by Dale Mayer
"No, but not that difficult."
Goran glared at the five inert vamps.
"With sunshine, yes. What do you want to do down here?"
With a savage grin, Goran reached down and pulled a spike out of one of the dead guys' gloved hands. "How about this? I think they planned to use these on us." He groped into the pockets of the two men in front. "Check the other guys. Maybe they have them too."
Serus snorted. "Haven't seen spikes since the dark ages. Did they bring back silver bullets and wooden stakes, too?"
"There you go, bragging about our age again." Goran grinned. "I only found the one."
In a move so fast Serus barely registered it, Goran stomped the spike into the vamp's chest. The body immediately incinerated. A cloud of nasty smoke and ash rose.
Serus stepped back. "Woah. I don't remember it working this good."
Goran stared at the spike. "They've souped them up somehow. It is silver – I think."
"Go for it." Serus motioned to the men on the ground. "Let's knock our numbers back."
Goran, a savage look on his face, dispatched the first three. When he stabbed the big, lumbering male who had attacked Serus, the silver produced a weird hissing sound. It killed the vamp, but in a slow, torturous way. The vamp gurgled in agony as his body burned from the chest cavity outward.
In a horrible few minutes it was over, and the two men stared down in revulsion.
Serus released his pent-up breath. "What was that?"
"That was just wrong," Goran said. "Fast makes sense, but this last guy…" He shook his head. "It's almost as if he were resistant."
"Not enough."
"No, but it gives us an idea of what kind of experiments these assholes are playing with." Goran pulled the spike free of the ashes. "Let's get the hell away from here."
They melted into the dark shadows and waited to see if more company would arrive. It was quiet except for the machines hissing overhead. Serus nudged Goran down the hallways. "We need to find our people."
"Most likely they'll be in the rooms with all the beds, hooked up already."
As they walked, the two discussed their options. The first room was empty. Serus went to the second.
Also empty. There wasn't a sound from the other side of the third door.
Exchanging worried looks, Goran entered first.
Serus followed right behind.
***
Jared slipped out of the house, intent on finding his way to the mall and some sense of normalcy in his life. Whatever that meant nowadays. He'd heard nothing from Tessa or the other kids. Then again, he didn't have a cell phone, so how could they contact him? Hence the trip to the mall. He should have enough cash in his bank to buy a new phone. And a bite for lunch. At least, he hoped so.
He vaguely recognized this area of town. In fact – his steps slowed – his uncle's place was just few blocks over. He didn't want to see him. Resolutely, he kept his feet moving forward in the direction of the mall. He hadn't heard from his aunt since her morning visit. Just as well. Now, if only he was done with the cops, too. He'd be happy to never see that one officer again.
Asshole. Didn't he realize loads of people had seen what he'd seen? Surely the cop could have talked to them or gone up there and seen for himself. Not that Jared could give directions. It had been dark when they'd left the farm and he hadn't been able to see the road signs. He'd trusted the humans driving to get him home.
If only he could trust them to fix the blood farm issues. And what was with the missing kids, anyway? It would be horrible if something happened to the ones he'd met up there. They come to help – not be captured themselves.
He kicked a rock, mulling the issue over. Without a cell phone he was out of the loop. Sarah, who'd sat on his lap the whole way back to the farm, had given him her number on the way up, but that had been in his other jean's' pocket. He wasn't sure what had happened to those. He'd been checked out in the hospital then taken to the home. His dirty clothes had to be somewhere, but – considering that Rhia had dragged them out of storage at the blood farm in the first place – he wasn't sad to see them go. Except for the phone number. When he got back, he'd have to remember to ask about his jeans.
He kicked another rock, watching it sail across the road. He stopped. Stunned.
Without meaning to, without even thinking about where he was going, he'd inadvertently walked to his uncle's house.
Shit.
From one house away, he stared at the place. It looked the same. And that was not fair. He was different, so why the hell wasn't the house? His uncle should have at least been taken in for questioning.
He frowned. There was a new SUV in the driveway. His uncle's? Another family member? Authorities?
Realizing he had to find out, he snuck up the outside wall until he was under the big living room window where his uncle always sat. He heard voices coming from inside the house.
"I don't know what you're talking about," his uncle groused.
"Yes, you do." A woman's voice spoke.
Damn, that was his witch of an aunt.
She continued. "You have to know what kind of damage Jared's testimony could do."
"Why?" his uncle demanded. "Who'd listen to him? He's just a punk-ass kid, anyway."
"He's a punk-ass piece of trouble, but he's the one who escaped the vamp farm. Don't you see that makes him someone a lot of people are interested in? And these same people, by extension, will be looking at you."
"Let them look." His uncle muttered something under his breath. Jared strained to hear but all he made out was "…fucking family."
"I hope you aren't talking about me," snapped Jared's aunt.
"No. Jared is all Tom. And Tom is nothing but an asshole himself."
Jared's eyes widened. Oh shit. His father Tom? Spoken in present tense, as in Tom was alive? As in his father was still alive. Not dead, like he'd been told. His legs collapsed from under him. He slid to a heap on the ground. Could that be? Surely not. If he'd been alive all this time, why had Jared been tossed into the hellhole of his uncle's house for the last decade?
"I know how Tom was. We both hated him with good reason."
His uncle cackled. "Didn't we, though? That's okay. We fixed him good."
His aunt snickered. "True enough."
Jared's heart hurt. They'd done something to his father? What? Surely, if he could have, his father would have come for Jared. Jared would certainly have come after any son of his.
He had to wonder what his father was like if his two siblings hated him that much.
At the sound of voices, he tuned back into the conversation.
"That was forever, right? Like, we don't have to worry about Tom coming back to life and getting us into trouble, do we?" his aunt asked.
Jared snuck up higher, trying to hear the answer. If his father was alive, Jared wanted to find him.
"Nah. Even if he did wake up, his body wouldn't work anymore. They promised us that, remember?"
"I know, but modern medicine has changed a lot. Look what they can do now versus fifteen years ago."
"Not like this. Tom's been one of them hanging dead for so long, his brain doesn't know it has a body."
His aunt laughed. Then, abruptly, her laughter cut off. "So if that worked to get rid of Tom, what the hell went wrong with your plan to get rid of Jared?"
"Damn if I know. I waited until he was old enough. And that was tough enough to do, I tell you. That kid should be hanging up alongside his father. They promised he would." He groaned. "Damn. I really liked the idea of the two of them together at last."
Dimly, Jared heard his aunt's laughter mingling into the nasty sounds of his uncle's laughter.
They were both sick.
Jared collapsed to the ground, his gaze focused inward at the remembered rows upon rows of hanging bodies. His mind churned as he realized what they'd done.
They'd sold their brother, his father, to the blood farm.
Jared was going to
kill them both.
But first, he had to find his father. Then he was going to find out exactly whom his uncle had sold his father to.
***
Cody stared from the human kid to the big vamp he'd woken up. He could understand that the kid was leery of vamps. And this Motre was a big-assed vamp. In fact, he was a little too big-ass for comfort. As in, he could easily be mistaken for the new vamps, and that was something Cody should have considered before. Still, he'd recognized Motre from the council meetings. He was a real vamp, not a genetically designed vamp.
But Cody couldn't guarantee Motre hadn't benefited from some kind of modification. Still, he'd been captured and held along with the other vamps. Then again, Cody didn't trust anyone anymore. "We rescued him, the same as you. He was hooked up to a machine in a room with dozens of our people who'd been at the blood farm at the end, just like you people."
That stopped them. The kids looked at each other uncertainly. Then back at Motre.
"He's awfully big."
Motre glared at them. "And that means what? That I'm one of the bad guys?"
"This isn't going anywhere," David interrupted. "I knew Motre since before this mess. He's always been huge. In fact, we left several others his size still recovering in the same room we found him."
"And maybe we should go back and get more of them. We need them," Ian said. "Who knows how many bad vamps are here."
The one teen spoke up again, "Can you trust the other ones? Is there any chance that some of them might be part of the bad vamp group?"
Jewel walked over to stand closer to the human group huddled together. "We don't think so. But we were taken prisoner ourselves. Woke up tied up and locked in a room similar to the one you were in." Jewel motioned to the door behind them. "We can't be sure who is good and who is bad at this point." She sighed. "We wish we did."
One of the girls said, "I remember you from the blood farm. You were standing with Tessa's group."
Jewel smiled. "True enough." She spun around and motioned David forward. "This is David. He's Tessa's brother."
The kids' faces relaxed slightly. "Oh. You're the ones that came to help Jared." The girl's face lit up. "I'm Sarah. This is Aaron, Stephen and Jessica."
Ian grinned. "Great. We're the original group, except for the adults."
"Where are the adults?" Sarah asked.
Cody went quiet. David stepped back. "We don't know," Jewel said, her voice pitched low. "We've had no contact with any of them since waking up."
"They really are hurting other vamps?" Florian asked, staring at Motre.
"Who do you think attacked us and locked us up?" Motre glowered at her. "It wasn't any of you weakling humans."
"I'm having trouble envisioning anyone taking you prisoner in the first place," said Stephen with a snicker. "Especially if you were in a group."
Motre's lips curled. "They filled the car interior with gas and knocked us out."
A tick along the side of Motre's jaw made Cody step back. "The same thing happened to us. When we woke up, we were here – and Tessa is still missing."
And damn if he wasn't going to kick her butt for that. Or kiss her.
Because he couldn't help himself, he sent out another clear and warm message. We're coming, Tessa. Stay alive until we get there.
"It doesn't matter at this point who is trustworthy or not." Jewel brought things back into clarity. "We have to free as many prisoners as we can and get the hell out of here."
Tessa shifted to the other side of the injured man, blocking the sun from punishing him further. At the same time, she knew she was prolonging his agony. She didn't know how to help. "What can I do?"
He gasped, a painful sigh. "That's already better." He gasped again, adding, "Thank you."
"But you're dying. This will be slower."
He gasped. "Yes. But not as torturous."
"How is it you can be in the sun at all?"
"They gave me an experimental drug." He coughed slightly, agony rippling over his features at the slight movement.
She winced. Glancing around, she wished they weren't so exposed. "Will someone come to help you?"
"No. There were just the two of us."
Well, that was something. For her, but not him.
"Why were you watching me?" She really wanted to know that answer.
"To see what you can do," he whispered, his voice coming out in labored gasps.
She snorted. "But I can't do anything. I'm just a teen, and not even a particularly skilled one."
"You can walk in daylight. And see weird stuff."
She sat back on her heels. Oh hell. "How you do guys know about that?"
He didn't answer.
She stared down at him, her mind racing. "It was Jacob. Wasn't it?
He nodded, just a jerk of his head.
"Jacob is dead." Anger at Jacob's betrayal bit at her even now. "Damn him anyways."
"The others better not find out or you'll be hunted."
"I am being hunted," she correctly. "And I didn't do anything…yet." She stood up and added coldly, "Whereas Jacob was attempting to kill my father and Goran."
"He wasn't supposed to." He coughed, his badly burnt body hunching tighter. "They were to be taken prisoner. Their blood is very valuable."
It was, was it? Interesting. More confirmation of their experiments. "We had to take him out, all of them out, to save ourselves."
The vamp groaned, his body starting to shake.
Tessa stared off in the distance. She hated this. It was one thing to toss someone into the sunlight and watch them burn. But this slow dying in front of her was…horrible. She couldn't help but feel sorry for him. And, even worse, she wanted to save him. But if she did, he'd come after her again.
But she couldn't leave him here to die like this.
"I'll move you into the trees." She bent and struggled to lift him. And had to stop. "You're too big. I can't move you. Why are you so big?"
"They made us that way. Injections to get bigger. Better."
"Is it worth it?" she cried. "Why would you do that? Vampires are already incredibly strong."
"No choice," he whispered in agony. "Join or be killed."
She gasped in horror. "What? You mean you didn't want this to happen? Oh, God." That made it ten times worse. They were victims too. Would this nightmare never make sense? Now even the bad guys weren't necessarily bad guys. Not if they'd been forced into this mess. Everyone did what they had to – to survive.
He gasped again, this time groaning in pain as he curled into a tight ball.
"Who is behind all this? We thought it was Moltere, but found him hanging in the warehouse."
"He was. Then his partner took over. And he has the rookie. Don't know his name."
Tessa thought long and hard about what to ask while she could. She didn't doubt that the end was near. "And why are you building bigger and better designer vampires?" She stared off in the distance. "They look like turned ones. Another major law broken."
"They die too quickly. Now they are enhancing vamps…and…designing new ones," he groaned, "better than me."
"Meaning ones that can walk in sunlight."
The vamp moved his head in a parody of a nod.
"That is so not good. There won't be a place for humans anymore."
"That's their plan." His chest heaved, an odd rattling sound escaping. "I don't want that."
"Really? 'Cause you helped create it," she snapped, irritated at him and at herself for feeling so helpless. Her emotions were all over the place. He'd caught her pity unexpectedly, and she hated it. Everything had been clearer when she'd hated all the vamps involved.
The dying man gave a sudden, hard gasp, his breath coming out in one long exhale.
And then nothing.
He was dead.
She bent her head, tears flowing. Shit. She swiped at her eyes. Anger had her jumping to her feet. They were not getting away with this. These assholes were making a mockery of her specie
s and the humans.
Enough of that. She'd make sure she put a stop to this if it was the last thing she did. And as she looked down at the dead man, she realized, it could quite likely be just that.
In fact, it could be the death of all of them.
***
Cody stormed down the hallway. Ian and Jewel were taking the humans back to the vamps and collecting reinforcements. They were supposed to meet Cody's group in a half an hour.
