* So much thanks for your reviews!! It's so wonderful to see, you still like my story. And as you can see the next chapter is ready (with the help of my dear Toria *hugs her tightly*). I hope you'll enjoy it! Yours, Jenna*
No. 230208
Crackling. "Totally quiet here… no one here so far…" Crackling. "In the house as well… oh, wait, there's something…"
Beth held her breath and pressed the small button of the headphones a bit deeper into her ear while she pressed a hand at the other ear to partly shield the noise of the helicopter.
"What! What exactly?" she heard Josef yell impatiently into his headset and gave him a worried look. But the eyes of the vampire were fixed on the elongated buildings several meters below them. They were the only buildings here. The rest of the landscape consisted of sand, stones and parched bushes: the desert of Nevada.
When she and Josef left L.A. she knew it wouldn't be an idyllic trip but she'd certainly never reckoned on a flight to Nevada in the company helicopter. Who would have guessed that someone would build a laboratory in the middle of nowhere to do cruel experiments on vampires? She gradually began to feel like a person in one of those very bad horror movies. If someone had told her this story a few years ago she would have instantly taken him to the funny farm herself.
"Max? Do you hear me?" Josef called against the roaring of the helicopter. "Where are you?"
"In the rear part of the main building," a deep voice roared into Beth's ear. It was one of the other four vampires who'd accompanied them. The 'hatchet men', as Josef had called them so nicely, hadn't exactly been enamoured with the idea of taking a human with them – especially when this human was a woman. But since they seem to have great respect for Josef, they hadn't dared to complain aloud, but rather confined themselves to darting disapproving glances at her when Josef was distracted.
"Things look black," she could now hear Max say and her heart did a little jump. "Three corpses. Look like watchmen. But they weren't murdered here. Looks like someone dragged them into this room."
Corpses? Did they come too late?
"No rigor mortis," she heard another voice. "Not so long ago that they've been killed."
With throbbing heart Beth watched Josef take one of those extremely expensive looking pieces of technology he'd loaded into the helicopter with the other men and direct it towards the terrain below them.
"Well, from here the farm looks forlorn," he said loudly. "The thermal image also shows no motion. So I think we just missed them."
"What'll we do now?" Max asked.
"Seek for some entry into the cellar rooms," Josef ordered. "I'm quite sure the laboratory lies under that building. Vampires have no tolerance for desert-heat."
He put the gadget aside, switched off his headset and bent to the pilot.
"Bring us down!" he called and the man nodded his understanding. Beth gripped her seat, a bit frightened when the helicopter began to sink with a jolt.
Josef smiled at her encouragingly but her feeling that he wasn't well at the moment stayed with her. He moved in the helicopter like he used it daily so it had to be something else.
"Maybe you should stay here," Josef called out to her against the noise as the whirly bird touched down. "We don't know what's waiting for us in that cellar! It could get dangerous and as a human you are much more vulnerable."
She nodded with a smile. "I'm coming with you!" she shouted back and Josef shook his head uncomprehendingly. He opened the side door and slid elegantly out of the helicopter. Beth unstrapped herself hastily and climbed out much less deftly. The noise was now earsplitting and the rotors of the helicopter produced such a strong wind, that she was almost afraid of getting blown away. It was Josef's strong arm that gripped her shoulders and pushed her down a bit to lead her out of the range of the rotors. Sand was blown into her eyes and mouth while they rushed ahead. She had to cough a few times until they were finally far enough away to breathe unhampered and talk in a normal manner.
Josef angrily brushed the dust from his expensive clothes, put on his sunglasses again, and shielded his face from the sun with one hand the way Mick used to do.
"Let's hope we're not doing something incredibly stupid," he murmured as they walked to the building.
"Who'd kill the watchmen?" Beth asked worried. "Is it possible they're still here?"
Josef shook his head without looking at her. He was engaged in searching for a trace of shadow on that area. The sun had already begun to sink but it was still very warm – much too warm for vampires…
Nevertheless Beth tried to gain his attention further on. There were so many questions that demanded answers very soon… questions that were frightening her…
"If it was the Legion," she started with a bad feeling in her guts, "… and they have spotted the lab…"
"If it had really been the Legion – what I suppose – then I ask myself why all this still exists and they didn't destroy it like they did the other one."
That was indeed a valid question and it caused her stomach to do some twirls.
"We don't know if Mick is here, Beth, if he's really alive," Josef answered her unspoken question while he hurried onward. "He can be anywhere… All we want to find out is what the freaks are doing here and where Mick is, if they really put their dirty hands on him…"
Beth breathed deeply. "Then we should definitely hurry," she replied and upped her tempo. They headed directly for the main building and didn't spend time looking around anymore. Josef exhaled, relieved when they opened the doors of the building and stepped into the dark, cool room behind it.
"Much better," he murmured and took off his sunglasses. The room they entered was barely furnished. There was an old, dusty sofa in one corner that was probably just used by vermin, a table and two chairs. In another corner was a kitchenette with a sink, a stove and a few cupboards. The dirty cups and dishes in the sink and the coffee machine with its still half filled coffee pot in it showed that it had been used. Anyway the room hadn't been cleaned for a long period of time. The corners were cobwebbed and a thick layer of dust covered the regions of the floor one didn't need to cross. The watchmen probably just used the room for their breaks.
"Comfy," Beth said quietly and looked at Josef whose expression wavered between abyssal disgust and disbelief.
"If somebody had really lived in here I'd eat a werewolf," he grumbled and pressed the button of his headset to reactivate it. Beth's receiver connected as well.
"Where are you?" Josef asked while he was walking into the flanking corridor, avoiding a low dangling cobweb.
Crackling, then a short hissing. "We… found… the… into…" were the only shreds of words which could get through the static noises. "… Right… is… lab…"
"What!" Josef stopped walking. "I don't understand you! Where are you? Where is the entrance to the cellar?"
Hissing.
"Max?"
No answer. Josef heaved a sigh. "Technology," he said shaking his head and closing his eyes to concentrate better on his vampire senses. He sucked the air around them into his nose, paused for a moment and then smiled at Beth.
"There's nothing better than the smell of fresh blood," he said and moved on again.
Beth's heart was beating faster when they came close to a further dark room. From afar she could see several bodies lying on the floor. Most likely the watchmen Max had talked about.
Josef's gaze just grazed the men while Beth noticed an oppressive feeling in her stomach. Someone had shot them in the head. One had lost one half of his face.
The vampire headed straight into the wall in front of them and only when she was following him on wobbly legs did Beth discover there was a passage that was usually locked with a heavy steel door. Now it was opened. The control box was broken open with brute force and the cables dangled out of it like the intestines of a dead animal.
Josef didn't hesitate any longer and rushed on through the straight, concreted corridor, which finally ended in front of an elevator.
"And now?" Beth asked breathlessly.
Josef shrugged his shoulders. "Now we're again placing ourselves into the hands of technology," he said with a sinister voice and pushed the button. The elevator was quick and quiet and looked, when the doors opened, more like the cabin of a spaceship.
"Not bad," Josef noted when they entered and Beth nodded agreeing, fighting back the discomfort and the fear, which was becoming more and more intense. She was afraid of the things she might see down there in the cellar while at the same time the urge to finally get into this laboratory grew. She was terribly nervous and sensed that Josef was like her – only outwardly he was amazingly relaxed.
"Oops!" Beth exclaimed, startled when the elevator moved down with a flounce. She pressed a hand at her stomach to keep the feeling of unease under control.
Josef gave her an encouraging smile. His eyes left hers quickly but strangely roamed to her neck. She frowned but couldn't say anything for the elevator stopped with a start. The doors opened almost soundlessly and revealed a long flagged hall, which was brightly lighted by neon lights at the ceiling. It was cold and sterile… like the one in her dream.
A shudder ran through Beth's body and she was sure her pulse rate was unhealthy.
"That's it!" She was agitated and anxious; the urge to lunge forward and to shout for Mick out loud was so strong she just had to give in to it….
But there were Josef's hands firmly gripping her shoulders and pulling her close to him. His eyes bored into hers. "You won't freak out now, Beth!" he demanded emphatically. "This kind of laboratory exists everywhere! And dreams are not reliable sources!"
"I know… I know," she stated grudgingly, more in control. "But he could be here, Josef!"
"And then we'll find him," he promised. "All we need is a bit of time and patience!"
She knew he was right but her need to prove to herself that Mick wasn't dead, her longing to find him and finally pull him into her arms again, was so strong, that it pushed every clear thought to the back of her mind.
"Breathe!" Josef said urgently. He had bent down to her a bit and now was at eye level with her. She let out the breath she had unknowingly held and closed her eyes for a moment.
'Brace yourself, Turner! In this state you're no help!' she said to herself and breathed deeply a few times more. When she opened her eyes again her pulse had slowed down a bit.
"That's good," Josef said satisfied and dared to let her go again. "We will now seek the others and then we'll take it from there. There's no sense in running around and opening all the doors. Maybe there's an office with files somewhere …"
He activated his headset again.
"Max?"
Again a crackling, then suddenly the connection was back.
"Yeah. We've found the lab and…"
"I know. We're down as well. Where are you?"
"Wait…"
A door opened at the other end of the corridor. A dark, heavily armed shape appeared and waved its hand.
Josef and Beth got going at the same time and rushed to him.
"What do you have?" Josef instantly asked the athletic, clear-cut man in front of him.
"Most of the rooms are empty," the vampire reported after giving Beth a long, distinctly disapproving look. "Phillip and Connor are still exploring everything else but at the moment it looks as if there's not a soul about."
"No vampires either?" Josef asked surprised.
Max took another long gaze at Beth and then looked at Josef with an oddly questioning expression in his eyes.
"She can stand it," Josef gave back and Max nodded his understanding.
"There are two dead bodies in one of the other rooms," he continued and Beth's stomach turned. "But no one who fits the description you gave me. They've been dead for several days and – let's put it like this - examined very closely."
Beth knew what he meant. For a while dead test subjects also had a certain value for the research.
"Doesn't look good," Max, added harshly. "Hope we'll have the chance to let the bastards pay for that very soon…"
Josef's cheek muscles twitched suspiciously when he agreed with a nod of his head.
"Anything else?" he muttered through tense lips.
Max shook his head. "I think the people who worked here were cognizant that their 'friends' would soon appear and said goodbye to their little project as quickly as possible. They didn't have much time – and had to leave most things behind"
He pointed with a slight motion of his head to the room behind him and took a step aside to let Josef and Beth enter it.
"I would assume that this was their office," he explained while Josef and Beth were scanning the room. Besides Josef, Beth, and Max another vampire was in the room, which was equipped with three desks, several computers and file cabinets. The other vampire had pulled open some drawers and was removing one file after the other. Josef instantly approached him and relieved him of a file. He opened it immediately. Beth walked to him and skimmed through the lines of the first sheet with throbbing heart.
It looked like a patient chart, cluttered with medical terms and notes. Ahead in the margin was no name, just a number. Josef impatiently turned the pages over. X-rays and diverse body scans followed… further notes – unreadable for laypersons. No statements about the person, no photos of a face – as if in fact they had been just animals, test objects, with whom the working staff shouldn't bond in a personal way.
Josef dropped the file onto the desk and took the next, browsed through it angrily and looked at the other vampire ungraciously, as if it were his fault that they had no use for that kind of information.
"Do they all look like that?" he asked and ripped one of the files out of the man's hands, just to meet with disappointment again.
The vampire nodded. "Yeah. Just numbers, no names. They were careful."
Beth grabbed the first file again and looked at the number a bit more closely. She took another one and compared it with the first.
"How many are there?" she heard Josef ask, while her mind functioned at top speed. There was something…
"Not too many. Twenty, I guess. But they didn't survive a long time. In all the files I've had my hands on the dates of death are noted. By the way, the other cabinets are empty. They didn't do it on a grand scale."
'Do not listen! You don't want to hear that!' Beth said to herself and grabbed the next file. The digits at the end…
"Pack it all in," Josef ordered. "We have to go through it with a fine tooth comb. And we need medical experts."
Beth's eyes widened. How could she have been so blind? "Wait… wait, Josef!" she called and stopped the two of them from stuffing all files into one of the big, dark bags they'd brought along.
"It's a date! They just numbered them with the date of the day they'd caught them!"
For a short moment Josef seemed to be paralyzed, then he grabbed one pile of the files and slapped it onto the table.
"Help me! Go!" he called out over his shoulder to the other vampires and began to rummage through the pile with tremendous speed.
"We're searching the 23rd February 2008!" he explained. "Number 230208."
Beth's heartbeat was again beyond any normality, while she was quickly opening files and throwing them aside like some kind of a robot. 'We'll find you… we'll find you…' it hammered in her head. 'Hang in there… we just need a sign… a hint…"
A cracking in her ear reminded her that there where still other men who were examining the rest of the laboratory.
"Guys come here, you must see this!" she heard a brighter voice say. "This room is full of things they took from the vampires…"
Beth looked up, gazing at Josef. She knew they were thinking the same thing.
"Phil, where are you?" a harried Josef asked.
"A little way up the corridor and then right hand! It's some kind of a chamber…"
Josef nodded to her and Beth dropped her file, flung around and rushed ahead. Her feet almost flew over the flagged floor while her stomach did one twirl after another. Breathless she stopped at an open door and slipped into the room past the tall, dark-haired vampire who was standing in the doorframe, looking at her with confusion. There were several shelves against the walls loaded with smaller and bigger opened boxes.
"Are the others coming as well?" she heard Phillip ask a bit angrily but she wasn't able to respond to him. Beth's eyes sought for something familiar in all these boxes, something that proved Mick had been here. Finally her eyes struck a small basket filled with jewellery and other valuables. It was difficult for her to breathe as she reached out her hand for something that was appallingly familiar to her. A silvery-looking, ancient ring…
It was his; she knew it before her fingers had closed around it. It was Mick's ring, the one he wore constantly. For a moment she looked at it, shaken, then the realization that she had been right, that her dream hadn't been just a dream and Mick went through hell for a year hit her with such tremendous force that she wasn't able to breathe for a few seconds. Beth took a step forward to hold on to the shelf.
The line was cracking again. "Guys, it doesn't look good here," another voice reported. "I think I'm in some kind of control centre… and that directly in front of me… it looks like a countdown…"
Beth didn't listen. Her gaze had caught something else and she more felt than walked her way along the shelf to the bigger baskets that were filled with clothes. She took a last wavering step and reached out for a dark coat, which was lying on top of one of the baskets. It was heavy and long, made of expensive fabric, and she knew to whom it belonged. Her gaze often caressed it, when Mick appeared in it. That coat underlined his dark, seductive side, made him even more attractive and alluring and quickened her heartbeat each time. But this time it blurred her vision as her eyes filled with hot tears. She pressed the coat to her chest, tried to breathe steady, and tried to gain control of the emotional turmoil within her.
Crackling. Hissing. "If I'm not mistaken, we have twenty minutes left…"
Quick steps echoed through the hall. When Beth turned around, Josef appeared in the doorframe. His eyes roamed hastily over all the things on the shelves and stopped at Beth's face. He looked harried, but also broken… almost as broken as she suddenly felt.
"He's here," she uttered with a shaky voice and reached out the coat to him. "Josef, those are his things…"
"I know." His voice was strangely grave and husky. "But we have to go."
"No!" she shouted in panic. "We must search for him! He's here, Josef!"
She noticed with horror that he was shaking his head. "Not anymore," he replied with much difficulty. He pressed his lips together as if he had to fight against his own turmoil and raised his hand. His fingers firmly clutched one of the files.
Beth's quick wit and the gaze Josef gave her told her everything – things she refused to believe. She just couldn't cope with it… not now… not when she had just recovered her hope… when they were so close to Mick…
The coat slipped out of her paralyzed fingers. She couldn't hold her tears anymore. "Where… where did they take him?" she asked, although she was sure this was the wrong question.
Josef approached her. His gaze roamed the ground and when he looked at her again his eyes were full of tears as well. "He… he was pronounced dead two days ago…"
She shook her head… again and again. "No that's just paper, like this list, just paper."
"Beth!" He grabbed her face with one hand and held her, forced her to look into the horrible face of truth. "This is a death certificate with the official signature of a doctor. They burned his body. We won't find something here! He's dead!"
"No!" she screamed and freed herself from his grip by force. "That's not true! It's… it's not true!" A helpless sob was torn from her throat. "I'll… find him…"
And with that she rushed forward, pushed Josef out of her way with her shoulder and stumbled into the hall. She had no time to think about which direction she had to go. She intuitively hurried up the cold, threatening looking corridor towards another door… a door with a milky glass panel at the other end of the hall… Mick had been here… within her reach… so close…
Naturally she had no chance against the vampires' rapidity and strength. Josef was at her side in a split second. He pulled her around and shook her.
"Come to your senses!" he snapped at her and his eyes were now white-blue with rage and emotion. "You'll kill us all!"
"Let go of me!" she screamed at him and tried to free herself again. "I won't leave him here!" She noticed how crazy she sounded. "I'll find him… I'll find him…!"
Josef didn't respond to her, instead he grabbed her more firmly picking her up in a fireman's lift.
Beth didn't get out anything but deep, helpless sobs, while Josef moved them both through the corridors with breath-taking speed. The others joined them quickly, laden with heavy bags, but Beth didn't care. She felt so empty and numb, for with every step Josef took, the realization that she had lost Mick forever sank in deeper and pitilessly killed the small flame of hope that had carried her through the last days…
