Vampire in Chaos (18 page)

“Hey, move it you two,” Serus barked. “You’re standing there mooning at each other.”

Tessa snickered at the word he used.

Cody stepped back and gritted through his teeth, “I am not mooning.”

Serus growled as he walked past them into the room, “Were too.”

At that, Tessa broke out laughing, her voice free and easy.

Until she saw David turn around at the end of the room and come back slowly, checking out the beds on the other side. As she’d seen him glancing at both sides as he’d walked down, she had to assume he hadn’t found Jewel. Every step he took toward her, the grimmer his face got. Every step he took, the more her heart sank. What if Jewel had been moved, the same as Ian had? They couldn’t just isolate her friend – there’d be no point to such actions. Her friends were no more dangerous than other vamps. So why move them?

David met with Serus and the two bent heads, the conversation fast and furious. Tessa stayed at the doorway with Cody. David’s face and clenched fists told the story. Jewel wasn’t here.

As they approached the doorway, David said in a harsh whisper. “She’s not here. No one is.”

“No one,” Cody asked, motioning to the closed curtains. “What do you mean by no one?”

“I mean all the beds are empty. As in completely empty.”

“What? That makes no sense.”

“No,” Serus said, adding, “But from what I can see, the beds are all made and prepped as if waiting for an influx.”

“Aren’t hospital beds always ready like this?”

“No idea.” Serus shrugged. “Why would they need to have so many beds?”

“More than that, what happened to those that were here? This ward was full when I was here last time,” David snapped. “Where is Jewel?”

“Could they have gotten better?” Tessa asked with a faint hope.

“I know you don’t want to consider this, but do we know for sure that she’s still here?” Cody asked quietly. “Is there a chance Jewel is on her way home, or already at home and sleeping?” He threw up his hands at David’s glare. “I just want to make sure that she’s not before we go half–cocked with more conspiracy theories.”

David shook his head violently. “She’s here,” he said harshly. “I’d know if she weren’t.”

Tessa stared at him. She understood what he meant but didn’t want to put him on the spot. She heard Cody swallow back his own comment. She slipped her arm through his, grateful he was at her side and they weren’t once again split up and trying to find each other. Cody squeezed her arm tight against his body.

He understood.

“Dad,” Tessa said, “Have you asked Motre to look for Jewel?”

“Goran knows already, but I’ll remind Motre,” he said, already texting. Tessa backed out of the room, tugging Cody with her. “David, let’s do a systematic search,” she suggested. “Jewel might just be in one of these rooms.”

She was surprised they hadn’t met any staff since they’d arrived on this floor. Surely if they had video cameras in the depths of that basement, they’d have similar cameras on these floors. As she walked to the room beside the one they’d been in, she noticed a camera, the same color as the walls. She turned to the next room, and said to Cody,
Smile, we’re on camera.

His step faltered.
Where,
he hissed.

In the corner, the walls with a doorway arch. They are the same color as the hall so they blend in well.

Damn,
his harsh whisper raced through her mind.
I suggest we check these rooms quickly before we have company.

She agreed. The next room was full. Of vamps. Connected to tubes. In a grim voice, she asked,
Who are all these people?
Tessa assessed the occupants. All males, roughly late teens to late twenties as far as she could tell, although males that age kept their looks for a long time, making it hard to guess their age as they could be a couple of decades older. They all appeared to be in fine physical shape. There were no broken bones or visible injuries.

“They are being drugged. I just don’t know why.”

Serus came to the door behind them. “Let’s go. Goran says they haven’t seen Jewel, but there are foreign delegates being held upstairs.”

Tessa, in the act of checking out the other occupants, froze, her mind racing. “Why would that be?”

“There is a huge international meeting happening this week. Between all the clans. And now the head of the German clan is here, and he’s drugged. There are a few men with him in the same room. Likely the entire German party.”

“Does Dad suspect that there might be other delegates here?” Cody asked, striding toward the door. “Is that what we’re thinking? Someone is kidnapping the delegates and keeping them here?”

“Isn’t that a bit much? Why not take the drugs to them?”

“Because they’d have to infiltrate the clans. And you know clans are very protective.”

In fact, Tessa remembered from her history lessons, the clans were more warring than peaceful. Peace, tentative at best, had happened several centuries ago. Now the clans met yearly to make sure all treaties were still being met.

“If they kidnapped the Germans, then chances are the other clans are in trouble, too.”

“Or maybe the Germans signed up for this willingly. They’d get enhancements and then be superior to the other clans and be able to dominate them if another war happened.”

Tessa winced. That was the last thing she wanted to consider, but it was all too possible. The clans’ peace treaty was a little ragged around the edges. It wouldn’t take much if someone wanted to make a power play and take over the others. Especially if they had enhancements for their people well before anyone even realized what was happening. It wouldn’t be a war – it would be a non–war – over before it had begun.

The humans would be the fallout in that case. And everyone’s way of life would change.

*

Cody hated to
hear this new twist. As far as he was concerned, all this bullshit could disappear so he could go and play – with Tessa. Immature maybe. There was no doubt his relationship was getting stronger, but he hadn’t had any time with her alone.

And damn it, he wanted that. He needed that. So did she.

He strode out of the room, leaving the others behind. It was only as he swung into the emptiness of the long hallway that he realized his hands were clenched into fists. He stared down at his fingers, opening and flexing them in frustration. He’d rarely known such emotion. And no target to hit out at. God damn it. He swung out and punched the wall in front of him.

And barely strangled back a scream. That hurt! What the hell. He stuffed his fist into his mouth and bit back the moan of pain.

Idiot.
Tessa’s concerned voice whispered through his mind as the pain swelled and ebbed.

Ya think,
he snarled.
I want this bullshit over.

Me too,
she said soberly.
We all do. Let’s find Jewel and Ian and go home.

Promise?
He smiled at the warm hug that he swore he could feel in his mind from her thoughts, her emotions. She was so expressive.

Yeah, I just choose not to punch out walls.
And she laughed out loud.

He turned, caught her close in his arms, and hugged her tight.

As he released her, he started to turn away but she stumbled. He reached out to steady her. Her knees buckled, the color drained from her face, her eyes great orbs of pain.

“Tessa?” He tried to hold her up against him, but she’d gone completely limp.

She moaned deep inside her throat. He tried to contact her mentally to see what she was feeling, sensing. And couldn’t gain access. The damn door was closed again.

“Please don’t shut the door, Tessa,” he begged. “Please. Stay in contact. Tell me what’s wrong,” he cried, seeing her gaze fog over.

“Tessa?”

Her father rushed over to Cody and grabbed Tessa around the waist, throwing her arm around his shoulder. “What happened, Cody?”

“No idea. She just collapsed.”

“Tessa, stay with us.”

She groaned and with the barest of a whisper, she said. “It’s Deanna. She’s in trouble.”

Then as if a string was cut, Tessa collapsed.

*

Serus gasped and
shifted his weight to catch his daughter more securely. “What the hell…?”

“I don’t know,” Cody cried out.

“What did she mean about Deanna being in trouble?” Serus snapped, trying to get Tessa on her feet again. He considered laying her down until she came out of her faint but didn’t want to let her go.

“Earlier, Deanna spoke to Tessa telepathically – and slammed the door shut between Tessa and I. I couldn’t open it at all.”

“What?” Serus stared at Cody in shock, his mind racing.

“She’s really strong.”

Serus started. He considered how strong someone would have to be to do what Deanna had done to Tessa and how strong Tessa would have to have been to survive the onslaught.

“Did she collapse then like she’d done now?”

Cody shook his head like mad. “Not like this. It hit her hard for the initial moments then she was fine. She had a conversation with her. Several in fact.”

Serus studied his young face. “And she didn’t show any reaction?”

“A mild one, but not like this.” He shifted his weight. “How long is she likely to be out?”

With a frown, Serus had to ask that question himself. He didn’t know. “Shouldn’t be long.”

“Why would Deanna have called Tessa?”

David, having checked out the several rooms around them, returned to lean against the wall and said, “Because she could. Either Tessa’s door was open so she could talk to her, or she was the only one close enough to hear Deanna’s transmission.”

Tessa moaned.

“Easy, Tessa,” Serus crooned against her head. He shifted her weight slowly, trying to get her to tilt her head up.

“Tessa. Wake up.”

She moaned again louder.

Serus studied her face, her head tilted to his side, her pallor ashen and her cheekbones strong and lean. Damn Deanna. What was her game? And why his daughter? He didn’t have a reason to not trust her, but he wished she’d contacted anyone else but Tessa.

Still, it was Tessa who’d been the one to step in Deanna’s space. And no one could call Deanna stupid. And neither could anyone ever say Tessa was weak. A few weeks ago, a few people might have made that mistake – not him – he prided on knowing his daughter had always been stubborn and strong–willed. Right from birth, she’d been determined to follow her brothers in whatever trouble they’d gotten into. They’d tried to discourage her, but she’d never listened. They’d had a hell of a time with her. Like the first time she’d gotten loose while they’d slept and had run outside the house – in the daytime.

To this day, he didn’t know how she’d managed to open the door. The security system had been on and the light said it was working. Rhia had gone to bed, but he’d been in the study. Until he heard the door and had raced out to the hallway to find Tessa laughing and dancing outside – wearing only a diaper and the biggest smile possible – in the bright sunshine.

He’d screamed for Rhia. As she’d come running, so had her brothers.

They’d stood in shock and terror as Tessa had run and jumped in joy, enjoying her first time in the open sunlight – something no one else in the family had ever experienced.

Rhia had stood by helplessly, confusion all over her face. Her brothers had been shocked to silence. Serus, well, he’d grabbed up his coat, hat, and gloves and had gone out into the sunshine to play with his daughter.

As he stared at her, so grown up and so confident – at the same time – so vulnerable at this moment, his heart ached for the little girl he’d spent so much time protecting from sunlight only to realize she hadn’t needed it in the first place.

As if on cue, she moaned again and this time her eyes fluttered. She was a long ways from being alert. He glanced down the hallway. “We should move into a room and out of the public eye.”

Tessa shook her head, more like a puppy shaking off water, as if shaking off Deanna’s voice. “Too late,” she muttered, her voice slow and slurry. “Cameras.”

“Shit,” Cody said. “I never gave them a thought.” With his free hand, he pointed up to the corner of the wall arch. “She pointed it out earlier.”