“And what’s with the back-up generator? Why does this building need so much power?” he asked.
“It’s freezing in here,” said Ari, shivering as she pulled the sleeves of her jumper down to cover her arms. “Maybe it’s for the air conditioning?”
“Yea maybe, but what the hell do they need the air-con on for? It’s cold enough here already.”
“I don’t know,” said Ari. “Come on; we have to find Riley.”
“Wait. Do we have a plan? Or are we just going to wandering around, shouting Riley’s name?”
“I think the shouting part might give us away,” said Ari, frowning at Chris.
“Ok, so just wandering around then?”
“If I see anyone coming, I’ll freeze them,” said Ari, and Chris nodded.
The pair tip toed towards the store room door and pressed their heads against it, straining to listen. There was no noise and so Ari inched the door open. They entered an enormous corridor, dark and freezing, with many closed doors lined up on either side of the hall way.
“Where now?” hissed Chris.
Ari shook her head but moved to the nearest door and gently prised it open. It led to an area that looked vaguely like a doctor’s consult room. Seeing that it too was empty, she walked inside. The room was clean and sterile, with an examination table in the middle next to a wide desk and filing cabinet.
“This is the same room I saw Emily in,” said Ari, immediately recognising the crude metal examination table.
Chris moved to the desk and began rummaging through the filing cabinet, choosing one of the files at random.
“What is it?” asked Ari, leaning over his shoulder.
“It looks like someone’s medical history,” said Chris, flicking through the paper in frustration.
Ari drew her focus to the remaining files in the draw, her eyes lighting up when she saw one entitled ‘Emily Davenport.’
“There’s a file here on Emily,” she said. “But why would they have-”
Her words broke off as she began to read. There was a photograph of Emily and underneath this a number, several digits long, next to the word ‘microchip.’ Below this were the details of Emily’s health, including smoker status, blood type, weight, height and many other intimate details. In green writing that faintly covered the entire first page, was a stamp which sloped diagonally to spell out, ‘Entered into BC program.’
“BC program?” asked Chris. “What do you think that means?”
“No idea. Come on, let’s get out of here… we need to find Riley.”
The pair left the room and walked the length of the hallway. When they had reached the end of the corridor, they found their path blocked by enormous black glass doors. There was a swipe card access point next to the door; Ari was just about to suggest they try breaking in, when the sound of heavy footsteps flooded the corridor.
“Quick,” hissed Chris, pulling Ari into the opposite room.
She raced in the room after him, and the pair waited with bated breath as they heard the footsteps get louder and louder, coming to stop right outside their door.
There was pause, then a strange beeping noise followed by an oddly robotic female voice which said, “Welcome Gerald Fulton.”
Ari didn’t hesitate; the second she heard the swish of the automatic doors opening outside, she raced from the room, slamming the door in Chris’s face as she held up her hands to stop time. Gerald Fulton, a young man with spiky blond hair and huge leather boots, froze where he stood. Ari stared at the man with the blond spiky hair, certain that she had seen him before. Then her eyes narrowed. He was one of the players on the Cruor hockey team. She had seen him when she’d gone to Ryder’s hockey match. He was a vampire.
Looking away from the man, Ari regarded the boy next to him, who was also frozen. The boy had a dull lifeless look about him, which was made even more obvious from his frozen stance. Pleased that her plan had worked so far, Ari raced back into the room to grab Chris.
“What the hell was that all about?” asked Chris, watching as Ari made her way to edge of the small room and opened the window. “What are you doing? Are we leaving?”
“That guy out there, Gerald… something, he’s a vampire, but I froze him. If you came with me when I stopped time, you would have frozen too, but this way we can sneak past him into that other room without him noticing.”
“Don’t you think he will wonder why this door opened?” asked Chris, making his way into the corridor, where the man and boy were still frozen like statues.
“That’s why I opened the window. Hopefully he will think that the wind blew it open,” she said, though her words weren’t as confident as she would have liked.
“You hope.”
“Stop being such a-” Ari started to say, but her words had died in her throat when she looked up and saw the room that the swipe card doors had led to.
“Jesus Christ,” said Chris, his teeth chattering loudly as his mouth fell open in shock.
The pair was standing at the entrance of an enormous room, larger than any lecture theatre. Off to the side was a large desk with a computer monitor and beyond that, row after row of people. It wasn’t the shock of seeing the room full of people that had horrified Ari; it was the manner in which the people were being kept. It looked as if there were at least a hundred of them, maybe more. They were all suspended and unconscious in individual glass prisons, which ran from floor to ceiling. Some sort of thick liquid suspended the people inside their glass cells, while tubes coiled from their bodies, all connecting together and racing along the ceiling in a mass of cords and pipes. As Ari stretched her head up to the ceiling, she saw a large robotic arm swaying ominously near a huge air-conditioning vent.
“What is this place?” she asked, moving towards the nearest glass cage, where the unconscious body of a girl, no older than eighteen, hung as if suspended in gelatine.
The girl’s eyes were open wide, her pupils small and fixed, though her irises had become ghostly and pale, as if the liquid she was being kept in, had robbed them of all colour. Thick masses of dark hair hovered around her face, and coming from her neck, wrists and thighs, were thick red tubes. Attached to her nose were two small tubes, from which tiny bubbles traced up her face.
“Are they dead?” asked Chris, but as he approached the first row of people, they heard a whispered humming of what was unmistakeably, very faint heartbeats.
Ari realised that the sound was coming from monitors that were strapped to the sides of the glass vessels. Each monitor displayed various life signs; blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate, saturated oxygen percentage, total blood volume, blood collected.
“Blood collected,” said Ari, and without meaning to, her finger traced across the monitor and the figure 38.9ml flashed green before disappearing.
“Oh my God,” said Chris, his voice disgusted. “They have been kidnapping students to form their own private blood bank? Talk about greedy.”
“But, but, they can’t do that.”
“Well, apparently they can,” said Chris. “Guess we know why they needed that backup generator and why it’s so damn cold in here.”
“But where did all these people come from? I thought that it was just a handful of students who had gone missing.”
Chris shook his head, then his eyes widened and he pointed to a glass cell, saying, “Jesus Christ. That’s Pip, and, and oh my God. It’s Perry and Peter too.”
“But we were with them last night.”
“They must have been taken this morning,” said Chris. “That must be why the campus is so deserted. They have probably been planning this for ages. Taking one or two students as test dummies and today is the big reveal.”
“Do you think Riley’s already in here? She’s so close to being due. I don’t know if her body would be able to handle something like this.”
“Just calm down,” said Chris. “We’ll find her.”
Ari moved down the lines of people, searching their c
old and lifeless faces for any trace of Riley. Occasionally Ari recognised a few students from the campus, people who she hadn’t even realised were missing.
“Ari,” Chris said after a moment, and Ari immediately raced to his side.
“What? It’s not… it’s not Riley?”
The moment she had reached Chris and followed his outstretched hand to the glass cage he had indicated, Ari saw Emily. The girl looked pale, her hair saturated and gliding around her face from the suspension of liquid. She wore a thin cotton dress which glided eerily around her body, making it appear as if she were lying fully clothed in a bath tub.
“This is so wrong,” said Chris.
“I don’t understand. I mean, it doesn’t make any sense. Why would they want to kidnap a heap of students, just to get their blood?”
“Blood is kind of essential to vampires.”
“Yea, but, they could just take it if they wanted it. And if they wanted a heap of blood, they could just buy a blood bank, or lull a doctor, or steal it from-” Ari began to say, but outside there was a beeping noise, and the pair watched in horror as the glass doors swung open and Gerald and the boy next to him walked inside.
Immediately Chris and Ari hid behind Emily’s glass prison, their bodies pressed up against the cool glass.
“Welcome Gerald Fulton,” said the same robotic voice as before.
“This way Timothy,” said Gerald, indicating for the boy to follow him, and the pair made their way to the desk in the corner of the room.
Ari watched Timothy glide along the floor, his face dull and lifeless. Gerald reached for something in the draws. Ari saw, with a pang of confusion, that it was a microchip reader; she recognised it immediately from her time at the Pasteur Veterinary Clinic.
“Hold out your arm,” said Gerald.
Timothy obeyed without question, holding his arm out so that Gerald could scan it with the microchip reader. A moment later there was a buzz, and Gerald punched the numbers from Timothy’s microchip into the computer. There was a loud thunk, and a second later the robotic arm hanging from the ceiling came to life. It hovered for a moment then swung the length of the room, returning with an empty glass cage clutched in its metallic hand. Slowly the glass cage was lowered to the floor and then the door leading to it swung open.
“If you wouldn’t mind getting inside,” said Gerald, indicating the cage.
Timothy moved over to it indifferently, stepping inside.
“Hold out your IV,” said Gerald, and Timothy rolled up the sleeve of his left arm.
Ari’s mouth dropped open when she saw the neatly bandaged IV that was already in place. Humming tunelessly to himself, Gerald connected a tube from the side of the glass cage to Timothy’s IV. After that Gerald moved to the monitor on the side of cage, switching it on. A white liquid filled the tube running into Timothy’s IV, and Gerald reached for another two tubes, connecting them this time to the boy’s nose. Satisfied, Gerald pressed one more button on the monitor and the cage door swung shut, just as thick gelatinous liquid began to fill the prison.
Ari made to move closer but Chris grasped her hand hard, shaking his head adamantly when Ari turned to look at him in confusion.
There was another loud beeping from outside the room, just as the robotic female voice said, “Welcome Gwen Harper.”
When the glass doors opened, Gwen bustled into the room.
She walked over to Gerald smiling, her eyes flickering to Timothy for only a moment before she said, “Excellent. Is that’s the last one for today?”
“Are you kidding me? The line outside is enormous,” said Gerald, “plus there’s another batch being brought over from Delta, but Damien won’t be here with them for a few more hours. He’s going around to make sure that there aren’t any stragglers. I think we have got them all though.”
“Well hurry up,” said Gwen. “James wants to see us. There are some vampires who have been asking questions about the Farm. They’re being questioned now.”
“Which vamps? Students from Cruor or outsiders?”
“Ragon and some of his other traitor friends,” said Gwen, a touch of triumph to her voice. “I told James when Bridget was killed that Ragon was behind it, but he didn’t listen. I hope he hurts them. Actually, I take that back, I hope he kills them.”
Gerald nodded, moved back over to the computer and punched a few keys on the keyboard. Immediately the robotic arm swung to life, lifting the glass case, which now held Timothy’s unconscious form, and moved him back to the end of the room. Gerald and Gwen did not wait for the hand to return to its cradle, but made their way back to the door and left.
The moment the door closed, Ari and Chris immediately began shivering, their teeth clicking loudly in their mouths from the cold. The muscles in Ari’s jaw felt tense, almost numb, and she soon realised that she was grinding her teeth.
“What the hell do we do now?” asked Chris.
Ari felt sick; what did they do now?
Chapter 17- Prisoners of War
A thousand horrible thoughts ran the length of Ari’s mind, sending her into chaos. She wanted to run from this room, run as fast as her legs would carry her until she found Ragon. But she couldn’t leave yet, not without making sure that Riley had not been subjected to this blood collecting torture. It was bitterly cold in the room, perhaps even as cold as the freezer at the Veterinary Pathology laboratory, but Ari didn’t care about any of that. She and Chris checked every single glass prison twice, but Riley was nowhere to be seen.
“She’s not here,” said Chris. “What do we do now?”
Ari was thinking about Ragon and the rest of the coven. Gwen had said that they were being questioned. What did that mean? Had they stormed into the Farm demanding to know what was going on? Was Gwen right; would James torture them, or worse, would he kill them?
“Ari, did you hear me?” Chris said, “What are we going to do?”
“Can you call Lea? If the coven has been captured then we are going to need the circles help to-”
“-shit!” said Chris, cutting her off. “There’s no cell reception.”
“Great. Just perfect.”
“Well, we need help. Maybe we could try to find where the coven is being kept. You could freeze the room and then we could move them-” Chris started to say, but Ari cut him off.
“-that won’t work. Gwen said that James was with them, and my freezing powers don’t work on him, at least, I don’t know if they will. Besides, when I freeze vampires, I can’t move them by myself. They’re too heavy.”
“Ok,” Chris said, his voice drawn out, “then we need to get out of here!”
“What! We can’t leave. I can’t… I can’t leave Ragon and we still haven’t found Riley.”
“Ari,” hissed Chris, his voice a barely audible whisper. “The coven has been captured. Our only chance is to tell the circle; we need their help. You said it yourself; your powers don’t work on James. If we are going to have any chance to save Riley and the coven, then we need Lea. She should have told them by now what is going on, and once they hear what we have found, they will have to help us.”
Ari fought against the voice inside her head, demanding she stay and find Ragon and Riley, but just barely; she knew Chris was right. With her head held low, she and Chris made their way back to the hallway and raced along the dark corridor. They didn’t see anyone, and when they walked through the entrance doors, the pair broke into a run.
It was dark now. This late in the year the sun always set early, but Ari hadn’t realised how long they had been inside the windowless Forensic Agency and Research Morgue. As they ran, several loud cries pierced the night sky. Ari felt the terror behind the sound but kept running. Half way to Omega, she realised why it was so dark; there were no lights on. Normally the campus was lit by the lights from all the buildings, not to mention the tall iron lanterns which were placed along the paths. Now, with only the pale frame of the moon to guide her way, it was almost impossible to see where she
was going. The combination of occasional startled cries and lack of light, left her terrified, as if she were living a horror film. It was as if there were things lurking in the shadows, waiting to creep up on her and drag her into the darkness.
When they were finally outside of Omega halls, Ari’s feet gave way under her and she clutched painfully at her ribs. The moment she straightened up, Ari noticed that there was a large man standing outside the entrance of their hall.
“And where are you two going?” he asked, looking at them curiously.
“To our rooms,” Chris said obnoxiously.
Bound (The Grandor Descendant Series Book 3) Page 30