Secrets Of Sanctuary Hospital Nightmare Of The Dark Shadows (3 page)

He responds quietly knowing that any start
could break my connection to them. “If you can’t see anything,
listen for a clue as to where they are going or what they are
passing.”

Concentrating harder, I hear the continuous
revving of the car’s motor. They must be pushing the car at top
speed. A gruff man’s voice rings out. “How long do you think we
have before someone finds them?”

An angry woman quips. “We would have had more
time if you were smart enough to bring help. We could have disposed
of their bodies or taken them with us.”

“You know that was impossible. No one else
was close enough and we can only trust family.”

“William said he would be in town today. Why
didn’t you contact him?”

“By the time we got our instructions, he was
upon the family he was to retrieve from the outskirts. We should
arrive shortly after he does. He would have never met up with us in
time and if he tried, we would have lost a perfectly good meal.
Besides, my instructions were stake and leave, so that is what I
did.”

Andrew’s cool touch pulls me from my
connection. As my eyes flutter open, I see him bolt from the
vehicle. I quickly run toward the room, knowing I cannot catch him.
Entering, Andrew is exiting the children’s bedroom. His deadpan
features confirm the children are gone! Hearing struggling from
behind the couch, he moves quickly to the blanket lying on the
floor. Removing it, Catherine and Lucas lay staked and
paralyzed.

I pull at Lucas’ stake while Andrew removes
Catherine’s.

Before they even regain their ability to
speak, Andrew is combing the room for clues and scents. Other than
a tipped desk chair, nothing appears out of place, leading me to
believe that everyone was caught by surprise and did not have time
to struggle. The overwhelming scent of ether resonates throughout
the room. My head is swimming once more, despite my only seeing two
small blue cloths that were probably used to inebriate the
children.

I am about to ask Andrew if he detects
anything, when Catherine and Lucas sit up. Andrew turns to them.
“What happened?”

Catherine response is almost too quick for me
to process the words. “We arrived at the hotel and put the children
to bed. Coming out of the room, I heard a noise behind me but
before I could turn around, I was staked and on the floor. I could
only see the ceiling and then they covered my eyes with the
blanket, probably so I couldn’t see anything if one of them ran
past me. There were definitely two of them because I heard their
footsteps heading into the children’s room. They moved swiftly and
without a word. I ...” She glances toward Andrew and hesitates.

“Catherine, please just tell us what you
know, my children’s lives are at stake!” I almost explode in my
desperate plea to have her hold nothing back from either of us.

“It’s just that I believe that they knocked
out Nicholas and Kayla first and quickly because I heard a very
brief struggle which I would assume was Jacob and Nicole because it
would be harder to knock them out.”

I knew exactly what she was saying because I
thought I caught a brief glance of Jacob and Nicole seeing the blue
cloths coming toward them and feeling their momentary fear before
they too succumbed to the darkness.

Through the veil of tears which I refuse to
let escape, I notice Andrew turning to Lucas. “Did you see
anything?”

“Only a hand coming around me and then I was
on the floor. Catherine is right. There were two of them because
she and I went down simultaneously.”

“Did either of you smell or detect anything?
Obviously it had to be another vampire or someone that knows about
us and how to take us out!”

“There was no trace of anyone in the room
when we arrived. If we even had a hint that something was off, we
would have gotten the children out before anything could have
happened. They had to come in while we were talking to them before
bed. They had to do something though besides just pouring the ether
around here to mask their scent.”

Andrew stares at him. “What do you mean?”

“Andrew, think about it, even if we were
distracted with talking to the kids about the dinner, we would have
detected another vampire coming into the vicinity. If they were
just vampires their scent would have drifted into the children’s
room long before we left it. Whatever they are, they knew how to
elude our catching their scent prior to the children’s abduction
and they are obviously aware that ether destroys our ability to
detect remnants their scent may have left behind.”

Andrew rushes into our room and then into the
children’s room. Turning to me, he grabs my wrists and I see his
desperation. “Mia, see if you can get any information on who took
them or where they are going. While you do that, we will follow the
ether scent until it dissipates. I’ll call Gabriel and get the
others to fly over here! It’s someone in our realm, so we are on
our own. Catherine, you stay with Mia. Lucas and I will see how far
we can go before the ether totally dissipates if it hasn’t already.
I can smell the impending rain. Once it falls, all possibility of
any type of trail will be lost.”

He is out the door, before I gather the
children’s things to place around me hoping to get a quick
connection and understanding as to what is happening, knowing that
Andrew is following a fleeting lead at best. My little angel
appears on my shoulder, repeating her quiet mantra. Stay calm, only
then will your connection be clear. You know they are alive, hold
on to that. You can help them, I know you can. She’s right. If I
allow my panic to engulf me, I will never connect to them and any
chance of getting even a glimpse of the precious information that
we need to find them will be lost.

“Mia, I’m so sorry. I should have...”

Catherine incessant apologizing is only
fueling my anxiety. Raising my hand up, she stops. If I allow
myself to register that the children are gone, my panic will
cripple me, keeping me from feeling anything. Shoving my phone in
Catherine’s hands, “call Emma, and tell her what’s happening. Ask
if she knows of anything that can help me get a better handle on
them and their surroundings.” Sitting, I lay my hands on their
belongings trying to force a quick connection. Blocking out
Catherine’s voice, a sea of blackness stretches before me as a
revving engine screams through the darkness. The children are still
in the car. The overwhelming scent of ether alerts me to the
children’s unconscious and semi-conscious states, but their
heartbeats are still strong. Concentrating on how my body feels,
they are still cramped, bound to their torsos. Someone is
registering the man and woman bickering. Concentrating on their
voices, the next sentence out of the man’s mouth turns my blood
cold.

“Maybe we should stop and stake them. We have
been on the road for a while. If they wake up, those wires may not
hold them and if they escape David will be furious.”

“How have you made it this many centuries
without thinking!” The woman retorts angrily. “Didn’t you hear
their beating hearts? He may have fathered them, but they are not
like us, if you stake them they will die! David gave specific
orders to bring them back alive and then he will decide what to do
with them.”

“Are you going to insult me for the next few
hours? Maybe I’ll just run back and let you drive them
yourself.”

My concentration waivers as I realize she
recognizes that staking them would kill them. As this relief tries
to pierce my anxiety ridden consciousness, another part of me
realizes that she mentioned following someone else’s plan and that
he will decide the fate of my helpless children.

My connection breaks as images of what
happened in the cave when I thought Andrew was captured flash,
bringing with them the horrific thought that Jonathan is back to
finally take his revenge. His warning rings in my ears, my eyes
flutter open, and my clenched fists pound the ground.

Springing up, talking to myself, I pace
wildly. “How could you be so stupid as to get side tracked now you
lost them!”

A set of cold hands grasping my shoulder
stops me mid-step. I gasp as my eyes meet Andrew’s desolate
features.

“What did you find out?” I can’t hide my
anxious tone.

“Their trail ended at an exit on the north
side of the building, they must have had a car out by the stairwell
exit. We followed the main road from there for a while, but there
were no signs of any trail we could follow.

Lucas is hypnotizing the security guard into
showing him the tapes. Maybe we can get something from that. They
have security cameras in the halls and out in the parking lot. We
may get lucky as see their faces or what type of car they are
driving. Come on, let’s get up there.”

He turns, but I grab his hand, halting him.
“Andrew, the kidnappers know the kids are ours. They were arguing
and the woman said that they could not stake the children because
they were not full vampires like their father. What if Jonathan is
back and the kids were taken because of us. What are we going to
do? We can’t just sit here hoping that they took the kids to get to
us and might contact us to work out a trade or something. We have
to find them! They have plans for the kids and from the menacing
sounds of their voices, they are not good!” My anxiety ridden voice
reveals that I am on the verge on hysteria.

Putting his hand upon mine, he moves us
forward. “Mia, we can’t jump to any conclusions yet.” Despite his
words, I can tell that his mind is already considering this
possibility and that he is straining to sound calm so that I will
not panic more than I already am. “Let’s review the tapes and see
if we can get any information from them. Gabriel and the others
will be here in a few hours. We will find them, but you have to
stay calm and keep trying to connect to them, the more we know the
better our chances are of finding them sooner.”

I turn to Catherine. “What did Emma say?”

“She said to keep their personal belongings
close when you are trying to get a connection to them. She also
said not to forget to move beyond their sense of sight because if
they are blindfolded, their other senses will be heightened and
their ability to perceive things may allow them to take in more
than they realize so to concentrate on what they are thinking.”

From outside the security room, I hear
Lucas’s anxious voice. “Come in, we have the tapes ready.” Stepping
inside, the tapes from four different cameras are running, the
hallway, the lobby, the parking lot and a stairwell. It appears
several people passed through the lobby this evening. There is a
blip in the hallway camera at eleven fifteen. The stairwell did not
appear to be used. There was no blackout, so they must have found a
different exit.

They used a service elevator.” Andrew murmurs
before flying out of the room.

I turn to Catherine. “What time did the
children go to bed tonight?”

“We came out of their room shortly before
eleven.”

“They must have grabbed the kids when I saw
it happening.” Maybe they aren’t too far!” I looked down at my
watch, not realizing it is three o’clock in the morning.

We rewind the lobby tape. Despite the
darkened night, a couple strolls in wearing dark glasses. The woman
is even donning a wide brimmed hat. They approach the front desk,
cross the lobby, but then duck behind a column. Despite the many
cameras, they are not seen again.

Andrew returns. “They used a laundry basket
to get the kids out of the hotel and used the service entrance, the
car must have been parked in the north parking lot, have them run
the tape. Did you see anything on the tapes while I was gone?”

Showing him the woman and the man, he doesn’t
recognize them either. Running the parking lot tape, we catch sight
of a very expensive Mercedes moving toward the north stairwell exit
and then the camera blacks out for a minute. That’s all it took to
get the kids in the car and speed off. Zooming in, the license
plate is blocked. They knew exactly what they were doing. Lucas
prints out the pictures of the couple and the car before compelling
the guard to forget our presence.

Returning to the room, Andrew pulls me on the
couch, his voice still straining to sound calm. “Did you learn
anything else while we were gone?”

“The woman and man were bickering about
staking the children. She told him that David had plans for the
children and wanted them taken to him alive. I think that the man
and woman who are traveling in the car are related because they
talked about not trusting anyone but family. One of them also
mentioned someone named William in their family.”

“Was there anything else? Could you see
anything that they were traveling by? Did you smell or hear
anything at all that may give us a clue as to where they are
going?”

Closing my eyes, desperate to recall
everything I heard and felt, I pray that something will give him a
clue. “They still couldn’t see. They are bound with some sort of
metal ties that the man was worried would not hold if the children
woke up. I don’t think that they realize that Nicholas and Kayla
are not ours by birth.” My eyes fly open. “The man said that they
would be in the car for a few more hours. They are driving to
wherever this David is and it is not in the immediate
vicinity.”

“That’s good, try to connect with the kids,
concentrate on what you can hear, maybe if they keep talking they
will give us some indication of who they are or where they are
heading.”

The telephone rings and I jump. As my eyes
gaze at it, I notice for the first time, the sun is up and I know
that it must be Stephan and panic. Andrew picks up the telephone.
His features are stone, he is shut down.

“Good morning Stephan, are you ready to go to
the airport?”