Chapter 2: Chapter 2

Frustrated, Cassidy sat down, banging her fists on the table hard enough for it to rattle. Elliott’s eyes went to Christian Henry, who hadn’t spoken at all the entire duration of the meeting, an oddity in itself. He had been the last victim of Cassidy’s rage. The table looked much better than Christian’s face had once the half-Vampire, half-Hunter was done with him. Elliott had laughed when he watched the video, and he found himself suppressing a chuckle now.

He was pretty sure he hadn’t made a sound, but Cassidy’s eyes were on him anyway, like she wanted him to say something. With a sigh, he dropped his chair back to the floor. “Aw, hell, Cass. I don’t know. It seems unreasonable to just pour everything we’ve got into a place we aren’t quite sure needs it. Is this Daunator’s work? Maybe. But my understanding is he could take all of us out with one blast from his halitosis. Why would he need all of them?”

Her hazel eyes were narrowed as she replied, “To. Kill. Us.”

Elliott couldn’t hold back the chuckle that slipped past his lips that time. “Then why would we go running over to him?”

Cassidy didn’t think it was funny. “Because it’s our job! How are we supposed to keep people safe from this monster if we’re all the way over here, and he’s in the forests of Hungary building his army?”

“All right, Cass. Give me your notes, and I’ll look them over,” Hannah offered, beckoning for the papers with her hand. Elliott had known the ex-therapist long enough to see when she was placating someone. Cassidy hadn’t known the woman nearly as long, but it was evident as she passed the papers to Jamie and on down to Hannah that she was also aware of the counselor’s motivation.

“What else do we need to discuss?” Jamie asked, looking relieved to be able to move on.

Finally, Major Henry opened his mouth. “Some of the Roatan Guardians are asking when we can start administering the serum. Dr. Morrow and I have been telling them we need to wait until Aaron gets back to approve it. You concur?”

He was speaking directly to Jamie, who’s opinion was far more valuable, in Elliott’s opinion, than Christian’s. “Yes, I think they can wait. It’s only another ten days.”

“They should wait longer than that,” Cassidy muttered. “We haven’t even begun the final battle yet.”

Every face turned her direction, but not a single pair of lips parted to acknowledge her concern. “Anything else?” Hannah wanted to know.

“Yeah, I’m administering the second round of Transformation serum to some team members who didn’t get it last time in an hour or so.” Jamie said as he checked his watch, and Elliott thought about how funny it was some of his older teammates still wore them since they had a clock in their eye. “Several of these people have flown in from other Areas. I’ll need to get them done so they can get back to their stations.”

“Who all is on your list?” Cassidy asked, and Elliott was glad to hear she was interested in something other than Daunator.

“Uh, well Heather, Rusty, Ona, and Martin are the only locals. I’ll do the others before the Healers. Then, Cale, Morgan, Crystal, Daniel, Antonio, Lex, Tessa, Job, Kaycia, Moira, and Gina have flown in. As well as your cousin Paul and a couple of his teammates, Tanner and Patsy.”

“That’s a lot,” Hannah commented. “Can you handle all of that?”

“Yeah, we’re doing it differently than last time. They each have appointments. We’ll get them under one at a time with the entire medical team available in case anyone else goes Shane on us.” The team snickered, though it hadn’t been funny when Shane had tossed Cadence across the room during the administration of his second dose of serum. “We’ll make sure everyone is strapped down first, too.”

“All right, well let me know if there’s anything I can do,” Hannah replied, picking up Cassidy’s stack of papers as if that were the end of the conversation.

“I will,” Jamie nodded. “Probably wouldn’t hurt to have some of your good vibrations headed our way.”

Hannah giggled as if she wasn’t sure whether or not he was serious, though Elliott assumed he was, and they all walked to the doors. Since the happy couple wasn’t there, they’d been using the old conference room, the one that occupied the bottom floor of a building closer to the apartments, and Elliott’s mouth began to water as he thought about the leftover Chinese food he had in the fridge.

“Hey!”

He felt a tug on his sleeve even before he’d pushed completely up to standing and knew Cass was irritated with him just by the tone of that one syllable she shouted at him. “What is it, lil girl?”

Everyone else had vacated the room, and Elliott cursed himself for being so slow. Not that she wouldn’t find another way to track him down. She practically lived in his apartment anyway. At least Brandon wasn’t here so that the two could gang up on him.

“Why didn’t you have my back?”

“Oh, that.” He headed for the door, but she was on his heels. “What did you want me to say? Grab your munitions and follow me?”

“Maybe.”

The air was thick and sticky, way too muggy for Kansas City in September, especially with the sun below the horizon. Elliott didn’t normally feel any effect from the weather, but he found himself tugging at his jacket collar as if he were suffocating. Perhaps it was the countenance of the girl beside him. “I’m sorry, Cass. But I agreed with what they said. Ain’t no use in barrelin’ in without our bosses just for the sake of maybe.”

“But the evidence is right there! Besides that, I have heard what’s going on in these fresh bloodsuckers’ minds. Daunator is building an army to destroy the world!”

Elliott tried not to let Cassidy’s concerns sound trivial to him. The fact of the matter was, he wasn’t used to working with someone who could infiltrate the enemies’ minds. For all he knew, Vampires had been saying the same thing for thousands of years, and none of the good guys ever knew it until now. “I’m sure it will be a priority as soon as your sister returns, Cass. But there really isn’t too much we can do right now.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he turned his head to look at her. “You cannot possibly be thinking about going over there on your own, are you?”

“No.” Her answer came quickly, too quickly, and he could sense that the thought had at least crossed her mind. If she’d gone any further than that, like actually booking a ticket or packing her suitcase, he wouldn’t be too horribly surprised, unfortunately. Cassidy wasn’t exactly known for taking no for an answer.

Stopping in his tracks, Elliott turned to look at her. “Cassidy Elizabeth, so help me God, if you do anything of the sort, I swear I will fly over there and track you down myself, and when I do, it will not be pretty! The last thing I wanna do is call your sister during the one vacation she’s taken since she started, the first one Aaron has taken in centuries, to tell them that our campus runaway is on the lam again. Don’t you dare!”

Her eyes were practically bulging out of her head as she stared back at him. “I told you, I’m not!”

“Good! You better not be!”

“You’re not my dad, Elliott!”

“Okay, well, if I go have a chat with Mr. Findley, I’m sure he’d say the same thing.”

Cassidy let out a growl and darted across the street toward the apartment building faster than Elliott’s eyes could even track her, leaving him shaking his head and thankful he’d never had a daughter.

The scent of cigarette smoke and the idea that he wasn’t alone had him slowly turning his head toward the shadows next to the building they’d all just emptied out of. Elliott tried not to audibly sigh in discontent as he realized it was the one person in the world he least wanted to see—except for maybe Daunator, or Aurora. “You enjoyin’ the show, Major Henry?”

Christian stamped out his cigarette butt and then picked it up before flinging it into a garbage can at least a hundred yards away. “Not really.”

“Good.” Elliott turned to walk away, wondering what had driven Christian to smoke this time. He couldn’t remember for certain when the last time he’d seen the Guardian light up might’ve been, but he thought it was the night Cadence had tracked down and ended that Vampire Sam had been after, which hadn’t been a very good night for any of them.

“She’s right, you know? By waiting, we’re just making things worse for all of us.”

He paused for a moment to turn and glare in Christian’s direction. “So you think we should just head on over there, too? Try to track down Daunator and destroy him without our Leaders?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean she’s wrong.”

“I don’t recall ever telling her she was wrong, only that there isn’t anything we can do about it. For all we know, Daunator really can kill Guardians, and if that’s the case, we’d be really stupid to go in half-baked with any sort of plan not involving Aaron’s brain.”

Christian’s hands were pushed deep into the pockets of his jeans, and his head was tilted down toward the sidewalk, as if there were something interesting in the cracks. “Couldn’t kill you,” he muttered.

A bushy eyebrow raised over one green eye. “Tell that to Alex.”

“That was different. That was another dimension.”

“Says the guy who goes from it’s not possible for a Guardian to kill a Hunter, to okay maybe it is. Nothing’s wrong with my IACs, okay maybe they’re vulnerable after all. Why don’t you ever just admit you don’t know shit?”

“I don’t know shit. But I know Daunator’s going to make Dracula look like Tinkerbell.”

Elliott smirked, thinking of his team blasting the fairy out of the air with their Glocks. “I thought you said you didn’t know about Daunator.”

“I did say that. Maybe I don’t. Maybe I do. Maybe I know more than anyone else.”

“Oh? You been readin’ up on him? Like you did the Blood Moon Portal?” So far, in the week or so since Elliott had come out of the portal, he’d managed not to break Major Henry’s neck over the fact that he could’ve prevented any of them from being sent to that hellhole.

“Something like that. I already told you I’m sorry I lied to Aaron.”

“Yes, I got your blanket apology letter. It was quite meaningful. I’ll be sure to mention it to Alex the next time I die.” Elliott started to walk away, no longer willing to listen to the rambling of what he could only consider a crazy person.

“What do I need to do to show you I’m sorry? I took Hines into the portal myself. What else can I do?”

“I don’t know, Henry. Maybe find a firing squad of Hunters trained as sharpshooters and volunteer for target practice?” Shaking his head, Elliott headed for the apartment building, wishing Aaron would just transfer Christian once and for all. But his friend would never do that because he felt sorry for the weirdo.

He pushed through the lobby door, not bothering to wave at Juan Diego who was terrified of him anyway, and called the elevator, praying the kids were hanging out in someone else’s apartment this evening. All he wanted to do was chill in front of the TV, eat that Chinese food, and maybe call Amanda later just to hear her voice. He prayed he wouldn’t spend the night trying to talk Cassidy out of leaving the country on her own.