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Chapter 42
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2021-02-24 11:38:01Below, people were having trouble reading directions and finding the correct stairways to reach the launching rescue boats. It appeared as if many of the boats were sent out into the Atlantic only partially filled, yet another fact that made absolutely no sense to him. The boat had more than enough people to fill each of them to capacity, yet the lifeboats were far from full.
A flare was fired into the night sky, leaving some gasping, others cheering, more still running for their lives. It was then that Aaron spied a familiar head of gray hair huddled in a crowd toward the starboard side of the ship where the next set of lifeboats would launch.
Certain it was Williams, he handed off the lifebelt to another passenger and slid his way through the crowd, a feat in itself considering how tightly packed the people waiting to get on the boat were. “Going somewhere, doctor?” he asked, placing his hand on the Vampire’s shoulder and pressing the stake against
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Aaron Chapter 43
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, America, 1941When Jordan Findley gave you a special assignment, you took it, even if it meant leaving the continent where you’d lived for over a hundred years and the area you’d led for almost half that time.Meeting with Jordan and his wife Janette in their office in Kansas City, Missouri, in the early fall of 1941 had been quite the experience for Aaron. After Titanic, he’d been appointed to the United Kingdom Area Leader, a new position, and he was tasked with overseeing all of the lands encompassed by the boundaries of that nation. Even though it had taken him away from the core members he’d worked so closely with, he enjoyed the job. Now that he and Christian had come up with a device that allowed team members to talk to each other at almost any time, running such a large area was much easier.Likewise, Christian and Jamie had worked to develop two guns that shot special bullets made of
Last Updated : 2021-02-24Aaron Chapter 44
Early for two Guardians who didn’t require the same sort of sleep as their human counterparts meant well before the sun rose, and by 5:00 in the morning, Aaron had collected Jamie and was driving his Buick Century toward the Kahuku Sugar Mill located on the northeast side of the island. The drive would normally take an hour or so, but Aaron’s car was capable of going much faster with the modifications the LIGHTS team made to it, and he was clipping along at a pretty good speed that December morning.“Did you see Eleanor last night?” Aaron asked as they drove along.“I did,” Jamie replied, a sheepish grin on his face. “We went to a dance. You should come sometime. Lots of other pretty girls around to choose from.”This wasn’t the first time Jamie had suggestion Aaron accompany them, and he had honestly considered it. Though he had not had a romantic relationship with a woman in a century, he had dated a few hu
Last Updated : 2021-02-24Aaron Chapter 45
Aaron shot the first male Vampire in the head at close range through a pillow in an attempt to muffle the sound. It was a bit successful but the woman next to him began to rouse, and he knew he’d need to work more quickly now. Three shots later, and all of them were dispatched.Their neighbors had heard the noise, however, and shouts from outside let him know that he was needed in the yard. Realizing Jamie and Taavi likely had any back exits covered, he sprang back through the front of the house and saw three Vampires fleeing the middle house. Two women took off running for the sugar fields while the man, a large Hawaiian native built like a brute, rushed at him.While hand-to-hand combat against the bloodsucker would have been more fun, Aaron’s new philosophy was, “If you have the shot, take it.” There would always be more opportunities to fight. As the Vampire lurched at him, teeth bared and hands splayed, he shot him twice in the heart and wa
Last Updated : 2021-02-24Aaron Chapter 46
While the bullets from the Japanese aircraft flying overhead continued to plink off of the car and shoot up streaks of dust around his feet, Aaron contemplated what to do. There had to be some way that he could help as he was unable to be harmed by the rounds careening through the air around him. He realized there were no US planes in the air, and if he truly wanted to help, he needed to get to the airfield so he could provide some cover for the pilots as they attempted to get their birds off the ground.As he sprinted off in the direction of the closest airfield, a bullet hit him in the arm. It stung, but it didn’t even break the skin, and even when a Zero blanketed him in a sea of the projectiles, he continued to run, never slowing until the airfield came into view.Dozens of men were hurrying to ready the planes to take off, but even as they worked, the first round of enemy fire came in, sending them ducking for cover. The planes were not so lucky, and many of
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Kansas City, Missouri, America, 1983Jordan Findley wanted to see him in his office, and in Aaron’s experience, that was either a very good thing, or a very bad one. Though the Guardian Leader rarely raised his voice, an admonishment from him was much like disappointing a favorite parent, and as Aaron made his way to the top floor of the office building, he hoped this was good news.After Pearl Harbor, the US went to war, and though Aaron had wanted to enlist, Jordan made it clear that he was still needed by LIGHTS and couldn’t be spared. War tended to give Vampires enough distraction to become bolder, and that had been the case this time as well. As Jordan’s second in command, Aaron was constantly busy organizing team members across the world, attempting to keep the Vampires in check while the Nazis were defeated.Over the next four decades, he had worked to improve technology, training, and to build the transportation network the tea
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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
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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
Last Updated : 2021-02-24Aaron 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
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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
