Chapter 55: Chapter 55

It happened all at once, and Eliza wasn’t even sure what she was seeing at first. As if called by a siren in the distance, all of the creatures froze, even the ones mere inches from Eliza’s boots. In one accord, they turned their heads, looking up and peering across the street, toward the top of another building several blocks over. Then, they all slithered back the directions in which they had come, crawling across the roof and back over the ledges, down the walls, and through the yard. It took Eliza a moment to get her feet to follow them, but she moved to the edge of the rooftop, standing on the center point and watched in confusion as they filled up the shadows beneath bushes and trees, along the sides of buildings, and then skittered across the road like evil lemmings or cockroaches after the same scrap of food.

She watched in confusion for a minute or two, wondering where they were going and why. It didn’t make any sense. If they had been called away by their master, why wouldn’t he let them finish her off first? Daunator certainly had no reason to spare her. Or was it someone else they answered to? Her team had taken out all of his highest echelon of Vampires recently, except for one, and as far as they knew, he wasn’t even in Hungary at the moment. Why would they abandon their goal when Eliza’s blood was clearly within their grasp?

And then she saw him. Standing on what appeared to be an old factory building, at least three or four blocks away. The clouds parted just over his head so that the moonbeams shown down, illuminating his form in the distance. There was no way she could make out his facial features from this distance, but she was certain it was him just the same. Why would Lukas call the creatures away from her? And if he was capable of doing so, why hadn’t he done it when they’d first attacked?

She had no answers, and she wasn’t going to get any standing on the roof. They’d gotten their mark; Sylvester was destroyed, as were two of the three Vampires he’d had with him. If Aaron was upset about Sylvester being dead, he’d have to take that up with someone else. While they hadn’t gotten a specimen to take back for Jamie, either, they’d had lots of up close and personal contact with the monsters for him to examine. She was more than done. Still shaking her head over the oddity of the creatures leaving, Eliza stepped off the edge of the rooftop and landed with a thunk on the ground in front of the warehouse as headlights on the road out front told her Brit was back with the vehicle.

“One of them is still alive,” Cassidy said in her head, and Eliza’s feet stopped moving.

“What?”

“Over by the fence. There’s a creature that’s still alive. The rest have disintegrated into black powder, but that one is still moving around. You should get it.”

“Get it? You want me to get it? Like pick it up and put it in my pocket or something?”

“No, get Sergio over there with his rope, and get it. If you can keep it alive until Jamie gets there, maybe he can figure out how Daunator is making them.”

“You’re even crazier than I am, girl,” Eliza said, shaking her head again. She started walking toward the exit, not back to find the injured monster.

“Eliza! Don’t you think you owe it to Jamie to do this for him? It’s hurt—it can’t fight you. Just go get it. You could pick it up yourself with one hand.”

“Why would I owe Jamie anything?” Eliza asked. She was one of the few people he’d never had to save from the brink of death.

“Come on! I might not have been on the team back when you were in KC, but I know that Jamie was your friend, that even when you were driving everyone else crazy, he stuck by you.”

“Well, he hasn’t been much of a friend these last couple of years,” Eliza countered, wondering when the last time she’d even spoke to the Healer was before he’d contacted her and asked her to get him a specimen. She couldn’t remember.

“And whose fault is that? Eliza, you’ve done some pretty awful things to people who thought you were their friend. You can’t really blame anyone from jumping ship after what you did to my sister, can you?”

Of course, Cassidy had a point. But Eliza wasn’t sure she was ready to redeem herself by taking a monster home with her. Still, she found herself stopping short of the fence. “Damn.” She hung her head for a moment, hands on her hips. The old Eliza would’ve kept right on going. But she’d changed—hadn’t she?” “Sergio, you still got that rope?”

There were far too many people on the plane. Cadence Josephine Findley McReynolds was a complete pushover. She sat in the front next to the empty seat her husband had occupied up until a few moments ago when he’d had to go stop Aurora and Elliott from arguing. Cadence’s arms were crossed, as was her disposition; she should’ve never agreed to let Aurora come.

But she had. And just as Elliott had predicted, when Cassidy started to threaten not to do her job if her newly re-appointed boyfriend wasn’t allowed to go, she’d let Brandon come, too. Well, Aaron had been the one to make that decision, but he’d said he’d stick to his guns if Cadence wanted him to. She’d given in. Now, they were on their way to a mountain in the middle of nowhere to find their friend, fight off the most powerful Vampire ever created, and test the possibility that Daunator knew how to kill Guardians and manipulate Hunters. It was a great scenario, one she was certain they would easily triumph over, no doubt.

It was no wonder her head was beginning to ache again and the tumultuous feeling in the pit of her stomach hadn’t quite gone away. She was considering another round of Jamie’s blue light when Aaron returned, looking as annoyed as she felt. “It’s like having teenagers,” he said, shaking his head. “Well, I mean, I guess. Not that I’ve ever had teenagers. Except your sister.”

“And she only lived with us for a few weeks, but yeah, I get it. What was the problem now?”

“Apparently, Aurora got on the plane early and took off all of the Cheetos Elliott had requested be stocked in the snack center. Really? The man can’t go a few hours without his favorite chip?”

Cadence bit back a chuckle. “In fairness, that was a pretty petty thing for her to do.”

“I agree, but calling her out on it is just going to make her act even more childish. And I thought Elliott and Christian’s squabbles were bad. I hope no one else on our team ever breaks up. Maybe we should be total hypocrites and make it a rule that no one can date another team member.”

Laughing, Cadence said, “The heart knows what it wants... or in their case other parts of the anatomy. I’d hate to say this, but maybe we need to start thinking about a transfer.” Aurora had only been her second in command for a few months, and she was doing a good job--on the battlefield. Was it really worth it to have to put up with this sort of distraction all the time? Cadence didn’t think so.

Aaron settled back in his seat. “I assume you’re talking about her and not him.”

“Of course,” Cadence clarified quickly. “I’d never be able to transfer Elliott even if my sister wasn’t dating his son—again.”

“Then who would you bring in for your number two?”

Cadence thought about some of the other strong Hunters she’d worked with. A few people sprang to mind. “I don’t know. I’d have to think about it.”

He nodded. “Well, I would suggest you warn her first. Let her know that if she doesn’t stop agitating Elliott, she’s going to have to go somewhere else. She’d make a great Area Leader. There’s a chance she might actually prefer that.”

“Maybe,” Cadence agreed, but she really couldn’t spend too much time thinking about it at the moment. They still had several hours in the air, and she intended to spend part of that time sleeping, but she needed to go back over the film from the hunt Mila’s team had just completed. “At least Eliza was able to get Jamie’s specimen. I hope they can figure out how to keep that thing alive until we get to Budapest.”

“Me, too. Jamie won’t have too long to look it over, though. We’ll only be in Budapest a few hours before we head to Cesky Krumlov. The longer we take to get things underway, the better the chances Daunator will get tipped off. I’d just as soon avoid a full out fight at this point, if we can avoid it.”

Cadence’s head rocked back and forth in agreement, but she didn’t think there would be any getting around it. Ideally, Aaron planned to go get Christian, get him away from Klet, somewhere safe where they could pick his brain about the monster, and then go back and face Daunator. Cadence doubted that was how the operation would go. Chances were, when they arrived on the mountain, Daunator would be ready, whether he got a tip off from anyone’s train of thought or not.

“We’ll just have to be ready to throw everything we’ve got at him,” she said with a sigh. That unsettled feeling was back with a vengeance, strong enough that she couldn’t ignore it. This could very well be the most significant battle of her life, even more so than defeating Holland the second time. If things went wrong, people could die, and she hadn’t forgotten what Jamie said about Daunator using Hunters to kill Guardians. She’d like to think the other Hunters on her team were all mentally strong enough to overcome any mind tricks the Vampire threw at them, but there was just no way to be certain.

“We’ve got several of Christian’s new grenades. Hopefully, those work. And you brought the bracelets he was working on, right?”

“Yes,” Cadence said, gesturing to the bag between her boots. Her dad had mentioned Christian was working on something for protection, though he hadn’t tested it yet. They looked like ordinary silver bracelets, but Cadence had decided to bring them along in case they might be useful. “And you brought the crossbow?”

Aaron nodded. “Not sure I feel comfortable using a prototype of a weapon that shoots molten silver nitrate, but most of Christian’s inventions end up working. Eventually.” He snickered, and Cadence wondered if there was a specific instance he was thinking of but didn’t ask. “We’ll go over everything with the team when we get there. Everyone should’ve had plenty of time to get in the air so that we’re arriving about the same time.”

“Good.” Cadence was looking forward to working with the best of the best LIGHTS members, particularly since she wasn’t able to bring all of the Hunters she’d normally have alongside her. “I’ll just be happy if we can all get out of this alive. I don’t want to test Jamie’s skills.”

“We’ll be all right,” Aaron assured her, but there was a hint of a waver in his voice, one that let her know he was also leery of what lay before them. She reached over and took his hand, resting her head back against the seat, and closing her eyes. She’d go over the footage later, but for now, sleep was calling, and something told her that being well rested would be even more important than having as much information as possible. After all, it might be a question as to whether or not Daunator could kill Guardians, but there was no doubt the Vampire could most certainly end her, and since there was a hundred percent chance he would be giving that task his all, she would need every ounce of strength possible to be the one walking away from the battlefield when all that was left was smoke and ashes.