Vampire in Crisis (29 page)

It took a long moment, then the answers started coming. The order to ship Seth out of the country. Germany. Reciprocal agreement.

Chaos.

Shouting.

Hitting send.

More arguing. Her frantic glance to see if the order had gone through.

Seeing the bar paused almost at the end… still going, going…

And the power going off.

She groaned. “Oh my heavens. Seth’s orders to move him never went through.”

The thoughts continued to control her mind as she considered the issue from every aspect.

It was all too possible that because of the power outage, her son was still here. Still a patient somewhere in enemy hands.

And it was all too possible that when the power did come back, that page might still be there. It wouldn’t continue to send, but someone else might have seen the order and completed the process.

Or not.

Either way, she now had hope. He could still be here. She’d hold onto that and she’d track him down.

First off, she had to get out of this room.

Renewed hope had her genes pouring energy through her blood, powering her muscles, and for the first time, stability to her emotions.

She could yet save her son.

*

“We need to
follow that damn ambulance now,” Jared shouted. He ran his fingers through his hair, struggling to hang on to some semblance of control. They appeared to know the culprit vehicle. They had the damn GPS number to track it and they knew where it currently was. Why the hell weren’t they already there?

Because so many vampires liked to talk and talk and talk before actually doing something. He didn’t know how Taz could stand it. He glanced over at the older man to see him, head resting on his crossed arms, eyes closed.

“Is he really sleeping?” he asked incredulously.

“Don’t forget he works all day and it’s his sleeping hours right now,” Sian scolded. “And he’s used to us.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to say that was impossible; no one could get used to this.

He slumped back in his chair and closed his eyes. There had to be a way to get to the ambulance. He could drive. Did Wendy have a vehicle? He cast a sideways look her way.

She was staring at him.

He lifted his eyebrows in question.

She motioned to the doorway.

He glanced around the room, but no one was paying any attention to him. He got up and casually walked out to the hallway.

Wendy joined him. Glancing behind as if afraid they’d been followed, she whispered, “I just heard from Ian. He thinks he’s found the men from the monitor room.”

Jared’s eyes widened. “What?”

He looked around. Had Ian been out searching the whole time Jared had been stuck here at Wendy’s side in this damn meeting? And even if he had, what did that have to do with the ambulance he needed to find? Chelsea’s time was running out.

“Where is it?” he asked in a low voice.

“Downstairs. Like way downstairs.”

He shot her a long look. “I had no idea that there was as much downstairs as there is to this place.” Torn, he admitted, “I was just thinking about borrowing a vehicle and chasing that damn ambulance down myself.”

She grinned. “I figured as much. Come with me to Ian and we’ll check this out. If it turns out that we are wrong, then we’ll go with you to check out the ambulance trail. Ian has wheels we can use.”

He brightened, then his mood dimmed as he thought of something else. “Wait, what if we find the room with the monitors?”

“Not sure.” She shrugged. “If it looks dodgy, then we’ll turn it over to security and let them deal with it.” She added, “Then we’ll go find the ambulance.”

Jared took a final look at the room full of conversationalists and realized this was likely the best offer he was going to get all night.

“Let’s go.”

T
essa heard the
mutterings behind her. She didn’t know what to tell them. Things were easier for her now. And bigger. That didn’t make them better.

She didn’t want anyone to see her as any odder than she already was, but it was likely too late for that stage.

Especially after this.

Still, it had been totally cool to see Hortran’s trick in action.

Trying to shuffle off the sense of being looked at differently, she strode ahead. The men had been clustered around this end of the hallway. And she wanted to know why.

There were several doorways up ahead.

She stopped at the first one.

Interesting. It was empty. She went to the second one. Also empty.

The windows on the left showed the dark night dotted with heavy gray clouds. The moonlight peeked through. The hallway itself was gloomy.

The atmosphere strained.

Too bad. She sighed and settled a mantle of indifference on her shoulders. She couldn’t help being who she was.

And you shouldn’t have to.

Cody’s voice, as always, brushed through her mind like a warm hug.

Thanks. I guess that last display pushed them over the edge.

Just some of them. The others are still trying to figure out how to get you to teach them. And you just shot up off their respect meter.

Really?
She laughed.
Good to know. I always wonder when it’s too much and I go from something cool to something ugly again.

Never.

She glanced behind her to see him rapidly catching up. She held out her hand, loving the strong secure grasp as he connected. He tugged her backward into the circle of his arms.

From against his chest, she motioned to the closed door in front of them and said, “This is the last room that they were either protecting or just accidentally standing around.”

“I doubt they do anything accidentally.”

Stepping back slightly, she pushed the door open. And damn if Bart didn’t bolt to his feet.

“What are you doing here?” Cody snapped from behind her. “I thought you were after the other canister and the assholes that were part of that delivery team.”

Bart’s face turned ugly. He pointed at the almost empty bed on the side of the room holding the two canisters. “Both are here.”

Tessa heard them arguing, but her gaze had landed on the beautiful, delicate-looking vamp female on the bed.

“She’s so pretty,” she exclaimed, walking closer.

“She is.” Bart stepped forward, stopping her forward motion.

Tessa studied Bart. This wasn’t the same who-cares-what-the-world-is-doing Bart she’d first met. Neither was this the one that she’d seen get irate over the drug canisters. This was a different side to his personality altogether.

She puzzled on it, her gaze going from his surly but ready to do battle look to the young woman in the bed.

And she knew.

With a heavy sigh, she asked, “Is this your daughter?”

Bart’s glare deepened, but he never volunteered an answer.

“Can’t be,” Cody said. “Bart said his daughter died after that encounter with Deanna.”

Tessa nodded quietly. She could sense the sadness inside the big man. The pain. “She did die – in a way, didn’t she, Bart?” She nodded to the woman. “Has she been like this since that incident?”

As if understanding Tessa wasn’t there to cause more damage, and maybe the compassion in her voice was enough to soften his stance, he nodded. “She never woke up again.”

Tessa could hear her father’s shocked gasp beside her. The men in the back crowded around, wondering what was going on. From the murmurs deep behind her, she realized some people were filling the others in on the story.

So sad.

“Was she not strong enough?”

“The doctors never had an answer.”

“So she’s been like this since then?” Cody asked incredulously. “That’s a horrible way to live.”

Bart took a step toward him, his fists clenched and his hard voice snapping, “It’s the only life she’s got to live.”

Her father’s voice at her side asked, “Tessa, can you help?”

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. And she didn’t. This wasn’t anything she’d seen before. There was energy, but it wasn’t black. It wasn’t old and gray and used up. It was just so very thin. And almost pure white.

She had no idea what she was seeing.

But she wanted to. She took a step forward. Bart growled at her side. She stopped and shot him a look. “I’ve helped a lot of vampires these last few weeks. I don’t know if I can help your daughter or not.” She deliberately took another step toward the comatose woman. “But I’m going to take a look and see.”

“Like hell you are.” Bart lowered his head and lumbered toward her.

“What if she can save her?” Cody asked quietly. “She’s already not here in so much of the sense that we understand life to be,” Cody continued, emotion threading his own voice as he worked to convince Bart to not try and stop Tessa. “If she
can
help, what have you got to lose?”

“No one can help. That bitch Deanna did her job well.” Bart glared at Tessa. “I might not have been able to take Deanna out while she was alive, but I’ll be damned if I let her live on through you.”

Without warning, he launched toward her, silver spikes in one hand and some kind of weird gun in the other. There was an odd flash, a pop, and a bolt shot forward so fast no one seemed to recognize what was happening.

“No.” Serus knocked Tessa over at the last moment. She fell slightly. Just enough out of the way.

The bolt zapped into her father’s side, knocking him to the floor.

He roared.

Cody raced to tackle Bart.

Tessa screamed and raced to her father’s aid. The wound ripped into his side.

She shoved her hand into her father’s open wound, pouring as much healing energy as she could and with a weird chant, almost a hum in her head and uncaring of those around, pulled the bolt from his body. There was a mix of color in the wound. His, hers, more than she expected, and a tinge of Bart’s, and then the damaging energy of the silver bullet.

But her father hadn’t gone up in ash – he should have – but he was still here.

Except…was that a hint of smoke?

“No.” She plunged as much bright blue energy as she could manage and shoved it deep into the hole, surrounding the open edges, stopping the burning from getting to the point of blowing up. The bolt had taken a piece of leather from his jacket in with it, protecting his skin. The rest? She could only imagine that some of her energy had been sitting in the space as he jumped into her place. The bolt would have taken a little more inside as well.

She poured more and more energy into him, wrapping the silver in a tightly confined ball before slowly raising it.

Once out, she lowered it to the floor beside him, watching as the blood gushed clean from her father.

She smiled. He’d make it now.

“If you’re smiling, I’d like to think that means I’m going to live,” he growled on a short gasp of pain. “That obviously wasn’t silver.”

“Oh, it was,” she said with a big grin, “but it also took a chunk of your leather jacket in with it. That and my energy appear to have stopped the silver from letting you explode.”

He leaned back and closed his eyes, but she knew. Relief was coursing through him that they’d get to live another day.

She was feeling pretty much the same. Still, he’d need time to heal, and this wasn’t the place for it.

“He has to go back to the Council Hall,” she ordered.

“Like hell,” he snapped. “Give me a minute and I’ll be fine.”

“Like hell,” she snapped right back. Rather than argue with him, she waved her hand and knocked him out.

Looking over at Motre, she nodded down at her father. “Take him and the others out of here. It should be safe now.”

He shook his head. “What about Bart?” he protested. “I’m not leaving you with him here.”

She gave him a smile that had him backing up.

“Don’t worry about Bart,” she said in a low, hard voice. “I’ll take care of him.”

*