Vampire Beach Hunted (14 page)

‘What?’ Jason felt as if his brain was filled with cotton. He simply could not understand a thing his best friend was saying. ‘The barbecue was two days ago. What are you talking about?’

‘Two days!’ Adam cried. ‘I knew it had been a while, but I didn’t think it was that long.’

‘
What?
’ Jason asked again.

‘I mean, not like in the time-flies-when-you’re having-fun sense,’ Adam corrected himself. ‘Because I’ve totally not been having fun. But they’ve been decent to me – they keep feeding me and all. And nobody’s taken me out to experiment on me, or torture me, or whatever. The guy in the next cell . . . well, it’s bad. He’s just whimpering constantly, like a dog with a broken leg. He’s in real pain. They came a few hours ago, I think it was, and took him away somewhere. And when they opened his door I heard him screaming like he was terrified.’ Adam’s expression was more serious than Jason had ever seen it. ‘It’s horrible, Jason. We have to do something.’

Somewhere in the back of Jason’s mind, he registered what Adam was saying. A prisoner, being experimented on, in pain: it had to be Christopher.

But Jason still couldn’t quite understand what Adam was talking about when he said he’d been here for two days. Or at least, his brain couldn’t understand how to compute what Adam was saying. Because it would mean . . . it would mean . . .

‘Are you saying that you’ve been locked in here since the day of Van Dyke’s barbecue?’ Jason asked. ‘You don’t know anything that’s happened since then?’

‘No. I mean yes. And no,’ Adam said. ‘I’ve definitely been here since the barbecue day. Why? What’s happened?’

But other thoughts were rushing through Jason’s head now. Bad thoughts. Terrifying thoughts. ‘Adam,’ he said. ‘If you’ve been here for two days, then who gave us the blueprints for this building? Who helped us plan how to get in? And just who the hell has been with us in Malibu, pretending to be
you
?’

Fifteen

‘
WHAT
?’
ADAM CRIED
. ‘I’m sorry . . .
what?
’

‘I said goodbye to you less than two hours ago. You were going to return the blueprints,’ Jason told his best friend. ‘It was
you
.’

‘It was not,’ Adam said firmly. Then he gasped. ‘The vampire drugs! Someone must have taken the vampire drugs and changed his appearance to look like me.’

‘You’ve lost me,’ Jason told him.

‘Vampires can change their appearance at will,’ Adam explained. ‘They can look like anyone they choose!’

‘I know
that
,’ Jason replied. ‘I meant the “vampire drugs” – what the hell are you talking about?’

‘Look, the guy in the cell next to me, the one they’ve been hurting?’ Adam said quickly. ‘He’s been here a long time. When I first got here, he told me what he knew.’

‘Through the walls?’ Jason asked.

‘The doors are steel, the walls are just . . . whatever walls are made of,’ Adam told him. ‘Anyway, this guy – I think he’s a vampire.’

‘His name is Christopher,’ Jason said. ‘He’s the one I’m here to save.’

‘I thought you were here to save
me
?’ Adam protested.

‘I didn’t know you were here, remember?’ Jason said. ‘I’ve been hanging out with Fake You for the last two days.’

‘Oh. Right. Remind me to be offended by that later,’ Adam replied. ‘Anyway, so Christopher told me that this whole place is run by a man named Charles Norton. I don’t know who he is, but apparently he was doing research or something in New York and he discovered the existence of vampires.’

‘New York is where the vampire kidnappings started,’ Jason said thoughtfully.

‘O-kay. Now you’ve lost me,’ Adam said. ‘But, whatever. The point is, this guy Norton started experimenting on vampires to see what made them so cool. He wanted to figure out how to make humans have vampire skills – you know, the strength, the appearance changing, the super-healing.’

‘It sounds like he found a way,’ Jason said grimly.

‘Christopher said that Norton had discovered enough about vampire genetics to formulate some short-term drugs. You know, shoot up and act like a vampire for two hours or something like that.’ Adam shook his head. ‘It’s bad, Jason. If the way they were treating Christopher is any indication, I don’t think Norton cares much about how he gets his vampire genetic info.’

‘He experimented on Van Dyke, too,’ Jason said.

Adam’s jaw clenched. ‘He all right?’

‘He is now,’ Jason told him. ‘But all the adult vampires are off figuring out what to do about the New York situation. Nobody knew that Malibu was next on the list.’

‘Christopher asked if we were in Malibu. They brought him from New York,’ Adam confirmed. ‘He said Norton told him the Malibu vampires were from a purer bloodline, that they were going to be better specimens for study.’

‘It’s true,’ Jason said. ‘Norton probably thinks that the purer blood will make his drugs stronger, too. But how could he possibly know that about the vampire bloodlines? I didn’t even know it for a long time, and my own girlfriend is a vampire.’

Adam bit his lip. ‘He, um, he has a source. A vampire. Somebody high up. Somebody who betrayed them all. That’s what Christopher said.’

Jason’s eyes widened in surprise. A
vampire
was involved with this?

‘Who?’ he demanded.

‘I don’t know. They came and took Christopher away after that. And when they brought him back, he just moaned the whole time,’ Adam said sadly. ‘He never said another word to me. I’m not sure he can even talk anymore.’

Jason ran his hand through his hair, frustrated. ‘I can’t believe this. We thought we had it under control. We thought it was a small operation, and we’d found their warehouse, and we were going to break in, rescue Christopher, and get back out. We thought there were six guys who were strong, but that’s it. And now it turns out it’s some evil guy from New York in league with a high-up vampire – and Medi-Life!’

‘Medi-Life?’ Adam asked.

‘They own this place.’ Jason handed over the ID badge for Adam to look at. ‘And this Norton guy has been onto us all along. He even sent somebody to spy on us! Whoever it was pretending to be you was feeding us information, and we just believed him! We haven’t been in control once, not even for a second. And now they’ve got Brad, Van Dyke and Zach.’

‘OK, chill,’ Adam said. ‘We can be mad at ourselves later. Well, not so much me, because I didn’t know about any of this and I didn’t believe that some freaky impostor was my best friend, but—’

‘You’re right,’ Jason interrupted. ‘Now isn’t the time to beat ourselves up about this. We’ll figure out the big picture once we get out of this place –
with
our friends and Christopher.’

‘Good. How?’

Jason thought about it. ‘We can’t go back out the way we got in, because Adam – Fake Adam – knows about that. In fact, he’s the one who pointed out the air vent to us.’

‘So he’ll have goons waiting right outside the vent for us,’ Adam reasoned.

‘Besides, the way back is blocked by the giant steel doors that appeared out of the ceiling and trapped the vampires,’ Jason said.

Adam whistled. ‘That’s some serious security.’

‘Right. It’s going to be tough,’ Jason said. ‘But we can’t just stand here talking. Let’s try to find Christopher.’

‘They took him that way,’ Adam said, pointing down the hall the way Jason had come. ‘I heard them.’

Jason led the way back to the intersection with the next hallway. ‘The rooms to the right were all empty, or else they were just offices,’ he said. ‘We’ll go left.’

‘Coming through,’ somebody called, and a motorized cart went whizzing by, loaded down with gleaming silver lab equipment. The woman driving it barely even glanced at them as she passed.

Jason’s heart gave a violent
thump
of surprise. He’d seen so few people down here that it was a shock to come across anybody at all.

‘So if she thought we were intruders, she would have yelled at us, right?’ Adam whispered, clearly as startled as Jason was.

‘Right,’ Jason said. ‘She probably saw my lab coat and figured I work here, then didn’t think any more about it.’

‘I need to get a lab coat, too,’ Adam said. ‘Just to be safe, you know?’

There was a door five feet away. Jason tried it – locked. He waved the ID card over the sensor pad on the wall, and the door clicked open.

‘See? I need one of those . . .’ Adam’s voice trailed off as he got a look at what was inside the room. It was a laboratory. Not the kind of bland exam room Jason had seen in the other corridors, but a real, functioning lab with all kinds of beeping, whirring, scary-looking technology. And in the center of it all was a small tank filled with clear liquid . . . and an arm.

‘Is that . . . is that a person?’ Adam choked.

‘It’s part of a person,’ Jason said, feeling sick.

‘Oh my God, oh my God!’ Adam turned away and stepped back into the hall. ‘We have to get out of here.’

‘Yeah,’ Jason said grimly. ‘
All
of us.’ He strode down the corridor. The doors were farther apart here, probably because the labs were huge. At least that one lab had been. Jason passed his ID card over the sensor and the next door clicked open.

He and Adam went inside. Another lab, more busy-looking machines. But this one didn’t have any tanks or horrible stuff. What it had was a dude in a head-to-toe suit like an astronaut. He was moving a strange-looking purple disk from one scanner to another, holding it with a pair of tongs.

‘Let’s go!’ Jason hissed, shoving Adam out of the room before the guy could see them.

‘What are they
doing
here?’ Adam asked. ‘This is like something out of an old
X-Files
episode.’

A maintenance man in a dark blue jumpsuit was mopping the floor of the hallway in front of them. Jason felt his pulse speed up as he walked toward the guy. Could they really just open up another laboratory door right in front of someone who worked here?

They had no choice but to try. At the next door, Jason confidently swiped his ID card at the sensor pad.

Nothing happened. Adam shot him a panicked look.

Jason tried again, but it was no use. Clearly this was one room that Bill Baldwin didn’t have access to. And that meant it was higher security than the other labs. Higher even than the prisoner cells. Something important was inside – or some
one
.

‘We have to get in here,’ Jason muttered. Summoning all his courage, he turned to the maintenance man. ‘Hey! You have a pass card for all the rooms, right?’

The guy leant on his mop and rolled his eyes. ‘They all gotta get clean.’

‘Good. Let us into this lab,’ Jason ordered, trying to sound like some kind of snobby research assistant. ‘I accidentally demagnetized my card in Lab Two this morning.’

The maintenance man raised his eyebrows skeptically. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Look, my man. It’s vital that we get into this laboratory,
right now
!’ Adam said, stepping out from behind Jason.

The maintenance guy had a stubborn look in his eyes as he switched his gaze to Adam, but when he saw Jason’s friend his eyes widened, he dropped the mop, and he hurried over with his pass card. ‘Right away,’ he said, swiping it over the sensor pad. The door clicked open.

‘Thank you,’ Adam said. ‘Really.’

‘Of course, sir,’ the maintenance guy replied, shuffling back over to his mop and pail.

Jason pulled the door shut behind them, frowning. ‘What was all that about?’ he asked.

‘He’s a man of the people,’ Adam said with a shrug. ‘I figured we could appeal to his human side.’

But Jason was barely listening anymore, because there, hanging right in front of him, was the perfect disguise. The absolute
best
way not to get caught in this place was not to be
seen
in this place.

‘You still want a lab coat, or do you want one of those?’ he asked Adam, nodding toward the humungous astronaut suits on the wall.

Adam gasped. ‘Oh, I want one of those!’

Jason glanced at the wall, where a sign labeled the suits ‘CLEAN SUITS’. He pulled one of the heavy outfits down and handed it to Adam, then grabbed another for himself.

‘What do you think they’re supposed to keep us clean from?’ Adam asked as they struggled to get in to the things.

‘Who knows? Maybe they’re supposed to keep the room clean from us,’ Jason said. ‘So we don’t contaminate the experiments. I mean, look around. We’re in an airlock.’

Adam glanced around the small anteroom. Sliding doors made of thick glass separated them from the main laboratory. ‘OK. So boots and masks on,’ he said, reaching for a pair of giant boots from the line along the wall. Jason took a helmet off a hook, then got one for Adam, too.

Once they were all suited up, Jason took a good look at his friend. Adam’s entire body was covered by the suit. Even his head was completely covered, with only a small window showing his face. ‘No one will know we don’t belong,’ Jason said into the intercom mike inside his helmet. ‘I can barely even see you.’

Adam gave him a thumbs-up, then turned to the glass door. Jason found himself holding his breath as the door slowly slid open. What would they find inside? Christopher? Their friends? He just hoped it wasn’t anything horrible.

The lab was eerily quiet inside. Most of the big machines were dark, and only one dim light shone in the room, illuminating an incubator tank.

Jason’s stomach lurched. This tank was five times the size of the one in the other lab, the one with the arm. This one was big enough to hold an entire body.

Steeling himself, Jason moved over to the tank and peered down.

Beautiful
, he thought. The guy inside the tank was a perfect-looking person, so impossibly beautiful that he resembled some artist’s rendering of an angel more than a regular human being.

‘A vampire,’ he said shortly. ‘In his natural state. That’s the only time they’re so good-looking. Usually they tone it down to fit in amongst us humans.’

‘This is nobody’s natural state,’ Adam muttered from beside him.