Darlings of Paranormal Romance (Anthology) (191 page)

Entering, Cody was barely in time to
see his father bend and lower his dark face over a male asleep on
the top bunk. So this was the missing male? Goran’s face darkened.
He reached out and bent over the lone sleeper. Cody tried to get
closer to see what his father was doing, but before he could shift
around his dad’s large frame, Goran straightened, saying, "He’s not
going anywhere."

"Did you kill him?" Cody cast a last
look at the male in the bed. Not that he really wanted to
know.

"No. Used a special hold on him.
He'll be out for a good many hours. We'll come back and move him
after we do this first sweep."

Smooth. Then, Cody hadn’t expected
anything else from his old man.

"That leaves the brute still missing
and possibly more."

Leaving the living quarters, they
systematically went around the warehouse and checked each room for
the missing staff member. An hour later, they ended up back where
they started, with David and his family.

Cody slapped a high five at David
when they met up. "There's no sign of the other personnel yet. We
need to find them before they can warn the outside
world."

"I’d say that’s probably too late. We
haven’t exactly been quiet in here."

Looking around the small group, Cody
frowned, and asked, "Where’s Tessa?"

"She’s with Jared. He's unconscious
and Rhia's worried about him." A weird look came over David’s
face.

Cody frowned. "What aren’t you
telling me?"

With a shrug, David tried to brush
him off.

"No. Tell me. Is he going to make
it?" Cody asked.

David leaned in. "Tessa says he looks
different than a few days ago. Better. As if he’d been given
something to improve him."

And how was he supposed to take that?
Cody studied David’s eyes. "Improve? How?"

"We don’t know. Mom is wondering if
there was something odd in the drugs they were giving him. Like an
enhancer of some kind."

"Are you thinking they were doing
experiments of some kind? On humans? Oh gross." Not a thought he
wanted to dwell on. "Remember when we were in the monitor room and
we saw what appeared to be a couple of vampires suspended? Possibly
Daren? That doesn’t make any sense, right? It’s not like our blood
is hard to come by or special or what they want to drink,
so…?"

"Right. Like why are they up there?"
David stared up at the rows of suspended bodies. "I wonder if
they're being punished? Maybe they found out about this place and
threatened to expose it or had invested initially and then wanted
out," he said enthusiastically, warming to his ideas. "This could
be a way of keeping them from talking."

Cody studied the rows. "As much as I
don't want to, maybe we should walk up and down and see if we know
any of them." He almost laughed at the look of revulsion on his
friend's face.

"Yeah, I guess," David
said.

Turning, Cody looked around to get
his bearings. "They should be in the corner, according to the
monitors we saw. That would make it…" he spun around slowly trying
to place the scene from the monitor with the right area in the
room. "It would make it over there." He pointed to the corner on
his left at the far side. "And the more of us that go and look, the
better the chance that we might recognize someone."

"I think our fathers should come take
a look. Keep the girls out of this step in this
process."

"Good idea."

"What’s a good idea?" Serus came up
behind them.

Within minutes he was calling Goran
over. The four males headed in the direction Cody pointed out. As
they walked, Cody tried not to stare. Every person was distorted by
the plastic wrapped around them giving them an unreal, almost
un-human aspect. It was more than freaky. It was like a bad science
fiction movie.

There had to be a hundred people in
just one row. His stomach clenched when he did the math. "David, do
you realize how many people are hanging here? They couldn’t all
have disappeared around the same time."

"I’m sure they’ve been disappearing,
a few here and a few there, for a very long time." David glanced
up, grimaced and turned his face forward resolutely.

Serus and Goran spoke quietly ahead
of them. Cody couldn’t quite hear and he wanted to. Motioning to
David, he picked up the pace so the bits of conversation were
understandable.

"Moltere dropped off the grid
when?"

"Hell if I know. Forty, maybe fifty
years ago, maybe. After Taz was rescued. But Moltere wasn't
actually seen or recovered during that rescue. He could have
disappeared a lot earlier."

Cody frowned. Damn it. His father
always did that. Spoke in half sentences, half thoughts. He glanced
around. They should be in the area they'd seen on the
monitors.

"Hey. Old guys."

Both men stopped and spun.

Cody grinned. "At least I have your
attention." At the disgruntled look on their faces, his grin
powered up a watt. "I think we’re here. You should be looking at
these people’s faces to see if you know any of them."

Everyone turned to study the woman
hanging beside them. Cody tried to keep his eyes on her face, but
it was hard. There was a lot of skin showing wrapped in bubble wrap
or something just as gross, with body fluids pooling off to one
side. He gave her face the once over and walked to the next one and
the next one.

The bubbled wrap made it difficult to
tell the vampires from the humans. He thought these were all
humans. But then how could you tell? Vampires were taller, slimmer
and had a few distinct features, like the eyes and fangs. But
everyone here had their eyes and mouths closed. None, however,
appeared super tall. He kept walking, his eyes going from face to
face.

"I don’t think these are the vampires
yet."

"Nor do I."

"Then we keep looking." Cody came to
the last one in the row. He studied the wall and the layout. It
definitely resembled what they’d seen on the monitor. He backed up
until he could see the people hanging at the end of the next row.
The last body, a male was taller.

And a vampire.

An old one at that. He frowned. As
vampires could live almost forever, to keep them suspended like
this was like a permanent living hell for the vampire in question.
Studying the tubing connected to this vampire, Cody realized his
blood was heading in a different direction altogether. But why? Who
would want it? What were they doing with vampires? Were they
harvesting vampires on a regular basis or only those who were in
their way? And were they just here to keep them from talking…or
were they running experiments on them?

A chill ran down his back. Shit. This
could be David or him. Or worse – Tessa.

"Dad. Do you know this one?" He
stepped back out of the way. Both elders stepped forward to get a
better look. Cody watching his father’s face, saw the color bleach
from his already white skin and saw him spread his legs in a wider
stance as if trying to recover from a blow.

"Oh no."

"Who is he?" David walked around Cody
to take a closer look, then shrugged his shoulders. "I don’t know
him."

"It’s Moltere. The man we thought was
behind all this."

"What?" Cody and David turned to
stare at the plastic-wrapped legend. "Tessa said we shouldn’t jump
to conclusions. Looks like she was right again. So if he isn’t
behind this mess, then who is?"

"That’s what we need to find
out."

David said, "Maybe he started it and
had a falling out with his partners?"

"If this is what happens to anyone
who crosses them, then we’d better not get on their bad side,"
Serus said, half joking.

There was nothing funny about this,
though. Cody frowned, "Too late. We already are."

***

Tessa sat on the side of Jared’s bed.
He was pale and lifeless, but it was the sudden lack of skin tone
that worried her the most. His cheeks sagged like he wore skin a
size too big for him. He'd look pretty good when they'd first seen
him, but now it was as if the life were dripping from him. Mom had
said something about the nutrients having kept him in good shape,
but without them…

Whatever it was, this aged versions
no longer looked like Jared.

She sniffled again. Then she shook
her head. What a maudlin teenager she was turning out to be. She
didn’t like that at all. She sniffled harder and wiped her eyes.
Straightening her back, she took another quick glance at her mother
whose head was tilted toward her father in deep discussion. Her dad
had arrived just a moment ago, a wild look on his face. Her mother
had raced over and they’d been there ever since.

As much as she wanted in on it, she
wasn't sure she wanted to know more. This had been an unbelievable
couple of days.

Her
guilt had subsided – but not abated. She hoped Jared made a full
recovery. She knew now she wasn’t responsible for his getting
kidnapped, and honestly, she didn’t know that anyone could have
found him any faster – but still, her people
had
done this to
him.

Her mother came over to her. "Tessa,
do you want to lie down here for a bit? Help is on the way, but
they're going to be a couple of hours yet."

Tessa cringed. "No. I don’t want to
sleep in this place. It gives me the creeps." All she saw when she
closed her eyes was that damn tubing running through every person,
pumping out their life force. She couldn’t imagine a worse type of
existence.

"Oh, honey. You’re safe now. No one
is going to get you here." She brushed Tessa’s long hair back off
her face. "I love what you did with your hair. Did I tell you
that?"

"No. The
last time…didn’t you ask what happened to my beautiful
hair
?
"
Tessa grinned at the pinched look she got in
return.

"Yes, well, I think that’s when I was
looking at my daughter’s beautiful black hair bleached to
nothing."

"Oh. I thought it was the
length."

Her mother looked puzzled for a
moment. Then her eyes widened and she came rushing around the end
of the bed. "You didn’t cut it, did you?"

"Just kidding Mom." Tessa laughed out
loud. It felt good to find something humorous amongst the living
dead here. "I didn’t cut it. I wouldn’t."

"Damn right." Rhia sniffed and walked
back toward Serus who stood guard at the entrance. "I’m going to
discuss strategy with your father. You get some rest. Sleep or not,
but at least lie down. There are plenty of beds here; you might as
well use them."

Tessa considered the rows of empty
beds. She was tired. There wasn’t anything more she could do at
this point. And there were plenty of vampires here to watch over
Jared. It honestly felt like a major crash-and-burn session had hit
her, with the crash part winning.

She studied Jared’s face. He didn’t
look like he’d be coming around any time soon. How they were going
to move him and all these other people was beyond her.

"Maybe I should. Just for a minute."
She wandered the long line of beds, then choose one across from
Jared. She didn’t want to be where she could be seen from the
warehouse or where she could see who and what hung there. What a
horrible last vision to take into dream state.

She stretched out and closed her
eyes.

***

Cody walked over to where the adults
were deep in discussion. "How long will it take for the teams to
get here?"

"Probably another hour, possibly two.
We've connected with Sian and Taz. They’re sending an assessment
team in first to determine what needs to be done, followed closely
by medical teams and equipment."

"Right. That could take a bit." He
turned his back to the macabre scene. He had enough visions to keep
him in horror movies for a long time. "There isn’t much we can do
now then, is there?"

"Just be aware. Just because we
couldn’t find anyone else, doesn’t mean there aren't any others –
waiting for an opportunity to pick us off one by one. Everyone
needs to stay together, at least in pairs."

"Speaking of everyone, where's
Tessa?"

"She’s lying down, on my orders."
Rhia frowned. "She’s exhausted."

Serus patted her arm. "She’ll be
fine. She comes from good stock."

"That may be, but she’s only a girl.
She shouldn’t be exposed to horrors like this at her age." She
rubbed her eyes. "I hate what she’s gone through."

"So do I. However, it’s happened, and
she’s come out a trooper. She’s really come into herself over this.
I wouldn’t want to have cheated her of that." Serus snagged her
shoulder in a quick hug.

Rhia looked up at them, smiled
slowly. "She did well, didn’t she?"

"Yes, she did." He smiled proudly
down at her.

Cody couldn’t help adding. "She’s
really grown these last couple of days. It's been amazing to
see."