by ID Johnson
"Exactly," Giovani nodded. "We've got quite a few brothers and sisters around the world. You will be well taken care of."
Jack was responding, but Giovani did not hear exactly what he had to say. His attention was suddenly drawn away by an uneasy feeling, as if they were being watched. He tried to refocus and caught only the end of what Jack was saying. ". . . by myself forever."
"No, definitely not," Giovani replied, assuming he had said he didn't want to be by himself forever or he thought he would be by himself forever. "Why don't we go ahead and head over to my apartment now?" Giovani said. Without waiting for Jack's response, he slid out of the booth, standing next to the table, the impatience beginning to show on his face.
Jack was a bit concerned. "Okay," he said slowly. He finished the last gulp of his beer as Giovani threw a twenty on the table. "Are you in a hurry?" Jack asked, beginning to feel a little skeptical of Giovani's motivations.
"No," Giovani replied, attempting to be nonchalant. "I just can't wait to show you around, introduce you to some people, you know, that sort of thing."
Again, Jack nodded slowly. Sliding out of the booth, he began to follow Giovani toward the door. Despite his assurances that he was not in that big of a hurry, Giovani seemed to be moving much more quickly than a human would, and Jack was afraid it may be noticeable to the other patrons. "Slow down," he said, trying to stay within earshot of his new friend without drawing attention to them.
"Sorry," Giovani replied. "Sometimes it is hard to remember to look human."
"You're telling me," Jack mumbled. Then, spying a payphone on the wall near the exit, he realized that Cadence could potentially still be in Lincoln. After all, she had taken him to the doctor's office just a few days ago. "Let me try calling Cadence really quickly," Jack said, not waiting for a reply. As he stepped toward the phone and inserted the correct coinage, he glanced over his shoulder to see Giovani standing impatiently in the doorway.
"I don't know if we have time for that right now," Giovani admitted, stepping back toward Jack.
Jack was already dialing, not paying too much attention to Giovani. "Let me just see if she is still in town and if she wants to meet me somewhere. Maybe she'll go with us."
"Jack, she thinks you are dead," Giovani reminded him, as the distinct sound of a ringing phone came over the receiver.
"I'll handle it," Jack said, as if he came back from the dead everyday.
Giovani glanced out the window again. He could plainly see the forms of two people approaching the bar, and he was certain now that he recognized them. "We've got to go," he said quietly in Jack's general direction.
"Cadence?" Jack was saying, ignoring his brother. "I need to see you."
Just then, Giovani flung his hand down on the receiver, disconnecting the call. "We've go to go, now!" he spat, pulling the phone out of Jack's hand and yanking on his jacket.
Jack was stunned, but his feet began to move, and he allowed Giovani to pull him out the door, following him towards a black Corvette, which was parked nearby. Even before he reached the door handle, the sounds of approaching footfalls behind him caught his attention. He had no idea who was chasing them or why, but like his brother, he felt compelled to get into the car and get away as quickly as possible. He jumped into the car just as Giovani started the engine and shifted into gear.
Without checking for oncoming traffic, Giovani flipped the car around in a full U-turn and sped off in the opposite direction, away from the individuals who were clearly after them. Jack glanced back to see two women coming to a halt just a few feet away from where the car had been parked. They were both wearing long, black leather jackets, and though he couldn't tell for sure, it seemed to Jack that they were armed. "Who the hell was that?" he asked, reaching for his seatbelt out of habit.
"Those two lovely ladies were Vampire Hunters," Giovani replied. "Congratulations, brother. You just came within inches of getting yourself destroyed on your very first day of your new existence."
Jack shook his head in disbelief. If this is what his new life was going to be like, he wasn't sure he was up for it.
***
The Hunters were a pair of sisters, the older of which had previously worked for LIGHTS but went off on her own several years ago, recruiting her sister to work with her. Though she had been successful for many years as part of the team, she had her reasons for departing. Laura, the older and taller of the two was royally pissed to see Giovani speeding away. She had been tracking him for quiet some time, and it seemed that they were just about to get a two-for-one hit when he caught their scent and bailed. "Dammit!" she yelled, her black knee-high boots coming to a screeching halt on the sidewalk outside of the dinky little bar Giovani had so rapidly exited. "We almost had him!"
Younger sister Laney was not so surprised to see Giovani make yet another last minute dash. "Yep," she said, crossing her arms across her chest. "Once again, Giovani makes it away by the skin of his very pointy teeth. Come on, let's go. If we get back to the car, we might be able to follow him."
"All right," Laura said, though her feet weren't moving yet. "I'm beginning to wonder what the point is, though."
"What do you mean?" Laney asked, grabbing her sister by the jacket and swinging her around. "We've been chasing him for over twelve years. The point is to catch him and destroy him. We'll get him!"
"Ha," Laura replied, her feet finally moving at the same pace as her sisters. "It's never taken anyone this long to catch one Vampire. What is his secret? Why can he get away so quickly?"
"You know, he can smell us. Most of them can't. And we have no help," Laney added as they approached the parking lot where they had quickly ditched the red Dodge Charger her sister drove and sprinted towards the bar. They had been following on Giovani's heels these last few days as he had left Omaha and headed for Lincoln. They almost had him earlier when he was near Bryan Health Hospital, but he had made another quick move and gotten out of their sights completely. They had just happened to be driving past the intersection at the crossroads down the block when they spotted the familiar Corvette parked outside of the bar. "If we got LIGHTS involved. . . " Laney began.
"No way!" Laura said, before she could even finish the sentence. "Absolutely not."
"I wish you would just consider it," Laney tried again, as she slid into the passenger side, her sister already behind the wheel. "You don't have to talk to him."
"Yes, yes I would," Laura insisted. "If we contact LIGHTS, we'll have to work with him again, and I'm not ready for that. I'm just not ready."
"It's been fifteen years," Laura protested as the car began to roll. "I'm sure it would be different. He was never rude to you after you broke up. Maybe we can get that new girl, Cadence, or whatever her name is, the one that finally took down Holland. Maybe she could get Giovani."
"No!" Laura said emphatically. "We don't need her help. And we don't need help from LIGHTS. Drop it."
"Clearly we do," Laney said under her breath. "Fine. Well, one of us has to call it in that Giovani has a new friend. I guess that will have to be me?"
"Yes," Laura said, pointing her Charger towards the interstate. She had a hunch that Giovani was headed back towards Omaha, and if that was the case, she wanted to catch up to him. She had an idea of where he was living--or not living, as the case may be--and she wanted to see if they could tail him. "You know I'm not talking to him."
"Fine," Laney said, activating her IAC. "I'll let your ex-boyfriend's team know. I'm sure Aaron will be very excited to hear we've got another untagged Vampire wreaking havoc on the streets of Nebraska."
"Let Mitzy know and she'll call it in. She's been Independent in Lincoln for ages. She probably already knows. Then neither one of us has to talk to him," Laura suggested.
Laney sighed. She was honestly looking for an excuse to talk to Aaron. "Whatever you say, Sis," she consented. "You're the boss, after all."
***
Cadence glanced down at the number on the screen of her cell pho
ne. She didn't recognize it, but she knew it was local because the area code was the same as the number in Jack's dorm room. Thinking it might be someone back at the hotel, she answered. "Hello?" she said, still trying to hear the conversation going on around her.
There was no answer at first, just some commotion in the background. It sounded like a restaurant or other public venue. "Hello?" Cadence said again, this time slightly louder.
"Cadence?" the voice on the other side questioned.
Feeling the hairs on her arms stand up at the familiarity of the voice, Cadence did her best to stay calm. "Who is this?" she asked, hesitantly.
"I need to see you," came the reply in a stern but desperate voice.
Again, Cadence asked her question, steeling herself for the answer. "Who is this?" she implored, wondering if someone was just playing a sick joke. Before the voice on the other end could reply, the phone clicked off, and they were disconnected. "Hello? Hello?" Cadence repeated before glancing down at her phone to make sure the call had dropped.
The car had reached the hotel, and Elliott was holding the door open for her and for Hannah. His expression was one more of annoyance than sympathy, and so Cadence followed Hannah out of the vehicle as quickly as she could, pausing on the sidewalk to say, "That was really weird."
Hannah and Elliott exchanged knowing glances, but Cadence didn't notice. She was still staring at her phone. "Was it a wrong number?" Hannah asked, reaching.
"I don't think so," Cadence replied. "I think it was. . . someone pretending to be Jack." She had almost said what she had really thought, at first, that it was Jack. But that sounded ridiculous, and she couldn't voice that idea. "Why would someone do that?" she asked, her feet finally moving, following Elliott into the lobby toward the elevators, Hannah right behind her.
They climbed into the elevator, and Elliott pushed the number for the fourth floor. "Maybe you just heard what you wanted to hear," Hannah offered.
Cadence pondered that for a moment, not answering until the elevator reached the correct floor, and they were all walking down the hall. "Maybe. But I don't think so."
"Some people are sickos," Elliott replied, rapping his hairy knuckles on the door of room 456.
Even before he could lower his arm, Eliza threw the door open. "Honey, you're home!" she said, sarcastically. Then, seeing the look on Cadence's face, she added, "Oh, no. I'm sorry, Cadence. You look so upset."
"I am," Cadence replied, her phone still in her hand. "Why would someone call me and pretend to be Jack?"
"What?" Eliza asked, still holding the door as the other three trailed in. It was a suite with a large living area and a private bedroom off toward the back. Since Cadence was the only one who really needed to sleep, there wasn't much reason for the rest of them to have beds. Though Guardians slept occasionally, for short periods of time, they could easily go days or weeks with no shut-eye. Cadence, on the other hand, was still very new and needed just as much rest as any typical human. Jet-lag and the crazy schedule of hunting in the middle of the night had left her with very little rest these last few weeks, and the bed would be well-used.
Hannah and Elliott both looked at Eliza with a knowing glare. Though they could have sent her a message through the IAC to let her know that Cadence still didn't realize that Jack was a Vampire, the looks were enough, and Eliza got the message. "That's crazy. Probably some weirdo from college," she added, trying to make it seem fairly normal that a person would prank call the ex-girlfriend of the recently deceased.
"I'm going to call the number back and see who answers," Cadence explained, walking across the room toward the window that looked out on the street below. The other three sat down on the couches and chairs; if they were talking, it was through the IAC.
Cadence redialed the number, staring out the window at the Christmas lights decorating the building across the street. As the phone rang and rang, her mind wondered. It was only two weeks until Christmas. This year would be so different. She wondered if Guardians and Hunters even celebrated Christmas. Still, the phone rang and rang without even going to voicemail. After about forty unanswered rings, her iPhone decided enough was enough and disconnected the call. Cadence was frustrated. She wished, for once, that she had an older phone where she could push the buttons, just to take her anger out on the phone by pressing them very firmly. Instead, she jammed her pointer finger against the list of numbers in her "recent calls" list, which didn't quite have the same effect. Once again, the phone rang and rang. Her mind drifted off again. What do you get the Guardian who already had everything? What do you get a Hunter for Christmas? What do you get a Wookie for Christmas, oh wait, that's a bad '80s song. . . . She was startled to hear an annoyed female voice on the other end of the phone. "Hello??"
"Ah, hi," she stammered. "I just received a hang-up phone call from this number, and I was wondering who was calling.
"Could've been a lot of people, lady," the irritated voice replied. "This is a
bar."
"Oh," Cadence replied, a bit puzzled and disappointed. "Okay. Well, thank you."
In response, she heard the sharp click of the receiver hitting the hook. She was a bit jealous. The most she could do to show her annoyance was jam the screen again. "Well, that was a waste of time," she said, walking back over to the rest of the team.
"Oh?" Hannah asked politely. "No luck?"
"No, it was a bar. Whoever answered the phone had no idea who had called me." She slumped onto the armrest of the couch, next to Hannah.
"Well, hopefully, whoever it was just had the wrong number or something like that," Eliza said, trying to sound nonchalant.
"Yeah," Cadence agreed. But on second thought added, "No, he said 'Cadence.' He didn't ask me who I was; I didn't offer that information. Whoever it was knew he was calling me because he called me by name."
"I'm sure there's a logical explanation," Hannah said, patting her new friend gently on the leg. "You look awfully tired. Don't you want to get some sleep?"
As if on cue, Cadence yawned. "I am tired, but my brain is going a million miles a minute. By the way," she said, glancing over at Elliott who was sitting in a chair, resting his head against his hand, "Since when do you work for the CDC?"
Elliott knew that his special power would only work so well on Cadence, and though she would have a propensity to believe what he said at the hospital, eventually she would come around and start questioning the logic. "I don't, Cadence," he admitted. "I had to lie to them so they wouldn't continue to question the disappearance of Jack's body."
Nodding her head, Cadence accepted what she already knew to be true on most levels. "Okay," she said slowly. "I guess I knew that. But then, why was it necessary to cover up the hospital's mistake? And, then, where is Jack's body? And, what are we doing to try to find it, or are we trying to find it?"
Elliott opened his mouth, as if he were going to try to answer her but then stopped abruptly. Finally, he said simply, "You ask too many questions. Why not make them feel better if we can? And, as for Jack's body, I think we've got some team members on that."
Cadence didn't quite care for the first part of his statement, but she didn't respond to it. "So, I shouldn't be concerned about the fact that he is actually missing, then?" she asked, crossing her arms defiantly.
Again, Elliott chose his words carefully. "If you trust Aaron then you don't need to worry about it," he replied.
That had to be enough for Cadence. Saying she didn't trust Aaron wasn't an option, and clearly Elliott wasn't going to tell her anything more. "Fine," she said with a humph. "I guess I'll have to wait until I can talk to him then."
"I hope he's feeling better," Eliza added. She had her cell phone in her hand and appeared to be playing some sort of swiping game. "I was worried about him when I talked to him earlier. He sounded sort of. . . out of it. He never sounds out of it."
"I think he's going to try and go on that hunt in Billings tomorrow," Elliott chimed in, catching Eliza's attention.
/> "Really?" she asked, her mouth opening wide. "I don't think he should be going anywhere. God, he nearly died. Take a break, for crying out loud!"
Elliott laughed. "Try telling him that. He never takes a break."
"He didn't go tonight," Cadence said, not wanting to disagree with Elliott but thinking aloud. "I was surprised to hear that."
"Who's leading tonight then?" Eliza asked, surprised that Cadence knew something she didn't.
"Shane," Cadence replied quietly.
"Awesome," Eliza said, rolling her eyes. "Hope we don't lose anybody."
"Oh, it'll be fine," Elliott stated dismissively. "He can do it. He's done it before."
"He's not the best, though," Eliza said, her attention back on her phone.
"Wish I were going," Cadence admitted, staring off into space. Despite how tired she was, the idea of going on a hunt sounded very appealing. It would give her the opportunity to get out some of the frustration she could feel building up inside.
"What's going on in Billings?" Hannah asked, finally joining the conversation.
Elliott's eyes were locked on Cadence, and his brow was furrowed, as if he were deep in thought. He still managed to answer Hannah's question. "Same old story. Rogue Vampire, no one can seem to get a handle on him. You itchin' for a hunt, Cadence?" he asked, a thought popping into his head.
He had her attention now, even though she was well aware that Elliott was not her biggest fan. "Always," she replied, almost absently.
"Well, you know," Elliott began, attempting to sound nonchalant, "if you really want to go, I know a spot where we are almost guaranteed to have some action."
Eliza looked up sharply. "Elliott, don't even think about it," she said as stern as her high-pitched voice could sound. "There's no way Aaron would approve that."
Before Elliott could respond, Hannah said, "It's not a good idea, Elliott."
But, he had Cadence's attention. "What are you talking about?" she asked, her interested piqued.
Leaning forward to the edge of his chair, Elliott rested his elbows on his knees. "There's a Vampire who lives in a little town about a hundred miles from here. Old, bad-ass, bastard. He's been on the Naughty List for decades. But, he's reclusive. Hard to catch in the act, hard to get into his place. We've had teams go out lots of times, try to get in, try to take him down. Never any luck. Most of the time, it's not a priority. But Halloween is the time of year when he comes out and does something pretty drastic. This year, he shows up at some kid's Halloween party, takes out a dozen tweens before anyone knows what happened. Well, we sent in some free agents, one of them got it, the rest of them couldn't get 'em either. We backed off, tried again a few weeks later, nothing. Then, everything went down with Holland, and we've been too distracted to concentrate on him. Chances are, he'll get away with this atrocity, too."