Vampire in Chaos (12 page)

Serus wasn’t fooled. He glanced over at his son. David shrugged. “You can’t kill him for being a weak weasel.”

The weasel shook his head in horror. “No, you can’t. I’m being helpful, I am.”

David turned to study the empty space. “It’s creepy down here. If Tessa is here, she could be anywhere.”

“Tessa?” the weasel asked. “You mean the young girl causing all the trouble?”

Serus spun so quickly, the weasel backed up several steps and cowered.

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” he cried out from his crouching position. “You don’t have to answer that question.”

“Stand up, man.” Serus knew many vamps like this one, but they weren’t usually in his presence. He hated weasels and weaklings like this one. But occasionally they were useful. Like maybe…now.

“What do you know of Tessa?” he asked deliberately, lowering his voice to a calm, even tone. If the man was too scared, he’d never answer.

“I just know she’s a priority for the bosses. They want her DNA very badly.”

*

Rhia sat in
solitude, wishing her brains would unscramble. She’d thought she was normal again. Back to normal as Sian would say. She remembered Sian, Wendy, and her children, but there was a blank space in her head where Serus should be. She understood he was her husband. Understood she loved him, had been married to him for centuries, but there was a giant empty darkness she couldn’t fill with memories when she thought about him. Although that was getting better.

That was the first tangible proof she had been drugged.

Her mind shifted through what she knew about drugs. It wasn’t likely that they’d been able to target a particular person in her life to wipe out. No, chances were that part of her brain had been the unlucky area affected. She rubbed her face, feeling old and tired.

Then again, that was likely the drugs, too. She remembered the blood farm and all the horrors held within. Another name popped into her mind. Goran. A good man. A best friend. He’d been such a huge help over the years. She could see him easily, so why not Serus? She struggled to see the man always at his side, her side, but his features stayed just out of reach.

She wished he was here so she could fill in those blank spaces in her mind. As warmth wrapped around her heart, she realized she might not know this Serus, but inside she
knew
him. The feelings were there, getting stronger, closer. She smiled.

She might have forgotten some things, but her heart hadn’t.

Now if she could only talk to him. See his face and know he was hers.

Then she’d feel better.

*

Jared woke to
darkness, surprised he’d slept at all. He swore from the grittiness of his eyes that he’d not gotten a wink of rest, but apparently he had. He checked the time on his cell phone and realized it was just before five in the morning. He was loath to get up and take the chance of finding more dead bodies below. If he waited until everyone else got up, they could find the bodies this time. Presuming there were some. Still, he wished he’d slept longer. He’d prefer to not be awake at all right now. He was still tired, his body aching. From what? He’d done nothing out of the norm, so maybe just the restless night? As he lay there, willing himself back to sleep, he thought he heard stealthy footsteps out in the hallway.

He tensed. Was it just one of the guys going to use the bathroom at the end of the hallway or something else? It seemed as if the footsteps slowed outside his door. He studied the chair he’d jammed under his doorknob as an early warning system and waited, his breath choked back in his throat.

The steps, after what seemed like a long pause, moved on. He released his pent-up breath slowly, silently, as if afraid they could still hear him outside. If someone was using the bathroom, they’d have to come back the same way. For a long time he heard nothing, then what he did hear made his blood run cold.

The steps were heavy, loud and awkward. As if someone carried a heavy weight. A weight that was almost too much for one person.

A dead weight.

He shuddered and stared at the door, terribly afraid. And once again hating his choices. He slipped out of bed and raced silently to his door where he quietly removed the chair. When the person had gone several steps past, he turned the knob and opened the door a crack, just enough to peer down the hallway.

And watched as one of the orderlies carried Tobias around the corner, the boy’s limp body hung like a carcass over his shoulder.

T
essa cast a
glance over at the Ghost who stood, head slightly bowed, immobile in a corner. Was he sleeping?

Wanting to walk over and poke him, she instead turned back to Deanna. “Are you going to tell us who is behind the blood farm?”

Deanna shrugged. “I don’t know that he’s in charge. He’s also old. Almost as old as I am. He’d created the blood farm because he believed in the system. Not to harm the humans, but because they never mattered in the first place.”

Anger rippled through Tessa. “That’s not how the rest of us see it.”

Deanna bowed her head, then lifted it slowly as if the weight of her years made it almost impossible to do so. “No, you wouldn’t. But times have changed, and he hasn’t.”

She waved an arm around the room. “Lots has changed recently. And most of it isn’t good.”

“You said we were in danger,” Cody said, his tone impatient. “From what? You?”

Deanna laughed, or at least that’s what Tessa understood the wheezing to be. “No, if that were the case, you’d be dead already.”

Cody glared at her.

“No, Hortran here has found cameras in this place,” Deanna said. “They might have been here for a long time, I couldn’t say. But now that they have been installed, the game has changed. My husband didn’t put them in here.”

“How do you know?” Tessa asked, not sure she wanted to know any more about their strange marriage.

“I asked him,” she said candidly. “He was quite put out that our dungeon,” she gave a coy smile that had Tessa’s gaze widening, “had been invaded.” She turned to stare throughout the emptiness surrounding them. “He was investigating who did this, when…” she swallowed hard and said in an icy cold voice, “When he disappeared. I don’t know if he was called for an urgent matter or was taken.”

“Disappeared.” Tessa gasped. “Is he dead?”

Deanna gazed at her, sorrow and pain filling those black eyes. “I’m so afraid that he might be.”

“That would be terrible. Why kill him?” Tessa cried. “He’s old already. Why not let you both live out your lives until your time has come?”

Deanna stared at her. “I think that’s where the blood farm comes in.”

And Cody spoke up. “Right. Not the blood farm itself, but the experiments they were doing. They needed your husband’s – all the ancients’ DNA.” He turned to Tessa, “Remember, they had Moltere hanging and were looking for both our fathers…and you for just that reason.”

“Exactly,” Deanna said. She nodded toward the Ghost. “He is the last of his kind. They want him too. I am the last of my family line, although there are some of mixed blood below me.”

Tessa tilted her head and asked, “What is your family line? I’m not sure I know it.”

“Well, you should,” Deanna snapped, shifting her moods once again. “You are one of us.”

“What?” Tessa shook her head. “I’m a jumbled mix of too many things,” she cried. “I don’t belong anywhere.”

“You are wrong. It doesn’t show up in every generation, and lately it hasn’t shown up for centuries, but you definitely have Leant in you.”

Leant?
“I think my great grandmother was a Leant,” she said slowly, remember something her mother had said last week. “But I know nothing about them.”

“Of course, your great grandmother was related to my sister, who’s been gone for a long time.”

“But still,” Tessa said quietly. “I am only a little bit Leant.”

“Maybe. But they want me. And if they can’t have me, they’ll take you. I know of no others showing the Leant heritage who is still alive. We’re a dying breed, our pure heritage diluted.”

“If this place is dangerous now,” Cody said. “Why are you still here?”

Silence.

Studying the wash of grief on the old woman’s face, Tessa understood. In a quiet voice, she said, “It’s because you hope he’ll come here, don’t you? That he’ll find you here. And if he doesn’t, you feel closest to him in this place.”

Deanna raised her gaze. “Yes and yes. I can’t sense his life force anymore. The mindspeak is quiet. I’m afraid he’s gone. And if he is…” Her smile grew cold, hard… “Everyone who comes down here might be the one who planted those cameras. Everyone that comes here is suspect. Anyone could have something to do with his death.” Now her gaze turned lethal sharp as she studied the two of them. “Including you.”

*

Cody glared at
the old woman playing games with them. “Well, we didn’t have anything to do with it. I haven’t seen anyone close to your age, and I have no idea who might have killed him.”

Deanna never took her gaze off Tessa.

A heavy silence filled the air. Cody looked from one to the other, wishing he understood the heavy undercurrents going on between the two women.

Were they speaking telepathically?

“Tessa?”

He studied her face, her gaze locked on Deanna’s.

“What did I miss?”

Tessa tore her gaze free and took a deep breath. “There was one old ancient…”

“Really? Where, when?”

She winced. “Think power struggle. Think of your brother. In the mine. We found him dying.”

Cody cast his mind back. There’d been so many. And he remembered the wizened ancient who’d been attacked by his young apprentice – Cody’s brother.

“Oh no.”

She nodded. “Maybe.”

She turned back to Deanna. “He was one of the top bosses with the blood farm, wasn’t he?”

Deanna dropped her gaze. “Yes, but he was fighting against the testing. He wanted to see vampires returned to pure bloodlines, like he was. Not the monstrosities that they were working on. He knew his time was up in many ways, but he’d been trying to stop the clones. He wasn’t against the DNA database. To him, that was just good sense.” She stared moodily at the two of them. “He’s dead then? You know that for sure?”