Riding Rifts (Vampire's Elixir Series Book 2)

by Pippa Amberwine

  “They are, Kam. They’re the morons who released the virus in the first place. The people at Chemosys are government types. It’s an agency run from Washington. They were supposed to be researching medicines and treatments for regular illnesses, but when the new VAMP virus was released, whoever was in charge gave them a mandate to research it and told them to do whatever it took to find a cure. People being people, though, they took matters into their own hands, and soon sufferers, like my sister, were disappearing and everything pointed to those guys. The rumors coming out of the facility weren’t great, so I got over there as soon as I could to try and look for my sister.”

  “Did you find her?” Jevyn asked. I guessed he knew where this was heading.

  I nodded.

  “I managed to get into the grounds of the facility. I’m telling you all now. You have never seen the likes of this place. I managed to work my way around and saw an open door, thinking I might be able to get in. The yard had a couple of refrigerated storage containers outside, so I hid behind one of them while I watched the door for any activity. I was just about to go in when two guys came out carrying a stretcher with something on it in a body bag. My heart fell at that. I waited until they were opening up the unit and were inside. When they were coming back out, I knocked them both out and stepped inside. The room was set up like a morgue, complete with bodies held in drawers. The fifth drawer I opened was Amy.”

  I could see the shock on the faces of Nindock and Jevyn, but Kam didn’t look as though he was even paying attention.

  “She was dead?” Nindock asked.

  I shot him a look, as if to say, Well, they don’t keep living people in a morgue, do they, you idiot? But after a couple of seconds, I dropped my angry glare and just nodded. I needed to take a couple of deep breaths before I could carry on. I’d sworn when I found her that I wouldn’t cry over Amy until the day I saw the dead body of whoever had killed her lying on the ground before me, and I wasn’t about to break that vow.

  “When I unzipped the bag, all I could see was her beautiful face, contorted like she was in pain. It didn’t take me long to work out why. Her wrists and ankles were marked like she’d been restrained. Shackles or something. I don’t know. Her arms were covered in puncture marks where she had been injected or had blood taken. She had burns on her too, where I guess they had used electric shock treatments. She was my big sister, and those bastards had done this to her.” I had to stop again and take another big breath and hold it for a moment. I angrily wiped away a single tear which had managed to squeeze its way out from my eye and onto my cheek.

  “I was going to try and take her away from there, but there were more people about and the guards were coming around, so I had to go. I had to leave her there with those . . . those . . . animals, but I swore, as soon as I could, I’d be back with numbers and take that place down.”

  I stopped talking. I could feel my lips quivering at the thought of Amy and what they had done to her. It took a moment for that to stop and I was ready to talk again.

  “It’s too late for her now, Nindock, but I want to try and get her back and give her a proper burial if she’s even still there. The main concern would be that if there are dragons from here in that facility, they’re probably being tortured and god knows what else they’ll be doing to them. They must have gotten wind of the dragon blood effect on vamps and started experimenting. We need to take them down. We shouldn’t let those people take any more lives.”

  I looked over at Jevyn whose own eyes were bright and tear-filled. He simply closed his eyes slowly and nodded his head gently, just once. In that moment, he understood why I hated Gregori Industries and SCAR but also why I hated those people at Chemosys. Even if every Gregori Industries facility in the whole, wide world was taken out and destroyed, I still wouldn’t have been able to rest easy. It would make things a whole lot better to take out Chemosys, and for the first time in a year, it looked like I might be able to gather up the numbers and firepower that would be needed to do just that and allow me to take revenge for Amy’s death.

  I wanted to be the one who put the bullet in the head of whoever was in charge there.

  I flicked my hand up at the barkeep. I needed a drink.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Jevyn

  Nindock’s saloon

  Near Boise, Idaho

  SHE HAD A sister. The sister was dead. Dead at the hands of Chemosys.

  I understood better what drove Katie, what made her who she was. As I looked over to her once she had finished talking, I got an overwhelming desire to simply walk around the table and hold her in my arms, but I didn’t.

  I didn’t want to embarrass her in front of Nindock and Kam for starters, but I also wanted those two to see her for what she was. Incredibly strong and not in need of my acting like the big protector. Maybe later when it was quiet, she might need to draw on what there was between us, but right then, she needed Kam and Nindock to know that she meant business.

  I kept my ass on my seat.

  Kam was staring into his empty beer glass and then tipped the final few dregs into his mouth and put the glass down on the table, he flicked his dark eyes over to the bartender who nodded and started pouring.

  “It’s been going on for weeks,” he said.

  Katie looked up at him. “No, this was over a year ago, Kam.”

  Kam smiled to himself, not taking his eyes off the glass on the table in front him. “No, I don’t mean your sister or humans in general. I mean the dragons. It’s been going on for weeks.”

  “What are you talking about, Kam? You haven’t been here for weeks.” Nindock sipped on his beer again.

  “Well, Nindock, my friend, unlike you, tucked away here in this place, I talk to people—when they don’t run away, at least—and they’ve been telling me that people have been disappearing for weeks.”

  “What, just like that?” Nindock snapped his fingers. “One minute they’re here, and the next—poof—they’re gone.”

  Kam lifted his eyes, dangerously hooded, and regarded Nindock. “Don’t be an idiot. People have been getting lost on scavenging trips. Two weeks ago, three or four people disappeared when they were scavenging in houses.”

  “Nobody said anything to me.”

  “Because you’re too interested in building your little empire and not in protecting those who are here already.” Kam’s voice was low and quiet. I took that as a bad sign. He hadn’t killed anyone for hours, and I was hoping he wouldn’t be starting again soon.

  “I can’t know everything, Kam. People need to come tell me stuff.”

  “They tell Oscar.”

  “Is that why you don’t like him?”

  “Apart from him knocking me out a few days ago?”

  “Yeah, apart from that.”

  Kam nodded. “He isn’t being straight with you, as far as I can see.”

  “Maybe. But maybe he has a good reason. I’ll talk to him.”

  “It’s all her fault, you know.” Kam jabbed a finger at Katie.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I asked as Katie had been looking at the table, lost in thought, and didn’t seem to have noticed.

  “It’s her fault.”

  Katie looked up then. “What do you mean, it’s my fault?”

  “What I said. It’s your fault that dragons are going missing.”

  I frowned. “How can it be Katie’s fault? You’re being irrational.”

  I wondered if I might have said the wrong thing, and then Nindock gasped and slowly slid his chair away from the table.

  Kam swung his eyes around and stared me down. “Don’t call me irrational, Jevyn. You know it makes me crazy.” His voice was low and dangerous. Frankly, it was horrifying how he could snap into destroy mode, and it looked as if that was happening. I could see him twisting his fingers together and then bunching them into fists.

  “Hey, Kam, look at me,” Katie yelled loudly.

  Slowly, with a low animalistic growl, Kam allowed
his gaze to leave mine. I breathed a sigh of relief and wiped a bead of sweat from my temple.

  “What?” he asked.

  “How is this my fault? I didn’t release a virus on mankind, did I?”

  “I don’t mean that. I mean the dragons vanishing. Word is spreading like wildfire about you and your little friends using something to control your hunger. All the vampires around here are looking for you.”

  “A couple of them found us. That’s why we’re here. We had to move.”

  “Right, but Chemosys got wind of it, too, and realized what was going on with the dragon blood. That’s why dragons have been taken.”

  “How the hell can that be my fault then?”

  “I guess the other dragons thought you had talked, and word got through to Chemosys. It’s only been a few weeks, though, so it must have happened recently.” Kam turned and looked at me. “Maybe you have a spy in the camp.” He finished his sentence with a broad grin and broke out into manic laughter at that idea.

  Katie shook her head.

  “Look, Kam. I’m not going to let you blame me for this. We never had enough blood until the last few days to do anything but keep ourselves going. If it wasn’t for Jevyn, we could have run out completely, so no driving a wedge between us here. Now we have the deal in place for blood from Jevyn and his people, and we’re going to start to bring more unimplanted vamps in as we find them. In the meantime, we need to work out exactly what we’re going to do about Chemosys. And listen, before you run off and kill everyone there, we need to know what’s going on.”

  Kam pouted like a toddler at that idea, although he did seem to have calmed down some after my irrational remark.

  “Does that mean I don’t get to kill anyone?” Kam whined.

  Katie composed her expression, though I could see she was struggling. “Not everyone, we may need to keep some of them alive to persuade them to tell us what they’re doing. First thing we need to do is a recon. Last time I was there, armed guards were all around. I would imagine now there will be even more especially after them hearing how the Gregori Industries facility was taken down. Going in singlehanded, even for you, Kam, would be a suicide mission.”

  Kam laughed his mad laugh again, drawing glances from other people in the bar, although no one seemed willing to do any more than flick their eyes over and look away again as quickly as possible in case they caught Kam’s eye.

  “I guess you might be right, Katie,” he said, “but it will be fun to find out, won’t it?”

  “So, does that mean you’re willing to team up with us and go figure out what’s going on?”

  Kam stopped laughing and looked first at me and then at Katie.

  “I like you, Katie. I’m even beginning to regret tying you up like I did.” I noticed he didn’t include me in that. “So, yes, I’ll come with you, but I won’t be following any rules, and I won’t be taking orders from anyone.” He looked at me when he said that. “You take me as you find me, or I go and do what I do on my own time. That’s the deal, or you’re on your own.”

  Katie shared a look with me, to which I could only shrug. It was her choice, her decision, her people she was putting at risk. I was happy to go along with just us and leave Kam behind, but it would be good knowing he was working on our side if he was there. Whether he could be controlled was a completely different question, one we were only going to get the answer to when we were out there.

  Katie held out a hand to Kam. “You have a deal, Kam.”

  Kam hocked, spat into his hand, and grabbed Katie’s, which seemed to disappear inside his great paw.

  “Deal,” he said and shook.

  When he let go, Katie looked at her hand with in mild disgust and wiped it clean on a bar cloth the barman threw over.

  “We have to go now,” Katie said. “Be here tomorrow night just before dark.”

  “You got it, sweetmeat,” Kam said with a grin. “You all have a good night, now, won’t you?” He nudged me and winked.

  I could feel the heat rising in my face, and Katie’s own face had turned a cute shade of pink.

  I stood, went around to Katie’s side of the table, grabbed her by the hand—which when I thought about it might not have been the wisest given what had just been in it—and walked out of the bar with her.

  “I’m sorry about your sister. You never said anything about her before.”

  The town was dark and quiet, which was a relief.

  “I never told anyone apart from Nova about Amy. We sometimes used to go bowling together at Nova’s place, so he knew her. He asked what had happened when we went on the run, so I told him. Maybe you get why I am so protective of my friends now?”

  It made sense. I had no siblings, but I would never rest or be at peace if anyone had harmed a brother or sister of mine. How she reacted when we did come across who was responsible for Amy would be the test of that.

  Katie waved over to Nova and Penny, who had taken the first watch, before we got back into the bunkhouse. We had a little under two hours before we were due to go on watch. Anything else I had to say, I decided to keep until then.

  I’d barely had time to close my eyes before I was asleep.

  Chapter Twenty

  Katie

  In a ditch opposite the Chemosys Facility

  Near State Highway 19, Idaho, Earth

  WE’D PARKED THE minibus well out of sight and hiked the highway toward the Chemosys facility. Not more than a couple of years ago, that road would have been busy all the time. We’d walked the couple of miles from where we parked without seeing any other signs of life anywhere, other than the rustle of something heading off into the patch of trees we had just left behind.

  It really brought it home to me just how much of a disaster the virus was causing. As far as I knew, almost everyone had been infected. A few people were naturally immune, but they did their best to avoid being found out, or they would be the target for every vampire in town.

  Some of the uninfected had died at the hands of vamps who had been out of control almost from day one, hence their desire to remain largely under cover.

  The out-of-control vampires had quickly been rounded up and forcibly given the implant to control their behavior. Other vamps who had better control had still succumbed to the urges the virus brought on in the fullness of time.

  It was seeing those people and the almost zombie-like way they moved and worked at times that had made me determined never to follow that path. My friends and I got the lucky break that meant we could control ourselves without need of the implant.

  Hardly a soul was seen to wander the streets or drive the highways anymore. SCAR kept a lid on things in a brutal way so law and order was maintained of a fashion, but the world had changed from one where people were free and able to go about their lives without undue interference from our government, to one where a big corporation, namely Gregori Industries, exercised way too much control over the population. The government did nothing except run programs like the one through Chemosys that were almost as bad as what Gregori Industries was up to.

  I hated both sides equally. One for what they did to me and everyone else, and one for what they did to Amy. I wouldn’t rest easy until both were on their knees.

  I kept my eyes on the brightly lit compound. That was new. Before, it had been just a few small security lights on the buildings, but floodlights on tall pylons illuminated the scene before me like a football stadium at night.

  I couldn’t see much in the way of action going on in there. An occasional figure passing a lit office window was about all. The real interest was in the living quarters that seemed to have sprung up on site. They were also new, and it was clear that Chemosys had gone self-contained in the last year.

  The pre-fab living quarters were all lit up, and every now and then, someone would come to a window to drop dishes in the sink or get a glass of water. It was like Nindock’s, although on a much smaller scale and much more formal.

  As I lay in the ditc
h next to Marty and Nova, I wondered for the first time if this was something that was going to work. It was a huge compound and would take hours for us to get all the way around to test out their defenses, but there was no way I was going in blind.

  I heard a quiet whistle as Jevyn and Penny came back from scouting the main gates.

  “We got news,” Jevyn said as he lay down next to me, while Penny spent a moment straightening her clothes and hair.

  “What?” I asked eagerly.

  “The main gate is guarded heavily. They have a truck across the road behind the gate that they have to move to let anyone in. The road up to the gate has other trucks parked so anyone in a vehicle has to weave between them to get to the gate. No chance of being able to drive straight through, plus the guards look to have some heavy artillery on them and set up by the guard post. My guess is anyone heading in that way is going to get shot up pretty bad before they get within fifty feet.”

  Okay, that was plan A out the window.

  “Did you see anything else?” I asked.

  “Each corner of the compound looks to have a short guard tower,” Penny said, gorgeous again. “I couldn’t spot anyone in the one I could see from where we were, but I can’t imagine they won’t be manned. Look that way. We passed one as we hiked up here, but I didn’t notice it.”

  I looked back the way we had come, and sure enough, some kind of squatty guard post was set up in the corner, but it was dark and unmanned.

  “Maybe they have been getting complacent,” I muttered to myself.

  “Maybe, but we need to check them out thoroughly. Could be whoever was supposed to be manning it needed a pee and we just got lucky.” Penny lay down on my other side. “Where are we going now?”

  I swatted a bug off my cheek. “We need to find a way to get around all four sides and then get away without being seen. Frankie and Kam will be back in a minute, I’m sure. Let’s just sit tight and wait for them to come back.”