Vampire in Crisis by Dale Mayer

again. She hated being injured. Always had. But this was different. A break she could watch heal. A scratch or bruise took minutes to return to normal. Drugs though, they wrecked her body and played with her mind. She didn’t even want to think about what they did to her emotions. She wished David had stayed with her. She really didn’t want to be alone now.
    Through the misery in her mind, she thought she heard a voice calling. She froze, staring at the door. Had she locked it?
    She could feel herself readying for a fight to come. Pretty pathetic. A young sick female standing soaking wet and nude – what was she going to do, throw water in their eyes?
    Then – her heart gasping in shock all the while her mind struggled to believe – she felt her wings unfurl. And damn if one, at her instinctive command, didn’t wrap around to hide her slender form.

Chapter 4

    T essa walked back along the hallway, a quiet audience behind her. She had no idea how the black energy was being transferred amongst the young men she’d saved. If she couldn’t figure it out soon, the system could be repeated. She’d quickly lose control of who was on which side.
    She spun around and looked back at the open window. There was a pooling of mixed energy sitting right there. Made sense. Anyone who needed a breath of fresh air would have been tempted to stand there.
    Had the men been on the other side waiting for an unsuspecting dupe? If so, how had they administered the drugs? The canisters they’d held? If their canisters could be retrieved, the contents could be checked. She studied the turbulent mix of energies and realized the darkness, the original darkness, was thin and light and surrounded a much wider area than she’d suspected. From the looks of things, it had been turned into a deadly gas and sprayed on or around the men as they stood there – much like perfume would have been.
    The men likely never knew anything was wrong. An odd smell perhaps, but likely nothing more than that. So how many had been affected and how could she tell for sure?
    Plus she needed to save the two affected men. If she could.
    And why administer the drugs this way? Or was the enemy trying new methods to regain control of the hospital? Still, this would be an incredibly slow method. Just one or two men at a time. “Of course,” she muttered, her gaze going to the large group still following her. “As a core sample, it’s a hell of a way to figure out whether this form of administration was effective or not.”
    “Administration of what?” Cody asked beside her.
    “Drugs,” she said succinctly. “In a gas form. Sprayed into the air in front of us. We walk through it and inhale a hefty dose.” She looked back to see the two men and called them closer. The sea of men parted to let them through. She swept the black cloudiness from the first man’s energy, noticing how much straighter he stood.
    There was silence around her, watching her every moment.
    “Surely that wouldn’t make sense. It’s a poor delivery system,” Cody said while she worked.
    “Maybe, but not as a trial.”
    “And if it works? Then what?” someone asked behind her.
    “How would they deliver something like that on a massive scale?” Cody said, shifting his position so he could see what she was doing.
    Murmurs around her had men crowding around in anger. She quickly cleared the second man’s system. At the raised voices, she held up her hand.
    “Think, everyone. What could they use to deliver a massive dose of drugs to everyone here?”
    “Shit.”
    Cody’s heartfelt whisper had her turning to him. She made a clipped movement with her head. “Exactly.”
    “What?” cried the young man she’d been working on.
    “What are they planning?” the other men cried.
    “The ventilation system would make the most sense. They have a massive duct highway running through the hospital. If they wanted to, they could release the lethal gas into the vents and it would filter