Clayton hoped they had some progress before they were found. He walked back to the scientists. Jack had Cassidy strung up by a cord that was from a piece of equipment no one was using. She was still unconscious as Jack put an IV into her wrist. The deep and dark fluid was being drained into a bag and was filling up quickly.
“There are approximately eight to twelve units of blood in an average human and vampire,” Jack stated as he attached another unit to the IV. “We will have plenty to nourish ourselves should this alteration of the serum take longer. At least, I hope.”
Clayton nodded and took a seat. While he was concerned about the location of Maryl and Ray, he didn’t understand his newfound feeling concerning Desiree. She was both a traitor and a friend. He confided in her, he had trusted her, and then in a split second, he found out she was a spy for Maryl for the last few hundred years. If his anger was so profoundly visible in his soul, if indeed he did possess one, then why could he not find it in himself to kill her? Was he falling for her?
He knew the risks of a relationship between an AB positive and an O negative blood type. They could never have children. Other types had tried, and not one vampire baby went full term. That was almost a thousand years ago, and the marriage between the O’s, A’s, B’s, and AB’s was strictly forbidden. Since his blood type had difficulty in reproducing children, it was an added complication. And he did not know if Desiree felt the same for him. He was much older, twice her age. With vampires, that fact wasn’t as crucial because age wasn’t too much of a factor.
“You seem lost in thought, Clayton,” Jack said as he untied Cassidy and let her drop to the floor.
Clayton smiled briefly. “You might say that. I was thinking about Maryl and her ultimate plan.” He lied.
“Gotcha. Speaking of plan,” Jack said as he looked at the body of Cassidy, “What do you want me to do with her?”
“Get rid of her,” Clayton said while returning to his thoughts.
“Okay,” Jack said as he roughly hoisted Cassidy from the floor and put her over his shoulder. He walked to the window overlooking a field of trees, opened the window with his free hand, and threw her out the window, and closed it.
Clayton caught the tail end of Jack’s actions. He swiftly rose from his chair but was too late to catch Cassidy.
“Why the hell did you throw her out of the window?”
Jack looked confused. “You told me to get rid of her!”
“A vampire should have a proper burial!”
“That’s not what you implied! Besides, I threw her where the trees are. No one except the animals will find her.”
Clayton took several deep breaths. “Okay. I will take care of it tomorrow.”
Jack threw up his hands. “Next time tell me in no uncertain terms what you want!”
“Fine!” Clayton said as he realized Jack had no concept between speaking something figuratively or literally. He shook his head in frustration while sitting down.
He heard Jack mumbling under his breath about saying exactly what you mean. Clayton looked over, and Jack’s friends nodded in agreement.
Clayton couldn’t bear to listen to Jack’s ranting. He got up and zipped to Andree’s desk to see if he could learn anything else about her. Luckily, he heard her in the restroom several aisles down. She was listening to music and singing along with the tune.
He went to her desk and rummaged through her desk drawers. He opened one and found a junk drawer. Intrigued, he looked inside. He knew a junk drawer revealed what kind of person they were. He found an assortment of different styles of pens, markers, thumbtacks, safety pins, and something that could prove useful—a USB stick.
Hope gripped him as he inserted the thumb drive into her desktop. His smile faded when he saw there was only one folder. The name was unfamiliar to him.
“What does Bank clouds mean?” he said to himself out loud.
He clicked on the file, but it was password protected. He sifted through every drawer, searching for the password and found nothing.
Clayton drummed his fingers on the desk in thought. He tried her blood type, her name and other items on her desk, but was unsuccessful.
Then he remembered Andree was an O negative. Was she in the Fellowship of the Fangs? He tried all of the words of the organization. He was unsuccessful. Then Clayton tried each word individually. When he typed the name Fangs in the long rectangular box, it had worked!
His joy turned to anguish when he saw the files. And then he knew what the folder’s name meant.
“Oh, no!” Clayton said as he scrolled down the list of every single A’s, B’s, and AB’s bank records, including account numbers, what banks, and where they were located in the United States.
“How did someone on the low end of Maryl’s group get access to the information? And why would Andree possess them?” he said out loud.
He was about to search the file with his name on it when he noticed a timer on the top right corner of the screen. It was a countdown from five seconds to insert a new password. He used his vampire speed to access the data. He got to see only one bank account of his that had been depleted when the time was up.
He wondered how many of his bank accounts had Maryl accessed and depleted? And why did she need all that money?
Unfortunately, the files and the folder were quickly deleted. No matter what Clayton did, he could not retrieve the folder. “Damn!”
Chapter Twelve
En Route To Laboratory
Present Day July 13th
The rain cascaded down as Desiree put the windshield wiper blades on full blast. It did little to see clearer despite having
