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Chapter 34
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2024-10-29 19:42:56In the hallway, on her way to the vault, Jo ran into Zane. Literally. It was dark, and she wasn’t paying attention to where she was going. He’d stopped, seeing her coming, likely hoping she’d look up and sidestep, but when she didn’t, her head collided with what felt like a wall of muscle.
His arms entangled her, keeping her from falling backward. “Oh, God, Zane. Sorry,” she muttered, rubbing her forehead. It smarted for a second but otherwise she was fine. She knew exactly how muscular he was but had no idea running into him would feel like an encounter with one of those WWE fighters Uncle Elliott used to be so fond of, back in the day when sports were still a thing. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said, flashing that crooked smile that might’ve been enough to make her swoon under other conditions. “Are you?”
“Yeah, I’m hard hea
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The sound of laughter cut through the clank of glasses and the crush of peanut shells under foot, mingling with the crooning sound of music sung in a Slovak language she didn’t speak as Jo tried not to breathe in the smoky air. Crossing the bar wasn’t as difficult this time since this establishment wasn’t as crowded as the one she’d first met Ryker in, and the lights were up, perhaps in an attempt to allow patrons to spot pointy teeth before they became a problem. Or maybe it was the fact that this tavern was attached to a hotel, unlike the seedy back alley haunt Ryker normally played cards in. Either way, she wasn’t impressed with his ability to pick watering holes and would’ve just as soon left him behind when her team pulled out of town. But she’d more or less made a promise she would look after him, and even though he’d been the one to take off without telling them where he was going, she still felt the pull of obligatio
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Finding a hotel that was better than the one she’d slept in the night before wasn’t difficult, but finding one that was decent was another story. Zane had asked privately why she cared so much about staying in a gross hotel when her own apartment looked like the set for a post-apocalyptic movie, to which Jo had replied that’s because it was smack dab in the middle of the apocalypse. “But if I’m gonna pay someone top dollar for a night in their borrowed bed, it better not leave me bitten by bedbugs,” to which he replied that was ridiculous; bedbugs’ teeth were not sharp to bite through her hard outer shell.Eventually, he’d found a three star joint for more than she’d been willing to pay and less than the rest of the team had been willing to pitch in if she’d shut the hell up. For two rooms, they’d paid more than her monthly rent back in Denver, but it would have to work. Four beds wouldn&r
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There was an arm around her waist. It was an odd way to wake up, but as Jo came back to consciousness, it was the first thing that registered. Before she even opened her eyes, she was aware that she was being held. It wasn’t a strong grip at the moment, nothing to be leery of. No Vampire had snuck in during the night and waited patiently for her to open her eyes before squeezing the life out of her. No, whoever it was, they were being kind with their loose grip, not trying to end her.A few more seconds of wakefulness quickly led her to the conclusion that this person was also male. Again, she didn’t have to be fully conscious to know that. For a moment, it entered her mind that perhaps Ryker had felt badly for being such a jackass the night before and climbed into bed with her, but then she realized she knew the scent well. It wasn’t the human--and as interesting a conversation about why he was there as it might’ve been if Ryker
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Aunt Cass looked pissed. In Jo’s experience, her expression was never particularly friendly. She always wore a scowl on her face, as if it had been part of the Vampire curse that had afflicted her when she was a teenager. But when she got out of the passenger side of the vehicle and started walking through the snow to join Jo and the rest of the team, Brandon and the others who had gone along with Cass to see Eliza also filing out of the SUV, Cassidy looked like she was ready to explode someone’s head.“Where the hell are we?” Cassidy asked, looking around. “I thought the X was in a mountain. We’re in the middle of a fucking forest.”“The X is that way,” Jo said, thumbing over her shoulder. “I didn’t think we should get together right in front of the place we’ll be raiding in a few hours.”Cassidy didn’t argue, as if that explanation wa
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The opening to this cave was much larger than the last one. Standing back at the tree line, which was about a hundred paces from the entryway in question, it appeared that Jo would be able to run inside without doing much more than ducking. That should be a plus compared to last time when they’d had to slide down into the opening. This would be more treacherous, though. With an opening that wide, Jo could send more people in at a time, but it was clear there was some sort of a barrier, a door of sorts, several feet into the entryway, something they’d have to blast their way through. Unless the Vampires were kind enough to open up and let them in, which she doubted.She had a couple of regular grenades, the kind one would use to blow a hole into such an obstruction. A silver nitrate grenade wouldn’t affect the area around it, just the Vampires. Mila and Mikali would need the other kind to get through that door. Even then, it would be tou
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“I’m going to try a shield!” Cassidy shouted, stepping through the fray and holding her hands up. Jo never would’ve thought to ask her to do that; she hadn’t been on enough hunts with her aunt to remember she had that capability. As soon as her hands were in the air, what looked like a bubble of light formed between the advancing Vampires and the LIGHTS forces. The Vampires continued to fire, their bullets hitting the shield and either bouncing back at them or falling to the ground. One of the Vampires was standing too close and ended up having his own bullet bounce from the shield and hit him in the shoulder. He shrieked but it wouldn’t end him, unfortunately. Vampires could kill each other, but they couldn’t kill themselves.“Where are we going?” Mikali asked.“Head back that way, toward the brook we crossed earlier. Hopefully, we can put enough distance
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Flying into the campsite they’d left only about an hour ago, Jo spotted Ryker sitting by the blaze, smoking a cigarette, a habit she had no idea he even partook in, a calm expression on his face. At her approach, he didn’t wince, raise a weapon, anything. How had he known she wasn’t a Vampire?She suspected she knew how. “You told them, didn’t you?”Without looking up from the spot on the ground he’d been studying since she arrived, he asked, “Told who what?”“The Vampires! They knew what mine we were coming to next because you tipped them off.”His shoulders jerked up and down with a laugh, his enormous fur coat moving like the beast who’d given up the pelt. “No, I didn’t tell the bloodsuckers anything.” His eyes raised to meet hers then. “When would I have done that? Before you kidnapped me, I didn’
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“This is what I call a chicken nugget bomb,” Brandon was saying as he surveyed their work.“Why is that?” Jo leaned against the tailgate of the truck where he was putting the finishing touches on the conglomeration.“Well, we just took a whole bunch of shit pieces of other bombs and strung them all together. Just like a chicken nugget. Hopefully, when you detonate it and toss it in, it’ll have the expected result. Or… it might just fall apart and do next to nothing.”Folding her arms, Jo murmured. “That’s great. Exactly what I need.”He smirked at her. “You’ll be fine. Cass won’t let anything happen to you. She’s about the best person in the world you could have with you for something like this, except for maybe my dad.”“Your dad?” Jo echoed. “Now why in the world would
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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,
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“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&
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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
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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.
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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
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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
Night Slayer Chapter 135
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
Night Slayer Chapter 134
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
