As she made her way to the bottom floor, Cadence pondered everything her sister had just told her. Holland had a demon baby. Sam and Laura were on their way back to KC. They had five missing Guardians, waiting in tiny cells to be terminated, and no way to reach them. Oh, and they were coordinating attacks all over the world, starting in a couple of hours in Japan, to eradicate about seventy percent of the Vampire population. What was there to be worried about?
She made the quick jaunt to Jamie’s office in less than a minute but waited before she opened the door to compose herself, remembering how alarmed he’d been the last time she’d flung herself through his open door. He didn’t look surprised at all to see her, however, once she finally came in. “Hey, how are you?” she asked, hoping to keep her voice cheery despite the fact that she had just listed several enormous problems that all needed solving.
“Peachy,” he replied,
It was shaping up to be a nice spring day, but she was ready for nightfall. They’d decided to do their own hunting a little early that night since they needed to get the show on the road, and the Vampires in question tended to stay in their confines most of the time. There were four different locations all within a few hours’ drive of their headquarters. She would be traveling to a warehouse on the outskirts of Osceola, Kansas, which wasn’t far at all. She wondered if Sam and Laura had arrived yet. What she wouldn’t give to be at the airport to greet them. Which of the four locations would they head to, or would it be another place, something to throw them off? The Vampires would have no way of knowing they’d split their team and planned on taking all four cells out at once, would they? She didn’t know what Holland was capable of these days.Aaron had maps spread all over the conference table in the back of their office, and he was puzzling
The trip to Melbourne went by quickly since Margie Joplin was asleep most of the way. It would’ve been great if she and Grant Wharton, her sometimes boyfriend, had some time to test out their new powers before they needed to use them in the field, but she understood the importance of getting to Paul’s people as quickly as possible. As soon as Sheena had injected her and Grant, they’d been transported to the plane, and both of them had been out for most of the flight.The SUV, driven by another of the Guardians she worked with, Zach, pulled to a stop a few blocks away from Larundel, and Margie took the opportunity to test her X-ray vision. She was able to see right through the cement wall of the abandoned department store they’d parked next to. She was ready to go.Turning to look at Grant beside her, she couldn’t help but smile. He was a handsome man, and even though he still looked a little groggy, she wouldn’t want anyone else besi
Hines was in Joanna’s head and knew precisely what was going on out there on the lawn behind the asylum. When the blue-haired woman who’d helped take out Perses arrived, he began to curse under his breath. He should’ve left hours ago. Now, they would waltz into his facility and reclaim his playthings before he even had a chance to see whether or not his serums would work.“What do you want me to do, Doctor?” Joanna asked. She was peering through a pair of binoculars from an upstairs window and saw Larkin organizing his troops on the other side of the moat. Hines could see just fine using his telepathy.He was pacing back and forth in the same library where he’d found the book, the ancient text that gave him hope that this wasn’t all for not. Asteria had taken that damnable baby upstairs with her, and he could hear her scurrying around, cursing, followed by a crash of furniture now and again. He knew she’d be of l
Joanna Gunter had been a nurse’s assistant a few months ago before she wandered out into the parking lot at the hospital she’d worked at for almost a decade and found herself begging for her life. The crazy-haired man in the medical coat had only smiled at her, assuring her he didn’t want to kill her; he only wanted to offer her a job. A few days later, she’d awoken here, at the asylum, a completely different person by all accounts.Hines was a nut job, that was for certain. And Asteria was a power-crazy bitch. Joanna would’ve just as soon escaped and gone back to her other life if she would’ve thought that possible. But the urge to drink human blood probably wouldn’t have mixed well with her duties at the hospital, so she had little choice but to do as Hines told her to.Which meant attempting to turn these Guardians back into humans and then kill them. The idea of these creatures still fascinated her. She was new enough to th
Paul’s team blasted through the Vampires on the bottom floor of the facility fairly easily. If Holland was doing anything to modify them, it wasn’t evident, and many of them were shot in the back as they were running away. There had been some encounters with tougher specimens upstairs, and Grant was bleeding from a deep gash in his shoulder, but no one else was injured, save from a few stray bullets that bounced off of Guardians’ chests and limbs, and it hadn’t taken Margie long to find the sliding concrete panel that covered the stairwell.Removing it had taken a few minutes, but eventually, they’d powered through. The descent to the basement was much trickier. There were dozens and dozens of Vampires all along the path, many of them armed, and as the LIGHTS team made their way down, all sorts of monsters stood in their way, which took more time than Paul was willing to waste.He’d left quite a few Guardians outside to make sure tha
Sinking his dagger into the Vampire’s neck gave Paul the inches he needed to maneuver around and drop the creature to the cold, concrete floor. He positioned his knees so that he could press the beast’s arms down and then withdrew the blade from his neck and sunk it into his chest several times.The Vampire seemed relentless. “Please! You mustn’t!” he shouted again as Paul continued to stab. A gurgling sound emanated from the man’s throat, and with one more jab with the knife, he disappeared.“I think he’s the last,” Jeb said over his shoulder as Paul tried to slow his breathing. He could only nod. “Come on. Let’s check on Patsy and Tanner.”The reminder was enough to get him off of his knees, and Paul followed his friend through the hole in the wall, ducking to get under the hanging piece of concrete still attached at the top and stepping over the remnants on the floor.Margie was st
Osceola, Kansas, wasn’t too far from headquarters at the speed Aaron was driving, and Cadence spent most of the time silently monitoring the situation in Melbourne. Paul had done a great job leading his team, and having Margie there was extremely helpful. By the time they were rolling up on the warehouse where they believed at least fifteen Vampires were camped out, planning an attack on their own facility, Paul had just finished inserting the needle into the fifth Guardian to start the blood transfusion. It hadn’t been easy with all of the convulsing, but Jamie and Sicilia both seemed to think clean Guardian blood, along with the aspirin Margie had forced down their throats, might be enough to save them. The only one who didn’t look like he was on the mend was Stanley, but his heart was still beating, and Paul was using what little Healer power he had to bring the man back from the brink. It was too bad they didn’t have any Transformation serum on them. It s
Aaron glanced into the window by the door; nothing was moving inside. Looking through his IAC, Cadence could see rows of metal shelving with the occasional large crate or other shape in the middle. It looked exactly like what she’d expected, and she assumed there were Vampires in some of those crates, though she couldn’t be sure. About halfway down the length of the building, she saw a makeshift wall, and then on the other side, she knew there were hallways and offices. It was possible the Vampires might be back there as well. The upstairs was mostly shelves and storage.Aaron gave a count over his IAC and then the two of them rammed their way into the door while the other team tore through on the other side and immediately ran up the nearby staircase. The door fell to the concrete floor in front of Cadence, and Aaron ran over it first, Glock in front of him. Cadence was right behind him.The first floor of the warehouse was quiet while shots were fired ups