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Chapter 32
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2021-02-24 11:33:49Swimming to shore, and making his way back to the location of his team that way would take a very long time, and since he was very concerned about Frank’s condition, Aaron was in a hurry to get back. There was a pier close by, so he fought the current of the salty river and swam over to it, then climbed up using the large stone bricks as hand and footholds.
When he reached the top, Vicky rushed over to help him transition back to the top of the bridge. “Are you all right?” she asked as he made the awkward leap through the suspension wires and across the railing. She reached out and steadied him upon landing.
“I’m fine,” Aaron assured her, though he was soaking wet, a sensation he didn’t particularly care for. “How’s Frank?”
“He’s just fine,” Vicky assured him as they both rushed back to the location where Frank’s throat had been cut.
Aaron couldn’t believe that was p
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Aaron Chapter 33
Wallachia, Romania, 1894In half a century, Aaron had never seen so many Hunters and Guardians assembled in one location. There had to be at least a hundred, maybe more, bodies crammed into the village meeting house at the base of the Carpathian Mountains near Bran. When Ward had explained they’d been summoned to help out in the efforts, Aaron had jumped at the opportunity. Though he had no idea what the operation entailed, he had heard that the renowned Vampire Hunter, Van Helsing, would be present, and he was willing to accept any offer that involved potentially observing the legend.As Aaron surveyed the room, he realized he knew very few of the faces congregated there. Seated on rickety chairs, crammed into the small space, it was difficult to see everyone, but they certainly seemed diverse. It was as if Jordan had summoned the best he had to offer from across the world.Aaron did see one familiar face and attempted to wave to Jamie, who was s
Last Updated : 2021-02-24Aaron Chapter 34
The Hunters and Guardians had been asked to bring their own weapons, but she recommend each of them stop by after the meeting to have them blessed by one of several priests she had on hand and dipped in Holy Water. She said that Holy Water worked best when administered by a priest and that poor results some had reported may be due to missing this step. She also had several stakes available for team members to take which had been carved from demolished holy structures. She reported having better results with these weapons than others.“There are one hundred twenty of us assembled here, including my team, which is still scattered across the mountainside keeping eye as we congregate here. Each of you has been assigned to a team, and I will meet separately with team leaders at the conclusion of this meeting. You will be placed in various key locations, and while most of you will simply help form a perimeter, some of you will have more important jobs, such as ferreting out a
Last Updated : 2021-02-24Aaron Chapter 35
Van must have been very confident in the abilities of the individuals she placed on this team as their task would not be easy. As Ward had explained it, Dracula had a lair beneath the castle where he held three temptress Vampires. They were extremely dangerous assassins who had the ability to manipulate their opponents, particularly those of the male variety. Van offered no explanation for why she had chosen this particular group, but Ward assured them it was purposeful. Perhaps she knew they were the least likely to be distracted by the sirens’ beauty.Ascending the mountain took time, but it was not difficult for any of them. There was an advanced team that would go in first and clear the entrance ways. Van and her core team of six would then go in and concentrate on finding and destroying Dracula while five sub-teams, including Wards, would carry out their assignments. The rest of the team members held various positions from right outside the castle gates to a perime
Last Updated : 2021-02-24Aaron Chapter 36
Entering the castle itself was no problem. Once inside, sounds of battles raging on in various locations could be heard. All of the special mission teams came in at the same time, and without taking time to look around the opulently decorated, though recently ransacked, interior, the leaders split off in the various directions they’d been instructed to follow.Ward led them down a hallway that led to a steep stairway that went both up and down. They chose to follow it down, further into the depths of the castle. It was made of marble and the floor was slick, but all of their team members were sure-footed.It was also dark, though none of them needed torches. Their highly attuned vision was able to cut through the darkness.Once they reached the next floor, Ward looked around and then, nodding, he took them down another corridor. Here, they found a thick oak door, which Ward asked Morris to knock down, and he did so easily. This led to yet another flight of
Last Updated : 2021-02-24Aaron Chapter 37
Catherine brought her elbow down hard right into the Vampire’s face, which angered her immensely, and she began to try and buck Aaron off. “Well, that didn’t work,” the Hunter muttered.“You think?” he agreed.Catherine looked around the room, as if she wasn’t sure what she could use to decapitate the monster. “Pull it off, Catherine,” he shouted, beginning to lose patience.“With what?”Aaron hadn’t realized this technique wasn’t part of every Hunter’s repertoire. “With your hands!”Her eyes widened, and it was quite clear she’d never done something like that before. She didn’t hesitate though. She dropped back down to her knees, and placing once on each side of the struggling Vampire’s head, she slid her hands around the top of her head and the bottom of her jaw and began to pull. Nothing happened.“Sides of her head,&rdq
Last Updated : 2021-02-24Aaron Chapter 38
Someone was calling his name. She was distant, and while he was almost certain it wasn’t Aislyn’s voice, he thought for a moment, what if it was? What if he was dead, and Aislyn had come to greet him on the other side? Wouldn’t that be lovely?His eyes felt heavy, but his head no longer ached. He was quite certain it had before, though he didn’t know when, and he didn’t know why. He managed a blink, and then with some effort, he willed his eyes to come open. The room seemed bright, sideways, and was spinning. He decided to close his eyes again.“Aaron?” another voice called. “Open your eyes.”He knew he recognized that voice, and when he opened his eyes again, he saw Jamie’s familiar face, though he wasn’t sure why he had two of them. He shook his head in an attempt to focus, but that sent a radiating pain through his skull.“Stay still,” the woman’s voice said quietly, an
Last Updated : 2021-02-24Aaron Chapter 39
The Atlantic Ocean, 1912“Do you think I should wear the blue tie or the red one?” Christian asked, holding each choice up to his neck in front of the full-length mirror.“Hell, I don’t know. Wear them both,” Aaron replied.“Someone’s a bit touchy tonight,” Christian said, turning to look at him.“Someone takes forever to get dressed and then still can’t decide what he’s wearing.” Aaron dropped into a chair across the room, hopeful that Christian would get himself together before dinner. He knew he should’ve come at least fifteen minutes after Christian suggested so that he would actually be ready to go.“Maybe the gray one,” Christian mumbled. “Where is the gray one?” He disappeared, and Aaron eyed the bottle of Scotch sitting on the counter, figuring he probably had time for at least one drink before his partner was ready to go.A
Last Updated : 2021-02-24Aaron Chapter 40
Dinner was full of questions posed to them in English which they pretended not to understand and conversation in French about whatever they wished since no one else at their table knew what they were saying. At least one of them had their eyes on the Vampire at all times. Before they had even finished, Dr. Williams excused himself from his seat across the room and began to walk toward the door.This was not part of the plan, and as they exchanged nervous glances, Catherine came up with a solution. Clenching her stomach, she said in French, “I’m really not feeling well, darling. Might you escort me back to the room?”“Yes, of course,” Aaron replied, helping her up from her seat and explaining to the others, also in French, that his wife was not well.“What do I do?” Christian asked.“Finish dinner; go make a search,” Aaron said, a fake smile plastered on his face so no one might guess that he was giving
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Aaron Chapter 56
Eliza was crying, apologizing, making excuses. “I’m sorry,” she said, wiping at her nose with the back of her hand. They were sitting at a table in a small storage room just outside the conference room. He had told the rest of the team they could debrief without them, and Elliott was going over things with them now. Aaron was doing his best to stay calm while she tried to catch her breath. As angry as he was that she’d almost caused a disaster during the hunt at the zoo, the important thing was that she learned a lesson from all of this.Her breath catching in her throat so that she could hardly get the words out, Eliza stuttered, “I just… you said we were team one.” She plucked a tissue out of a box near her elbow and blew her nose.After giving her a moment to attempt to settle down, he took a deep breath. “No, I did not say you were team one,” Aaron insisted. “I said you were team two.”&ldquo
Aaron Chapter 55
Within minutes, Aaron began to feel a little bit different. While he still found Eliza very attractive, some of the things she said, the questions she asked, were no longer cute or endearing; they were annoying. He realized she was asking basic questions, things she should know by now. Clearly, she wasn’t paying attention while he went over the first part of the meeting, because once the Hunters joined them, she asked about some of the topics he’d already covered. It was too early to admit it, but he realized there was a possibility that Elliott and Jamie might be right.Eventually, Eliza ran out of questions, stupid or otherwise, and the team loaded up and travelled to the zoo. Even though he was beginning to wonder about his relationship with Eliza, she sat next to him as he drove one of the two SUVs full of team members, and when she reached for his hand, he gave it to her, hoping he’d feel different about the possibility he was being manipulated once the
Aaron Chapter 54
Shenandoah, Iowa, America, 2010Shenandoah High School was not that big as high schools go. Only about four hundred kids went to school there. Aaron was sitting on the roof of the ag building, which provided a pretty good view of the parking lot. He had spent a few days here recently, including the first day of school that year. No one had ever noticed, particularly the kids who were so wrapped up in their post-school-day conversations, it was easy for him to go unseen.She was not one of the first people out of the building, and he assumed that was because she really wasn’t in a rush to get out of school. She’d always done well, got good grades, and this year she was participating in a slew of extracurricular activities, including cheerleading. Cadence Findley was the all-around American girl.Aaron saw her friends head into the parking lot first. There was Taylor, the blonde, Sydney, with the short black hair, and sometimes another girl wh
Aaron Chapter 53
Aaron could see Holland and Giovani now, though they were at a distance, and it seemed like they were aware of the Hunters, too. Morris had reported that he was certain they had known his team was there several times and had made no move to leave or attack. They had simply found a way to disappear at the end of the night before he could move in. Tonight seemed different, however. Holland was looking around, as if she was looking for someone in particular. And then her eyes stopped; she was looking right at him.They’d met a few times before. Aaron had been called in to help out in France where the redheaded woman originated and preferred to spend her time. Despite her odd name, she was a former Frenchwoman and she didn’t take kindly to having LIGHTS members on her turf. She’d been with her longtime beau, Carter, every other time he’d come into contact with her, and since he hadn’t been running the operation, there hadn’t been much he could
Aaron Chapter 52
New York City, America, 2000The Blue Moon Nightclub was a popular destination for humans and Vampires alike. While the NYC team had always patrolled it closely, recently a well-known European Vampire had taken a liking to the place, and Aaron’s old friend Morris, now the Area Leader, had called him for help.The Vampire was what they commonly referred to as “ancient” even though she wasn’t one of the original Vampires, which were the true ancients. Still, she’d been around for centuries and her power had grown strong over the years. Likewise, she had hundreds of children—their term for the minions Vampires created by infecting others. While Morris had a strong team, he was certain he couldn’t handle this on his own, and so he’d called Aaron in, hoping that if they couldn’t defeat her, at least they could run her along.Aaron assembled his strongest team members and flew them on one of LIGHTS private
Aaron Chapter 51
Des Moines, Iowa, America, 1996Janette Findley had continued work with the team, even though she was no longer a Hunter. She lived in a large Queen Anne in Des Moines, and Aaron spoke to her several times a day as she had volunteered to work as his assistant a few years ago as things began to grow and he had found it difficult to get everything done. Being the Guardian Leader with no Hunter Leader—as none had ever been appointed—was challenging in and of itself. Recently, there’d been more and more Vampire activity, and the team continued to face recruiting challenges to keep up with the need. It was more than one man could handle on his own.Sitting on her sofa was calming, and for a moment, Aaron leaned his head back and relaxed, something he seldom had a chance to do, particularly since Christian had perfected and installed his Intelligence Assistance Communicators in everyone’s eyes. Now, any Hunter or Guardian in the world could r
Aaron Chapter 50
Tulsa, Oklahoma, America, 1985“Tell me why we are doing this again,” Jamie insisted from the passenger seat of the Buick Somerset Aaron was pulling into a parking spot outside of a shady looking nightclub. It was past midnight, a time when they would typically be hunting the undead, but tonight their mark was someone else entirely.“’Cause Janette asked us to,” Aaron replied as he put the car in park and turned off the engine.“Yeah, but if the Tulsa team has already approached this guy several times, and he doesn’t want to join them, why would he go with us now?”“I don’t know,” Aaron replied, pushing the door open. “She asked us to try, so we’ll try.” He got out of the car and headed into the establishment, hoping to get this over with rather quickly.It only took him a moment to find the man he was looking for. At six-two and well over two hundred pound
Aaron Chapter 49
Jordan Findley was buried in his hometown of Des Moines, Iowa, on a sunny June day before a crowd of thousands. The local papers read that he died in a small plane crash, but the LIGHTS team members all knew the truth. Such occurrences were so rare, Aaron couldn’t even think of another time a Hunter had purposely killed a Guardian. Accidents happened from time to time, but never something like this. Teams were organized to hunt down Skelton, but so far there hadn’t even been a sign of him, causing speculation that he had been killed as well.Janette had yet to recover from her loss. Having spent one hundred thirty years married to and working side-by-side with this man, she had always assumed she’d die long before he even considered trying to find a way out of his existence. He could potentially live forever. She would pass on; that was the way it was supposed to be. This was an unnatural ending that she had never seen coming. Now that she was faced with a l
Aaron Chapter 48
Skelton, a former beau of Janette’s, had returned a few months ago from an independent career that had spanned over a hundred years. He had said he had a special project he needed help with, but so far, he’d not explained himself and mostly hung out in the apartment he’d been provided by himself, rarely making an appearance on the larger campus that encompassed fifty acres on the outskirts of Kansas City.“He’s harmless,” Jordan assured them both. “Just an old man looking for absolution.”“Just an old nut looking for asylum is more like it,” Janette replied, shaking her head.“I have a meeting with him this evening. Hopefully, he’ll give us some direction for this project he has in mind. I’ll tell him to wait until I get back though. There’s no sense in you having to worry about that and everything else.”“All right,” Aaron said with a nod as he looked to
