightened. “This day is getting to sound better and better.”
Goran snorted. “Now that we have a fight brewing, it is.” He glanced over at Serus. “Unless the kids get the bigger fight.”
Serus glared at him. “No way. Make this thing go faster. If we’re there first, we get a bigger piece of the pie.”
With a shout of laughter, Goran gunned the engine and shot the vehicle down the road as fast as it could go.
*
David, armed with a copy of the blueprints clipped together and Jewel at his side, headed downstairs. They were on a time crunch and somehow it had taken twenty minutes to get the information they needed, and yet this had been so complex with so many updates that the time had whipped past them while they were trying to figure out how to even plan their next move. They’d sent the information they’d gathered to everyone they needed to, including the Human Council via Sian. What they were attempting to do was avoid sending out the information to the blood farm people. The last thing David wanted was to have those assholes know that they were onto them.
It was going to happen eventually – no way to avoid it, unfortunately, but every minute they could steal without the enemy knowing was a gift. He hit the stairwell and raced down. He wasn’t a flier or a jumper, but like his mother, he was agile, fit, and damn fast. He was taking full landings in one jump, and Jewel was hampered because her wings couldn’t open in the confined space. She was struggling behind him. He didn’t want to slow down, but…
Looking behind him, he checked on her condition.
She snorted. “Keep going. I’m fine.”
“You should be recovering from your ordeal,” he snapped. “Not racing toward a war.”
“Ha.” She laughed. “I’d rather be doing this.”
He shook his head and made sure she didn’t see his grin. He loved that about her. The let-me-at-them attitude. Still, he worried about her. She was more than willing to do this, but was her body ready? She’d been through hell at the hands of those assholes. It couldn’t happen again. He planned on making sure she stayed safe this time, but he couldn’t be everywhere.
She had to help him by being careful.
At the last set of stairs, he held up his hand. “This is the bottom floor according to the blueprints.”
“Right. But that doesn’t mean we can know for sure that more weren’t added at a later date.”
“Let’s not go there.” What a thought. There was enough here to start searching the building without considering renovations that might have been done in the years si
nce. “This is what we have to go on, so let’s trust that for now.”
She nodded. He opened the door and peered out. “I don’t think I’ve ever been down this low.”
“I’m not sure many have,” she said. “It’s clean though, so there must be regular maintenance done on this level.”
“I think the whole place is cleaned weekly,” he answered in an absent voice as he studied the empty hallway. The good thing was they were at one end of a long hallway. A decision he’d made early on. There were staircases on all four corners of the H-shaped hallway pattern. That meant four exits and four entrances. That meant four escapes for them and the others. He wanted to be methodical about this. With Jewel holding his hand, they quickly went door to door and checked the rooms. Most of the doors were unlocked and opened to show empty rooms. The four rooms on the left were empty. Jewel noted the location and they kept going. After completing that side, they moved down the main corridor, with David running ahead to check and Jewel keeping track of the results. On the entire floor, there was only the one locked door. Jewel contacted Sian. On her orders, they returned to the door, and with the help of a master key that required several patient moments of fiddling, they managed to open it. David stood in the middle of the room. It was empty. But it was damn small. As in way smaller than every other room on this floor. He knew they were supposed to be the same. The blueprints had shown that, and his visual exam had confirmed they were all approximately the same size.
So why this one smaller, and why was it locked?
“You know, it could be as simple as realizing this room was different, so keeping it locked stopped the confusion and anyone needing a room could use any of the others.”
“Yet the room where they were testing the chemicals in Bart’s canisters was also small.”
She studied the room, then walked to the far corner. “In that case…” And she found a hidden door in the shadows. “This is the matching door to that room.”
David grinned and reached for the handle. “What do we have here?”
*
Rhia walked back to the main center, her arms full of tubes of blood. She’d gone back to the room of male vamps and grabbed several more from them. Another tech had walked in while she’d been there and sent her out, a frown on his face. But he seemed to ignore her as he called four names from his list. She walked out before she had an understanding of what he was doing there.
Back at the center, she put the vials in with the others waiting, making sure the vials were in no special order, and sat down at the closest computer. It was not connected to a main server. That was going to be her next problem. Finding the computer that would be connect her to the databases – in an hour.
“Rhia, come over and work on this computer please,” the tech she’d just seen in the room said. “I need that one to process this new information.”
Willingly, she switched to the computer he pointed out in the corner. It was on and running, but the monitor was dark. Still, as she walked to where she was supposed to be, she clicked the keyboard to bring it up out of sleep mode and opened the network. Of course, it needed a log in. Damn. That’s the one she needed to be working on.
She studied the computer screen in front of her.
Then reached down and pulled on the network cable separating the end from the wires. Instantly her screen went black. “Huh, sorry, I can’t. This one doesn’t appear to be working.”
He looked up at her, distracted. “What? Really? We had problems a few days ago, but I thought they were fixed.”
“It’s not letting me get on the network.”
“Damn.” He nodded at the one she wanted and said, “Use that one.”
“What about a log in,” she said in a light voice. “I hate the damn things. Can never remember mine.”
“Use mine,” he snapped and reeled off a series of numbers. “Then get someone in to fix yours.”
“Will do.” She smiled to herself as she logged in. “Thanks.”
“Doesn’t matter what password we use. We all have access to the same shit,” he muttered. “How am I supposed to get anything done without any help?”
“There’s always too much to do,” she sympathized.
“Only since the bastards took out our facilities. Getting the numbers back up is a huge problem.”
She nodded but struggled to keep her face from showing too much interest. She needed to know what he did. But how without raising his suspicions?
He groaned and pushed his chair back. “I got that done. On to the next problem.” He walked over to the vials of blood at the side and started fiddling with the machine. “It’s going to take time we don’t have to process this batch. We should have invested in new equipment a long time ago.” He continued to lament his lot in life while Rhia listened with half an ear. She had the computer up and was trying to get into the database to look up Seth’s information without him seeing what she was doing. At the same time, she was trying to look busy so he didn’t question what she was doing.
Finally finding the patient list, she typed in her last name.
And up came every damn member of her family.
The drugged part of her mind shouted for joy. See, they are all here. That’s great.
The other part to her mind screamed in horror. What was this? Why were David, Serus, and Tessa here? Surely they hadn’t been drugged – had they?
Chapter 8
Walking back into the hospital that they’d left only hours earlier was weird enough, but going to the bowels of the building where they’d met Hortran and Deanna was downright scary. And she had no idea why.
“Tessa?” Cody’s warm voice washed over her. Lord, that man knew her inside and out. Always when she was feeling off.
She didn’t know what to say to explain the funny emptiness inside her. Only it wasn’t empty, it was more a feeling of a black hole. Empty but not empty. As if something somehow was ready to blow.
“I’m fine.” She offered him a small smile. “Or I will be,” she amended, “when I realize why I feel so off down here.”
Motre, who was walking ahead slightly, said, “Maybe it’s because this was Deanna’s and Hortran’s world.”
“Right,” Cody said, slipping an arm through Tessa’s as if to ward off any nastiness.
If Motre’s comment was right on… “So not my sensation as much as I’m tapping into Deanna’s memories of this place.”
“Did she have bad memories here?” Cody frowned.
“I’m sure they are mixed. She was a prisoner for a while until she managed to turn the tables on that. I’m sure anger is one of many emotions she felt over the centuries.” Still, it was an idea, and one she needed to consider. Hortran’s memories were also here, not that she’d investigated much of his. It was enough at the moment to deal with Deanna’s overpowering energy. The sense of wrongness was the bigger concern.
“I think…” She paused, stopping in place. “…we’re not alone.”
Motre froze up ahead. “What?” he said urgently. “Can you see someone?”
“No, I can’t…” She winced, knowing how this would go down, but continued anyway. “I can sense them.”
Both men spun to look at her. She shrugged and added, “I can’t explain, but that’s the weird feeling inside.”
“Where are they?” Cody studied her features. “And can you tell us who or what or how many?”
Lord, she loved him. He continuously gave her reasons to love him a little more each day. Acceptance. What a glorious thing. With a happy sigh, she said, “I think there are several, but I can’t tell from the size of the energy ball if that means three or four.”
She frowned, trying to sort out the feelings. “They aren’t quite here yet. As in I’m sensing their approach like a wave of energy coming towards us.”
“That implies they know we’re here,” Motre said. “How could that be?”
“Easy, the cameras,” Cody snapped. “Damn it, we forgot about those.”
<
br /> “Doesn’t matter,” Tessa said, marching forward. “They’d have found us soon enough anyway.”
“But we would have more warning,” Motre protested. “There’s only three of us. What if there are dozens coming at us?”
Cody snorted. “Bring them on. A dozen is nothing.”
Motre glanced from him to Tessa and back again and smiled. “Right. I forgot for a moment.”
Tessa laughed. “I’m not perfect, but there are some things I can do, and fighting is one of them.”
“You just keep track of the energy and we’ll do the rest,” Cody said. “You’re tired. And we’re going to need that energy of yours later to heal the wounded.”
Right. Funny how she’d forgotten about that. Or had it been Deanna’s thoughts that had dominated? Tessa was all about healing. Deanna figured it wasn’t worth the time and effort. Better to kill them all off or let them die on their own. The world was too crowded as it were.
She motioned to the left of them where a solid wall existed. “They are coming from that direction.”
Cody stared.
Motre raised his eyebrows.
She sighed. “Honestly.”
They walked through the large room into a narrow hallway. She held up her hand, feeling the ball of darkness flying toward them. “I still don’t have a clue what this is,” she admitted, “but it’s coming very fast and is now very close.”
Cody shifted his position until he was on the far side of her and Motre on the other and waited. She held up her right hand and said in a low voice, “They are coming. Three. Two. One.”
And she dropped her arm.
All hell broke loose.
*
Cody had no idea what the hell hit him, but he was lifted up off his feet and tossed to the floor a dozen feet away and he never saw it coming. Or what it was.
Then he heard it growl.
His heart froze. What the hell?
He studied the wolf-looking animal crouched in front of him. Had that been a German shepherd? Were the assholes now turning dogs into killer…what? He didn’t even know what to call this animal. The wolf jumped him, its teeth ripping and tearing at Cody’s coat then pants. Cody tried to get free when a second animal launched onto his back, dropping him to his knees. Cody struggled. There was nothing to grab and when he did finally grab the first one and throw him across the room, the animal was launching at his throat instantly.