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22. Exposure Level 2 i
~ Anabella was in a dark place. Benji was in a private health care facility that would provide him with the care he needed. Care that was not available in regular hospitals. He was going to make a full recovery. As soon as he was awake, Anabella instructed Hanna to—smooth things over. A boy his age did not need to have such memories.
In his room in the Ungaro’s private ward, they isolated Benji from news about his parents. If anyone slipped even the barest of details around him—the backlash would be grim. Anabella was going back on her long-held preference to keep the humans in her family at arm’s length.
Carmela’s circumstances remained the same. She was still behind bars. According to human laws, she was guilty beyond any doubt. There were calls for the death penalty. Through it all, Carmela said nothing to defend herself. She refused to speak to
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Enter the Shadows Exposure Level 2 ii
~Daniel and the others stood facing what looked like a massive dune. It stretched in either direction as far as their eyes could see. It was hundreds of feet tall, with a single path leading through to the valley on the opposite side. Nothing about it looked naturally made. Out in the desert, the sun was unforgiving. Gusty winds whipped the fine shards of sand against them. They wore scarves around their faces, goggles to protect their eyes. Every inch of them covered to stay safe from the elements. The downside to wearing protective clothing was feeling like a potato in aluminum foil roasting over an open grill. Through the soles of his shoes, Daniel could feel the heat from the desert floor. With him were Zigor, Helick, Vescovi, Penny, and five other men. To get to here, they trekked five miles across the Zanu Desert through two sand storms. The
Enter the Shadows Exposure Level 2 iii
~The hunt was on for the infected vampires from the train. So far, they found one of them dead. Reinforcements from the Mountain were now in the city. Marx brought Shea, Garrick, and Ichiro along with him. Anabella was sitting in her chair in the control room at Anax, her firm. They offered security solutions for businesses and private homeowners and individuals looking for bodyguards and security details. Celebrities, Heiresses, Diplomats—Anax, was the firm of choice. Along with the services listed, there were others. Like surveillance for the entire city of Pentorium. It was the largest city on the continent, comprising five different sectors. Each ran by one of the five heads of the vampires. “One target spotted on the corner of Glendevon and Twenty-third Street,” one of Anabella’s operators said over her headset.
Enter the Shadows Exposure Level 2 iv
~Sven checked the wound on his side. The gash was deep, but it was healing. He stood in a stone tunnel cut off from the outside world. One of his men had tripped another booby trap. It triggered a cave-in that saw the stone roof above them buckling. On the other side of the rubble that had him trapped, there was one survivor. His injuries were grave, and Sven could feel it. The man had minutes to live. None of Salvay’s men made it out alive. As it stood, Sven had lost more than half of his pack. To the abomination he created at the manor. Then to the attack on the prison and the fight at the portal. To the trip here, he lost six—Sven looked at his arm as another sign disappeared—that made seven men lost to this hell-bound trip. On their journey to the temple, Sven lost another three. He’d sent them into hiding to preserve his ranks. He had to figure tha
Enter the Shadows Exposure Level 2 v
~Around them, the tunnel shook. Sven cursed. It would seem that number two was the winner. The wall the symbol was on cracked open, musty air blowing back into Sven’s face. He coughed, using his hand to fan the dust aside. Before him, the wall shifted, opening up to a chamber. There were cobwebs and tree roots everywhere. The roots were strange since there were no trees in the Zanu Desert. Coming here, Sven saw nothing but sand for miles. Salvay was not as cautious. He moved to step past Sven into the chamber. Salvay’s death was inevitable, but it was not yet due. Sven wanted to make sure he no longer needed the man before he ended him himself. “We walked through hell to get here,” Sven said, stopping Salvay. “What makes you think that hell is over?” The chamber was only a few meters wide. Cobwe
Enter the Shadows Exposure Level 2 vi
~Vescovi knew the stories about The Coming. About how the city of Zanu was swallowed back into the sands, from where it rose to glory. Details about its demise were sketchy, and for most, it was a mere story. A fable. One that illustrated the dangers of magic and why the use of it should not be taken lightly. Because of the lore, travelers rarely explored the Zanu desert. The locals tried to warn them that their presence would awaken the revenants. Protectors of the secrets of Zanu. According to the locals, the magic thought dormant was very much alive. They spoke of it like it was a living, breathing thing. Vescovi thought they made it seem more ominous than it was worth. That some details were wholly exaggerated. He was wrong. And to their collective dismay—the locals were right. The magic here countered Ava’s shadow magic. Repelled it. Until the peop
Enter the Shadows Exposure Level 2 vii
~All around them, the sands funneled up into mini-tornadoes. “Brace yourselves,” Vescovi said. One after the other, the tornadoes formed, encircling them in a ring of swirling sand. Vescovi counted nine of them. Blurred figures stood inside the funnel. The revenants. Men and women who had long since passed. Vescovi wondered how Salvay and Sven had feared on their journey here. Vescovi wished for them the worst kind of death. When the earth shifted under their feet, the sand mound they were on gave way. It sent them sliding down the sides, separating the group. Ava, thrown off balance, lost her hold on the shield. It flickered, then disappeared. The earth kept shaking under them, shifting the sands, making it hard for them to stand up against their enemies. As abrupt as it started, the quake stopped. H
Enter the Shadows 23. The Fallout i
~8 months … After the virus break and the ill-fated trip to the Zanu Desert. The fallout from the virus was massive. It extended right across the continent with Pentorium taking the brunt of it. So far, they contained the virus to the five cities of Pentorium, but that was not the only thing on the loose. The footage, pictures, eyewitness accounts all gave away the existence of the vampires. To take down the infected and protect the lives of the humans, werewolves had to expose their existence as well. Suffice to say, the humans did not meet their efforts with gratitude. Relations with the races crumbled faster than a house of cards in a category five hurricane. The lines drawn had the humans on one side, and everything else clumped up on the other.
Enter the Shadows The Fallout ii
~Inside the lab, Marx found the others gathered. Helick, Garrick, Zigor, Ichiro, Shea, and Anabella with Martha and Philippe facing the room. Martha started the briefing once Marx took his seat. “As you all know, we finally figured out what the virus was—is,” Martha corrected herself. She was wearing a white lab coat, her honey blonde hair in a pile on the crown of her head. As Anabella said, the events of the last eight months brought about changes in everyone. For Shea, she had gone cold towards the humans, for Martha, she was more self-assured. When she spoke, she did so with authority. Confidence. She, too, had grown. “As we also explained,” she said, referring to Philippe and herself, “the mechanics of it are genetically coded to the DNA of the vampires targeting what we call the primitive gene.” “It being genetically coded,” Philippe picked up, “m
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