Chapter 20: Chapter 20

Brandon shoved the last piece of pizza down his throat and tossed the box back on the coffee table. The television was on, but he may as well have been watching Telemundo; he had no idea what was going on. The nagging idea that he’d taken this all a step too far wouldn’t go away, but he fought the urge to run down to Cassidy’s apartment and apologize, swallowing his feelings topped with pepperonis and washing them down with a beer from his dad’s tiny fridge in his room he wasn’t supposed to touch. His plan was to finish it and hide the evidence before Elliott came back.

That didn’t work out. The apartment door opened, and the first thing his dad asked was, “Is that mine?”

Still chewing, Brandon waited to answer till most of the pizza was gone. “It was.”

Elliott studied him for a moment before taking a seat next to him on the couch. “Everything okay?”

“Nope, not even a little bit.” Brandon finished off the beer and wished he had some water. It had been a while since he’d drank anything with alcohol in it since he’d seen what a mess it made out of his mom. Sure, he’d drink at parties if given the opportunity, but for the most part, there was no reason to drink around here. Breaking up with Cass was reason enough.

“What happened?” Elliott turned toward him, the expression on his face showing he genuinely cared and wasn’t just asking because he was supposed to.

“I took your advice. I tried to talk to Cass, but she didn’t want to. I tried asking her out. She didn’t want to go. So... I told her we needed some time apart.”

Elliott’s bushy eyebrows shot up. “I don’t remember saying to do that. I said to give her some space, not break up with her.”

“I know, Dad. But that wasn’t working. So I took it to the next extreme.”

Running a hand through his unruly, dark curls, his dad nodded. “I’ll say. Well, I guess all you can do now is give it a day or two, see what happens.”

“You don’t think I should go down there and talk to her?”

Elliott eyed the beer can. “How many of those have you had?”

“Come on, Dad. Even if I had had a whole case you know it wouldn’t affect me.” He crinkled the can up and plunked it into the empty pizza box.

“True. But still, it’s not a good look for anyone, showing up at their ex’s place smelling like beer, even if it is the good stuff.”

Brandon sort of lost track of every word after the syllable “ex” came out of his father’s mouth. “God, what have I done, Dad?”

“I don’t know. It might end up being for the better. Heaven knows breaking up with Aurora just made her wanna stick to me like glue.”

Brandon had seen that firsthand. “I think you disappearing through the portal made Roar and Mom both remember that you’re a decent guy to have around. All it did for Cass is let her know that it’s not so bad being single.”

“Now, come on, son. That’s not true. She’s just struggling with some stuff right now. Like you said, without knowing what Alex’s message said, it’s hard to tell. But I think there’s a chance he did say some things to her that he wouldn’t want you to know about.”

“I think he did, too. I saw the way he looked at her. I’m not stupid.”

“Well....”

“All right, Dad.” Elliott chuckled and Brandon shook his head, though he agreed he’d done something dumb tonight. “She said she was sitting in on a hunt tonight, too.”

“A hunt?” Once again, his dad was looking at him oddly. “Where?”

“I don’t know. Someplace over there where she thinks we should be.”

“Huh... I didn’t know there was one. I wonder if Hannah knows.”

“I’m sure she does. Wouldn’t she have had to approve it since Aaron’s still gone?”

“I guess so.” He shrugged like it was no big deal, but Brandon could tell something was bothering him.

“When are they coming back? Aren’t they supposed to leave there tomorrow?”

“Hell, I don’t know. It’s hard enough for me to keep track of what day it is here, let alone halfway around the world.” He stood up. “They’ll be here when they get here.”

“Right. Okay. Thanks for listening, Dad.”

“Any time. I just... give her a couple of days. Let her come to you.”

Brandon nodded, thinking the next few days could be the hardest of his life. “What if I see her with another guy?”

“I doubt that will happen, Brandon.”

“I already saw her with Christian.”

“He’s not another guy. He’s a douche. And no one knows that better than Cass.”

“Nevertheless....”

“He’s not even here.” Elliott picked up Brandon’s trash and headed toward the kitchen.

“What do you mean?”

“He left. Couple days ago. Said he needed a vacation, too. I’ve never known him to take one, but it was fine with me. Whatever it takes to not have to deal with him.”

“That’s really weird.” Brandon didn’t follow his dad into the kitchen and hardly noticed when he headed for his bedroom a few minutes later, he was so preoccupied with wondering why Christian would suddenly need a vacation just before Aaron came home. Was it possible the tech guy thought he might get transferred if he stayed? Or was Christian up to no good again? Whatever it was, Brandon still didn’t trust the guy.

His thoughts faded back to Cassidy. He wondered if she was still awake, if she was still watching the hunt. Was she thinking about him—or someone else?

“I am such a moron,” he decided, sprawling out on the same couch where he’d watched a hundred movies with her. The ceiling didn’t answer, but it also didn’t judge. It was going to be a long couple of days.

***

Memories of the unsettling dream stayed with Cadence through packing and heading to the airport a day earlier than planned. Even settled into her comfortable seat on the team’s most luxurious jet, a magazine in front of her, she couldn’t get it out of her mind. Aaron had seen immediately that there was more to this nightmare than just a bad dream and had agreed they could leave early. As much as she’d enjoyed having him all to herself, she was ready to get back to work. She had a feeling he was, too, even though he’d done his best to try to hide it recently. Her stomach felt queasy, as if she were near a Vampire, and her head was starting to pound. She chalked it up to nerves, but she couldn’t remember ever feeling this way about a dream before.

They’d decided to wait until they got back into US airspace and were close to HQ to turn their IACs back on since they wouldn’t be able to do much while they were in the air anyway. The last thing either one of them wanted was to discover they’d had another tragedy, like the Blood Moon Portal, and neither of them could help. So... as painful as it was, Cadence kept her contacts off and tried to read an article about how to be a good wife, one Aaron had scoffed at earlier and said she could skip because she was already perfect.

Eliza. When was the last time she’d even seen the girl? Was it Philly? Cadence had been so preoccupied with the situation with Cassidy during and after that hunt, she’d hardly paid attention to anyone else at all. If she’d seen Eliza since then, she couldn’t remember when. Why in the world would she be starring as the purple-headed backstabber in her own personal nightmare?

Cadence knew that Eliza was currently stationed near where Holland had last been sighted, which wasn’t too far from where Daunator might be holed up. There was a chance those ideas had mingled around in her head long enough to produce the unsettling dream, but the fact that it seemed so real was alarming to her on its own. If those creatures were somehow real, they were all in a whole lot of trouble.

Aaron had a book open, some action-adventure novel where the hero’s life couldn’t be half as exciting as his real one, and she wondered if he was actually reading or if his mind was hopping around the way that hers was. She wondered if there were any documents in his vast collection stored in his IAC that might give him any clue as to if those black monsters could be real or not. He’d said they sounded a little bit like the demons they’d fought off in the portal, but those were not shaped like people, and they hadn’t bled the way she’d described it to him either.

Cadence knew it sounded ridiculous to let a dream end her honeymoon early and send her flying halfway around the globe, but there was something so odd about this entire situation, the need to get home and find out what was happening was more important than spending a few more hours on the beach. Hopefully, she’d find out soon enough that it was just a silly dream, the creatures didn’t exist, and Daunator was still dormant under the mountain in his self-inflicted prison.

But the churning in her stomach told her that probably wouldn’t be the case, and when she stepped foot off of the plane, the hardest fight of her life would be just beginning.

* * *

Christian hadn’t seen another living soul since he left the streets of the small village nearest the mountain and started his journey into the mountains what seemed like weeks ago, though it had only been a couple of days. He had trekked through the dense forest, selected a campsite where he’d left most of the belongings he’d been hauling along with him, and then set off into the wilderness to try to locate his objective somewhere high up in the mountains.

Night had fallen several hours ago, and though his body wasn’t weary, his mind had grown tired of searching some time ago. He’d hoped this would be easy enough. After all, Schmitz had feared that stating the Vampire’s name aloud would draw him out. Christian had lost track of the amount of times he’d called on Daunator to show himself hours ago. Now, he continued to march upward, waiting for any sign of the monster.

As his feet moved over rough terrain, dodging around rocks and trees, sometimes dangerously close to sheer drop offs, his mind wandered back over a hundred years and more, back to the time when this creature’s fate and his own were tied in a way he hadn’t even understood at the time.

Memories and emotions mingled together as the beautiful face of his betrayer came to mind. He had been a fool to trust her, and yet, at the time, he’d thought they were in love. How he’d allowed himself to be taken advantage of in such a total and complete way was still a mystery, and an embarrassment, to him.

Sometimes, when he dared to allow himself to fall asleep, her face would haunt his dreams. In other times, when he was alone with his thoughts for far too long, as he was now, an image of her would infiltrate his conscious mind, and it was almost like he was back there again, in antebellum Philadelphia, answering to a man he didn’t respect, loving a woman who meant to end him.

If it hadn’t been for a good friend acting quickly, Christian Henry would still be dead.

No one knew his secret, not even Aaron, a man he’d met a couple of decades after his world had been torn apart and then patched back together again. Even though they were battling a beast with a similar story, Christian hadn’t dared mention to Aaron what he’d been through. In fact, in the years since he’d been murdered and brought back to life, only twice had he ever even considered mentioning what had happened to him to another person. One of them had been Janette Findley, who seemed to suspect there was more to his story than he was letting on. And the other was Cadence.

He should’ve told her. Instead of accusing her of being a similar creature to the woman whose face he currently couldn’t brush aside, he should’ve confided in her, back before Elliott had died, before he’d allowed Aaron to be sucked into the Blood Moon Portal. If he had told her then, maybe she would’ve had a bit more understanding of where he was coming from. As tragic as Aaron and his first wife’s story was, Aislyn had nothing on Brandy.

None of it mattered now. He’d made the choices he’d made. He’d hurt the people he’d hurt. And now, he was consumed by the idea that the only way he could right the wrongs he’d committed was by finding the monster who’d come through the Blue Moon Portal with him and ending him before he could harm anyone else.

His footsteps took him closer and closer to the highest peak of this mountain that seemed to sprawl on endlessly around him, and with each fall of his boots, he felt a stirring within him that let him know that he wasn’t alone. By the light of the same moon that had claimed him and spit him back to the world, more than once, he fought on, breaking into a clearing amidst jagged rocks and a sharp drop off to his right.

“Daunator! Where are you? Come forth and show yourself!”

The night was still. Nothing so strong as the flap of a bird’s wings stirred as Christian awaited a response. Seconds turned to minutes, and he was still all alone on the mountaintop. Confused, he spun around, wondering if perhaps the creature might try to sneak up on him from behind. There was nothing there but the trees. He exhaled sharply, irritated at a lack of response.

Digging deep within himself, Christian called upon the rage that had fueled this mission. “Daunator! I’ve come a great distance to face you! Show yourself!” Still, there was nothing but the lone Guardian, the forest, and the mocking moon.

Frustrated, Christian turned around, deciding to go back the other direction, to try again, but as soon as his heel touched the earth, the ground began to quake beneath him. Rocks slid, dirt crumbled, and he fought to keep both feet on the ground. It was of no use. He began to slide, hitting the ground hard.

He wasn’t about to give up, though. Assuming Daunator was behind him, he readied his Beretta and fought with everything he had to regain his footing. He managed to scramble to his feet and to turn around to face his assailant, but the monster wasn’t there. And then, the ground was gone again. But this time, it wasn’t a matter of sliding down the mountain side. The ground opened up like a giant mouth, like an opening to another dimension, and then he was falling into black, void, nothing. Reaching out to steady himself against what he could only assume were cave walls had no effect. Try as he might to stretch in every direction, his hands never made contact with anything with mass, and the small light above him became nothing but a pin prick until even it was gone.

Christian’s feet hit the ground hard, buckling his knees and bringing him down. He let out a groan but was thankful nothing seemed to be broken. He still had his Beretta, and feeling around on his utility belt, it seemed the rest of his weapons—two Glocks, a dozen or so clips, more grenades than he cared to count, and a silver knife—were also accounted for. But he did not see Daunator, or anything else. Nor could he find any walls in his immediate vicinity. He was standing in a shaft beneath the ground, so vast and deep, it was impossible to see the opening, and everywhere he looked, there was nothing but inky blackness so dark his eyes began to ache with looking. Even with his X-ray vision, he could see nothing.

Taking slow deep breaths to ward off the panic, he began to weigh his options. Daunator may well show up at any moment, and if he did so, Christian planned to end him, even if it meant he’d be trapped in this hole for an eternity. But if he didn’t, if Daunator never came to face him, then what? Would his team ever even find him here? Could his IAC be detected this deep into the ground? He hadn’t even bothered to bring a cell phone, though he had a satellite phone for emergencies back at his camp, not that it would do him any good here, and it wasn’t even turned on. Readying himself for an attack, he decided to wait. If Daunator revealed himself soon, his decision would be made for him. If he didn’t, then he’d have to give it some time. And then pray that Cassidy’s telepathy was strong enough to reach him underground. How ironic was it that the person who hated him most in the world might be his only chance at finding his way out of what was quickly becoming a terrible situation? Not being able to distinguish any shape or form whatsoever was the most unpleasant experience he’d ever had, short of dying. But he’d survived that, so he’d find a way to survive this, too. One way or another.