by ID Johnson
Absolution
The Clandestine Saga
Book 4
By
ID Johnson
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Copyright ID Johnson, 2016. All rights reserved.
For Ella, the sparkliest ray of sunshine I know
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter 1
Inhale. Exhale. One foot and then the other. The pounding of the pavement, the beat of the music—nothing else mattered. Out here on the trail, there was no judgment, no criticism. No demanding professors or annoying roommates. Out here, she could be herself, alone with her thoughts with nothing to worry about in the world.
Jasmin Brown ran the same four-mile stretch of Boxer’s Trail every evening. It gave her the opportunity to clear her mind and get ready for the next day. She loved to go out in the afternoon so that, by the time she returned to the apartment she shared with two other sophomores at Drexel University where she studied accounting, her roommates were already out partying or holed up in their rooms. She didn’t get along with either of them, and even though the semester had just started, she was seriously considering relocating, or if things continued to get worse, maybe even moving back home and taking public transportation to school each morning.
But she couldn’t think about those problems right now, not while she was on her run. This was her time to free her mind and let the pavement reassure her that she was all that she should be. As she turned a corner near a copse of trees, a mother pushing a stroller caught her eye, and she smiled, absently wiping the sweat from her upper lip onto her wristband. Two more miles to go, and she was really getting into a rhythm now.
Her mind drifted to her mother. She had worked so hard to make sure Jasmin and her older brother, Damon, had the opportunity to go to college. Two jobs—a waitress in a café by day, a custodian in an office building by night—meant not a lot of quality time with her children. But that didn’t mean she loved them any less. In a lot of ways, it was solid proof to Jasmin just how loved she was. Her mother’s sacrifice meant that she would be able to fulfill her dream of becoming an accountant one day.
A giggle escaped her lips as she thought of her mother. Always the worrier! She was constantly warning her about something. Had she heard about that restaurant downtown that gave all those people food poisoning? Was she careful to look behind her before she unlocked the door to her apartment at night? Just the other day, she’d called to tell her to be careful when she was out running. “You’re not jogging the same path every night, now are you, honey? That’s a good way to let someone know your habits,” she’d advised.
Jasmin had rolled her eyes, glad her mother couldn’t see her expression on the other side of the phone. “No, Mama,” she promised. “I’m mixing it up, I promise,” she’d lied.
“Good,” Michelle Brown replied, with a sigh. “’Cause you know there are plenty of crazy people in this world, and there’s a couple girls’ bodies already been found dead around here the last few weeks.”
“I’ll be fine, Mama,” she assured her doting mother. “Don’t worry about me. Any fool tries to put his hands on me, he’ll be tasting pepper spray for the rest of his life.”
“That’s a good girl,” her mother had said, “but keep your eyes and ears open, honey. If something happened to you, I don’t know what I’d do. You’re my world, girl. You’re my whole wide world.”
Jasmin couldn’t help but smile at those last words. She always said that—she was her world, her whole wide world. While she knew it was human nature for her mother to worry, Jasmin was strong, fast, and always carried pepper spray next to her iPhone on her waist. There was no way any hoodlum was going to assault her.
Mile three down, one more to go. Just a few more turns through the most heavily wooded area of Boxer’s Trail. The sun was fading on the horizon, not another soul in sight. Kanya streaming through her earbuds; life was good. She was young. She was free. The world and all of its possibilities lay before her.
Jasmin didn’t hear or see anything unusual, yet—suddenly--her body was being ratcheted to the side, a strong arm around her chest and arms, another clamped over her mouth. She tried to scream, but she couldn’t get anything out. A black-gloved hand restricted her breathing as well, and though she tried to pull away, her assailant was clearly much stronger than she. She attempted to dig the heels of her pink Nikes into the dirt, to keep him from dragging her, but she couldn’t get a grip on the slippery pinecone covered earth.
He must have pulled her a good twenty yards off of the trail into the deep shrubbery before he said anything at all. Finally, she heard a gruff, sharp whisper in her ear. “Shut up!” he growled. “You shut your mouth, dirty whore!”
With a violent shove, Jasmin felt her body hit the ground, hard, her head slamming into the trunk of a tall pine tree. Before she could even contemplate getting up and sprinting away, he was on top of her. She tried to roll over, to get a glimpse of her assailant, to see if maybe she recognized him, maybe he was someone she knew, but the pressure from his black-gloved hand was pressing on her head now, his fingers tangled in her short black hair as he kept her face in the dirt. She opened her mouth to scream, to beg for mercy, but all that came out was a soft whimper.
“I told you, you’d never get away with it,” he spat at her, the saliva dripping out of his angry mouth and splashing against the side of her face, mixing with the tears that began to dampen her cheeks. “Now, it’s time to pay the price, bitch.”
“Please, Jesus, help me,” Jasmin managed to whisper, praying it would all be over quickly. A sharp pain in her throat took her breath away, and she began to choke, sputtering out drops of blood with each cough. She closed her eyes, pressing them tightly against the pain, the inexplicable horror, the shock that this was actually happening to her, and concentrated on the face of her mother, remembering the hug and smile she’d left her with the last time she’d seen her, a few days ago. As the world began to fade away, Jasmin Brown muttered two last words, softly: “Sorry, Mama.”
***
Vacuuming carpets and dusting desks was mundane, but it wasn’t the worst job Cowboy Sam, a.k.a. Danny Yokes, had performed in his centuries long life. Still, as he ran the old Hoover WindTunnel over the faded navy blue flooring of Mrs. Lawrence’s fifth grade classroom, he couldn’t help but wonder what might be next for him. He needed to find a way to move on from here, to make contact with Alex or any of the other Hunters who might be willing to help him in some way. He knew there were thousands of Hunters and Guardians who wanted him dead, and though he felt he was fully capable of living by himself in the rustic state he now existed in for as long as he needed to, it was getting rather monotonous and boring. Not to mention, he had never been one to stomach failure. Maybe there was a way he could go back and finish the job….
As he contemplated the possibilities for the umpteenth time that night, the cord of the vacuum sweeper caught on the leg of Mrs. Lawrence’s desk. He gave it a yank
, but it wouldn’t budge. “Gall darn it,” he mumbled in his husky voice, as he bent over and gave it another tug. As he did so, his belt caught on a stack of papers, rulers, and other teaching paraphernalia on the counter behind him, knocking it all on the floor. “Son of a….” Leaving the vacuum running, he turned and picked up the stacks of various items the best he could and scooped them back onto the shelf before turning back to the cord, and pulling it one more time, this effort not as human-like as the last, though he had to be careful not to fray the sheathing at the same time. Once it was finally free, he stood back up, noticing there were still a few things on the ground. Rather than going back down for them, he gave them a quick shove with his foot, sending them sprawling under the counter.
Still grumbling, he finished up Mrs. Lawrence’s room and went on his way, thinking someone else could come and clean up the rest of the avalanche. After all, if she didn’t insist on stacking so much crap to the ceiling, maybe it wouldn’t fall over all the time. He turned the lights off, locked the door, and moved to the next room, leaving two rulers, a pair of scissors, four spelling tests, and a cell phone laying on the floor beneath the counter near Mrs. Lawrence’s desk.
***
Cadence Findley took a deep breath and clicked the after-market safety to the off position on her Glock. Even though she had been working with the Kansas City team again for over three months now, she still got a little nervous going into a hunt. It wasn’t that memories of the Sierraville Incident clouded her judgment, though it would have been understandable if that were the case, nor was it that she had to readjust to working with more than just a few Hunters; it was mostly that she wasn’t used to being covered by a Guardian at all, except for Aaron, who was usually overseeing the operations from afar rather than participating directly in the hunt, and even though she had tried to stick exclusively to working with Jamie because she trusted him more than anyone else on the team, the chemistry was still just a bit off. Most of the time, she either found herself running away from him in her haste to make the kill—rendering his presence pointless—or she lagged behind waiting to figure out what his intentions were while the others moved in on the mark. They had been working on it, however, in the simulator. And, as the Vampire in question, a thin middle-aged male by the name of Skyler came into view, she steadied herself, hopeful that their practice would pay off.
“You ready?” Jamie, the team’s Healer, asked over the IAC, the implant the team used to talk to each other, which every Guardian and Hunter had installed in his or her eye.
Cadence nodded and stepped carefully around the corner. They usually tried to be more discreet when taking out a bloodsucker, but this time they found themselves in downtown Carthage, Missouri, near the legendary marble courthouse. Though it was a public place, it was nearly 2:00 AM, and most of the humans had retired long ago. This was when Skyler liked to make his presence known, feeding off of unsuspecting street cleaners, people stopped at red lights, or the occasional convenience store patron. He was young and clearly had not been taught the rules of being a Compliant Vampire; sadly for him, there would be no second chances. Skyler’s reign of terror would end tonight.
He stepped out of the shadows in a narrow alleyway between two buildings, looking over his shoulder quickly as he began to walk out into the street, his hands shoved deep into his unzipped gray hoody. It was a bit chilly for an early October evening, but Vampires weren’t really affected by the temperature anyway. They were, however, deeply affected by silver bullets, and Cadence intended to give him cause to cease his miserable existence momentarily.
Across the street, coming in from the west, Cadence could see two other team members, Aurora and Hannah. They would cover him from that direction. Aaron was positioned on the top of the courthouse, and Christian and Meagan were a little farther behind Cadence and Jamie, just in case he somehow managed to bust through their perimeter. That wasn’t going to happen.
She took another step, and this time the movement caught his attention. He hesitated for a second, as if he wasn’t sure if she were a human, a Hunter, or something else. And then, a look of panic on his face, he glanced back over his shoulder, as if he were about to bolt.
Though she was still a good hundred yards from his location, Cadence closed the distance quickly, leaving Jamie behind. As she flew at him, Skyler turned to run, but he only made it a few steps before she knocked him to the ground, his face hitting the pavement hard.
He attempted to push himself up to standing, but she held him down to the ground firmly. “What the hell?” he sputtered as she stuck her Glock in the waistband of her black leather pants and began to put her hands in position to decapitate him. “What are you?” he asked.
Cadence hesitated for a moment; it was as if he didn’t even know what she was, that Hunters existed, that what he had been doing wasn’t okay. She pushed the thought aside, however. At this point, it didn’t matter. He had done too much damage to be brought in and be rehabilitated. “I’m the Angel of Justice,” she replied in a whisper, and then, placing her hands on either side of his head, she gave a sharp twist, severing his head from his neck in one fluid motion. As usual, there was a loud shriek from the dying beast, and then, within seconds, his body turned to ash, leaving Cadence kneeling over a pile of dust, her hands hourglasses sputtering their contents onto the roadway.
“Nice job,” Aaron’s voice came over the IAC. “Paxton, let’s get the Exstracto 9000 down there, and take care of our mess before he blows away.”
Paxton, one of the less reliable members of the team, had recently been given sweeper duty, and as Cadence stood and dusted her hands off on her pants, she reflected on what a fitting position that was for him, though a fleeting thought of the Guardian who had fulfilled that duty for decades before crossed her mind momentarily. She pushed it aside, just in time to come face to face with what could only be described as an angry Jamie. “What?” she asked, confusion crinkling her pretty face.
“What?” Jamie repeated, his hands in the air. “I thought… I thought you were going to take the shot.”
Jamie was a few inches shorter than her, even though his spikey hair gave the illusion that they were equals, and Cadence took a step back so she wouldn’t appear to be towering over him as she explained. “I was,” she admitted, “but instinct kicked in. You know it’s much more satisfying to rip their heads off than to shoot them.”
“How did you know he wasn’t armed?” he asked, following her as she began to cross the lawn in front of the courthouse.
Paxton and Aaron had made their descent, and as the designated clean up crew member made his way to the remains, she smiled at the handsome face of her fiancé, who returned the sentiment. Though she was tempted to ignore Jamie’s question and continue towards her destination, she stopped and turned back to face her partner. “I don’t know, Jamie,” she admitted. “I guess I could tell by the way he had his hands in his pockets. And the fact that he’s never been seen with a gun before. And most Vampires aren’t packing. So, I decided to go for it. I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to throw you off or confuse you. I just did what my instinct told me to do.”
By then Aaron had caught up with them and pulled her in, her arms wrapping around his waist beneath his black leather jacket. “Nice job,” he said giving her a squeeze.
“Thank you,” she replied. “But that one was pretty easy.”
Jamie was clearly still not happy, and he kicked his foot into the grass, his hands on his hips, before he finally said, “Look, maybe… maybe this isn’t going to work out.”
Aaron’s piercing blue eyes studied his face carefully before he asked, “What do you mean, Jamie? I thought it went pretty well.”
Shaking his head furiously, the Healer replied, “No, no it didn’t. Look, Aaron, I just can’t keep up with her. I can’t anticipate what she’s doing. I just… I’m afraid something is going to happen, Cadence, and I’m not going to be there to prevent it.”
Aaron put a hand on his fri
end’s shoulder to steady him. By now, the rest of the team had joined them, and both Aurora and Hannah were standing nearby with confused expressions on their faces while Paxton stood smiling, his captured Vampire held carefully in the device in his hands. “All right, Jamie,” Aaron began. “I know you have some concerns. Let’s head back to headquarters, and we’ll do a debrief of this hunt to see if we can come up with some better solutions for the future. It’ll take us about two hours to get back, so that will give us all plenty of time to think about any changes we’d like to make. In the meantime, this was textbook, in my opinion, and I’m really proud of how well all of you worked together. Now, let’s load up and head home.”
The trip from Carthage back to LIGHTS Headquarters was about 150 miles, but the teammates were able to cover that distance much more quickly than human drivers obeying the speed limit. Cadence watched the primarily empty farmland fly by, Aaron’s hand on hers serving as her only anchor to the vehicle she occupied. The rest of the team was also relatively quiet in the back of the SUV, or at least, if they were talking, it was through IAC, and those conversations were private.
Upon pulling into the gated area where the home base for LIGHTS was headquartered, they all piled out and entered the building where they typically held debriefs, only incidental chatter amongst them. Cadence paused on the sidewalk, took a deep breath, and then, when she felt a small nudge on her shoulder from her fiancé, followed the others into the building. Silence said everything, and she felt they were in for an uncomfortable conversation.
She took her spot next to Aaron at the head of the table. As the newly appointed Hunter Leader, she was now in charge of every single Vampire Hunter in the world, active and inactive, loyal or rogue, and part of her duties included offering feedback as to how the team operated during hunts where she was present. While she felt that her team of Hunters had performed very well, clearly there was an issue with the Guardians, and Aaron would be relying on her to offer some insight into her own performance to help manage his team.