"Sure." She clicked a couple more keys and sure enough, now he could see the street names.

"Scroll in."

She did.

He leaned forward and gasped then jabbed his finger at the monitor. "That ambulance was at the home where I watched Tobias being removed."

"Really? Are you sure?" She clicked on something then tapped a few more b.u.t.tons. "I'm just printing off this screen." She got up and walked over to the printer while Jared studied the screen some more. Then he saw something else. "Wendy, this may not be the right ambulance we're looking for."

"Oh? Why's that?"

"It was at the real hospital twice today." He tapped the screen. "That would be totally normal."

Taz walked into the room right that minute. "Sorry, Jared, what did you say about the hospital?"

Wendy and Jared quickly explained. Taz held out his hand for the printed sheet and pursed his lips as he studied the map. "Interesting. You're right, Jared, it was at the hospital twice today, but any of the normal ambulances would likely have done more trips than two each." He tilted his head and stared off in s.p.a.ce. Placing the paper down, he added, "Sometimes they can only get a couple of trips in. Wendy, can you get a time of day for each of these stops? I could then double check the patients that were admitted, transferred, or released during that time frame."

"Sure."

Fascinated, Jared stayed in the background as Taz logged into his administrator account at the hospital and checked the times over. When they both sat silent, staring at the screen, Jared burst out with, "Well?"

He moved to stand in front of them. "Is it the one we are looking for?"

Taz and Wendy looked at each other, then at Jared.

With big grins on their faces, they both said, "Yes, it looks like it."

Chapter 14.

Tessa slipped onto the hallway of the second floor where Motre had holed up with the last group and found it empty. Good. Or not. She had no idea where things were on the war front. It felt like she'd been out of the loop a little too much. d.a.m.n Deanna and her machinations. But Tessa was fine now, and that's what counted.

She walked faster and turned a corner. There was a group of men ahead. Their energy was all glossy blue and green. She smiled at them. "Any vamps I need to look at?"

They all straightened and shook their heads. "It doesn't look like it."

"Is that Tessa?"

A huge voice boomed out of the room.

Motre. She laughed delightedly. "Hey, stranger."

"Stranger?" He grinned. "Only because you're so d.a.m.n slow getting here."

Tessa winced. She could well imagine. She'd been fighting her own problems. "Sorry. I was a little busy."

He nodded, already greeting the men with her. "Hey, Serus. Glad to see you in fighting form as usual. Hi, Cody, still on guard duty, I see."

Tessa tuned out the men as she turned to stare at the room full, and she meant full, of vamps. Some were in better shape than the others. But she noted with relief that there was no blackness coming off of any of them. That was indeed good news.

She spun around. "So are we ready to leave then?"

Motre nodded. "We tried to do that not too long ago but hit a fighting party, forcing us back. So-" He shrugged. "We backed off. But I'd say my group is raring to give it another try."

One young man slouched against a wall in the back piped up insolently, "Except that we were waiting for reinforcements. They are hardly reinforcements. A woman, an old man, and a kid. Like what the h.e.l.l, Motre? We need an army."

Serus, his hackles visibly rising, opened his mouth when Tessa jumped in first. "I don't doubt you do," she said with emphasis. "We, however, don't. You're free to stand back and wait for another group to rescue you." Her gaze swept past the others. "Any of you can." She shrugged. "But your best bet is with us. Don't believe us? No problem." She gave him a feral smile. "Feel free to stay."

Motre jumped in front of her as she spun, ready to stalk back out of the room.

"So we have a plan?" he asked, eagerness in his voice.

She nodded. "We do."

"Glad to hear it," Serus muttered. "Cause if we don't, how about I just throw men out the window in a heap and when it's big enough, those left still standing can climb out."

Tessa laughed. "Wouldn't that be fun? No, we're going to go down the stairs just like you did before."

Motre studied her. "And what's going to be different about this attempt versus the last attempt?" He glanced back at the group listening in and lowered his voice, adding, "Some of them are pretty weak. The last battle wasn't pretty."

The others crowded around to hear her answer. She smiled. "You'll see."

And she left.

Cody hurried to catch up. "Um, Tessa, could you let me in on this plan of yours, please?"

Serus, from behind, called forward. "I want to know what's up your sleeve too, young lady."

"Especially since nothing has changed out there," Motre said.

"Sure it has," she said cheerfully. "I'm back in fighting form and could use a good dustup." At her words, she chuckled. "Speaking of which, where's Goran?"

She spun around to look at Motre. "I thought he'd come here with David to help out."

"Nope, no sign of them here." Motre glanced back at the mess of young injured and weak vamps mixed among those that had recovered. "Sure could use them though."

She nodded. "Dad?"

"I'm asking him so far he's not answering."

"He went after Bart, didn't he?" She spun to look at her father. "You knew?"

"Sure. It wasn't a secret." He shrugged. "That guy is a loose cannon."

She thought about it and realized that it was a good idea. At least this way someone was going to run down the canister. So that worked. She still hadn't looked at the camera shots either. "We were going to go to the security room and check the video feed of what happened here."

"Don't bother," Motre said, "We took them down a long time ago."

She glanced at him in surprise. "Oh, so much for that idea. I'd hoped they'd tell us who was still on the enemy's side."

"Everyone who's not here," he snapped. "At least that's how we're going to handle them."

Tessa stopped and glanced back at the men following. She couldn't see any of the foreign delegates. "Did all the men and dignitaries get out safely?"

"Everyone is out except what you see here. We were only a little ways behind the last group, but it was just enough for them to move into position." Motre shrugged. "In theory, they should have well-sh.o.r.ed up defenses by now making them dangerous as h.e.l.l, but I've seen you do some pretty interesting things these few weeks. If you say we can go this way and handle whatever is out there, then I'm willing to follow you."

She laughed. "Smart choice."

"What choice?" muttered someone behind her. "Kill or be killed. What happened to my nice university life?"

"I'd say you got caught up in the blood farm roundup." Cody snorted. "You're not the only one. Lots of guys here did, too."

Motre spoke to Serus behind her. "Do you think they have another place to hide out if we can get this place cleared?"

Serus growled. "They do. We're still seeing way too many of them for them to be hurting for men or supplies, and that means they have places to go to restock. Grab reinforcements."

"How do we find and kill all those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds?" the same kid piped up. "I'd kinda like to go back to school."

"We're working on it," Cody said. "The more places like this one that we can clean out, the more we can hurt them in a big way. You guys were all the next batch of recruits. Count yourself lucky that you're not further in their process to becoming enhanced."

To Motre, she asked. "Are you sure this is the last group?"

He nodded. "Yes. We've gone from the top down. We did a sweep on the lower floors earlier but didn't find much."

She nodded. That confirmed their findings, except that there were always rooms on these floors where people could hide. She knew Goran and David were down in the lower floors and if they were, then there would be others. "What about the nursing staff? Anyone see any of them?"

"No, we haven't seen any staff here."

"Good. Then we don't have to worry about them."

"What are you going to do to keep them from moving back into this place if you can actually get it cleared out?"

"No idea," she answered cheerfully. "Not my problem."

Cody laughed. "It might become your problem."

"No," she said calmly. "Someone else needs to take that on."

"So delegate," he said. "They listen to you. You can set up a team and set them on it."

"They won't like me making those decisions."

"So? You're in a special position now. You hold Deanna's information. In theory, you're the one with the most information. The vast wisdom of the elders."

"Ha. Not sure how wise Deanna was. She made some s.h.i.tty choices."

"So have we, Tessa. So have we."

She glanced at him. "Well, the one decision I want to finalize right now is the one that lets me leave this hospital. I'm starting to hate anything that stops me from doing or going where I want."

Behind her, she overheard Motre and Serus discussing the attack on Sian. She couldn't believe they'd been so brazen and had attacked Sian so close to the Council Hall. And what about Taz and Jared? She still struggled with the concept of Jared in the Council Hall. And she hadn't even heard it firsthand from him. No, Ian had texted Cody. Like who'd have thought that a human would be allowed?

Things must be changing for him to be there. Then again, it was also overflowing with the intruders and foreign visitors. She'd like to be there herself. What to do with an empty building wasn't her priority. Getting out was.

Motre had said he had the last of the injured vamps, but she couldn't trust the enemy.

She pushed open the double doors leading to the first floor and walked through. The others followed. Ahead was a large group of vamps. A cry rose in front of her and they raced toward her.

The hallway was narrow here. There'd only be a skirmish up front, and no one else would be able to get into the action.

The group behind her groaned, and she could hear the collective back straightening and shoulder squaring as the fight approached. They might be injured and drugged and weak, but they were game. She could respect that. But they didn't have to fight.

In fact, no one did.

She'd take them out before the first punch was thrown.

Just one of the benefits of having fought Deanna and won. She understood so much more.

In fact...she drew on Hortran's bit of energy, wrapped it around her, and walked faster. Keeping ahead of the rest of her group, she added more wattage to Hortran's old bits and felt herself power up. She almost laughed. The system he'd used to kill was so easy a child could do it. In fact, she'd been using a form like that to do her healing work.

The lesson always was energy couldn't disappear. It could only change form. In this case, it was the energy of his enemies that kept Hortran alive.

And likely Deanna, too. Memories bounced inside her head. Of Hortran teaching Deanna. Of her practice runs that hadn't gone so well. And her successful attempts.

Later, much later, she'd have to a.n.a.lyze how she felt about Deanna's methodology for having such a long life, but at the moment she realized the trick was d.a.m.n good.

Cody, stay back.

Like h.e.l.l.

You need to. You'll get caught in the backlash.

His footsteps faltered.

Good. Keep the others back too.

He instinctively threw out both arms to stop Serus and Motre from following too close.

Neither man appreciated it, sending him dark looks.