“What’s that?” Carter asked, his forehead crinkling in confusion. Before he realized what had hit him, Aaron had him from behind, the Vampire’s arms pinned to his sides. Carter was completely caught off guard, and Cadence seized the opportunity, rushing toward him, Van’s knife in her hand. She plunged it straight into his heart.
Furious at their deception, Carter used the strength he had spoken off to buck Aaron off. The Guardian went flying backward, slamming into the brick wall of the old, abandoned building on his right. Elliott took several steps forward, but Cadence held up her arm. The knife had slowed Carter considerably, and now that Aaron was out of the way, she had the shot. Her Glock was still in her hand, so she opened fire, unloading at least a dozen bullets into his torso.
And yet, Carter kept coming at her. Unlike the other Vampires, the bullets seemed to do little. He pulled the blade from his chest, dropping it, and swiped
It wasn’t until they were screaming down the street that Elliott asked, “What the hell are you doing here?”“Cass sent me back. We met up with Patsy down the street, and her and Jamie got in with them,” he explained, taking a corner too fast. Cadence was wedged between Margie and Aaron in the back seat so she didn’t slide very far, but she had a feeling there would be more crazy driving before they could get out of this mess.“Don’t they have us surrounded?” Aaron asked, using Elliott’s head rest to pull himself forward so he could better see out the windshield.“Yep,” Brandon answered as a line of ghouls came into view in front of them, about a half mile down the road. The thinning fog obscured them a bit, but Carter’s death had left Holland reeling, and she hadn’t seemed to regain her composure yet. There had to be at least twenty Vampires of all shapes and sizes standing in fr
Inside of the bunker, which was constructed inside of a deep cave, Cadence wanted to make herself useful, but there wasn’t too much for her to do. They were safe here; there was only one way in, and unless Holland could somehow manage to bore her way through thick metal and silver reinforced doors, none of them were getting in here. However, an unsettled feeling remained as Cadence thought about all of the humans out there who had no idea what could potentially happen to them should the Vampire queen decide to take her desperation out on them.Jamie had hooked all of the Guardians up with some morphine as he focused on fixing the injured Hunters first. None of them had life threatening wounds, and once he was finished patching them, he worked on reattaching Steph’s severed arm.Cassidy sat in a chair by the door, her eyes closed, monitoring with her mind. While Cadence had approached her as soon as she arrived, Cassidy waved her off, letting her know she wa
Cassidy sat in her chair atop the apartment building looking off in the distance, feeling the world around them to see how close the Vampires were now. A few weeks had passed, and she knew they were still out there, but this had become a standoff, a long game, not a simple flash in the pan attack, and every day, as more Guardians arrived from the settlement in Roatan, the Vampires became more nervous. She could feel it rolling off of them, but she could also hear it in their chatter.LIGHTS was planning an attack now, an epic one, and Holland knew it. Cassidy spent too much time in the Vampire queen’s head. She always knew when she was there, but she couldn’t hide her thoughts. The ancient creature was prepared to throw everything she had at the ones who had taken her lover from her twice now, and in her mind, she believed she’d find a way to wipe all of them from the Earth, even the Guardians.She was no closer now than she had been when they’d
“I guess our wedding plans will be put on hold for a while,” Cadence said, taking his hand in both of hers. It always surprised her how smooth they were despite decades of battles and other hard work.“I hope, by September, all of this will be put far behind us.” He managed a small smile.“Maybe, but it seems silly to be picking out flowers and cakes when we’re gearing up for… Armageddon.”“True. But I’ve never been a fan of Ben Affleck.”Cadence snickered and tried not to roll her eyes. “Don’t you think it’s crazy to keep planning when the world is crumbling around us?”“Is it? I hadn’t noticed. Seriously, Cadence, we’ve got the upperhand here. Holland is just one person—one very evil, menacing person--but still there’s just one of her. We’re not going to put our wedding plans on hold just because she’s fuming over h
The odor of mildew assaulted her lungs as Cadence Findley made her way through the underground tunnel. Here she still had enough clearance to stand, though she was bent at the waist so that her shoulders were stooped, but up ahead, she was aware it narrowed even further, and she’d be forced to drop to her knees. How her Guardian, Elliott Sanderson, was ever going to make it through the smaller passage, she wasn’t sure, but she thought it might be fun to watch.“Moist. That’s the word that comes to mind. It smells moist in here,” he said only to her through his IAC, or Intelligence Assistance Communicator, a tiny chip each member of the LIGHTS (Lincoln International Guardian and Hunter Training Station) team had in their eye so that they could speak to each other and share other information without actually having to open their mouths.“Don’t use that word,” Cadence said, bile rising up in the back of her
It took Aaron a half-second to answer, and she imagined that was because he was directing the other teams as well. None of them should be merging here as the other tunnels and passages they were using to ferret out similar gangs of docile Vampires didn’t connect, but they were all in close enough proximity that Aaron was able to direct them from a parking garage a few miles from where Cadence was—and a few hundred yards above her head. She didn’t want to think about that, though, being underground. She wondered for a moment if it reminded Elliott of the time he’d been dead for eight months. Even though he had been cremated, she imagined if she’d been the one to die, anything remotely like being buried would make her uneasy. But then, this made her uneasy, and she’d been alive her entire life.“Ready, kid?” Elliott whispered aloud, likely seeing the look on her face, thinking she was either on the verge of panic or about
“What now?” Cadence asked, checking her IAC to make sure he wasn’t alarmed at the progress of one of the other teams. His son, Brandon Keen, who also happened to be a good friend of Cadence’s, as well as her sister’s boyfriend, was out with another Hunter, Aurora Howe, so a few panicked thoughts flickered through her mind until she was sure he was okay.“Rats,” Elliott said softly.“What’s the matter?” she asked, assuming he was just using one of his old colloquialisms from the 1950s.“No, rats!” Elliott repeated, and she realized he meant there were actual rats in the tunnel.“What?” Cadence screamed. “Aaron said there wouldn’t be any rats!” There wasn’t much that freaked her out anymore, not since she’d taken to beheading monsters for a living, but she still hated rats, and her understanding was that Elliott wasn’t a big fan either, bu
Cadence used her entire body to fling the creature up and over, holding onto it with her knees, one hand on each jaw. It bucked and tried to pound her into the concrete beneath them, but her efforts were enough for Elliott to plunge the knife into its chest cavity. He took the blade out and stabbed again, several times, and Cadence could feel the animal start to weaken. Silver knives had worked better than anything else on the shapeshifting Vampires they’d encountered both in Melbourne and in Butler, Missouri, when they’d gone on a raid there right before Paul was taken prisoner. It was working here as well. After a few more jabs, the Vampire crocodile let out a loud sigh and crumbled into ash all over Cadence.She lay there stunned for a few seconds, not sure what to make of the entire reptile situation. Eventually, she came to her senses and jumped up, brushing the residue off as Elliott pocketed his weapon. “Never in my life…” she muttered, n