“What are we missing?” Aaron asked Christian as they walked around, practically in circles, looking for the place where Giovani and Cadence had disappeared. The helicopters both circled overhead, using their bright light to illuminate the ground where the Guardians were searching, but so far it had done no good.
Aaron stopped pacing for a moment and surveyed the area slowly one more time. Where would you hide an entrance to a tunnel? If it wasn’t in the ground, where else could it be? And then he noticed a small pier jutting out into the river. It looked as if the water had r
Howard and Clayton were dead—finally. When they hadn’t been able to lose Aurora and her team, they had decided to try to make a break for the jewelry store, using it as cover until they could make their way into the chamber below the floor. They thought they would at least be able to take out the two Hunters and impede the Guardian’s progress enough so that they could get away; they were wrong.Shane had done an excellent job of protecting the Hunters from the Vampires’ fire as they advanced on the storefront. He had taken several rounds of fire himself, but Vampire bul
Gibbon had to choose again—right or left. The tunnel split, and just like his choice between doors, he tried to determine which was darker, which was quieter. They seemed to be about the same, and so he chose to go to his right.Aaron and Christian both knew that Gibbon had taken off down the tunnel because they were able to see it through Cadence’s IAC. Aaron hoped that he would have the opportunity to face the monster and destroy him now before he was unleashed on the world, but when he reached the broken door, he knew it would be up to Christian to encounter Gibbon and defeat hi
Grandma Janette’s house had always been a place of solace, and even in this trying time when Gibbon was still on the run, Cassidy was recovering from her injury and trying to figure out her new reality, and Cadence was finding her place as the new Hunter Leader, sitting on her grandmother’s sofa, munching on a homemade chocolate chip cookie, flipping through her grandparents’ sacred photo album made things seem a little more like they used to be. That is, if one wasn’t to dwell on the fact that the pictures of her grandmother she was looking at were hundreds of years old.“Now this o
Cadence didn’t say anything, only kept her eyes on her grandmother’s withered face for a few more seconds before returning to the picture in the album.“Now, her name is Peggy Smithstone, and this picture was taken in the late sixties, I believe. She lives in Oklahoma—Norman, I think. At any rate, she is very important, and I think, when you have more time, you should hunt her down—well not, really, not the way that you hunt things down,” her grandmother mused, “but contact her. I think she has some stories you’d like to hear.”
Cadence had a hard time tearing her eyes away from her grandmother’s tranquil face, but she did as she was instructed, and at the back of the book, she found a letter-sized envelope with the inscription, “Kid” written on it in familiar writing.She was so shocked, she almost dropped the album.“What is this?” Cadence asked, almost afraid to touch it.
Cadence read the letter twice, tears streaming down her face as the sound of his voice filled her head. When she was done, she folded it back up, handed it to her grandmother, and began to sob uncontrollably.Janette patted her gently on the back, “There, there, darling. It’s all right,” she whispered quietly. “I’m sure the last thing he would want is to cause you grief all over again.”
“Oh, my goodness,” Cadence sighed.“I never believed that was possible. Don’t ask me why. I mean, with all of the things you and I have both seen in our lifetimes, why not? Right? But… after your grandfather died, well I had to give it a try. I wanted to see him again.”“And… did it work?”
Cassidy was still at school when Cadence reached her parents’ home just a couple of hours later, but her sister would be back soon, and it gave her a chance to visit with her mom who had been a homemaker since Cadence was very young. Her father, who was an engineer, was still at work.While Liz Findley was a bit ditzy at times and often didn’t know when to keep her mouth closed, she was an amazing mother. Cadence had never questioned how much her parents loved her. She’d been well taken care of growing up in their two-story home in Shenandoah, Iowa, never wanting for anything