Annihilation: The Clandestine Saga Book 7 E-Book

Johnson ID

• Herausgeber: ID Johnson
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Destroying every vampire on earth can get messy....
Cadence Findley and the LIGHTS team are on a mission to annihilate every vampire in existence, especially Holland, the vampire queen, who has sworn vengeance for the attack in Melbourne. But something's not right in Kansas City, and not everyone is on board with the plan, which makes taking Holland down even more difficult. Is Holland infiltrating the ranks, and if so, can Cadence stop it in time to wipe out the queen's growing vampire army once and for all?
The Clandestine Saga follows the story of Cadence Findley, Vampire Hunter extraordinaire, as she embarks on a quest to rid the world of Vampires. She is part of an elite team of Hunters and Guardians know as LIGHTS whose sole purpose is to protect humans from the creatures that lurk in the shadows.

Leseprobe

Annihilation

The Clandestine Saga Book 7

ID Johnson

Copyright © 2019 by ID Johnson

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Cover by Sparrow Book Cover Design

Created with Vellum

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Epilogue

A Note from the Author

Chapter 1

The odor of mildew assaulted her lungs as Cadence Findley made her way through the underground tunnel. Here she still had enough clearance to stand, though she was bent at the waist so that her shoulders were stooped, but up ahead, she was aware it narrowed even further, and she’d be forced to drop to her knees. How her Guardian, Elliott Sanderson, was ever going to make it through the smaller passage, she wasn’t sure, but she thought it might be fun to watch.

“Moist. That’s the word that comes to mind. It smells moist in here,” he said only to her through his IAC, or Intelligence Assistance Communicator, a tiny chip each member of the LIGHTS (Lincoln International Guardian and Hunter Training Station) team had in their eye so that they could speak to each other and share other information without actually having to open their mouths.

“Don’t use that word,” Cadence said, bile rising up in the back of her throat at the offense. “That’s the most disgusting word in the English language.”

“What? Moist?” Elliott said again, just to annoy her. “You don’t like the word moist, Cadence? Does it bother you when I say moist?”

“Seriously—knock it off!” she insisted slowing to throw an elbow at him, which only made him chuckle.

“Fine, if I can’t say moist, I’ll just say the German equivalent. How do you feel about feucht?”

“I feel like if you don’t shut up and let me concentrate, we’re both about to be feucht,” she replied as she sensed the walls closing in on them slightly. Up ahead, there was a corner, and that’s where Aaron McReynolds, the Guardian Leader and her fiancé, had told her the passage would narrow down to about two feet in height. She’d have to crawl on her stomach for approximately a hundred yards before she’d come to a grate overhead, which they could remove, and pop into the tunnel the particular group of Vampires they’d been hunting the last few nights happened to be staying in. The city of Houston seemed to press down on her slightly when she thought about it, and the fact that these tunnels hadn’t been used in ages made her slight claustrophobia flair up considerably.

There were only four Vampires in this group, from what they could tell, and she had insisted that Aaron didn’t need to send anyone else with them. She thought she could handle it alone, but since the Vampires had been particularly difficult to kill recently, what with the return from hell of Holland, or Asteria, as she had been calling herself, Cadence had agreed to let Elliott come with her. Aaron would’ve done it himself except this was one of three such excavations going on at the same time.

These Vampires had lived down here for decades, not really breaking any rules, and even when Holland had called for all of the Vampires all to move, to band together in an attempt to form an army and attack the other two Passels of the Ternion, as far as the LIGHTS team could tell, these folks had ignored her cry. But the rules of the game had changed now that Holland was attempting to kidnap more Guardians so that she could do experiments on them to find a way to kill them, and Cadence and Aaron had agreed they were giving no free passes to bloodsuckers, even those who had always followed the rules and only taken the lives of the underbelly of society. All of the similar raids they’d conducted since that time had been easy compared to the rescue mission they’d embarked on in Melbourne two months ago, where she and her younger sister Cassidy had gone in attempting to save their cousin Paul Larkin whom Holland had been torturing. Instead, Cadence had tangled with another demonic Vampire, Holland’s lover, Carter—or Perses as he preferred--and while Cadence had walked away the victor, it had been a hard fought battle.

This should be a piece of cake.

Thinking of food reminded her that Elliott was going to have a hard time squeezing his girth through the opening they were closing in on, and she wished that Aaron would’ve gone ahead and let him go through with the procedure they’d been discussing ever since the Vampires had raided the tagging center at headquarters and they’d been forced to use a second dose of Transformation serum on one of the young Hunters, Tara, to keep her alive. Aaron had promised that Elliott and Cadence could both do it, too, since it had made Tara so much faster and stronger than she was before, which was saying something considering the superpowers Hunters already had. But Aaron wanted to be one hundred percent sure it was safe, and Jamie Joplin, their resident Healer, still had a few more experiments to do before he could give the okay. Cadence really hoped that would come in the next few days.

“You know, if I was stronger, maybe I could bust through the concrete,” Elliott said behind her. Even through the IAC, she could tell his voice was strained. They were crawling now, through what, she wasn’t sure, but it smelled pretty awful. She’d have to take her purple leather jacket and black pants to the dry cleaner on campus after this—that is, if they didn’t get shredded by claws or fangs.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” Cadence admitted, remembering the initial thought that had made her think of the Transformation serum to begin with. What if they got there and Elliott could bust through the ground around the grate instead of trying to go through a tiny opening?

The point would’ve been moot even if they hadn’t just arrived under their location to see that he would be able to fit through, with a little bit of shimmying and luck. Even though she was aware that Aaron had her visuals, she still felt the need to tell him, “We’re at the location.”

It took him a half-second to answer, and she imagined that was because he was directing the other teams as well. None of them should be merging here as the other tunnels and passages they were using to ferret out similar gangs of docile Vampires didn’t connect, but they were all in close enough proximity that Aaron was able to direct them from a parking garage a few miles from where Cadence was—and a few hundred yards above her head. She didn’t want to think about that, though, being underground. She wondered for a moment if it reminded Elliott of the time he’d been dead for eight months. Even though he had been cremated, she imagined if she’d been the one to die, anything remotely like being buried would make her uneasy. But then, this made her uneasy, and she’d been alive her entire life.

“Ready, kid?” Elliott whispered aloud, likely seeing the look on her face, thinking she was either on the verge of panic or about to be lost to the world.

“Ready,” Cadence nodded, sure of herself. This should be quick. Their intel said all four of the Vampires were hanging out in their little hovel presently, and Cadence hoped to take them out with four bullets. There was no point in messing around under the circumstances, even though she generally did appreciate a good decapitation.

A close inspection of the grate above her showed that it was loosely screwed into the crumbling concrete around the hole. She thought she could likely push the entire barrier up and out of her way on her own, and since she was now wedged in underneath it with only about a foot of empty space around her, she figured Elliott couldn’t reach over to help her, but as she gave it a good shove, he somehow managed to stretch his long arms and help, resulting in the metal shooting up out of its brackets a good three feet into the air above them, crashing against the far wall of the tunnel. She didn’t have a lot of time to think now. The noise surely must’ve gotten the attention of the Vampires, so without even a casual glance at what she was projecting herself into, she grabbed ahold of the lip of the now empty entry point and slung herself through to standing.

The moment her feet hit the concrete floor on either side of the grate casing, she pulled her Glock from her holster and flipped the after-market safety off. Four pale faces stared at her in confusion. They were stretched out on the tunnel floor, as if they had been about to call it a night, or maybe some of them had been sleeping already; it was hard to say, but as she stepped to the side so that Elliott could follow her, Cadence tried not to give too much thought to what the Vampires had been doing, what they were about to do, what they would never do again.

The two women went down with bullet holes through their chests quickly enough as the men scurried, confusion all over their faces. It was clear they didn’t spend a lot of time above ground since their complexions practically glowed in the dark, which made them even easier targets. She didn’t stop to contemplate how old they might’ve been, who they were before they were Vampires, or how long they might’ve been undead. As the men took off in different directions, Cadence tracked the one closest to her with her Glock, hitting him in the back of the head first before lowering her aim and shooting him through the back where his heart was. The other one took several titanium bullets to the midsection as he dodged around, trying to escape her trajectory, falling at last once she made direct contact with his heart. Like the rest, he didn’t stay down for long as his body turned almost immediately to ash. With no wind down here, however, they stayed where they’d fallen.

Cadence gave a satisfactory nod and then turned to see Elliott still stuck in the grate hole, half in half out, sort of like Winnie the Pooh in the honey hole. Despite the adrenaline still coursing through her veins she began to giggle.

“I could get through. If I wanted to,” he argued. His broad shoulders had already crested the opening, which made her think what he said was likely true. That was probably the widest part of his ample frame. “But really… what’s the point?”

Cadence tried not to think about how easy it had been. Even though her entire team had agreed that annihilation was their best bet, before Holland was able to sink her proverbial fangs into these docile groups and get them on the run, too, it still seemed a little too much like shooting fish in a barrel. Maybe that was because so far every clan of Vampires they’d taken out hadn’t really been a threat to begin with.

“They had moved locations recently,” Elliott reminded her. “We did have cause.” He worked his way back through the opening to the narrow tunnel, and she realized now she’d have to crawl back out the way she came, which literally stunk.

“I know,” she replied after he’d dropped through and started army crawling out of her way. This group of Vampires had taken part in a meeting not long ago where she was certain an attack on the Houston LIGHTS headquarters had been discussed, even though they seemed disinterested and had come back to their lair, the same as the other groups of Vampires her team was taking out at the very moment. She made sure the after-market safety was in place and slipped her Glock back into the holster before dropping through the hole. She was glad they could see so well in the dark since carrying a flashlight while crawling out of there would’ve been difficult.

“Oh, no,” Elliott whispered in front of her, the soles of his boots stopping directly in front of her face.

“What now?” Cadence asked, checking her IAC to make sure he wasn’t alarmed at the progress of one of the other teams. His son, Brandon Keen, who also happened to be a good friend of Cadence’s, as well as her sister’s boyfriend, was out with another Hunter, Aurora Howe, so a few panicked thoughts flickered through her mind until she was sure he was okay.

“Rats,” Elliott said softly.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, assuming he was just using one of his old colloquialisms from the 1950s.

“No, rats!” Elliott repeated, and she realized he meant there were actual rats in the tunnel.

“What?” Cadence screamed. “Aaron said there wouldn’t be any rats!” There wasn’t much that freaked her out anymore, not since she’d taken to beheading monsters for a living, but she still hated rats, and her understanding was that Elliott wasn’t a big fan either, but before he could even say anything more, there was a skittering noise in front of them, and Cadence braced herself.

There had to be at least three dozen of them, all the size of Pomeranians from what she could tell, though she closed her eyes and put her head down the second the first furry body brushed against her hand. Her biggest fear was that one would run down the bodice of her shirt, so she ducked her head tightly, feeling a few of the hurried creatures running directly into the crown of her head as they made their way around the two human bodies blocking their path. She tried not to scream for fear one of them would end up in her mouth as the sound of their claws clicking against the concrete tunnel and their squeaks of fear filled her mind. One of their skinny tales brushed against here ear, and for the second time that night, Cadence fought the urge to vomit.

Even after they’d passed by, Cadence could feel them on her arms, in her hair, brushing against her hands. “Go! Go!” she urged her partner, wishing she could push him out of her way. She needed to get out of there, now, before anything worse should appear.

“I’m going, I’m going,” Elliott assured her as he began to crawl foreword again. She realized he was spitting as he went.

“Did you…”

“Yep—right in the kisser.”

“Aaron Joseph McReynolds!” Cadence screeched over her IAC. “You said there would be no rats!”

Once again, it took him a moment to answer, and she assumed it was because he was busy, but when he did finally address her, she swore he was laughing. “Sorry, sweetheart. I guess my intel was a little off on that one.”

“It’s an underground tunnel,” Elliott said, hauling himself to his feet. “Of course it had to have rats.”

Cadence wanted to argue, to remind them that Aaron had said that there wouldn’t be any rats because such vermin always scurry when they hear a predator coming and will get out of their way, but as Cadence continued foreword, now hunched over again, but at least on her feet, she pondered what it might be that would cause a large group of rats to run together through a blocked passage, toward two people who were clearly making a lot of noise.

“Oh,” Elliott said, coming to a complete stop in front of her. She bumped into his back and froze in her tracks. “I guess that answers that.”

“Answers what?” she asked, wondering if he’d been thinking about the same thing. They’d have to discuss it later. In front of them, she saw two eyes and dozens of razor sharp teeth, slowly slithering toward her. “Is… that an alligator or a crocodile?”

“Uh, I’m not sure,” Elliott mumbled as they both took a few steps backward. It was huge whatever it was. Cadence couldn’t see the tip of its tail in the dark, but it had to be at least eight feet long, and its snout was a good two feet off of the ground. If Elliott would’ve crawled straight into it, he would’ve been in a lot of pain, even though Cadence reminded herself that a reptile couldn’t actually kill either one of them. As Paul’s experience had taught her, however, sometimes pain was worse than dying, and Jamie wasn’t even in Houston with them.

“Shoot it,” Cadence urged, pushing Elliott forward as she simultaneously stepped back.

He drew his gun and fired directly at the creature’s head, but it didn’t go down. Instead, it snapped at him, causing him to jump backward into Cadence.

“What the hell kinda shit is that?” Elliott said, shooting it again. The bullets had no effect, other than to piss the monster off even more, and after his Glock was nearly empty, the gap between them and the animal had narrowed to mere inches.

“That’s not a crocodile,” Aaron finally said, almost disinterested, as if he’d just noticed what was going on.

Cadence pushed the thought that there was something going on with her fiancé out of her mind. Now was not the time to dwell on how oddly he’d been acting the last few weeks. “Alligator?” Cadence asked. “Not that I care. Why won’t it die?”

“It’s neither,” he replied, his voice even. “It’s a Vampire.”

“What? A shapeshifting, backwoods, Louisiana Vampire?” Elliott growled as the monster lunged for him again.

“I believe so,” Aaron said. “Take care of it like you do anything else.”

“Why does he sound so calm?” Elliott asked her aloud, but Cadence stepped around him. She was tired, dirty, and was pretty sure she still had rat kooties on her arms.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I know how to kill a Vampire.” Without thinking about what she was doing, she channeled her inner Steve Irwin and pounced on the gator, or whatever it was, landing so that she was straddling it. She had fought shifter wolves a few times now and knew the key was to keep their jaws busy. She thought if she was able to occupy it long enough, perhaps flip it over so that it’s heart was facing upright, Elliott could stab it. “You have a knife, right?” she managed to get out as she struggled against the croc who just wouldn’t go down.

“Yeah,” he said, drawing it out of the interior pocket of his jacket.

Cadence used her entire body to fling the creature up and over, holding onto it with her knees, one hand on each jaw. It bucked and tried to pound her into the concrete beneath them, but her efforts were enough for Elliott to plunge the knife into its chest cavity. He took the blade out and stabbed again, several times, and Cadence could feel the animal start to weaken. Silver knives had worked better than anything else on the shapeshifting Vampires they’d encountered both in Melbourne and in Butler, Missouri, when they’d gone on a raid there right before Paul was taken prisoner. It was working here as well. After a few more jabs, the Vampire crocodile let out a loud sigh and crumbled into ash all over Cadence.

She lay there stunned for a few seconds, not sure what to make of the entire reptile situation. Eventually, she came to her senses and jumped up, brushing the residue off as Elliott pocketed his weapon. “Never in my life…” she muttered, not even sure how she might finish that sentence.

“You’re telling me. This is some crazy-ass shit.” He shook his head and nudged her along.

Cadence’s feet started moving, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what lie ahead of them. Even if this tunnel was empty, they’d need some sort of an explanation for that last one, and she wasn’t sure who it would come from.

A few minutes later, she could see the first grate they’d gone through, the one that had led to this larger tunnel, which was in the floor of a newer parking garage beneath one of Houston’s tallest buildings. The thought of standing in a stream of hot water in their hotel shower for a good hour or two made her walk a little faster even if she thought she had a few choice words for her fiancé when she saw him.

As Elliott helped her remove the grate more discreetly this time, he asked, “Do you know the difference between an alligator and a crocodile?”

After that last encounter, she was pretty confident neither one of them did, but she decided to play along. She slid the grate over and began to hoist herself up. “No. What is it?”

Standing in the parking garage, she watched as Elliott pulled himself through and they returned the metal covering. “One of them will see you later, and the other one will see you after a while.”

A guffaw escaped her lips despite the fact she was trying to be quiet just in case there were still humans in the parking garage that late at night, or early in the morning, as the case may be. She shook her head. “Did you just think of that?”

“No, I think it’s a meme,” he admitted, walking back toward the SUV they’d parked all of an hour ago.

“Since when are you a social media butterfly?” Cadence asked; as far as she knew his Smartphone was so old it didn’t even support most app updates.

“Since I started raising a teenager,” he replied, producing some keys and starting the Enclave remotely. Cadence hurried across the lot and climbed into the passenger side.

Mention of Brandon had her checking in on him again. He was fine—no rats, no crocs. Nothing but regular ol’ Vampires. She was glad Cassidy was back home in Kansas City with her parents, even though they hadn’t encountered anything too terribly dangerous. She worried about her sister despite the fact that she’d proven herself the last time she’d gone into the field. But that was months ago, and things had changed. Cadence knew she couldn’t protect Cassidy forever, but she’d try, especially in light of what had happened recently in their small town of Shenandoah.

“Hey, you all right?” Elliott asked, steering them out of the parking garage.

Cadence realized she’d gotten lost in her head again, something she needed to be more mindful of. “Yeah, fine,” she assured him as he squeezed her knee. “Just… thinking about Cass.”

Elliott nodded, well-aware of the situation with Cassidy’s friend, Lucy Burk. “She’ll be all right. She’s a tough lil girl.”

“Yep,” Cadence said, but she wasn’t sure she believed it. Her sister had been through so much lately. There were thousands of Hunters under Cadence’s direction now, and many of them were new recruits, like her sister. And Tara—who had almost died recently. And Cadence was responsible for each of them, a job she didn’t take lightly. Sometimes she wondered how Aaron had done it for so long.

Thinking of him made her remember the rats and the gator. Cadence closed her eyes and leaned her head back, ready to be home. “From now on, why don’t we let Texas handle its own shit?” she asked.

“Everything is definitely bigger here,” Elliott said, not answering her question. “Bigger rats. Bigger crocapires. Except the grates. Those seemed smaller.”

She chuckled, thinking of him trapped. “At least you weren’t stuck when the vampigator arrived.”

“True. They say I would live without my head attached to my body, but I don’t wanna find that out for certain.”

“Me neither,” Cadence agreed, slapping him on the shoulder, her eyes still shut. “Me neither.” It was one of the many scenarios she hoped she’d never encounter, and if she lived to be two hundred, she could do without ever seeing another allipire again, too, but she had a feeling Holland wasn’t done throwing them for a loop. The sooner they put an end to the Vampire Queen’s reign, the better.

Chapter 2

“That’s incredible!” Christian Henry gushed, looking at images of the vampire-crocodile Cadence and Elliott had dispatched on their Houston trip. They were back in Kansas City now, and even three days later, Cadence could still feel the rats crawling on her skin, despite dozens long, hot showers, and several apologies from her betrothed, none of which made it seem as if he was actually more sorry than amused.

“What is it though?” Jamie asked, sitting next to Christian in the conference room where the team had gathered to go over recent missions. There’d been so many lately, these fly-by raids, as Aaron often referred to them, it was impossible to stop after each one and go over everything that had transpired. Since the retired Guardians from Roatan had come up to help, the Kansas City team had been dispatching groups across the country to work with the locals to take care of as many of these pockets as possible, and the meetings were more of an opportunity to talk about anomalies, such as this creature, than a rehash of exactly how each hunt went down.

“Well, it’s definitely a crocodile,” Christian said, handling the picture. “Its snout is narrow, and its teeth stick out when its mouth is closed.”

“I knew he’d know,” Cadence muttered.

“Okay—but what is it?” Jamie repeated, taking the picture back and setting it aside so that Christian wasn’t the only one who could see it “Why would a Vampire take the form of a crocodile? In Houston of all places?”

“Do you mean who is it?” Christian asked. “As in who did it used to be that it developed the ability to shift into a crocodile instead of the usual mist monster or wolf?”

“Sure,” Jamie said with a shrug as if he thought that might be the only way to make any progress with the one person they all thought might know something about this phenomenon when Jamie admitted he’d never seen it before.

Christian shook his head. “I dunno,” he admitted. “But it’s really cool.”

Cadence bit back the sarcastic answer that was about to roll off of her tongue involving the question, “Why do we invite you to these meetings?” She turned to look at Aaron instead, who was standing at the front of the room. “Can we expect this to be the new normal?”

“Yeah, can they just be any critter they want?” Elliott asked.

“I have no idea,” he admitted with a loud sigh. “But the important thing is that the silver blade worked on it the same way it has the others.”

“But if we don’t even know what’s a Vampire and what’s an animal…” Cadence began.

“Does it matter?” Aurora asked, her long red hair falling on her shoulders as she raised and lowered them. “Even if it was a regular old alligator—”

“Crocodile,” Christian corrected her.

She narrowed her eyes and continued. “Crocodile, wouldn’t you have killed it just the same?”

“I wouldn’t have wasted an entire clip of ammo on it,” Elliott muttered.

“Maybe,” Cadence conceded, ignoring Elliott’s remark. “But… it makes me even more uneasy to know that they can pop up in whatever form they like whenever they like.”

“We’ll do some more research on the matter, talk to some of the other old timers and see what they know,” Aaron said, but she could tell by his voice that he was placating her. He didn’t really seem as concerned about this new threat as Cadence was. Even in the moment, when she was literally wrestling with a croc, he seemed to think it was nothing to worry about. She wondered if it was the weight of everything else on his shoulders or if he was close to another break down. Since the last one had caused him to temporarily kill himself, she had to keep an eye on him, even when it seemed like there was nothing bothering him—especially when it seemed like there was nothing bothering him.

“What else do we need to talk about?” Cadence asked, wishing this meeting was over. It wasn’t even that long, and she liked almost everyone in the room—with the exception of Christian who’d only been called in because she hoped he could explain the newest shifter. Since he couldn’t, she was ready to throw him out. Elliott, Jamie, Aurora, and Hannah Roberts were all people she considered friends, but when her eyes fell on the tech guy, she wondered if they could still consider bringing in Hattie, the tech guru from Billings, Montana.

“Hannah, how are things in Iowa?” Aaron asked, pulling his chair out and sitting for once. It seemed like he preferred to stand anymore, another sign that he was on edge. He ran his hand through his light brown hair and narrowed his pristine blue eyes in the direction of his number two, a strawberry-blonde Guardian who had been a counselor in a former life.

“Better,” she said with a nod that assured Cadence that what she said was true. “We’ve got a handle on things now that you’ve moved Maxine Campbell to oversee operations there. I think, whatever Holland was up to, it’s over with now, or at least she sees that she can no longer be successful.”

Cadence let out a long breath she had been unconsciously holding and nodded. She’d grown up in Shenandoah, Iowa, and had only moved to Kansas City a little over a year and a half ago. It had been a few weeks since Holland had decided to make the small town her playground, and Cadence didn’t like to think about the havoc she’d wreaked in just one night when the LIGHTS team’s defenses had been lowered. Six people had been killed, all of them somehow related to a Hunter or Guardian one way or another, some distantly, others who would’ve been able to Transform themselves if they’d wanted to. Shenandoah had become a bit of a haven for their family members since Cadence’s grandparents, Janette and Jordan Findley, had decided it would be nice to have as many families as possible in one location, and while that idea hadn’t exactly taken off, it had been enough for Cadence’s father to move there.

Now, Cadence wasn’t sure if it was a great idea that would’ve done better with more backing or a horrible idea that left many families vulnerable to attacks like the one that had happened in early March, the one that had left her sister’s friend Lucy Burk without a dad and cost so many other families just as dearly.

“We’ve got two dozen Guardians there now, back to watching on rooftops, the same sort of procedure we ran when Cadence and Cassidy were at risk,” Hannah continued in her even voice. “I’m certain they’ll be fine in the short term, until we can shut this business with Holland down.”

“We don’t seem to be gettin’ a whole lot closer to that,” Elliott muttered, tapping the end of a pencil he probably wouldn’t need for anything against the table.

“I don’t think that’s a fair statement,” Aaron said in his calm voice. “We’ve gotten nearly two thousand Guardians to come up from Roatan. We have a good handle on Melbourne now, we’ve taken out eighty-two pockets of Vampires in the last month alone. The ones that are congregating, the ones Holland intends to use to invade our headquarters, are on their heels.”

“Yeah, but those are the only ones that matter.” Cadence was surprised to hear Jamie disagree so openly with Aaron. He was usually more agreeable. “If we can’t get a handle on them soon, then the rest of these Vampires who really aren’t involved aren’t going to make a difference.”

“They are involved,” Aaron argued, his voice a slight bit sharper than usual. “They just haven’t cooperated fully with Holland’s initiative yet. That doesn’t mean they won’t.”

“So… what do we do?” Aurora asked, obviously as frustrated as everyone else. Her hands were folded on the table in front of her. Cadence saw a flicker of a look between Aurora and Elliott, who was seated to Cadence’s left, and for a moment, she thought it might mean something. Or maybe it was nothing…. “Remind me what we’re doing—waiting for them to—what?”

A sigh of exasperation left her fiancé, and Cadence wished there was a way to tell a person to calm down that actually caused the person to do so. “We need to know for sure what Holland’s numbers are, whether or not that formula she came up with in late February that she thinks will allow her to kill Guardians is effective, and now, what this new shifter business is. I don’t like going in against dozens of Vampires that can do who knows what without that sort of information.”

“But—if Cassidy can’t get it,” Aurora argued, “then we don’t have a choice do we?”

“I think she can get it,” Aaron assured everyone, but really no one.

Cadence wanted to shake her head. She had more faith in her sister’s ability than anyone, but her potential to see into Holland’s head had almost become a vice. Aaron was afraid to act if he didn’t know exactly what Holland was doing, and Cassidy couldn’t be completely sure of anything she thought she knew since Holland was aware that Cassidy had these capabilities. “I will talk to my sister again, right now, see what she can find out what Holland is up to, but in the meantime, we also need visuals on Spittle’s group. If we get a location on him and go in there full force, we’ll get rid of the direct threat of another invasion here. We should be able to do that.”

“What about the procedures?” Elliott asked, his eyes meeting Aurora’s again before he looked at Jamie. “When can we do that?”

“Well, if you guys want to attack right away….” Aaron was clearly using Cadence and Elliott’s decision to use the Transformation serum to strengthen themselves as a weapon against them, and she had no idea why.

“I have no problem doing it whenever Aaron gives the okay,” Jamie said implying he was not the one hanging up the operation. He shrugged and spread his hands on the table palm up.

Cadence’s eyes fell on her fiancé. She had been under the impression Jamie wasn’t done with the tissue sample trials. She wondered how many days Aaron had been putting it off, assuming everyone thought Jamie was still working.

“Great. Let’s do it. Today,” Aaron said, standing and heading toward the door.

Her mouth open, Cadence watched him go--like everyone else. But she didn’t get up and run after him as she imagined she might. Instead, she shifted her eyes to Jamie who looked as exasperated as she felt.

“What the hell?” Elliott asked for all of them.

She felt the weight of his eyes on her and turned her head. “Don’t ask me. I have no idea.”

“Well, clearly, something is bothering him,” Hannah stated in her serene voice that usually kept Cadence calm but at the moment it made her want to throat punch someone.

“Maybe you should go see what it is,” Cadence suggested. “He’s more likely to talk to you than anyone else.”

“Me?” Hannah seemed surprised at Cadence’s assessment. “I would think you should do that.”

“Nah, I’m just his fiancée. You’re his right hand girl.”

Hannah looked around, and once she could see that she had the consensus of the rest of the table, she stood and quietly walked out the door. Cadence wished she hadn’t made the suggestion as a pang of jealousy hit her in the gut, but she knew there was nothing between Hannah and Aaron except a decades long friendship and years of working together. Still, she probably should’ve gone herself. She just didn’t know what else to say…. She’s already tried so many times to get through to him with no success.

“So we jump on this before he changes his mind?” Elliott asked Jamie, as if it wasn’t a question.

“I still think it’s a bad idea,” Christian said, standing and heading out the door himself. Cadence was relieved to see him go. Even though the tissue samples he’d tested himself showed nothing to be concerned about, he’d been against it, and she assumed that was because he was not on Aaron’s short list to undergo the procedure.

“Yeah, I guess so.” Jamie didn’t sound so confident. “But let’s do it in the morning. Cadence, that will give you a chance to finish up everything you were working on, get Aurora up to speed on everything, since I assume she’ll be in charge of the Hunters while you’re out.” He gestured to the Amazonian redhead to his right, now that Christian’s chair was vacant. “And Elliott, it will give you a chance to… do whatever you do when you’re not hunting.”

A smirk spread across Elliott’s face. “All right. More Cheetos and basketball.”

Shaking her head once more, Cadence pushed herself up from the table. “Aurora, you wanna come over around 7:00 tonight, and we’ll go over some things?”

“Uh, how about you come to my apartment?” The nerves in her voice couldn’t be missed, and Cadence realized she was avoiding Aaron.

“Okay,” she replied thinking the location probably made no difference as far as content was concerned. “My kid sister still in the gym?” she asked Elliott who usually had a pretty good handle on where Cassidy was.

“Yep. Shane should be about done with the sims though.”

Cadence glanced at the time on her IAC and saw that he was right. Cassidy would be forever indebted to her if she made it over in time to pull her out of any of her training session with Shane, but Cadence knew how close Cass was to being released from training altogether and decided to let the Guardian finish up. She only had one more observation to go—which was ironic since she’d already been involved in so many hunts—but Cadence had decided not to break protocol so that none of the other Hunters would think that she was showing favoritism to her sister.

She waved goodbye to Mrs. Carminati, the human receptionist who sat behind the desk outside of the office Cadence shared with Aaron. The kindhearted older woman was there even on days when the office was empty, doing Cadence didn’t know what, but she always looked busy with papers, something Cadence had no place for in her world. The elevator took Cadence to the bottom floor, and she stepped outside into a cool spring morning.

Weather had little effect on her anymore, but the crisp air felt good in her lungs, and the flowers Juan Diego and the other maintenance crew members had recently planted livened the place up a bit. Cadence didn’t know much about flowers, but she thought these yellow and purple ones with the streaks of black and dots of white were pansies. They smelled good, and almost made her keep walking in the direction of the gym, despite what looked like an emotional interaction between Aaron and Hannah about a hundred feet to her right, closer to the apartment buildings.

She couldn’t ignore it, however, and with a deep inhale, she approached. “You guys all right?”

Hannah looked exasperated, an expression she rarely wore. “Yes, fine. Just… at an impasse.”

“I can’t imagine.” Cadence muttered the statement without thinking, and when she saw Aaron’s eyes narrow, she realized now was not the time to remind her beloved he was often difficult to negotiate with. “What’s going on?” she finally asked. He looked at her but his expression didn’t change.

“I’ll… give you some space,” Hannah said, fading back a few steps before she rushed off.

He had his arms folded and leaned against the raised planter behind him. “Something’s about to happen, Cadence, something… not good. But I can’t quite put my finger on it, and it’s driving me crazy. Crazier.”

“Don’t,” she said harshly, her finger pointing at him of its own accord. “You drive us crazy—that doesn’t make you crazy.”

He pursed his lips, drawing them to one side of his face, but said nothing for a moment. “I feel like we need to be still for now, just wait and see what she’s got up her sleeve, but everyone wants to do something. I’m not sure acting is our best bet right now. And I definitely don’t want you out of capacity for a day or two for no reason.”

“So you don’t want me to do the procedure?” She tried to keep the heat out of her voice. He hadn’t said she couldn’t, only that he didn’t want her to.

“I think it’s a bad move at the moment, but I know I can’t convince you otherwise.”

The idea that she was mule headed was almost as annoying to her as the idea that he was a perfectionist was to him, and the fact that he’d brought it up probably angered her as much as the earlier comment she’d made about his inability to be flexible had him. “Are you sure this bad feeling your having doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that I want to do the procedure?”

He was shaking his head. “No, I don’t think so. But… I don’t know.”

“So, maybe that’s all it is. Maybe once it’s over with you’ll feel better.”

“And maybe once it’s over with, something will be very different, not just about you, but in the world, and you’ll have slept through it. Or maybe you’ll die and not come back.”

Her eyes widened. “Is that what it is? You know Jamie won’t let that happen to me.”

“No, it’s not. I don’t think so.” He ran his hand through his hair again, and this time, Cadence noticed some of the light brown strands clung between his fingers when he pulled them away. She’d never seen that happen before. Things were worse than she imagined. “I don’t know. Just… we’ll talk about it later.”

She agreed now was clearly not the time to finish the discussion. “Okay.” She glanced over her shoulder at the direction Hannah had disappeared. Never in the almost two years that she’d been a member of the team had she ever seen Aaron and Hannah have even a slight disagreement. “What was that about?”

“Hannah?” he asked, like he wasn’t sure what she was getting at. “She made a suggestion I disagreed with. I’ve never seen her get that upset before.”

Cadence might’ve said “angry” instead of upset, but she didn’t correct him. “What was the suggestion?”

Again, he hesitated, running his hands down the length of his face before refolding his arms. Behind her, Cadence heard Jamie, Elliott, and Aurora exit the building, knowing them only by their footsteps, not their voices as they were all quiet. She waited. “She just said she thought maybe I should let her handle more so that I could… relax a little bit.”

Her head bobbed up and down. “And you insisted you’re fine, and she said you’re not.”

“Pretty much.”

A tear formed in the corner of her eye, and Cadence realized this was worse that she’d even believed it to be if Hannah was willing to argue about it. “What if she’s right?”

He shrugged. “What if I can’t do that?”

“You know she can do it. You know she’s capable.”

“Cadence—this is the biggest threat we’ve ever had to handle, in the history of the world. I can’t just decide to take a few days for myself as the Ternion crumbles around me.”

Part of her wanted to argue that he could, and he must, but the rest of her knew that her words would fall on deaf ears. “Okay,” she said quietly, wondering if there was something else she should do instead. Was there a way to contact the Guardian Area Leaders and ask them to work around Aaron, to direct their inquiries and reports directly to Hannah for a while? She thought that probably wouldn’t work since he would inquire straight to each of them if they didn’t report as directed, and if they all said everything was just peachy all of a sudden, he’d know that something was up.

The tears somehow stayed in her eyes, though she was sure he could see she was on the brink of an emotional breakdown, that he could sense it. It was his gift, after all. Jamie could heal, Elliott could deceive, Hannah could calm, and Aaron could read emotions. So she really didn’t need to tell him what she had to say when she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him. But she did it anyway. “I love you.”

“I know,” he said quietly, squeezing her a little too tightly. He didn’t say anything more, but in her head, she picked up on the subtle tone of his statement, the question he didn’t ask--why or how. Why did she love him? How could she love him when he was so… unlovable, and she squeezed him almost as firmly.

He pecked her temple and let her go. “Try not to put too much on Cass,” he said as he turned to head toward their apartment building. “She’s starting to get overwhelmed.”

The irony was evident to both of them such that Cadence didn’t feel like it was necessary to point out the kettle was calling the pot black. “Okay,” she said for the millionth time that day. He managed a weak smile and a small wave, and Cadence turned to head toward the gym, wiping at a few wayward tears who refused to be contained.

Chapter 3

When Cadence reached the building that housed the gym, a steady stream of new recruits was headed down the hallway toward the showers. She looked for her sister among them but didn’t see her familiar face.

“Hi, Cadence!” Tara said seemingly out of nowhere, though Cadence realized she’d been so busy looking for Cassidy she hadn’t noticed the other girl. Her brown hair was in a ponytail and a few tendrils were matted to her face with sweat, but she didn’t look nearly as tired as the other kids—recruits—and Cadence imagined that was because she wasn’t. Another argument for going through with the procedure.

“Hi, Tara,” she said, pressing a smile to her face. “How’s it going?”

The other newbies in the hallway seemed to suddenly realize who they’d been walking past and there were some oohs and ahhs. This was an entirely new batch from what Cadence could tell, although she’d never paid enough attention to the new recruits. She didn’t recognize any of them except for Tara and Dax Forest who came to a stop behind his girlfriend. “It’s going,” Cadence muttered, trying to force her face into being nonchalant. “Do you know where my sister is?”

“Yeah, she’s still in the gym talking to Alex,” Tara replied. “She’s so fascinated with him. It’s kinda funny.”

“You should’ve seen her trying to impress him during the simulation today,” Dax, a tall blond who had only been on the team for a few months agreed with a chuckle. “Every time she took a shot, she wanted to turn her head and see if he was watching.”

A flutter of panic rose in Cadence’s stomach. She didn’t know who Alex was, but if her sister was trying to impress another guy, what did that say for her relationship with Brandon? “Oh?” she said, trying to seem like it didn’t bother her, but her face was no longer cooperating.

The pair didn’t seem to notice. “Yeah, it’s so funny to see her geek out on a Revolutionary War hero.” Tara giggled and then the two of them moved on down the hallway toward the locker rooms, and Cadence realized they weren’t talking about some new recruit her sister had taken a liking to. She felt better—about Cassidy anyway—and hurried to the gym.

She saw her sister standing across from a short, thin man dressed in something one might expect to see in a Broadway play—set at the turn of the 19th century. Despite everyone’s insistence that Mr. Hamilton might blend in better dressed in clothes more appropriate for the current day, Alex had insisted that when he was at home, he would wear whatever the hell he liked, so it was breaches, knee socks, a white wig, and lots of other apparel Cadence didn’t understand. And since Alex had made it abundantly clear that he wanted to be one of the first Guardians to try the Retransformation serum as soon as Holland was stopped, there had been no arguing. This home would only be his place for a short while, if Cadence had any say about it. Then, he could return to Roatan with the others and hopefully die in a decade or two, though he wished it would be sooner. If the Blue Moon Portal legend was true, he wouldn’t die at all, but the team needed his help right now, so they didn’t dwell on the possibilities that even if the Retransformation serum worked for others, it likely wouldn’t work on him.

Cassidy was so intrigued by whatever he was talking about, she didn’t even look up as Cadence approached. Alex was making some sort of a gesture with his arms, as if he were firing a musket, reloading, and re-firing it, and Cassidy’s eyes were wide as she listened. Cadence caught the end of the story, standing in silence, waiting for the Founding Father to finish. “And then, it simply sprang free from the cellar door, its fangs barred and dripping blood. So, I fired again, using the smoke as a screen as I discarded my musket and moved in to tear the beast’s head from its shoulders.”

“And it worked?” Cassidy asked, still seemingly unaware of her sister’s presence.

“Oh, yes. He was soon a pile of ashes there on the cabin floor. It was one of my first kills, but certainly not my last.”

“That’s so fascinating,” Cassidy gushed. “I am always so amazed at how you were able to be so successful with such rudimentary weaponry.”

“Yes, my dear. That is precisely why I say to you do not worry if these… Glocks and Berettas, as you call them, fail you. The true measure of a man… er, a woman, a girl, perhaps, in your case, is the ability to find the strength from within to do what is needed at precisely the right moment.”

Cassidy’s eyes were glazed over like she was staring at a movie star, rather than what should’ve been a long dead politician. “Cass?” she said quietly, hoping not to jar her younger sister back into reality too harshly. “Can I speak to you for a moment?” Then to Alexander Hamilton she said, “Pardon me for interrupting.”

“Aw, if it isn’t the elder Miss Findley. How are you this fine day?”

For once in her life, she was glad that Christian was the way that he was—or at least that he didn’t still speak like it was the 1800s. “Good, thank you… kind sir,” Cadence stumbled, which made her sister giggle. She rolled her eyes and said, “Cass?”

“Okay, yeah, sure,” her teenaged sister mumbled. “Thanks again, Alex.”

“I am at your service any time, Miss Cassidy,” he replied with a slight bow, and Cadence literally grabbed ahold of her sister’s elbow and dragged her a few steps away as he headed across the room in the opposite direction. She smiled at him, not wanting to offend him for more reasons than she could name, but this was the first time Cadence had seen her sister with her head in the clouds since she first started dating Brandon. Even then, it wasn’t this bad. “Earth to Cassidy?” Cadence said, once they were away from the historical figure.

“What?” Cass asked in a tone reserved for teenage girls. “I’m not deaf!”

“Uh, you are infatuated, though. Does Brandon know about this?”

Cassidy narrowed her eyes and folded her arms across her chest. “I am not infatuated. I just happen to take an interest in US history, unlike someone I know who totally takes it for granted and only got As because she sucked up to the teacher.”

Cadence decided now was not the time to argue with her sister about her schooling or try to let her know she was gushing all over a man old enough to be her great-great-who-knows-how-many-greats-grandfather, particularly when the age difference between herself and Aaron flickered through her mind. Instead, she said, “Look, we need to chat. How long will it take you to hit the showers and meet me over at mom and dad’s?”

“Ugh,” Cassidy groaned. “Can we go somewhere else? Mom is driving me crazy lately. Do you know my curfew is 10:00—on the weekend—unless I’m on a hunt? It’s 8:00 during the week. That’s so stupid. Brandon’s apartment is literally a floor above ours.”

“Okay… how about Brandon’s apartment then? Meet me there?”

“I have my schoolwork to finish still.”

“I’ll tell Mom.” She knew her mother would want to make sure Cassidy got her academic work done before anything else, but Cadence thought if she explained they needed to talk about the end of the world as they knew it, perhaps her mother would make an exception, just this once.

“Fine.” She rolled her eyes. “See you in twenty minutes?”

“Sounds good.” Cadence smiled, though once again it wasn’t genuine, and headed out of the simulator room. On the way, she passed by the gym and several smaller fitness areas. Normally, she wouldn’t have even turned her head, but the sound of familiar laughing caught her attention, and she peered into one of the training rooms to see Aurora and Elliott standing unusually close to each other—much closer than they would need to be in order to carry on a conversation. She ducked out of the way before either one of them noticed, but the sight struck her as odd. Why would Elliott even be at the gym right now? If he worked out, which was infrequent at best, it was usually late at night. Aurora was the head trainer, so it would make sense she’d be over here, but… something was going on, and neither of them had mentioned it, which was bothersome since she considered both of them to be extremely good friends.

She couldn’t think about that at the moment, though. There were far too many other pressing thoughts on her mind. The hall outside of the locker room was full of chattering kids again—she said kids, even though a lot of the new recruits were her age or older. Aaron said it didn’t really matter how old you were once you Transformed; it was experience that mattered most of all, and she got that in a real big way now. These people all looked like novices, teens who had no idea what they didn’t know, even if she wasn’t quite twenty-one yet and some of them could’ve been almost twenty-two. She could’ve been their grandma when it came to experience.

“Cadence!”

She heard Tara’s voice behind her as she hit the exit door and only slowed slightly. As much as she liked the new Hunter, she did act like an eighteen-year-old much of the time. Despite being much stronger and faster than any other Hunter now that she’d been brought back from death by a second dose of Transformation serum, Tara hadn’t been on any official hunts yet. She was almost through with her training and would start observations soon, but her only actual experience in the field had been the night Bonnie, a toddler Vampire Cassidy had brought home a few weeks ago, ripped Tara’s throat out. She also didn’t know jack.

“Hey, Tara.” The other girl fell into step alongside Cadence. “Where’s Dax?” As far as Cadence knew, the two were nearly inseparable since Dax had sat up all night waiting to see if Tara was going to survive the attack.

“He’s meeting me at the pizza place. Lucy’s supposed to meet us there, too. She’s so much fun. It’s too bad, what happened to her dad.”