The trip to Belogradchik was a long one. Lucas, Adrian, and their associates took their own vehicle, and since Elliott insisted on driving theirs, Jo sat in the back this time. Waking up with a bit of drool at the corner of her mouth, finding out she’d made herself comfortable on Zane’s shoulder was slightly embarrassing, but not as bad as it would’ve been if she’d been sitting by Scott and fallen asleep on his shoulder, but he was sitting in the passenger seat in front of her, thank goodness. She didn’t even remember unbuckling her seatbelt and scooting this close to Zane, but here she was.
She wiped her mouth, gave Zane a wide-eyed apologetic look, which he brushed off, and looked out the window to see it was dark and snowing. Hard. “Where are we?”
“Middle of a snowstorm,” Elliott said quickly. “If you’da been awake earlier, you’da seen the middle of a different s
It was still dark by the time they arrived at their destination, a mountain range on the outskirts of Belogradchik, but that wasn’t because it wasn’t daytime. In most parts of the world, the sun would’ve been climbing the sky overhead as they reached the top of the mountain Lucas suggested they use as their first observation point, but due to the way the earth was perched on its axis at the moment, and the storm that continued to rage, it may as well have been nighttime.The climb up the mountainside had not been that bad, except for the constant spiking of snowflakes in the face, which felt a little like darts of ice clocking Jo in the soft flesh of her cheeks and occasionally right into her eyeball. The snow itself wasn’t a bother since temperatures were not a factor. All of them were coordinated enough to climb the slick, rocky surface without much need for ropes or picks, and there was no worry that anyone would be out of brea
“Jo?”The feeling of someone tapping her boot had her struggling to get her eyes open, but they were not being cooperative. When she finally managed to pry them open, it was dark outside again. But the snow had stopped.It was Elliott who had been attempting to wake her for who knows how long. She imagined it couldn’t have been too long because the kicking of her boot was still relatively gentle. She looked around and noted she was the only one still under the wind shield. How long had she been sitting there? How long had she been asleep?He offered her his hand and pulled her to standing. “Not that long,” he said, in answer to her last two questions that she hadn’t asked, she supposed. Most Vampires did need to sleep some, but all of Lucas’s friends were wide awake, as if they hadn’t been up all night. Even if all of them had been asleep in the vehicle on the way here--l
Following Cassidy through her IAC as she climbed down the face of the frozen mountain hadn’t been easy, but Jo had managed to watch as her aunt shot up into the air, moved to position herself above the center of the palace and then slowly began to come back down. She’d sent her a message to let Cassidy know they were moving so that they’d be positioned near the opening of the palace, if they needed to come and get her, to which her aunt had replied, “Don’t you dare let them come in here with such low numbers. If I get my ass trapped, I’ll stay here until you can go get help.”Jo was unsure how to respond to that. It seemed like a good idea not to try to get her out if she was detected because they were so grossly outnumbered. There was a good chance all of the Guardians and Jo would be taken out. The Souled would only go down if there were Hunter Assassins inside the palace as well. They’d have no
With Lucas’s help, it wasn’t difficult to find a house for the team to occupy, instead of trying to fit into a cramped hotel room. After the scouting mission was complete. Lucas called in even more Souled Vampires to assist them, so the extra space was even more useful.It took some of her teammates nearly a full day to arrive from the caves they’d been deployed to. Lucas left a few of his colleagues near Skyrty Palac to keep an eye on the situation. While they reported some cars coming in the day after the expedition, no one left, as far as they could tell. Jo was worried about tunnels they couldn’t see, and about portals, but she knew there was nothing they could do about that. If Holland stayed put until they had a chance to move in, there was a possibility they might actually have her this time.She didn’t let herself get too excited. It wasn’t as if things usually worked out for her the first tim
She couldn’t think about that at the moment. Hundreds of eyes—the majority of them the golden-tinted gray of the undead--focused on her as she approached the map, something not all of them would be able to see so she’d have to be descriptive in her language as well.“All right,” she said loudly enough to get most of their attention. “Thank you all for being here. I see we have some new faces in the crowd. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Jo McReynolds, and I’m leading this mission for LIGHTS. I’m grateful to Lucas for joining forces with us today.” She gestured to the Souled who was standing to her right, and he gave a small wave, an inconspicuous smile on his handsome face. “We realize that what we are seeking to accomplish would be impossible without your help, so thank you.”A few scoffs came over the IAC from various members of her team who wanted h
Most attacks came under cover of night, which didn’t make a whole lot of sense to Jo when she stopped to think about it since Vampires could see almost as well in the dark as they could in the light, but since most of them did sleep at least a few hours per day, it would make sense to try to catch the majority of them while they were snoozing. In this case, there were plenty of Vampires standing guard to detect them the moment they attempted to breach the wall in front of the palace or come down the mountainside.Hopefully, no one had detected their infiltration through the chimney, and they would be able to get inside of the palace before the attack began on the outside so that they’d have a fighting chance of locating Holland and taking her prisoner before she could escape. Jo had several pairs of the specially made silver handcuffs hanging from her belt that were meant to keep Vampires from escaping, though she had no idea if they would wo
The plan was for the interior team to have at least ten minutes to get into position and locate the Red Queen before the attacks started outside. Jo had glanced at the clock on her IAC as she’d started levitating toward the chimney. They should have about five minutes left before the shooting began. They rushed down a hallway, Dax, Ingrid, and Jo following behind Cassidy who was moving at such a rapid pace, the rest of them struggled to keep up, she doubted anyone would be able to see her as she flew past, even the Vampires, who should be able to track a lot better than a mere human.They had made it down two hallways, and Cassidy was about to turn down a third when their IACs came to life with activity outside. The exterior attacks had begun. “Shit!” Cassidy spat in Jo’s head. “So damn close!”Jo wanted to ask how close they were, but there was no time for that. A barrage of boots o
The silver handcuffs fit well around wrists. Not so much around ankles, but they’d made it work. It hadn’t done anything to stop the screaming and cursing though. Jo’d ridden back to the makeshift headquarters with her eyes focused out the window, wishing that the cuffs were on the right person, and the one screaming at them to let her go right now was the Red Queen and not her aunt.At first, they’d thought Cassidy just needed a few moments, and then she’d regain the memory of at least who she was, if not everyone else right away. But after they’d forced her into one of the bedrooms at the house in the middle of Nowhere, Russia, she’d continued to scream that she’d been kidnapped for another hour until Scott had finally given her a shot of something to make her sleep. Brandon was hopeful that she’d be herself when she opened her eyes again, but Jo had her doubts. Whatever Holland had done to her, it
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