Free Vampire in Crisis by Dale Mayer Page A

arrivals…they won’t be given a chance to warn the others, that’s for sure,” Goran snapped, pulling out his phone. “And these two men at the top need to be sequestered until we know for sure which side they are on.”
    Tessa, realizing he’d be calling Motre up above, turned to make sure all the new energies had actually gone into the elevator and not come out as the older ones had. It took her a moment to sort the colors before she realized. “Six arrived as a single group. One came here and went back the same way. Five went up the elevator.”
    “Shit.”
    David shook his head and kept moving forward. “Let’s make sure no more are coming. The others upstairs can deal with the trojans in their midst.”
    “Can they, though?” Cody wondered out loud. “Or is it going to take Tessa to see who is good and bad again?”
    “If so, then she needs to go back up and find the traitors,” Serus snapped. “We will follow this direction and find out where they came from.”
    Tessa hated to be sent back but if she didn’t go, could the others find the right men? If they didn’t, how much damage could the men do on their own? Her footsteps slowed. And those two ‘guards’ needed to be checked over. But given the potential drug issue through the vents, it was dangerous. Too dangerous. Especially for those she loved.
    “Damn it.”
    Cody stopped a step ahead of her and turned, his gaze piercing. “What’s the matter?”
    “We need to get those men out of there. What if there are other elevators here like this one? Or hidden staircases or something,” she cried out in frustration. “Our people won’t know until it’s too late.”
    “Are you wanting to go back upstairs?” he asked.
    “I don’t want to leave my family alone to face whatever is around the corner,” she said.
    Serus tossed back, “We’ll be fine. Go find those sneaky bastards.”
    Crap. She could see the energy trails in the distance but had no idea what lay off in the shadows beyond.
    As if sensing her uncertainty, Goran stopped and faced her and said, “We’ve been fighting wars like this for a long time. Don’t worry. Go get the others separated so they can’t do more damage to the place.”
    “I’m more concerned about the gas,” she admitted, “than the actual vampires.”
    Everyone stopped.
    Her father turned his hard gaze on her. “Gas? What are you talking about?”
    “I told you about that when I first saw you at the top of the elevator. Some of the men that were clear now have drugs in their system.” She frowned at the confusion on both Goran and Serus’s face. “Remember I was afraid that they’d be using the ventilation system to spread gas throughout and poison all of us.” When anger started to light their gazes, she cried out, “I told you about it – that’s why the mass exodus.”
    Goran shook his head. “You told us about everyone leaving via the elevator but not why.”
    Sure she had, hadn’t she? Confused, Tessa tried to remember what she’d said to whom and realized she couldn’t. She closed her eyes and groaned. “I swear I did.”
    “It’s too late to worry. Give it to us now,” her father demanded.
    Quickly she explained about the two men and the black trail leading to the window and the vamps hiding outside who’d then been burnt in the sun.
    The anger in the men’s faces turned darker. “Little buggers. A gas like that is likely to affect everyone.”
    “Exactly. That’s why I thought everyone should leave.”
    “You do realize that as we’ve all come down here, we won’t know if the gas has been administered already or not. We could go back up there to find out we lost the war already and didn’t even know it,” David spoke up impatiently.
    “Therefore Tessa needs to get back upstairs so she can let us know what the energies look like and find the assholes that snuck in on us.” Serus said. “We’ll go track down the base these guys are using and hopefully find out their