Aaron had asked Shane to take a team and gather up all of the wounded, transporting them to one of the larger rooms on the ground floor near Faye’s office. Even though they’d ridden up a couple of floors from the lowest level, that floor was still above them here, and Aaron remembered the first day he’d toured this facility with Janette and Jordan and they’d explained how it was virtually impossible to escape from. Unless, of course, your maintenance man Vampire decides to become a turncoat.
“Thanks, Shane,” Aaron said, forcing himself to focus on what Vern was saying, even though he wanted to check on Cadence and see how she was doing, as well as Tara, the injured Hunter Shane had spoken of.
“They just... seemed not to be thinking straight. And Spittle said he knew what to do, how to trip you up so you couldn’t talk to one another. He said he knew how to get into the apartments, that he’d been watching.”
“Watching who?” Elliott asked as they stepped through a strange mixture of blood and ash on the floor near the first set of rooms used to house the Vampires who decided they’d rather live here than re-enter society after helping LIGHTS hunt down their own kind.
“His cell is right across from the monitoring station,” Vern explained. “Or… it was anyway. I guess that’s what he meant.”
“Well, aren’t we a bunch of dumbasses?” Elliott shook his head and caught Aaron’s eyes. Since his words were hard to come by, the Guardian Leader chose not to waste any with a response. “So… he jammed our IACs?”
“I guess so. And then they overtook the Guardians on duty on the other floors, I think. I could see some of their thoughts. They intended to go to the apartments, to find the Hunters, and Spittle said he knew how. But… then the girl came, and they stopped. She… she’s not like you. She’s special.”
“The girl?” Elliott asked as Vern stopped outside of his room. Though it was essentially a jail cell, it was nicely furnished. Each Vampire had their own TV, private bathroom, even a kitchen area with a microwave, besides a full-sized bed. It was more like a small hotel room than a prison, though they couldn’t exactly come and go as they pleased.
“Yeah—the one who can see.”
Elliott looked at Aaron with his eyebrows arched. “You don’t mean the little girl, the one Marcos and his wife were taking care of?”
“That devil? No,” Vern said hastily. “Although, I think whatever madness possessed the others, it came from her. She’s gone now, isn’t she?”
“Thanks to the bossman here and Van’s knife, yeah.”
At the mention of Van Helsing’s name, Vern shuttered. It had been the last weapon Aaron grabbed out of the locked cabinet in his office, but something had told him if he ever needed it, this would be the night. Jordan had given it to him long ago, after Van had been killed in an ambush not too many years after Wallachia. He checked his back pocket to make sure it was still there.
Vern must’ve seen the motion because he walked into his room and backed behind his recliner, his hands still up. “The girl frightens us. She can walk around inside of our heads. Some of the others claim they can see her, too, but… I can’t. I only know when she’s there.” He sighed and dropped his eyes to the ground for a second before looking back up. “Anyway, Spittle thought she’d know; she’d sound the alarm. So he decided to run. They said they’d bide their time, come back later. That’s all I know, I swear.”
Once again, Elliott looked to Aaron to make sure they were in agreement. “You’ve been extremely helpful, Vern. We’ll make sure you get some nicer digs, nicest ones around, man.”
Aaron was just about to agree when he realized Vern’s disposition was shifting. The right side of his upper lip began to curl, and though it looked like he was fighting it, he began to snarl. His eyes enlarged and he began to whimper. “Oh, God, no!”
Despite his promise to keep them up, his hands came down, and he reached for his mouth, as if he was trying to manually keep his fangs in position.
“What the hell?” Elliott said, raising his Glock.
“No, don’t,” Aaron insisted, pushing the barrel down. Clearly, whatever was happening to Vern, it wasn’t his choice. He grabbed Elliott by the shoulder and pulled him out into the hallway, slamming the door behind them just as Vern lost the battle, and with a ferocious snarl, launched himself against the solid steel door. Looking through the plexiglass window, Aaron could see his face contorting; he looked nothing like the anxious little man they’d found cowering in the darkness only ten minutes ago.
While holding the door closed, Aaron rapidly punched a code into a keypad next to the door with his hand, not trusting his IAC to do it efficiently just yet. A beep assured him that the door was secure and a green light began to blink. He still didn’t let go of the door handle as Vern backed up and ran full speed into the door, bouncing off and trying again.
Elliott trained his Glock straight ahead. “Let it go. We’re covered.”
Sure he was right, Aaron released the handle and felt a wave of relief wash over him when it held. It seemed that the system was still working, and as they backed away, the Vampire appeared to tire of ramming into the door as the thunking sounds came at longer intervals.
Still, unwilling to take a chance, Aaron made a call. “Paxton, can you grab whoever is closest in proximity to you and get down here to the informant cells? We’ve got one wound up Vampire down here, and I don’t want to leave until someone else has eyes on him.”
“You got it, sir,” the other Guardian replied. He might not be that reliable, but surely, he could handle this. Aaron and Elliott backed up to lean against the wall and wait to be relieved, wishing this night could just be over.
