Repercussion: The Clandestine Saga Book 3

Chapter 1-3

Hearing Meagan talk reminded Cadence of her personal battle with the legendary Barbarosa. She was happy to let Meagan have the kill this time, however. Nevertheless, thinking of Barbarosa drew Cadence mentally away from the conversation momentarily. Her mind wondered to the Guardians who worked out of the primary LIGHTS office, located in Kansas City. She had been part of that team when she took Barbarosa down. Kansas City was the headquarters for the entire network of Guardians and Hunters who were operating across the globe. It wasn't until Cadence had gone off on her own that she found out LIGHTS actually had regions, with leaders and teams operating only in those jurisdictions. She had been a Vampire Hunter for almost eight months now and still felt like she knew very little. She had a few friends at the Kansas City office, and it was often difficult to keep her mind on the present whenever a reference was made to one of them. She had been with her good friend Elliott the night Barbarosa had gone down. Her thoughts were on him when she realized that Dr. Ryan was addressing her specifically.

"Have you handled anything like that before?" she heard him say. He smiled at her, clearly realizing she hadn't caught the first part of the sentence before he repeated himself. "A large warehouse... with lots of containers and other areas to hide."

"Oh," Cadence exclaimed. "We have...." Just then, the waitress reappeared, not quite so energetic with a full tray off coffees balanced on her hand. She handed them around, checked to see if anyone needed anything else, and then promised to be back to check on them before recapturing her pep and traipsing away.

Once she was gone, Cadence recovered her train of thought. "We did a warehouse job with the Denver team a few weeks ago. It wasn't a large warehouse, but it was fairly good sized. We took out, what, eight?" She looked at her teammates, who were nodding before she continued. "Yeah, we took out about eight Vampires there. And you have how many?"

"Only five," Dr. Ryan began, sipping his coffee. "But these are some badass goons, I'm telling you," he clarified. "I mean, I don't know anything about what you encountered in Denver, but these ghouls will take the head off of a child and not blink twice."

Cadence's forehead crinkled. She had the feeling he wasn't speaking metaphorically. "And why do you think you need to get them on their own turf and not when they are out and about?" she asked. She wasn't a huge coffee fan, usually preferring hot chocolate, but it was June, and even though they were both hot beverages, the latter wasn't as acceptable, for some reason. So, she took a quick sip of the hot, bitter beverage and tried not to make a face as she sat the cup back down.

Dr. Ryan must have noticed her expression because she saw a flicker of a smile before he answered her question. "We've tried that a couple of times before, but they tend to want to start taking out innocent by-standers. We've seen them mow down cars, shoot in crowds of people, even throw individuals down escalators at us."

Once again, Nick and Phoebe were nodding their heads in agreement. Cadence shook her head in disbelief. "Sounds like some extremely misinformed offspring," she commented, wondering which Vampire would create a host of children and not let them in on the rules.

"Well, that's the thing," Dr. Ryan said, meeting her gaze, leaning in across the table, his hands cupping the standard issue white diner cup. "These fellows all came from the same place. One Rogue Vampire very well-known for creating minions who will go out and destroy, completely unaware of the consequences."

Cadence was confused for only a second before she realized she knew precisely who the doctor was referring to. "Giovani," she muttered, her eyes locking on a spot on the white laminate table where a wayward drop of coffee was slowly forming a brown stain.

"Precisely," he replied. "So you know, they haven't been properly warned of the rules, or the consequences of their actions, and they have no intention of trusting or listening to us at this point. They are programmed to kill, and they don't care about the ramifications."

There was a very clear set of guidelines that all three members of the Clandestine Ternion--Hunters, Guardians, and Vampires--must follow in order to co-exist among humans without them ever knowing of their existence. One of these rules was that new Vampires must report to LIGHTS to be tagged with a tracker and given clear instructions about whom they could and could not feed off of. If it worked the way it was designed to, the Vampires would actually benefit society in some ways. They were allowed to feed on criminals, citizens who were deemed harmful to the rest of society. They were not allowed to interact with or feed off of Innocents--humans who had committed no heinous crimes. It was up to the Guardian Leader to determine when a Vampire had broken this rule and change their status to Rogue, which meant Hunters had the right to pursue them at all costs. The Guardians were there to protect the Hunters from the Vampires. While a Vampire could kill a Hunter, they could not kill a Guardian. It was a physical impossibility. Likewise, a Guardian could not kill a Hunter. A Hunter could, however, kill a Guardian, so they had to operate with extreme caution. Until recently, a Hunter was also incapable of killing another Hunter. Cadence had been in a recent incident that seemed to prove that was no longer the case.

"Giovani needs to be stopped," Aurora was saying, shaking her head and causing her red locks to dance around her broad shoulders.

"While I agree with that," Cadence replied, "we haven't heard much of anything out of him for almost four months. Until he reappears on someone's radar, we've got other concerns. And it sounds like these five gems are next on our list."

Aurora nodded in agreement, and Cadence silently wondered how she got to be the boss. It had sort of just happened. Aaron, the Guardian Leader, had always told her it just came naturally to her. Maybe he was right. Her mind started to drift off again at the thought of him, so she met Dr. Ryan's pale blue eyes, a stark contrast to the piercing blue ones she had been staring into a few months ago, and asked, "What would you like us to do for you first, Dr. Ryan?"

"Please, call me Cale," he replied. "I guess I'd like it if you could accompany us to the location tomorrow night. We're certain they won't be there if we go around midnight. They will likely be out wreaking havoc on our city at that point. It might give you an indication of what we are up against. Then, if you have some ideas, we could figure out a time to catch them when they are actually there--possibly the next morning--and try to orchestrate a hit."

Cadence nodded as she listened, trying to weigh his suggestion. She thought it was probably unnecessary to visit the location ahead of time. She came from a long line of Hunters and Guardians, and her DNA was highly saturated with the coding it took to be effective at her job. She was very confident she could go in and take this group out fairly quickly, despite the doctor--Cale's--warning that they were some tough guys. Nevertheless, she was willing to give his way a try. "All right, Dr. Ryan... uh... Cale," she agreed. "Let's do that. Give us the address and we'll meet you there tomorrow night."

"Sounds like a plan," Cale said, smiling. "I'm so glad we have you three on our team," he added.

"We're happy to be here," Meagan smiled.

"Now, who's ready to go back to the club and dance?" Aurora asked. Meagan groaned and reached around Cadence, giving her a shove. "What? The night is young!"

"Not me," Cadence replied. "I need to get back to the hotel. I've got a call to make." They said their goodbyes, and Cadence absently crossed back to where they had left their motorcycles, Aurora and Meagan chatting behind her. Her thoughts were solely locked in the past, and she suddenly felt extremely homesick. The sooner she was by herself, the quicker she could hear the voice she longed to hear.

"That's it, I was right! It is rutile!" Christian exclaimed, paper in hand, bursting into Aaron's office. Elliott glanced over his shoulder, a puzzled expression on his face as he paused midsentence to see what their lead tech person was so excited about.

Aaron looked a little less confused but still needed some clarification. "Christian, come on in," he said sarcastically. "I take it you got your report back from Dr. Patrick then?" He sat behind his imposing oak desk, peering at his teammate with an intense blue stare.

"Yes! It only took four months for the renowned scientist to squeeze it in, but nevertheless, here it is! The bullet was an amalgamate of titanium extracted from rutile." Dr. Ernest Patrick was a Guardian who had been an extremely successful chemist before his Transformation. Often, if one was particularly good in one area before they Transformed, those skills would be amplified once the change process was complete. That was the case with Dr. Patrick, who happened to work out of Edinburgh. "Dr. Patrick was able to trace these specific deposits back to a mine in Sierra Leone. So, if we can pinpoint who would have had access to that mine, then we'll know who made the bullet. And if we can figure out who made the bullet, then maybe we can determine how they knew titanium could allow a Hunter to take out another Hunter and why they would want to create such a weapon."

"Oh, that sounds simple enough," Elliott replied, rolling his eyes. "Since there's no reason to suspect that it was a Hunter or a Guardian who formulated the magic bullet, we'll just interview all of the people in Sierra Leone. That can't be more than, what, a couple million people..."

"Actually, the population of Sierra Leone is roughly six million people," Christian interjected.

"Oh well, then..."

"I know who it is..."

"That should be no problem at all. Just six million people give or take..."

"I said, I know who it is!" Aaron repeated.

It registered the second time. "Of course, you do," Elliott said, shaking his head in disbelief. Aaron always seemed to know everything. He wasn't quite sure how his best friend was always five steps ahead of everyone else.

"What? You do?" Christian asked, clearly more shocked then Elliott.

Aaron was temporarily distracted as he pulled up information on the IAC which he promptly shared with the two team members that were present. "Yes," he finally replied. "I should have known from the beginning. Laura's uncle, Kenny Comer. He works for the Titanium Resource Group. He's one of their leading scientists. He must have been working on this for her for years."

"But why?" Elliott interjected, pulling his hefty body up in the chair. "How could Laura of known years ago that she might need to take out another Hunter?"

"I don't think that's what she meant to do," Aaron admitted. For months, he had wondered if Laura was actually trying to kill Cadence when she had shot her in a failed attempt to destroy Giovani. The Vampire had been using Cadence as a shield. Laura had taken it upon herself to attempt to shoot Giovani despite the barrier, and the wound had almost killed Cadence, something that should have been impossible. Anytime a Hunter shot another Hunter the bullet should bounce clean. This time, the bullet lodged in Cadence's shoulder, and it had taken emergency surgery and the expert skills of the team's Healer, Jaime, to save her life.

"What do you mean that's not what she meant to do?" Elliott asked, the skepticism clear in his voice. "I watched it happen, Aaron. She meant to shoot Cadence."

"No, that's not what I meant," the Leader attempted to explain. "Maybe she really didn't think that the bullet would affect Cadence."