GABRIEL AND I sped after the group of humans guarding the junkyard, with Cleo running at a human speed behind us, while Teren, Ben, and Halina took care of the dogs. I wasn’t sure how many humans there were, or if they were armed, but I figured silencing them before they could call for help was a good idea.
Jake had given away our element of surprise by running into the open and shouting his head off for his son. I wasn’t sure if he’d done that intentionally, or if panic had momentarily turned him into an idiot. I was hoping it was fear, and he wasn’t trying to screw us over. It really didn’t make much sense for him to betray us though. He needed our help almost as much as we needed his. Maybe more so.
Once the dogs had started in on Jake, their human counterparts had made an appearance. When I caught up to the first one, he’d seemed surprised. Of course, I’d been moving at a vampiric pace and I’d seemingly materialized right in front of him; that would stun even a seasoned hunter. The man recovered quickly though, and was raising his gun to my chest even as I knocked him out.
Gabriel subdued his partner while a few more shouts carried along the breeze. Gabriel and I shot off in opposite directions while Cleo dealt with the man I’d knocked out. I searched the mounds of junk as thoroughly as I could, but I only found two more guards. From what Jake had been saying, I’d been expecting an army. It seemed too easy.
I dragged the guards back to the building, and dropped them in a heap beside the guard I’d clocked. Halina joined us, helping Gabriel carry a couple of men to add to the pile. I gave Halina a curt nod while Cleo went to work using zip ties to hold everyone’s wrists together. The guards were alive, and would inevitably wake up before we were done here. We didn’t want to fight them again, and didn’t want to kill them, so we attached them to a rusted car frame. They would eventually be able to work themselves free, but we’d be long gone by then.
Halina zipped off to the front of the building, to grab a few unconscious guards who had bothered the rest of the group. Spotting a rolling door near the back of the building, I decided to investigate. The sooner we found Simon and Jake’s grandfather, the sooner I could get back to Nika. I was trying to ignore the absence of our bond, but it was like trying to ignore a strained ankle or a muscle that was cramping. I ached.
Gabriel joined me while Cleo and Halina worked on the humans. The two of us each grabbed one side of the door and yanked. We ripped the entire contraption from the wall. Throwing it to the ground, we stepped over it to get inside. The room we were in was by far the oddest room I had ever seen. There were cages lining the walls, but unlike outside, these weren’t kennels for dogs, these were cells…for humans, or I supposed, for vampires. Each one had a small, bare cot that was attached to one side of the cage, but nothing else. No blankets, no pillows, no comforts of any kind. And no real way for the caged vampires to escape the sun. While the walls around the room were made of thick, windowless concrete, the area around the rolling door wasn’t entirely lightproof. During the day, whatever creatures were trapped in here would suffer from the trace amount of light that seeped through it. The entire space gave cruelty a new meaning.
Infuriated at the horror I was witnessing, I cautiously approached the cages. The room was dark, but my enhanced eyes could see that there was a metallic gleam to the bars that shimmered in the moonlight. Silver. A full vampire would have difficulty escaping these cages, especially if they were starved and half drained of blood. There were nine cages in the room, three along each wall. There were blood stains in every cell, from where the vampires had been drained, and there were heavy manacles looped around the cell bars, awaiting new prisoners to fill them; the chains were also silver. Yet another way to torment the captives being held against their will.
It sickened my stomach to think of all of the vampires who had probably been trapped in here, who had probably died in here. It was a sick science experiment gone horribly, horribly wrong, and I had a newfound appreciation of Gabriel and his methods. Science didn’t have to be nasty.
As I glanced over at Gabriel, I saw that he was scowling. He didn’t approve of this either. Halina joined us with a hiss of disapproval. “When we find Jake’s grandfather, I say we rip him into tiny little pieces,” she growled.
While I sort of agreed with her, I knew we couldn’t. The entire point of the League was to stop the never-ending cycle of revenge. “I’ve seen enough,” I muttered. “Let’s go find the others.”
Just as I turned to leave this place of death, I heard a faint voice whisper, “Wait…” My gaze snapped to a cell in the far corner of the room. That cage wasn’t empty, and something lying on the cot moved. Whatever it was, it was so frail and thin that it almost seemed like it was part of the small bed.
I blurred over to the cage while Gabriel found the lights. A frail man was lying on the bed. He groaned when the light hit his eyes, and when he raised his arm to shield himself, I was shocked at his appearance; he closer resembled a skeleton than a man. I instinctively grabbed the bars to yank the door open, forgetting that they were toxic to me. With a howl of pain, I pulled my fingers away. It felt like I’d dipped them in acid.
The man’s sunken face turned to me as I held my fingers to my face; I almost expected to see smoke rising from them. “Help…me…” he squeaked. His voice sounded like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together. I had gone through severe hunger once, but I had a feeling my turmoil was nothing in comparison to this man’s.
He was completely naked, and the narrow bars of the cage formed a perfect box. The only place he was safe from the silver surrounding him was the worn cot he was lying on. Whoever had thought up this trap, hadn’t wanted a clever vampire to shield their body from the silver so they could break out. Well, luckily enough for this man, while I couldn’t hold the bars to pull them free, I could kick the door in.
“I’m going to get you out of there,” I told him. “Stay back.” He turned away from me, and I brought the heel of my boot against the weak portion of the door. It buckled under my strength, but didn’t entirely break free. Well-constructed. I struck out again, and this time the door caved inward. I toed it open, then made my way into the cell coated in silver. Even though there was an exit, I hated being in there. Every fiber of my being was telling me to get out, and I had to fight the instinct to run with every step I took.
When I picked up the vampire, he weighed no more than a small child. He murmured a thank you as I carried him to safety outside the bars. Even though I’d never really been in danger, I exhaled a sigh of relief once I was free.
Cleo ran into the room, and her eyes widened when she spotted the ragged man in my arms. “Grab some clothes from the guards,” I told her. Nodding, she ran off. I turned to look over at Halina and Gabriel. “We should take him somewhere safe, then rejoin the others and keep looking. Jake’s grandfather could still be here somewhere.” I could hear the others deeper in the building beside us; it sounded like they were trashing the place, and I could hear Teren ordering the others to make a burn pile.
“No,” the emaciated vampire whispered. “He left…took the boy.”
All three of us looked down at the man in my arms. “The boy? Simon? Was the boy named Simon?” I asked.
The vampire nodded as he closed his eyes; he seemed so tired, barely alive, and I knew he needed to eat. Soon. “Yes…he called him Simon…”
We walked outside and Cleo approached us with pants and a jacket. “These will probably hang off him, but it was the best I could do.” She jerked her thumb back at the assortment of tied-up guards. Most of them were awake now, and the pair missing items of clothing didn’t look happy. The one missing his pants was sporting a black eye.
I set the weary vampire down. He was wobbly on his feet, so I helped him stand while Halina and Cleo helped him get dressed. He inhaled a deep breath when Cleo wrapped a jacket around him. A low growl rumbled out of his chest, but he made no move to attack her. I knew it was best not to tempt him though. Hunger had a way of making even good people do bad things.
After he was semi-dressed, I picked the vampire up again, before he fell over. To Halina and Gabriel, I said, “Let’s find Teren and the others, let them know we missed Simon and his grandfather.” I looked down at the man we’d saved. “Then let’s get you something to eat, so you can tell us what you heard.”
The man closed his eyes and Halina motioned to the front of the building, to where she could feel Teren and Julian. The loss of my connection to Halina wasn’t as unsettling as my blocked bond with Nika, but it was still unnerving. I was standing right beside her, but I still couldn’t feel her. It was…unnatural.
Our small group wound its way through the abandoned building to where the others were. I could hear them talking, hear glass breaking. Following the noise, we came upon a room that was almost as odd as the vampire holding cells. It was clear from the medical equipment, vials, beakers, refrigerators and whiteboards covered with cryptic writing that we’d stumbled upon the “lab.”
Jake, Ben, Julian, and Teren were here, throwing items onto a huge pile in the middle of the room. I figured when they set that heap ablaze, the fire would be big enough to burn down the entire building. Good riddance. It seemed to me that just torching the building now would be quicker, but I knew Teren. He wanted to be thorough, to make sure all of the research was incinerated. And he also wanted to search for clues, which was why what I was carrying was so important. If there were any clues to be found here, the vampire barely clinging to life had them.
Teren and Julian looked up at me when I entered the room with the others. Teren’s face darkened when he saw that I was carrying someone. “Who is that?” he asked.
“A vampire who was being held captive here. He overheard Jake’s grandfather talking to Simon earlier.”
That got Jake’s attention. “Simon?”
The man in my arms nodded, but it was all he had the energy to do. That wasn’t good enough for Jake. Storming over to him, he demanded, “Where did he go? Did Simon leave with him? Was he okay?”
He began shaking the man’s shoulders and I growled in warning. “He’s been starved and tortured. Let him eat, then you can question him.”
When Jake realized he was antagonizing a half-dead vampire, he backed away. Just when I was wondering what I could possibly feed him, the smell of fresh blood hit me. Ben was tearing apart some contraption that had tubes of blood running around it. On the ground below the machine was a bucket; the smell was strongest there. Blurring over to it, I set the vampire down. He smelled it too, and immediately struggled with picking up the bucket. As I helped him bring it to his lips, Jake screeched, “What the hell are you doing?”
His eyes were wide, his face pale. Encouraging the vampire to eat, I tossed Jake a look. “Either he drinks this, or he drinks you. Your choice.”
Jake narrowed his eyes, but shut his mouth. Halina shot me an amused glance and I knew exactly what she was thinking. You’ve not only accepted vampires, you’re feeding them now…look how far you’ve come. I wasn’t sure how to feel about the sudden change my life had taken, but I did know that denying a starving man a meal was wrong. And it was too late to help whoever had donated this blood anyway.
While the hungry vampire ate, Teren approached Gabriel. “We have a problem,” he stated, his face grim. Gabriel tilted his head in question and I watched Teren hand him a small aerosol can. “It’s the vaccine. He’s made it airborne.”
Gabriel’s expression darkened as he examined the container. “That…is quite unfortunate for us.” He looked up at Teren. “He can protect numerous people at one time now. He could share it with others, vaccinate pockets of the populace up and down the countryside. And I have no idea if what he’s done will be passed on to the next generation or not. If he’s found a way to fuse it into the DNA…the entire human race could be protected within the next millennium.”
That sounded like a long way off, but to a vampire, it was still something we had to worry about. And hiding from technology was bad enough. How much longer could we stay off the grid? It was something I didn’t want to think about.
Teren swept his hand over the dozen or so containers that were on the burn pile. “This can’t be his entire stock. He wouldn’t have left it all behind.”
Ben crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s just one more reason for us to find this guy. And fast.” He shifted his gaze to our new vampire compatriot. He’d finished his bucket of blood, and was running his finger around the rim, like he was trying to get every last drop. Since I knew how hungry he was, I didn’t blame him. I probably would have tried to lick the bucket clean. “You wouldn’t happen to know where they went, would you?”
With a content sigh, the vampire set the bucket down on his lap. “God, I needed that…thank you.”
Squatting beside him, I extended my hand, “My name is Hunter. What’s yours?”
The vampire took my hand, his caved face intrigued. “Hunter? Kind of ironic.”
I shook my head. “You have no idea.”
The vampire let out a soft laugh; the dryness in his voice was mostly gone. “My name’s Malachi. I’ve been down here for…well, what year is it?” I exchanged a glance with Teren as Malachi shook his head. “Well, doesn’t much matter. It’s been a while at any rate.”
The group of us formed a half-circle around Malachi. We were all hoping he had some direction for us, otherwise we had nowhere to go, but back home. And too much was at stake to just give up.
Impatient for answers, Jake barked out, “Do you know where my son is?”
Malachi looked up at him with a sigh. “No, I’m sorry. I don’t know where they went. I only heard them talking about needing to leave.” He swallowed a rough lump and flicked a glance at the empty bucket before returning his eyes to Jake. “The kid, your son, he caused quite a commotion when he showed up. He said his dad was being held hostage by vampires, and he needed to have a vampire’s strength to break him out. He was really worried. Terrified, I’d say. He sounded like he’d do just about anything to help you.”
Jake ran his hands through his hair. “Simon… What the hell was he thinking? He knew the experiment never worked. Why would he…? Did he do it? Did he let Henry drain him?”
Malachi stared at Jake a moment, then shook his head. “No. Henry wouldn’t let him. Said there wasn’t enough time to do it here. He said the kid had probably led the entire vampire nest right to him, so they needed to get the hell out of town. The kid was none too happy about that.”
Jake let out a long exhale and closed his eyes. “He’s okay.” His eyes snapped open and narrowed into pinpricks. “For now. Whenever they get to where they’re going, he’ll set up shop again and Simon will be his first volunteer.”
Malachi shrugged. “I don’t know. Henry said he’d recently made a breakthrough. He said he knew why it wasn’t working before, and he knew how to fix it.”
Gabriel suddenly grew very interested in the conversation. “How was he going to fix it? Did he say?”
Malachi scrunched his brows as he remembered. “He said he needed a…naturally born vampire’s blood.” He looked confused after he said it, like he had no idea what that meant.
I did. I locked eyes with Teren. “He knows about mixed vampires. He might know about your family.”
Teren gave me a brief nod; his expression was dark. “Let’s hurry up here so we can get back to the ranch.”
I loved the sound of that idea, for more than one reason. Teren had Julian help Malachi to his feet while Cleo and Ben went outside to question the guards. The rest of us went about destroying anything in the lab that could be used to hurt us. When the pile was ready, Halina found a can full of gas to pour on it. She cocked an eyebrow at Gabriel as she doused everything with the pungent liquid. “I do love a good arson.” Gabriel’s lips cracked into a smile and she blew him a kiss. At least the two of them had bonded through this whole mess.
Before a match was struck, everyone was ushered to the relative safety of the junkyard. Teren stayed inside to ignite the pile, then blurred out to us a millisecond after we heard the whoosh of flames roaring to life. Cleo and Ben said the guards didn’t know where Jake’s grandfather had gone. All they had been told was to stay on the property and protect it from intruders. As we left them tied to the rusty car frames, I wondered if they were telling the truth. They were protected from compulsion, so, unless we wanted to torture it out of them, we had no choice but to take their word for it. And after seeing what had been done to Malachi, torturing them didn’t feel like a viable option.
The vampires in the group grabbed those who couldn’t run as fast as we could, and together, we raced back to the cars; we smashed right through the gate this time. When we were all beside the vehicles again, multiple small explosions rang through the night as the flames found the compressed cans of the vaccine. Julian murmured that he hoped the dogs locked in the kennel next to the building were all right. Licking her lips, Halina told him they were excellent. Jake looked disgusted by her response, but I knew she was joking. I’d seen her opening the latch to the kennel before she’d blurred away. She might find dogs tasty, but she wasn’t cruel.
We all watched the sky lighten with flames for a moment, then Jake said, “Let’s go. Every second we wait, is a second we’ve wasted.”
Halina studied him a moment, then nodded. “We reconvene at the ranch. We need to make sure the nest is secure, and dawn will be here soon…”
I glanced at the dark sky above us, and knew she was right. The ticking time bomb that kept us buried beneath the earth was a few hours from going off. For some of us, searching for Simon would have to wait.
We all watched the sky lighten with flames for a moment, then we ducked into the awaiting cars and sped away. I couldn’t wait to get back to Nika, to make sure she was safe. The ache I’d been ignoring all evening deepened as we drove toward her. Under normal circumstances, the bond would have kicked in by now, and I’d be tearing the car apart to get to her. While it was nice to have control over my actions, I missed the intensity.
To redirect my mind from missing Nika and worrying about my family, I focused on Malachi sitting beside me in the back seat. To make the trip easier on the still-starving vampire, Cleo had given up her spot in the car and was now riding in the other one with Teren, Ben, Jake, and Julian. The humans and the living vampire were too appealing to force Malachi to sit next to them for the long journey. Their heartbeats were as mouth-watering to a vampire as the sound of bacon sizzling was to a human. It wasn’t all that long ago that admitting that would have had me hunched in a corner, resisting the urge to vomit. But the truth was the truth. Denying it didn’t make it any less so.
Putting my hand on Malachi’s shoulder, I told him, “As soon as we get to the ranch, we’ll get you more to eat…as much as you can handle.”
His eyes fluttered like he was having difficulty keeping them open. “Thank you…thank you so much for saving me. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could take it…” His eyes closed and he leaned his head against the window with a sigh. I let him rest; I couldn’t imagine how awful his imprisonment had been. Well, I suppose I could. I just didn’t want to.
When the main home at the ranch came into view, the knot in my stomach finally eased. Everything looked peaceful—no crazed, mad scientist knocking down the door trying to kidnap naturally born vampires. Family members poured out of the house as we pulled up beside Teren’s car. Jake was just getting out of Teren’s vehicle as Gabriel shut off our car. I was a little surprised Jake had willingly returned with us. A part of me had thought he would try to take off once he’d learned Simon wasn’t at the junkyard. I guess he’d figured he would have more luck finding his son if he stuck with us. Maybe he was finally coming to see that we weren’t all that bad. Sometimes the people you thought were evil, were actually the best people to know. And vice-versa. I’d learned that lesson the hard way.
Everyone was still awake, waiting to see the outcome of the raid. Nika rushed into my arms the second she spotted me. “I couldn’t feel you coming. I felt everyone else, but I couldn’t feel you. I hated it…”
I kissed her hair as I squeezed her tight. “I know. I hate it too.” I didn’t add on that it was necessary. We both knew it, and we were accepting it. For now. Because as nice as feeling her presence was, it was nicer to be able to greet each other around family with a hug instead of ripping each other’s clothes off.
After I separated from Nika, she hugged her father, and then Halina. Ben hugged Tracey while Julian greeted Trey and Arianna with an awkward wave. It was obvious that Julian was wishing to be more alone with his ex-girlfriend, so they could begin to reconnect. It was pointless though. After tonight, she’d be wiped and he’d be back at square one. Best just to leave it alone. Easier said than done though.
Emma scanned the crowd as she walked up to her husband. “Where’s the boy? Where’s Simon?”
Jake ran his fingers through his hair. “He wasn’t there. We were too late.”
Emma raised her finger to the gaunt vampire we’d rescued. “Who’s this?”
Teren wrapped an arm around his wife’s shoulders as he gestured to the newcomer. “This is Malachi. He was being held captive, used as an experiment. He’s been starved, drained…and who knows what else. He was the one who told us we were too late to save the boy. Simon and Henry had already gone.” Jake let out an annoyed grunt, and kicked one of the car tires in frustration. Ignoring him, Teren looked through the crowd for someone. “Gran, could you take him inside, get him something to eat?”
Imogen rushed forward to help Malachi, while Jake turned to Teren. “We’re wasting time. We need to figure out where they went, before Simon does something stupid.”
Teren raised his hand in the air. “I’m all ears. If you have any idea where they might have gone, I would love to hear it. Especially since Henry is now targeting mixed vampires.”
Emma gasped at the news. “He knows about us?”
Teren looked over at her with a sigh. “He knows about our kind, and, thanks to Simon, I’m sure he knows about us specifically. And he wants us…wants our blood. Henry seems to think that’s the key to making successful transfusions…to making living vampires.”
Emma looked over at Gabriel. “Would that work?”
Gabriel shook his head in answer to Emma’s question. “Honestly, I do not know. A mixed vampire turning a human in the traditional way rarely works, as you know…but a perfectly calibrated transfusion…well, that is altogether different. It still depends on the human host of course, but…it may be possible. I could not know for certain without running some tests.”
Jake snapped, “We don’t have time for tests. My son could be hooked up to that damn machine at this very moment!”
I was about to tell him that panicking wouldn’t get him anywhere and he needed to calm down, but Trey said something that got my attention. “What you got there, Julian? Body spray?”
The second he said it, I knew exactly what Julian had. And like I was suddenly omnipotent, I also knew exactly what Trey was going to do with it. I was already blurring toward him when he snatched the cylinder from Julian, but I wasn’t fast enough. He released a large stream of the compulsion resistance vaccine into the air, then leaned in to smell it.
As I rushed into the circle of Julian, Trey, Nika, and Arianna, the cloud of vaccine hovered in the air. My superior eyesight could see each individual droplet as it floated upon a sea of oxygen, and I could only watch in horror as the air current from my movement, caused the droplets to move. They settled on Arianna, then moved past her to the crowd of people now intently watching us. Ashley’s eyes widened as it moved past her. Tracey sneezed when some settled on her. I had no idea how much was needed to make a person impossible to trance, but I knew at least some of the people here were now “vampire proof”.
Halina blurred over to Trey, snatched the cylinder from his hand, and then turned all her fury on her grandson. “Julian! What did you do?”
With a sigh, Julian muttered, “Shit.”