Page 10 of Vanessa’s Bravery

Maya put her hand on Vanessa’s arm. “Don’t. We don’t think—” She stopped herself and then looked straight at her. A concerned look crossed her mother’s face. “Are you okay? You feel feverish. Are you going into heat?”

“I’m all right, Mom. It’s already over. I took care of it.”

Her forehead furrowed. “But it shouldn’t be your time.”

Vanessa shrugged. “I know. It just suddenly happened when I brought Ginger to Vera’s to administer first aid.”

“That’s odd.”

“Don’t worry, Mom, I’m fine. What were you gonna say about the other attack?”

“Oh, we don’t think it was the same guy. The timeline doesn’t fit.”

“You’re saying there is more than one rogue in the city?”

Maya nodded. “Benjamin thinks so.”

The elevator doors opened, and they rolled the gurney along the hallway and through the next double doors into Scanguards’ mini medical center. The large room with the nurses’ station in the middle and treatment cubicles around its perimeter was as well-equipped as a trauma center in any major hospital.

Buffy, the young black human woman, whose stepfather was a vampire, was already expecting them. She’d been training with Maya for several years now and was well-versed in emergency medicine when it came to vampire-inflicted injuries.

“Over here,” Buffy said and pointed to one of the treatment areas she’d prepared.

“Nessie, go see Benjamin. He needs more info on the rogue you encountered,” Maya said.

Vanessa glanced at Ginger. Her neck injury still looked bad, but she and Vera had managed to stop the bleeding. Now it was simply a matter of time until she healed.

“Don’t wipe her memory yet. Maybe she can describe her attacker better than I can, and give us information as to where he picked her up,” she said. “Just keep her calm when she comes to.”

“Don’t worry, Nessie, we’ll take good care of her.”

With a nod at her mother and Buffy, Vanessa pivoted and left the medical center.

She almost collided with Rose, a full-blooded vampire like her mother, who looked barely over twenty, even though she was over two-hundred years old.

“Hey, Nessie,” she said. “I figured I’d help your mother with the injured victims.”

“She’ll appreciate it, I’m sure.” Vanessa gave her a quick smile, then hurried to the elevators.

When she entered the command center on the ground floor of the building, Vanessa was surprised to find it teeming with her colleagues. Even her father, Gabriel, was present, as was Samson, the owner of the company. Everybody was talking loudly over each other, and she heard bits of conversations she realized were all centered around several vampire attacks on civilians.

She spotted Benjamin near the command desk, and he waved for her to approach.

“Hey,” Vanessa greeted him. “Sorry it took a while to come back here. I had to make sure that Ginger was stable first.” The fact that this wasn’t the only reason why she hadn’t rushed back to HQ immediately after the attack, she kept to herself. There was no need to go into detail.

“You’re here now. I’ve arranged for a sketch artist,” Benjamin said. “But first, everybody needs to be brought up to speed.” A phone rang at the command desk, and Benjamin tapped on it to reply. Simultaneously, the monitor on the wall above the computer console showed a familiar face.

“Quiet everybody. Patrick is checking in,” Benjamin announced.

The room quieted down, and Patrick, Samson’s youngest son, spoke to them via video link. Behind him was a dark street. “Hey, no sign of the rogue. He got away,” Patrick said, his face and shirt full of blood.

“And the human?” Samson asked, walking closer to the console.

“I managed to stem the bleeding for now, but she’s in bad shape. How far out is the ambulance?”

Benjamin looked at a smaller monitor on the console. “Ninety seconds.”

“Good,” Patrick said. “Send a few people to the Inner Sunset. Maybe we can pick up his scent. I think he headed toward Golden Gate Park.”