by Dale Mayer
Motre screamed as an animal bit into him.
“Use the silver,” Tessa cried, her voice loud and piercing over the din of the animal howls and grunts.
Cody finally managed to pull the silver stake out of his pocket and stabbed the one trying to bite his neck through his coat collar. Instantly a wave of black dust surrounded him. How? Why? There was no such thing as a vampire dog. At least, there hadn’t been before.
He was relieved that they responded to that age-old defense and wished he had one of the UV light weapons so he could blast this whole pack at once. The first animal lunged again. Cody dropped to one knee and stabbed it as it jumped. That one disappeared just like the other one. Now emboldened and pissed, Cody went on the attack and swiped and stabbed the last few animals attacking Motre.
Tessa. He spun around to see her staring, crouched on her knees, eye to eye, growling right back at the largest canine abomination he’d ever seen.
“Jesus, Tessa, what the hell are you doing?”
“It’s not his fault.”
Motre joined Cody to stare at Tessa and the last animal alive in the room.
“What’s not his fault?” Cody hated to admit it, but his breath was ragged from the surprise attack.
“What they did to him,” she said in a low, even tone.
“You’re forgetting something,” Motre snapped. “They turned these dogs into killers.”
“But they don’t want to be. It’s not who they are inside.”
And Cody realized something else. This strong beautiful woman in front of him was still the gentle, caring Tessa that had gone after her own people to save a friend. And now that she’d come up against a dog that had been abused by the enemy and turned against her, she was still trying to save it.
“You can’t save it,” Motre cried out in frustration. “We just killed the rest of these evil bastards.”
“I can see its energy. It was bigger than the others. They gave him the same amount of drugs as the others instead of basing it on body weight.”
Cody shook his head, trying to understand. “So he’s not turned?”
“He’s been turned into this, but the original dog is still in there.”
“Dog or wolf?” Motre snapped. “Even if you could fix him, he’s still going to be dangerous as hell.”
“Maybe and maybe not,” Tessa said quietly. “What if I could heal him?”
And she lay down on the cement floor in front of the dog.
Both Motre and Cody jumped forward to protect her, but she held up her hand. The dog stopped bristling and snarling. He walked over slowly to stand over her.
With his breath caught in the back of his throat, Cody could barely stand still when the dog, calmer, not so killerish looking, whimpered and lay down beside her.
And laid its head on her ribs.
“Holy crap,” Motre whispered.
Cody watched as she gently reached out a hand and stroked the dog’s fur and seemed to continue the stroke out into the air. And he understood. She was moving the darkness away from the animal. Cleaning it of the damaging poison that had turned it into a killer. The dog slowly turned less black and more silvery gray as Tessa worked. The animal whimpered several times while she worked.
Just when Cody figured that Motre was going to say something about being short on time, Tessa laid a hand on the back of the dog’s neck and slowly sat up. The dog’s head slid down to her lap, but he made no move to stand up and leave. Or to stop her. Sitting, Tessa checked out the dog’s energy a little further.
“I think he’ll be okay now.”
“Think?” Motre scoffed. “The penalty is high if you’re wrong.”
“Not really. Just a bite. And I’ll heal.”
Talking quietly to the dog, she carefully stood up. The dog stood up with her, apparently not willing to be separated. Cody stared down at the huge dog and wondered what had happened to it. “What could they have done that turned these dogs into killers? And surely there would have been easier weapons. Although it is hard to imagine one with greater shock value.”
“It’s the genetic experiments and drugs,” she said quietly. “They are growing some, snatching others off the streets, and perverting them into this. But this guy appears to be slowly recovering. I wonder if he wasn’t as badly treated or hadn’t been under their control for very long that I could still see the essence of who he was.”
“Well, how about you shoo him away and let’s get moving?”
The dog slowly turned his massive head to stare at Motre, a horrific growl sliding out the back of his throat.
Whoa.
Motre hastily shifted back several steps.
Tessa casually reached down one hand and placed it on the dog’s head. He subsided instantly.
Cody stared at Tess. “Did you just tell it to stop that?”
“Sure. He’s well-trained.”
Motre snorted. “That’s what you call it?”
She smiled. “He’s less certain of you because he can feel your fear.”
“And can you feel his fear?” Cody asked curiously. “He’s huge and dangerous if you can’t control him.”
“I don’t know that I can control him, but I can communicate with him somewhat.”
“If he goes after me, I will kill him,” Motre snapped.
“If he goes after you, it will be because he’s afraid that you’ll go after him and he’s only defending himself.”
This was an interesting twist. “What are you going to do with him?” Cody asked. “I’m not sure you can keep him as a pet. He’s hardly pet material. Look at the size of him. His head is almost at your waist. The jaws on that thing…” He left the sentence unfinished. The other dogs hadn’t been quite so big or so bad-looking or as mean-looking. But they’d been deadly. And they’d been killed. He had no idea what to do with the dog now. And would it even die the same way as the others had? “Why did the dogs die by silver? That makes no sense.”
“It’s the genetic material they injected into the dogs,” she said. “Vampire blood. Makes them hungry for more, and yet is affected by silver and sunlight the same as we are. They are trying to make these animals perfect so they can replicate them. I’d say these were the first ones tested, so they don’t know how the injections work on them yet.”
“The spikes should have made them bleed out as any normal injury would to a dog, not explode like vampires though.”
“I’m wondering if they didn’t switch the blood in their veins with vampire blood,” she said quietly, staring down at the massive dog beside her. He seemed content to wait for her to make the next move. He wasn’t exactly sure yet, but he suspected she had gained a pet.
“Can we go now?” Motre strode in the direction the dogs had come from. “I’d like to make sure there are no more of those psycho animals to scare the bejesus out of everyone at the Council Hall.”
“Good point.” Tessa walked to the door. The dog remained sitting where she’d left him. Cody watched and wondered. Tessa got to the door, turned back to the dog, and raised an eyebrow. She looked at him and said, “Well?”
And the dog loped toward her like an obedient puppy—only ten times the size.
Jesus. Could this day get any weirder?
Cody fell into line behind the dog. If Tessa wanted him to walk beside her, that was too damn bad. Until he knew that dog wasn’t going to hurt any of them, he’d stay where he could keep an eye on it.
And then, if need be, kill it fast before it could do any more damage.
*
Rhia kept her eyes down on the desk and shuffled through papers and the long list of instructions. As she read the detailed notes, it occurred to her that they must have a hell of a problem training staff here if they kept such perfect instructions. Had they managed to make heavy inroads in the staff here or was this such a new department no one had experience so everyone in here had to be trained? And if people were moving from department to department, then an instruction manual like this
was essential.
“Can you read my notes?” the tech asked. She realized there was a name card tossed on the desk she was sitting at. Barry. She studied his face. He looked like Barry. Then it could just as well be the last vamp she killed herself. “It’s pretty clear,” she answered.
“Good. I’ve rewritten that thing several times trying to dummy it down for everyone who comes through here when I need help. When we were in normal operation, then I could do all of this myself.” He waved his hand around the room. “This was my domain. Now that we are losing so many people and animals, well…” He shook his head. “That just became too much. I’m only one man. And I’m good, but I can’t do the work of five or six men.”
He sat back down and stared at his monitor then groaned. “See, and now I just entered the wrong information on this person.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I need sleep.”
“Go,” she urged. “I won’t tell anyone. Crash in one of the many rooms here. You can’t work like this.”
He looked hopeful for a moment then studied the work stacked up around him. “I can’t. There is too much to do and no one else to do it.”
“How will they know if you take an hour and power nap? You can’t keep this up. The integrity of the work needs you at your best.”
He studied her for a long moment then turned his gaze to the doorway. “An hour might do it.”
“If you sleep half that, it’s as good as four hours. It’s not going to replace a full day’s rest, but it will power you up for a long time.”
She smiled encouragingly at him. “I’ll hold down the fort. If anyone comes looking for you, I’ll tell them that you are collecting blood samples.”
“Thanks.” He stood up and stretched. “I am wiped.”
He walked to the doorway. “Tell them I’ve found an anomaly in the system and have gone to the techs to track it down.”
“Will do.”
And he walked out. She listened to his receding footsteps and a few minutes after that to make sure no one else came in, then she minimized all the programs open on her screen and went to work. The information she needed was here somewhere.
She just had to find it.
*
David opened the door and stared at the old-fashioned set of cut stone stairs. “Well, well, well.”
“What the…” Jewel gasped as she studied what appeared to be a narrow staircase leading straight up, with no end in sight. “That’s not on the blueprints.”
“That’s likely because it was a builder’s back entrance. In a building this size, particularly when it’s as deep underground as this one is, the first thing that builders do is construct a way back to the surface in case of a major disaster.” He walked to the bottom of the stairs and looked up. “There is no electricity in here.”
“Do you think it goes all the way to the surface? Or just up a level?”
“If it were me, I’d make sure that it was accessible from each floor. We’ve checked this floor and marked down what we’ve found. Let’s inform Sian in case we run into trouble. She’ll be able to track us.”
With Jewel sending texts, David closed the two doors and started up the stairs. He was loving this. If it wasn’t for the thought of an imminent attack, he’d love to stay and explore some more. Unfortunately, his prime objective was to determine if this exit was really just that and if it had been used recently. He wasn’t seeing dust everywhere, but down so deep it was still cold and there didn’t appear to be any footprints on the cold stone ahead of him.
Making sure Jewel was right behind him, he climbed up to the first floor. Only there was no door. Damn.
He looked back at her. “I wonder if we should go back down and around and try to find this passage from the next floor up.”
“Maybe. That’s what we’re trying to do in the first place. If this doesn’t go from floor to floor, then it’s not going to help us much at this point.”
He nodded and motioned at her to turn around. “Let’s be methodical. We’ll come back.”
“Right.” She paused. “What can we do to see if someone traveled this way in the meantime?”
He grinned. “I’ve got something I can do.” He bent down and using the little bit of dirt from several steps, he left a flat covering of sand on one step where a person wouldn’t be able to miss stepping on it.
“That should show us.” He nodded with satisfaction. His phone buzzed. He read the text and gasped. “Change in plans. Sian’s gone missing. We’re going back to the original plan and doing a floor by floor search for her.”
*
Goran strode into the Council Hall, the delays chafing him. But it was the thought of having been sent to the mine with a truckload of traitors that really burned him. When he got his hands on Sian, he wanted to find out where the hell they came from and who ordered them to go with him and Serus. Someone had organized that team and he wanted to know who. Enough already.
The hall was once again alive like a battlefield headquarters. It made him nostalgic for a moment as he saw everyone scurrying around trying to accomplish something.
“We didn’t think this through,” Serus said at his side. “If we had Tessa with us here, she’d be able to see who the hell ordered those assholes to go with us to the mountain.”
Goran grinned. So like Serus to match him in thoughts. “I’m going to ask Sian just that question.”
“She won’t know.”
They strode over to the corner of the hall where Sian was usually to be found. Only she wasn’t there. Serus did a slow turn in the middle of the room. “I’m not liking this.”
“She could be just talking to someone in the main hall,” Goran scoffed, but inside he wasn’t liking this either. It said a lot about their current lives when they expected to find someone at their desk twenty-four hours a day and when they weren’t there, to automatically assume that person would be in trouble. Goran fished out his phone and called her.
While Serus walked over to the doorway and stood staring out at the organized chaos, Goran waited for her to answer her phone. Finally she did.
“Sian?”
“Goran…” her voice dropped to a low whisper…“Help!”
And the phone went dead.
Chapter 9
Tessa stared down at the hulking animal walking calmly at her side. “What am I going to do with you?” she murmured. The dog was healing at a rapid rate, his energy swiftly becoming a calm blue all over. The jagged edges smoothed back down to a silky coat around him. She didn’t see any permanent damage from the vamps’ treatment, but she couldn’t guarantee there wasn’t any.
Her gaze lifted to Cody walking on the other side of the animal. “We need a name for him.”
Cody’s gaze slanted in her direction. “That implies you’re going to keep him as a pet.”
“It’s not a case of me keeping him, it’s more a case of him choosing to stay around me.” She laughed. “Sounds stupid, I know.”
“I don’t know about that,” he admitted. “If you are going to let him stay, then a name makes sense. How about Beast?”
The dog’s huge head lifted and turned toward Cody. Cody glared down at him. Beast’s gaze glittered.
Tessa reached out a calming hand toward both of them. “That’s actually not a bad name. There’s certainly nothing pretty or cute or tame about this guy. So Beast it is.”
Out in front, Motre gave no indication he was listening. She knew he didn’t approve of her ‘pet’ but like she’d said to Cody, it wasn’t an option to get rid of him unless she killed him, and she wasn’t going to do that. The dog had chosen her, and that’s the way it was going to stay until something changed.
Motre paused, his hand going up to stop them.
Tessa slipped to his side and studied the shadows in front of them. They should be almost under the hospital. Shifting her vision until her vampire vision was piercing the gloom, she wondered what bothered Motre. She could see nothing.
Then she heard i
t.
Voices.
Keeping close to the wall, the three of them crept forward. She had no idea why she couldn’t see any energy of people that were ahead yet the closer they got, the louder they became. Beast walked normally, showing no signs of being upset or antagonized by the presence of other noises. Interesting. She filed that away as a positive sign. She hoped she’d be able to let him live. If he turned on her and her friends, well…
A second tunnel appeared on the right. Tessa peered around the corner. There was the energy she was expecting. Giving a quick count before pulling back, she held up four fingers to the men.
As she turned back to face the enemy, Beast walked around the corner and headed to the vamps. Shit. She froze and crouched down. Slowly, not wanting to let the vamps know she was there, she peered round the corner and watched as Beast casually walked up to the first man – and bit him.
The vamp screamed and the others attacked the dog.
“Damn it,” the injured vamp cried, holding his leg. “They promised us these animals would only attack the other guys. Not us.”
But Beast was so busy growling and chomping at the other screaming vamps that the replies couldn’t be heard.
As Tessa approached, grinning, Cody walked ahead of her and took out the injured vamp. Motre did the same for the two vamps who’d run in their direction to get away.
Tessa snorted. Not their best decision. Only the last vamp was screaming in terror as Beast loomed over him, his shoulder now firmly clamped in the animal’s jaws. She gently lowered a hand to Beast’s shoulders. “Thanks, boy. Let him go now.”
Beast slowly shook his head, that piercing blue gaze glittering up at her.
Tessa, in a calm voice, said, “You’re right. He’s your prize. But we need to talk to him.”
It was almost as if he raised his eyebrows in response saying, “So. What’s stopping you?”
