Open the doors, Cody.

  He turned and opened the doors wide as the group roared through the doorway. And stopped.

  His heart slammed against his chest.

  Dear God.

  Yeah, like I said, it’s complicated.

  Chapter 18

  Tessa watched the shock and anger – confusion – on everyone’s faces as she raced inside. Cody, make sure the doors are locked behind us.

  She heard them slam and lock behind her. She turned to face the crowd of shocked and confused faces. In a hard, cold voice, she said, “I’ve decided that Hortran was right. I am the gatekeeper because if there ever was a clan in need of a watchdog, this one is it.”

  “What is the meaning of this?” Morris protested. “What the devil are you doing? Who are these people?” His shock and panic was evident in his voice.

  But he wasn’t alone. The room rippled with ongoing cries of shock and horror.

  Tessa glanced at the group she’d brought with her. Motre was looking a little weak. David was worse. She motioned both men to lay the other two unconscious vamps on the floor in the corner behind her. She needed to give them both more energy. But the other men were desperately in need of sustenance. She snagged Cody’s arm. We need blood, these men have been starving for days.

  Back in a couple minutes.

  She watched Cody slip from the room, thankful that once again he didn’t ask any questions. She then turned her gaze on Goran and the fury in his eyes as he stared at the new arrivals. He’d stood guard at the door for her.

  The men were still weak and shivering as they tried to stand upright. She quickly gathered chairs and set them in a circle to let the men sit down.

  Her father called out. “Tessa?”

  She nodded. “I’ll speak as soon as there is silence.”

  Ignoring the din around her, she went about making sure that the group she’d brought with her were all now safely sitting. As she passed by, she gave each an additional shot of energy.

  “Thanks,” Motre responded. “That sure helps.”

  Soon, the silence she requested fell upon the room. She was just about to speak when she heard Cody’s return.

  The door opened and he slipped inside, a case of blood in his arms. He immediately gave one to each of the people that she had brought in with her. She walked over to study her brother, her mother now at Seth’s side. Jameson had a gray cast to his skin. She crouched down beside them and pulsed more energy through their systems. They were alive, but they weren’t capable of drinking yet. Still, she saw some sign of improvement, and that was encouraging.

  She turned her attention back to the room, noting her group was busy and greedily drinking blood, their bodies instantly accepting and hungry for the nourishment. Then she turned to address the room at large. “As you can see, we have a problem.”

  Then she caught sight of Adamson lounging lazily at the table, a small smile playing at the corner of his lips. “Adamson obviously knows more than he’s telling.” All eyes turned to the Councilman whose attitude bordered on insolent at this moment.

  “What’s there to say? You found them. Good on you,” he retorted.

  “Not too many, you said, maybe a dozen?”

  He shrugged. “You probably didn’t find more than that, did you?”

  “But now having found these, how can I be sure there aren’t many more out there?”

  “You’ll have to use your superspy skills to figure it out,” he mocked.

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” Now she understood so much of what had bugged her about his attitude. Well, hopefully he’d get his own comeuppance.

  “Not really.” He slumped back into his seat and stared coldly up at the ceiling and ignored them.

  She turned to the rest of the room and explained what she found. Or rather, she explained most of what she’d found.

  Motre shook his head and bounced to his feet. “That’s outrageous. He’s the clone, not me.”

  Triton stood up and walked closer, his gaze locked on his own double. “This is just too eerie,” he said. “Where did you find these clones?”

  Tessa’s Triton bounced to his feet. “New clone? I’m not a clone, I’m the original. You are the clone,” he roared.

  Just then, there was an odd sound behind her. Tessa turned to see Jameson struggling to move.

  She raced over to his side and pulsed more energy into his system. As long as his body was willing to accept it, she could feed it. “Take it easy. I don’t how long you’ve been down, but your system is very weak.”

  As if understanding her words, he lay back, relaxing slightly, then opened his eyes. That black gaze landed on her face and he relaxed a little more. “Thank you,” he whispered.

  She nodded cheerfully. “No problem.”

  Cody walked over to her side and held a bag of blood for her. She opened a small corner and dripped some blood into Jameson’s mouth. He drank greedily. She kept it up until he took a deep breath and gasped, “That’s enough for the moment.”

  The bag was empty. She placed it down beside him and helped him to sit up. His gaze wandered the crowd beside her, his eyes widening as he caught sight of the two Tritons and the two Morrises. And then his gaze landed on his double. And hardened.

  “They were making a clone for every Council member,” he announced bitterly, his voice weak but with a thread of steel running through it. “In some cases, it didn’t work. Like Sian. They couldn’t make her pregnant.”

  “Well, thank God for that,” Sian cried. “It’s a horrible thought to think there could be another me running around.”

  Jameson added, “There was also no way to clone Tessa. But they tried many times. There’s something in her DNA that’s off. No, let me correct that – that’s different. But they also couldn’t get a pure sample.”

  “Good.” Tessa didn’t want to contemplate duplicates running around the place. “Where are the others?”

  Jameson shrugged. “I don’t know.” He shifted positions and lunged to his feet. “I was imprisoned in the room the whole time. I heard a lot of moving around me, but the only time the door opened was to bring in more prisoners.”

  “And were any prisoners removed?” she asked.

  “Yes, but just one.”

  “Do you know what they did with the prisoner?” Tessa asked. “What kind of shape was he in?”

  “Bad, like seriously bad.” Jameson shook his head. “I never saw him again.”

  “Up until you entered this room?”

  Jameson nodded.

  “Please tell everyone in this room exactly who you saw being removed from your prison cell.”

  “Adamson.”

  *

  Serus stood up to stand between Jameson and Adamson, his gaze travelling from one to the other then back again. And then slid past the clone Jameson. He had to believe that Tessa had returned the original Jameson to this room. But without her, they’d not have known there were two or how to differentiate between them. “Does that mean this Adamson is a clone or the real Adamson?” he asked in a harsh voice. “And how can we be sure?”

  Jameson shook his head. “Adamson was in really ugly shape. He was there when I arrived, and I suffered as they brought everyone else in. Nobody ever checked on him. When they came, they just picked him up and tossed him outside.” He turned to face the Adamson in the room. “You, sir, are a fake.”

  “That I’m not,” Adamson said with a smirk. “And you’ll have a hard time proving otherwise.”

  Serus turned around to look at Tessa. “Can you tell who’s who?”

  She looked around and studied the pairs. There were different definite differences. She nodded. “The Triton, Morris, Jameson, Motre, and David that I brought into this room are the original. These five…” and she pointed to the five men in the room individually, “…are clones.”

  The clones jumped to their feet in shock and started yelling and crying out in denial.

  “Jesus, what a mess,” Cody said. “They don’t even know.”

  “How could they?” Tessa said. “They were raised to be as real as they can be. It worked, didn’t it?”

  Serus studied his daughter. “And there’s one you haven’t mentioned.”

  She nodded, her face edging into grim lines. “Adamson is a whole different case.”

  “See, I told you so.” Adamson said cheerfully. “She’s good.”

  “In what way?” Serus asked. “And what the hell do we do about this mess?”

  Tessa shook her head, holding her hands out. “One problem at a time. There is another room completely full of more clones. They are still being given sustenance at this point in time and not free from the machines. But they are in the room beside where I found these men. There is one there for almost all of us in this room. And many more besides. We would slowly one by one disappear as these men replaced us. But Adamson is a class all of his own.”

  The clones stood stiff with anger, disbelieving of the truth.

  The originals sat fuming in anger at the duplicity brought in their world.

  Serus sympathized until he understood his daughter’s words. “Is there a clone of me?” he asked incredulously. “Really?”

  His daughter nodded. “Yes, but younger. And of Goran and Rhia and Cody. And more besides. But I think Rhia and you were a problem because of the mindspeak, and you and Goran can also mindspeak, and that is not a DNA issue but an emotional bond. So they can’t duplicate that. Sian is of course pregnant and I’m not really clonable. But there are a good dozen in that room waiting to step in and replace us.” She turned to look at Cody. “Including you. All the enemy needed to do was to isolate us so that they could make the switch like they did Morris and Triton, then Motre and David at a different time.” She smiled. “They don’t know about our mindspeak and likely hoped I wouldn’t notice the switch.” Cody’s eyebrows shot up at that. “Like hell,” he said forcefully. “I’m not that easily replaced.”

  “We need to protect that room,” Motre cried out. “Stop anyone else from entering and letting those clones free.”

  “No one will be getting in there,” Tessa said. “I left Beast on guard duty.”

  “Forget about the other clones. What is going on with Adamson?” Goran stepped up beside Serus. “And how many other people are like him?”

  Tessa stared at the man she knew but didn’t know. The man that had been beside them all this time was not the man in front of her – not even a fraction of that same man. “Have you killed him yet?”

  Adamson laughed. “That old geezer, he’s on his last legs. For all I know, he’s dead now.”

  “What did you do – just throw him away like a sack of garbage?”

  “He was of no value anymore. We had all we needed.”

  Tessa smiled, making Serus suspicious yet again. “Why are you not upset?” he asked of his daughter.

  “Because Adamson’s laughing,” Tessa said. “But in fact, he doesn’t understand that he’s already being replaced.”

  Silence.

  “What?” roared Goran. “What are you talking about?”

  Serus locked his gaze on Adamson, who was looking a little worried. And then he got it. “You found another clone, didn’t you, Tessa? You found another Adamson clone?”

  Adamson bolted to his feet in shock. “No, that can’t be.”

  “Oh, I’m happy to say it is true. In fact, there were several of you in progress. Because of course, as Victor’s line, it was too important that you stay alive and on their side regardless of how willing or unwilling you might be. At least in this way, they can keep practicing and working on their cloning techniques and if one failed to function properly, all they had to do was to transfer your new improved memories and programming into the new guy.”

  “No,” he screamed. “You’re lying. I’m too valuable to replace.” And in a move no one had seen coming, Adamson jumped across the desk, his fingers full of some kind of shiny spikes, and stabbed Tessa in the side.

  The attack was so fast, so sudden, his movements at such high intensity, no one was prepared for it.

  Tessa went down, her cry of pain filling the air.

  Adamson roared once as Cody speared him with silver, and then he blew into a cloud of smoke and spread ash all over Tessa as she lay dying on the floor.

  *

  Cody dropped to Tessa’s side. He could hear her scream in his mind, and still the sound reverberated outside in the room. His panic became tenfold as he pressed his fingers over the multiple holes in her side as blood spilled over his skin to pour all over the floor.

  “Jesus, Tessa, please fire up your genes or whatever it is that you do and please…heal.”

  She opened her eyes and stared at him, pain fogging her gaze. “Cody, make sure you terminate the ones still growing.”

  “I will,” he promised. “I will, but only if you’re there with me,” he pleaded, his heart breaking as he kept trying to stop the bleeding. He’d never felt so helpless.

  She slid her bloody hand up his arm and shoulder to cup his cheek and whispered in such a low voice he had to bend down to hear, “I don’t know if I’ve said this before, but I love you.”

  Her hand fell to the ground and her head tilted to the side. Tessa slipped into unconsciousness.

  “No, Tessa, wake up. Please wake up.”

  “Cody, do something,” Serus pleaded. “Can you help her?”

  “I don’t know how,” Cody cried. “This is Tessa.”

  Motre crouched down at his side. “Yes, this is Tessa, but remember what she did for you? Contact Hortran. Maybe he can help. If anybody is invested in her staying alive, he is.”

  Cody placed both hands on the wounds and closed his eyes. Hortran, can you hear me, please? Tessa is severely injured. We need your help, he whispered.

  He waited, and he thought he could feel something but wasn’t exactly sure what.

  Hortran?

  He waited again, and then he could feel the tingle in his fingers. He opened his eyes to see what appeared to be a light blue color emanating around Tessa’s body.

  Murmurs rose around them as everyone realized something was happening, even if no one was really sure what that was…but there was definitely change going on.

  Cody lifted Tessa’s shirt to her ribs to show the ugly raw wounds closing from the inside out, slowly but surely…healing. He sat back and rocked on his feet. “I’ve never seen anything like Tessa,” he whispered in reverence.

  “None of us have ever seen anything like Tessa,” Motre said.

  They all watched as the healing continued until the wounds were fully closed. The color came back to Tessa’s face and she opened her eyes. She gave a startled jerk and stared up at everyone as they looked down at her.

  Then she smiled. “Adamson got a little pissed, didn’t he?”

  The others laughed and backed away. She reached up her arms to Cody, and he picked her up to tug her into his lap and held her close. Together, the two of them sat on the floor, arms wrapped around each other, and just hung on.

  A private, intimate moment the others respected.

  I almost lost you, Cody whispered.

  Nah, she said in a low voice. You can’t get rid of me that easily.

  Chapter 19

  Still feeling a bit weak, she let Cody help her to her feet. She looked around the room and said, “There are now ethical questions that have to be addressed. I’m not sure that they have to be addressed today though. But those clones in that room, they need to be stopped. Those that are still connected to tubes are undeveloped. We need to stop them from maturing. I’d just as soon not be involved in shutting them down.”

  Both Motres stood up. “I’ll take care of it,” they said in unison.

  The original Motre looked over at his clone and snapped, “Like hell you will.”

  And yet both raced out of the room as if trying to outdo the other.

  Tessa laughed. “And that’s part of the ethical question that needs to be addressed.”

  “And there’s another question that needs to be addressed,” Rhea said quietly. “What about Seth?”

  Tessa smiled at her. “It would appear that this is the original Seth. And the one that you rescued may very well be a clone. Which would explain why the implant.” She waved her arm toward where her brother was lying ill. “He might still have been involved early on, but he’s very sick now. Like Jameson, he’s been there a long time.” She turned to look at the doorway. “I know you have Seth in with the medical staff, but we need to check on him. And find a way to visibly tell the pairs apart.”

  “How can you be sure this is our brother Seth?” David asked curiously. “How did you know for sure that I’m the original David?”

  She smiled at her brother and mother. “Well, that’s easy.”

  She reached up to stroke David’s cheek. “You’re my brother and I love you. And no clone will ever be able to duplicate emotion.”

  David wrapped her up in a tight hug and whispered, “Thanks, sis.”

  From inside David’s embrace, she turned to face her mother. “And yes, Mom, I can tell that this Seth is my real brother. Because in spite of everything that we have been through, I still love him as I love you and I love Dad.”

  She reached out a hand toward Cody and when he grasped it in hers, she left David’s embrace to go to Cody’s arms. Snuggled in close, she closed her eyes and rested.

  She was so very tired. Tired of life. But more tired of death. She needed a rest. Did you make plans yet?

  I’ve considered a few options, Cody said quietly, but there hasn’t been exactly any time to make serious plans.

  She nodded. “I need to rest.” She looked around at all the others. “You’re all very capable. Please find Adamson even if only his body, so we know his fate for sure. I do understand that we have a hell of cleanup to do, but my body needs downtime. I’m taking off for a few days with Cody. When we come back, we will address anything that still needs to be addressed, and I suggest we move on from there.”

  She felt Cody’s start of surprise.

  I did warn you.