Illumination (The Clandestine Saga Book 5)

by ID Johnson

  Christian’s eyes lit up with the question. As he began to explain something about the gene research he was doing with Dr. Morrow—a scientist who lived in the Caribbean and was conducting research on how to return Guardians to their human state—Cadence attempted to listen but found her mind wandering very quickly. She had thought Christian was handsome when she first met him, but he came on way too strong, and for a long time, she didn’t want to be around him at all. In fact, it was partially his fault that she and Aaron had temporarily broken up right before she’d gone on her quest to find herself. Since that time, she’d found out that Christian’s strange accent was due to the fact that he had been around since the Revolutionary War. So he wasn’t British, but he had been at one point in time until he and his cohorts won the war. He should be able to tell her plenty about Alexander Hamilton. If he ever stopped talking about this project.

  “I really feel like this is the breakthrough we’ve needed,” he was saying. “Of course, we don’t know for sure yet.”

  “Well no, not yet,” Cadence chimed in to make it seem like she was paying attention.

  “You’re bored out of your mind, aren’t you?” he asked with a playful laugh.

  “No,” Cadence said, shaking her head. “I’m not bored. I’m just distracted, Christian, that’s all.”

  He nodded. “I see. So what did you want to talk to me about? And since when do you carry around a backpack?”

  “I’ll answer the backpack question after I get some information from you, if you prove I can trust you.”

  “Trust me?” he asked, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. “We’ve been on dozens of hunts together. Of course you can trust me.”

  “This is different,” Cadence replied, “and I do remember a time in the past when I should not have trusted you.” She was sure he’d know she was referring to the time he video taped the two of them kissing and Aaron eventually saw it.

  “All right…”

  “And a time when Aaron definitely should not have trusted you,” she added. He’d lied to Aaron and told him the serum was ready to use, and a Guardian could be injected to turn back into a human. Though no one new Aaron intended to use it on himself at the time, it had temporarily killed him. If Cadence hadn’t shown up with an antidote, he would’ve never recovered.

  “Okay,” Christian said, shaking his head. “Fine. Maybe you can’t trust me. Why don’t you try me, and we’ll see?”

  Cadence took a deep breath, and after peeking over her shoulder at the door for a second, she asked, “What do you know about the blue moon portal?”

  Christian raised his eyebrows for a moment and then his face froze. Cadence could imagine little hamsters running around in wheels in his head, trying to decide what to say. Finally, he stuttered, “The… w—w—what?”

  Leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms across her chest, Cadence slowly shook her head, her mouth twisted into a sideways snarl. “Come on, man. You just said I could trust you.”

  “You can,” he insisted, his eyes shooting to the door. “But… I’m not sure I am at liberty to discuss that particular topic with you.”

  “I know there are cameras in here, but do they record sound?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, then, unless he’s listening on via your IAC, he’s not going to have any idea what we talk about. But he sent me to you, so I think it’s fine if you discuss it with me. Of course, you can always check with him if you want, but I personally don’t think it’s necessary to ask his permission before every single conversation I carry on with my friends.”

  Christian took a few deep breaths and straightened the papers on his desk. She was sure he was asking permission. A moment later, he said, “Fine. I’ll tell you what I know.”

  “Maybe later, if you’re good, he’ll let you go to the bathroom.”

  His only response to that comment was a smirk. “What do you know already?”

  “Nothing,” she replied, wanting to get as much information out of him as possible.

  Interlacing his fingers and placing them behind his head, he leaned way back in his chair, and for a second Cadence thought he might actually tip over. “Well, it was 1804. We were on a hunt in New Jersey. The war with the British was over, and we had won, but we still had fighting to do. The French had come to help, but they’d also brought in a slew of young Vampires.”

  “What is it with the French and Vampires?” Cadence muttered.

  “Who knows? Heightened sex drive maybe? Anyway, we were in pursuit of a young female who had been doing a lot of damage in the farm areas in New Jersey. Hamilton and Burr were famous politicians at the time. In fact, Burr was the sitting Vice President of the United States. He was still very active, though. He had a drive; he wanted to kill every single one of them, and he was a deadeye. Except for this one time. It was just miscommunication. It was a lot harder to coordinate back then, without IACs or anything of that nature.

  “So, Burr took a shot, and it should’ve been spot on, but just as he pulled the trigger, Hamilton crossed his path. He turned, and the bullet hit him in the stomach, lodging next to his spine. It was awful. Hamilton was not only an amazing Guardian with impeccable skills on the battlefield, he was the leader of the Federalist party. He likely would’ve become president someday.”

  “Wow, that’s awful. Did he die right away?”

  “No, he lingered until the next afternoon. Of course, we couldn’t tell anyone what really transpired, and since Hamilton and Burr had been going back and forth in public for years, it just so happened that they’d already told a bunch of people they were going to be dueling that morning. Cover stories were a bit different then.”

  Cadence shook her head. “So Hamilton and Burr weren’t really enemies then?”

  “No, not at all. They actually found it quite humorous that everyone thought they were. They’d go at each other in public, in the newspapers, in political circles. But they worked quite well together when it came to hunting down Vampires. Until that day, anyway.”

  Cadence realized she was leaning forward in her chair, hanging on every word. “What did Burr do next?”

  “Well, he was devastated. He blamed himself, even though there really wasn’t much he could have done differently. It was an accident. The papers quoted him as saying that he had intended to kill Hamilton, but that was never the case, and I don’t believe he ever said that. Rumor was that he went into exile, but I knew what he was really doing. He was looking for a way to bring Hamilton back.”

  Exhaling sharply, Cadence asked, “What made him think that was even possible?”

  “No one thought it was possible. We’d not heard of any portal, any magic spell, or whatever, that could bring anyone back. But Burr knew that there were Guardians who had been around for thousands of years, and he thought, if he could find one, maybe they’d have some insight.”

  “And he did find one, then?”

  “Yes, he did. He came back to the very spot where the accident had occurred a few years later, and having somehow managed to procure the remains, he waited for the blue moon to rise, and the portal opened.”

  “Wait! Was Hamilton cremated?”

  “Nope.”

  Cadence shuddered. She’d seen lots of gross things over the last few years, but the thought of digging up a body back then before there were preservatives made her stomach feel queasy. “How did he manage to get the body?”

  “No one ever asked, and he never said.”

  “Yuck. Okay. So were you there when the portal opened?”

  Christian seemed to hesitate again, but eventually he nodded and said, “I was. He asked a few of us to come with him, to give him strength, to make sure he at least had a chance to apologize, even if Hamilton didn’t want to come through.”

  “Did Burr know at the time that Hamilton wouldn’t ever be able to go back?”

  “No. If the older Guardian who first told Burr about the portal was aware of the stipulation, he didn’
t mention it.”

  “So—when the portal opened, what happened?”

  “There was just a beam of blue light, and we could see Hamilton there. He seemed surprised to see us, of course, but Burr didn’t give him much of a chance to talk. He apologized and asked him if he wanted to attempt to come through the portal. Hamilton didn’t hesitate; he walked right through.”

  “Wow! What was that like?” Cadence asked.

  Christian rested his head on his fist on the table. “It was kind of weird, actually. It was like, the blue ‘spirit’ Hamilton stepped through, and then there was nothing. A few seconds later, the Hamilton in the open coffin just stood up.”

  “And he wasn’t all… decayed… or anything?”

  “No. He wasn’t wounded anymore either.”

  “Wow,” Cadence repeated, leaning back against her seat. “That’s incredible.”

  Nodding, Christian said, “I’ve seen some pretty startling things in my life, but I think that was probably the most awestruck I’ve ever been.”

  “And he was just like his old self?”

  “Yes, for the first hundred years or so, anyway. I didn’t see him too often, but when I did, I notice that he seemed unhappy. All of the humans he loved were long dead, including his wife Elizabeth, and all eight of his children.”

  “None of them Transformed?”

  “His first son, Phillip, had Transformed, but he was killed in a similar situation a few years before Hamilton died.”

  Cadence nodded but couldn’t help but think that was awful luck. “So he wanted out. But he couldn’t end it because of the portal.”

  “Right. Eventually, he asked a Hunter to put him to rest, and though he was shot several times, point blank, nothing could kill him. So tracing Burr’s footsteps, he started looking for a way out. He’s currently on Dr. Morrow’s research team, but he comes and goes as he pleases and doesn’t hunt anymore.”

  “And Burr? Did he just die of old age?”

  “No, he was killed by a Vampire in New York about thirty years later. He’d had a stroke and could no longer defend himself well. Once the bloodsuckers found out, he was an easy mark.”

  It had never crossed Cadence’s mind that she could have a stroke or a heart attack. But she did know that injuries could take time to heal—after all, Cowboy Sam still wasn’t completely healed from his plane crash and that had happened months ago. “That’s sad,” she muttered.

  “It is. And it’s sad that Hamilton is trapped here now. He said he couldn’t remember exactly what it was like to be on the other side, but he knew he was unbelievably happy.”

  Cadence nodded, having wondered what it would be like to cross over. After a moment of reflection, she asked, “So what do you know about the opposite end of the portal?”

  “You mean the one Aaron says Dracula came through?”

  “Yes,” Cadence acknowledged. “And why did you phrase it like that?”

  “Well, I know there have been a lot of people who know about the blue moon portal who believe that something evil will also come through, but I don’t know what the evidence is to support that Dracula was actually Vlad the Impaler returned from the dead. He could’ve just been one bad ass dude.”

  “Have you talked to Aaron about it?” she asked, curious about the difference of opinions.

  “Of course I have,” Christian replied. “He says that Dracula claimed to be Vlad, and the fact that he could do all kinds of shit that a normal Vampire can’t do was evidence that he had actually returned from hell. But, I honestly don’t know any of that for sure, Cadence. I was there when they hunted Dracula down, and while I have never seen another Vampire do the things they say Dracula could do, I’m not certain that none of the others can or that he actually could.”

  “But Aaron was there, too. And he says he saw it. So you think he made it up?”

  “No,” Christian said, quickly. “Look, I’m a scientist, right? I need facts and data. All I know is that Aaron and some of the others that were there claimed that they saw Dracula shape shift—into a bat, a wolf, who knows what else—and that he could also become some sort of mist. Just a regular silver bullet wouldn’t take him out, and even when they got a stake in him the first time, it just weakened him. They used holy water and all kinds of stuff we don’t typically need or use. I never actually saw Dracula as I was in a different part of the castle while Van and her team got him. So… I don’t know. I just need more facts before I’m willing to say that the positive brings through a negative.”

  Cadence took a few moments to absorb everything he’d said. She had no doubt that Aaron saw what he said he saw. He wouldn’t make it up, and he wouldn’t say it just to scare her out of doing this. But there really was no proof that Dracula had come through the portal. After all, that meant he would’ve been causing mayhem for almost a hundred years before Van Helsing brought him down. “So… why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  The uncomfortable look was back on his face again. “Tell you what?”

  “Come on, Christian. If you knew about the portal, and you don’t believe anything evil will come through, why didn’t you tell me about it?”

  “First of all,” he began, leaning forward and bridging his hands in front of himself over the desk, “I didn’t say I don’t believe anything evil will come through. I said I need more evidence to believe it myself. Second of all, I saw how miserable Hamilton became, and I’m not sure I wish that upon anyone. And third of all, I was kind of told not to tell you stuff.”

  Now, she was mad. “What? What do you mean not to tell me stuff?”

  “That’s not exactly what he said,” Christian backtracked. “But he did say he thought it would be less overwhelming if he was the one to introduce all new information to you.”

  “When did this conversation take place?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Initially, pretty early on. I was reminded again recently.”

  “How recently?”

  “A few weeks after Sierraville,” he admitted.

  “And when he told you that, did you immediately assume he was talking about the portal?”

  “Yes.”

  Cadence growled. And Aaron had said he didn’t know what she was talking about. “Well, I appreciate all of the information, Christian.”

  “Sure. Any time,” he said with a smile.

  “Now, if you were in my position, what would you do?”

  He swallowed hard, clearly uncomfortable with the question. “I really don’t feel like I should answer that.”

  “Completely off the record,” she assured him.

  Still hesitating, he ran his hand through his hair. Eventually, he said, “Look Cadence, you’re a big girl, and you can make your own decisions. If you want to talk to Elliott, then talk to Elliott. If he wants to come through, then he should come through. I don’t know what kind of consequences that might bring about, but I do know things are a hell of a lot different now than they were in the 1890s when we were battling Dracula. Sure, it wasn’t easy, but we got the job done. I have every confidence in your ability to take down anything hell throws at us.”

  Cadence’s brows shot up. “You do?”

  “Yeah, you know that,” he concluded.

  That was one thing she had to give him. Christian had always been a huge supporter of hers, from the very beginning. “Thanks.”

  He nodded, and after a few moments in silence, he asked, “So what are you going to do?”

  “Oh, I’m definitely going to do it,” she replied without a pause.

  Christian laughed. “Had you already decided that before you talked to me?”

  “Most definitely,” she said. “But I am going to talk to Jamie about it tomorrow, too. I value his input.”

  “And is there anything Jamie could say to make you change your mind?”

  “Nope.”

  He laughed again. “All right. Well, please don’t give Aaron the impression that I was undermining his authority. He is still my boss, you k
now.”

  “Oh, we’re not finished,” Cadence said, making sure he knew she had more to ask of him. “And don’t worry—I’ll tell him you told me not to do it.”

  “Okay…” Christian said slowly. “What else is there?”

  Cadence glanced at the door and then down at the backpack. “I need your help.”

  Chapter Five

  Christian’s apartment was on the fourth floor of the same building Cadence’s home was in, and even though she’d been on the team for quite some time now, she’d never been inside.

  He used his IAC to open the door, and she followed him in, thankful that they hadn’t run into anyone. Aaron definitely didn’t need to know she had been here.

  “I have a safe in my closet where I keep important papers and things like that. I think he’ll fit in there,” he said as he led her through the living room toward the hallway to the bedroom.

  His apartment was smaller than the one she had started out in, but it was a lot tidier than she had expected. There were a few dishes and articles of clothing here and there, but it didn’t smell bad, and the décor wasn’t unsightly.

  “How does the safe open?” Cadence asked as she stepped into his bedroom. His bed wasn’t made and there were a lot more clothes strewn about in here.

  Opening the closet door, Christian said, “It has a code you punch in.”

  “Okay, I’m going to need to know that code.”

  Christian kneeled down on the floor and punched a few digits into the lock. The safe beeped a few times and then he opened the door. “I can’t tell you my safe code,” he said as he shifted some papers around.

  Cadence took off the backpack and looked inside. Elliott seemed to be doing just fine. “Will the whole thing fit?” she asked, reluctantly handing it over.”

  “I think so,” Christian said as he carefully placed it in the safe. It fit with no problems, and he shut the door to make sure.

  “You have to give me your code. If I have to take off unexpectedly, and you’re not here or I can’t get to you, I’ll need to be able to get it open.”