The flight back to Russia was quicker than the flight to the States had been. Jo’s understanding was that that had something to do with the wind, but she didn’t care. She was just glad to be landing, despite the fact that they weren’t exactly touching down in friendly territory.
As they got out of the cargo hold of the plane, a group of Russians came over. Jo didn’t have to speak Russian to know that they were angry.
A large man in a fur hat barged his way through them, irritation showing on his grizzled face as he looked for the man he wanted to address.
Ryker must have recognized him. He held his hands up and said something in Russian. Jo didn’t bother trying to follow along with her IAC translator because she could tell the man was pissed, and she thought she knew why. The plan
Jo had somehow managed to stay awake for the entire ride from the airport to Adrian’s house. It was a sort of a miracle; she was so used to falling asleep every time she got into a vehicle any more. Of course, all that meant was that as soon as she got out of the SUV, she was tired and wanted to go to sleep.There was no time for that, though. Lucas was waiting for them, apparently with his hand on the door. The second the vehicles stopped, Adrian’s front door was flung open, and the Souled Vampire came out. His expression was something between relieved and agitated.Everyone got out and headed inside, Lucas greeting everyone but paying particular attention to the people he hadn’t seen in a really long time--Aaron, Jamie, and Ashley. It was clear that he knew all of them to some extent, though. Jo understood the history between her dad and Luc
The plan was fairly simple. All Joe had done was make assignments for who would be in the front line and who would come in behind. She’d also made the decision to leave a few less experienced members of the team waiting in the background, not even wanting them to come in unless it was absolutely necessary. Martin, the Healer, would stay with them in reserve, mostly because they didn’t have enough of the scandium protective suits to protect all of the Guardians.Joe had tried, unsuccessfully, to talk her dad into wearing one. His argument was that he’d made it this long, and he’d been fine, but she didn’t think he quite grasped what the Vampires could do with the scandium bullets.Or maybe he did. He was a hell of a lot smarter than her, anyway.The drive to the cave where Holland was al
“Where the hell are they?”Jo wasn’t surprised that the first voice she heard over her IAC was Elliott’s. As soon as they’d walked into the mine, after Brandon had blasted the door down with the bazooka and the dust had cleared, they’d all been expecting to be rushed by a barrage of Vampires.Instead, they were walking into a cave that appeared to be empty. The chamber they were standing in was relatively small, compared to the other mines they’d been in, but there were a lot of hallways shooting off in every direction. It reminded Jo of the mine they’d been in where the Vampires had lured them in and then blasted the hell out of them with that stupid bomb that had buried Cassidy in a ton of debris.She didn’t get the impression that that’s what was going o
Zane was looking at her like he thought Jo was crazy. Perhaps she was. After all, she’d just knocked on a door where she thought the Vampire Queen might be hiding and asked if she was inside.Of course, there was no answer.“Why don’t we try blowing this door open, like we did the last one?” Zane suggested.“All right,” Jo agreed. “There’s not a lot of places to duck out of the way, though,” she said, looking around the hallway.“True. We’ll have to do the best we can.”Zane pulled a grenade out of a pouch hanging from his utility belt. It was a normal grenade, so it wouldn’t have any effect on either one of them, other tha
The Vampire Queen wasn’t too far down the hall from where Jo was headed. She could feel the power rolling off of the bloodsucker, causing her stomach to twist into knots and her trigger finger to itch. It would take more than a few bullets to kill Holland, though.She had a few tools that might be able to help her, but nothing that was likely to completely take the bitch out of commission. All she could do was hope that her aunt got there in time, and that when she did, she was strong enough to take Holland out this time.Heather was also on her way, but the other Hybrid was farther away. She’d been in one of the hallways that didn’t connect and had had to go back and loop around. She’d be there in a few minutes, but if Jo kept going at her current speed, she’d be there first with no back up.
Nothing could be done to prevent the projectile leaving Holland’s hand from hitting its mark. As fast as Aaron was, Holland had some sort of homing device inside of her magic that found him, across the room, while he was moving so quickly, Jo could hardly see him when she turned her head in that direction. It found him anyway and brought that movement to a screeching halt. Instead of moving of his own accord, fighting the Vampires and Assassin Hunters that were doing their damndest to protect their queen from the LIGHTS team members infiltrating their lair, he was now flying backward into the cave wall. Jo’s reaction time seemed to slow down tremendously, as if she was watching an action movie and the scene was playing out in slow motion. She didn’t even recognize her own voice when she screamed, “Dad!” For
“Holy fucking shit!” Elliott kept repeating over and over again. “Where the hell is Jamie!”“He’s too far away,” Jo mumbled as she got down on her knees next to her dad on the opposite side of where Elliott was sitting. His hands were stained red from where he was pressing them to Aaron’s chest, trying to slow a flow of blood that wouldn’t be stopped.“Dad,” Jo said, trying to keep her voice calm. “How do you feel? Does it hurt?”“No.” Aaron’s voice was so weak, it was clear it was just a matter of seconds. A glance at Cassidy let her know that her aunt was doing everything she could to try and convince Scott to leave his mother be and get here. She didn’t need to be in on the conversation to know. Meanwhile, in her
“How are you, Jo?” Zane arrived with much of the rest of the team. The battle was all but over. There were a few Vampires and Assassins hiding in some of the rooms in the cave, but Lucas and his Souled Vampires were handling that as the LIGHTS team members gathered in the cavern where Aaron was still lying on the floor, but at least the blood was hidden now beneath a sheet that Lucy had brought in with her from one of the bedrooms when she’d come a few minutes before Zane made his way in. Cassidy’s best friend, like the others, had tears streaking her face. Everyone was in a state of shock.“I’m numb,” she said. She hadn’t moved since she’d slid out of the way to make room for the Healers. That might’ve been five minutes ago or five hours ago, she wasn’t sure. All she knew was that her dad was dead, and there were a lot of reasons why that s
How Christian went about opening the portal, Jo wasn’t sure. It was like he cast a magic spell of some sort, though, when Scott asked him how he had done it, all Christian said was, “Science.” The next thing she knew, there was a wavering light in the wall of the black tunnel. An orange boundary grew brighter around the edges, and then inside of that, there was a moving orange light that seemed like a flickering fire in the distance. It was slightly different than the portal they’d come through, but it was close enough, and she was in a hurry to get her mother home where she belonged.Christian went through first, followed by Cadence, Cassidy, and Scott. Ryker followed him, and Zane insisted that Jo go ahead of her. But she grabbed hold of his hand to make sure that he didn’t get left behind. If he couldn’t come through the opening for some reason, she was staying, too,
“Do you want to hold your mom’s hand?” Jamie asked Mallory as she lay on the operating table in his office. Cadon couldn’t believe how quickly everything was beginning to look like it used to. Even with the American government under collapse and citizens taking it upon themselves to hunt down Vampires and dispatch them, despite the laws that were still on the records, furniture, and other supplies were not that hard to find if one knew where to look–apparently.“Yeah, I’d like to hold her hand,” Mallory replied. She was so nervous, Cadon could see her shaking from his spot behind Jamie and slightly to the Healer’s left. Annastasia was standing on her daughter’s other side and had no problem taking her hand.“It’ll be fine,” Jamie assured her. Cadon had lost count of how many times he&
The angry monsters were coming at them, and Jo, Zane, Scott, and Cassidy were outnumbered at least ten to one. The chances of them being able to shoot all of the monsters dead before any of them died were slim to none.Thankfully, Cassidy didn’t have to shoot the monsters in order for her to get them out of their way. As Jo and Zane worked on shooting them, Cassidy used her powers to create a bubble around the monsters, one they couldn’t break through. Jo held her fire, afraid she might do something to mess Cassidy’s plan up. The men followed suit. The monsters were contained, but it wasn't clear how long they would stay that way, and they were still blocking the group from reaching the door, the only means of escape.For now.Cassidy directed Jo, Scott, and Zane to move behind her. “Get out
The penthouse was far quieter than Cadon had ever experienced before. At least, he couldn’t remember a time when his previous home wasn’t buzzing with noise of some kind. Whether it was his parents talking and laughing or loud music coming from his sister’s room, noise always filled the space. Now, he was sitting on a foreign sofa in a room that was painted the wrong color and had no decorations on the wall, and all he could think about was whether or not any of his family members would ever be in this home with him again.He’d decided to stop sitting in Christian’s office after a couple of hours of waiting for Jo to come back through the portal with his mom. It wasn’t that he didn’t have faith in either his sister or his mother. It was just… Ashley had told him the room was finished, and he’d needed to see it.
Over her twenty-five-year-long lifetime, Jo had had to go to lots of places she would’ve rather never visited. She could think of several. The opera. A friend’s piano recital. The principal’s office. A cave full of bat poop. The gates of hell.Yep, through the doorway that led to hell had to be the least favorite place she’d ever gone that she had no choice but to travel to.Once they crossed through the doors, everything changed drastically, which was a shock to Jo because she thought the portal already seemed so much like hell itself. These tunnels that led down to the depths of despair were even more terrifying and lonely than anything she’d ever experienced before.“Are you getting a signal from Cass on your IAC?” Scott asked as Jo tried to keep her focus. All arou
Sitting in Annastasia and Mallory’s living room--again--Cadon tried to stay quiet and let Jamie and Ashley answer all of the questions the girl had. Plenty of questions popped out of her mouth as they were talking about the pluses and minuses of becoming a Hunter. Mallory’s biggest concerns seemed to be actually having to fight Vampires and the pain that she would have to undergo in order to turn herself into a Hunter.“I have a medicine I will give to you after I give you the first shot, the Transformation serum,” Jamie was explaining. “I can’t give it to you until two minutes after the first shot, but most people don’t have a reaction until after those two minutes have passed anyway. For most people, the first Transformation shots aren’t painful at all. When some LIGHTS team members have chosen to have a second Transformation shot, later in their career, so
Standing alone in the tunnel with no way of reaching the hole her mother had just disappeared through was more terrifying to Jo than she was willing to admit. Just a split second after her mother’s feet were gone through the opening, her heart started hammering in her chest, and she felt like she was going to throw up. But she took a second to assess the situation and reminded herself that she was okay. Lots of people knew where she was.That didn’t mean they’d be able to get her out.She knew her aunt could float her out, though. At least she hoped she would be able to. The thought that her powers might not work through the floor made Jo nervous. She took some deep breaths and waited.Only a few seconds had passed, but the panic was already there. “I trust you, Mom,” Jo whispered. &ldq
Cadon wandered back over to the building where he thought he’d find Jamie and Ashley. He just hoped he didn’t run into them making out again. Even though they didn’t look old, they were still his friend’s parents, and that was kinda gross, sort of like walking in on his own parents making out.Not that that would ever happen again.He pushed the thought aside. Sometimes it was hard to remember that his dad was gone. He just hoped that his sister was having some luck locating their mom.Cadon entered the building and heard voices coming from the office on the left right inside the door. Jamie’s office. The door was open, so he stuck his head in. Ashley and Jamie were sitting across from a couple he didn’t recognize. The male looked familiar for some reason
Jo could hardly believe that she was walking alongside her mother. She kept wanting to quiz the being beside her to see if she really was Cadence Findley McReynolds, or if this was some sick joke played on her by the Vampires. Maybe this was a demon that happened to look like her mom. Maybe it was a Vampire that someone as powerful as Holland was able to make look like her mom. It was just… surreal.“Do you know where we’re going, honey?” Cadence asked. “I’ve been up and down this corridor lots of times.”“You have?” Jo was surprised to hear that. “Yes, I think I know how to get out.”“Yeah, for the first… I don’t know how long… I kept trying to figure out how to get out, but after a while, I just sort of gave up, I guess. H