Taking Talon (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles 2)
Page 8
“No one move a muscle,” Luke ordered. No one so much as breathed, not even to lower their weapons.
Dahlia looked the same as she did before. A golden goddess with pale blue eyes and porcelain white skin. Her fingers felt like ice on my throat. “I won’t hurt you, little Chloe, but know this. I realize you are responsible for the destruction of our main headquarters and that you have gone and started the war. I am not warning you of our attack, but telling you that you have not merely started a war, you have initiated the vampire apocalypse.” She brought her lips close to my ear. “From now on, every single baby vampire who turns is a life that you are responsible for. You killed them, my dear. And there will be many. I plan on building an empire of our kind who will come forth to dominate the world and the surviving humans … will become our slaves and our food source.”
I let my body warm up enough to warn her of my anger.
She shook her head and tsked me. “Oh, Chloe, no need for that. Like I said, I’m not going to hurt you. It will be far more fun to watch you suffer as you’re trying to kill armies of vampires rather than one or two at a time.” She smiled and turned to the group behind her. “Same goes for all of you. I know who each and every one of you are, don’t think that you aren’t being watched … don’t ever, think that you are more powerful than we are.” With that she slammed my head into the wall and disappeared.
Drew rushed to my side. “Oh my God, are you all right?”
I rubbed the back of my head. “I’m fine. Let’s just get out of here. We don’t have time to think about this and there is obviously a lot more vampires out here now than there was a little bit ago.”
Christina strode up beside me as we walked. “Need me to carry something?”
I eyed her cautiously and realized that I trusted Christina, I trusted her a lot. “Nah, I’m good.” I knew she didn’t really want to carry my stuff, it was just her way of telling me she was glad I didn’t end up vampire food.
We went back to the warehouse, which we used as a shortcut, and went out another entrance. Nicholas had his van parked just inside the front entrance. Luke slid open the van door and helped Oscar get Alice inside. They laid her on the first bench. Oscar lifted her head, sat down, then set her head down in his lap. Feeling sluggish, I crawled into the van and sat down beside Drew. Gavin climbed in after us and sat down on the other side of me. To his credit, Drew didn’t even acknowledge he was there, and I was totally glad because I didn’t want to deal with anymore of their bickering. Zander and Christina followed behind us and fell onto the last bench and then Luke slid the door shut and took the front seat.
“All accounted for?” Nicholas asked.
Luke turned and counted heads. “All accounted for,” he repeated. “Let’s go home.”
“Zander’s coming with us,” I told Luke.
“All right.” He agreed with a nod. I guess Zander had finally proven himself worthy to my grandfather.
I think I fell asleep on the way home. I lay my head on Drew’s shoulder and tried to ignore that Gavin was right beside me by thinking of how lucky we were that none of the fire crews or police had spotted us while we were digging through that rubble, or when Dahlia had me pinned. It had taken way longer than expected, so we got very, very lucky.
But … maybe not so lucky. Vampire apocalypse. Dahlia planned to try and take over the world with vampires. The crazy part was that she could probably do it since people seemed to think that vampires didn’t really exist.
I woke from my dozing as the van tried to go into the gates of the community. “What’s happening?” I asked, sitting up so I could see out the windshield. The guards had the gate open and Nicholas gassed the van, but the van wouldn’t move.
Alice sat up in the seat in front of me. “Oh man, I think I know what the problem is.” She held her nose between her thumb and forefinger.
“What?” Drew demanded.
Alice started to cry, so Christina spoke for her. “Alice tried to create a barrier around the community which would keep the vampires out. Looks like it worked.”
“What do you mean?” Luke asked.
She eyed me and I realized what she meant. “Come on, Zander, let’s get out.”
“What are you talking about?” Drew’s eyes were flicking from me to Christina to Alice. “What did you do?”
I rested my hand on his leg. “It’s all right, nothing to worry about. No vampires will be able to get in, including me or Zander. We are half vampire.”
“Well take it down!” Luke demanded.
Alice groggily replied, “I can take it down. But we are going to have to put the whole community on alert.”
“I don’t care if we have to tell them. We aren’t leaving them out there in the dark. It’s too dangerous.”
Nicholas put the van in park. “I can take them back to the city.”
“No.” I tried to stand up. “Leave up the barriers. You’re still going to have to tell the community what happened, but it’s safer to leave them up for right now.”
“Can’t you just take them down and then put them back up?” Drew asked.
Oscar pulled Alice close. “Not tonight she won’t. She isn’t doing anything else tonight, can’t you see how exhausted she is?”
I nodded. “He’s right. She has used so much of herself tonight … and so have I.” I leaned forward. “Nicholas, can you take us to Zander’s apartment? I hate to ask you to go back, but it really is too dangerous for us to try and walk that far right now. Even with morning coming, we are just too tired.”
He nodded. “Absolutely, I don’t mind at all.” He rolled down the window and told the guards he needed to go back to the city and would be back soon. Then he put the van in reverse.
I looked over at Luke, who was still staring at me. “Don’t worry, Grandpa, it’s only one night. We can figure out the rest tomorrow.”
~~~***~~~
The sun was up when we pulled into the parking lot of Zander’s apartment. I could hardly wait to lay down on something soft and get some much needed sleep. I slid the door open and hopped out of the van. Turning around, I saw that Drew was right behind me. Figuring he just wanted to see me off, I leaned in to give him a quick kiss good-bye and he pushed me away. “What are you doing?” I questioned.
He reached in and grabbed his bag. “I’m coming with you. You didn’t really think I’d leave you alone, did you?”
“I’m staying, too.” Christina stepped down out of the van with Zander right behind her.
I didn’t really want to argue about it, I just wanted to get some sleep. So, I reached in and grasped Luke’s hand. “It’s going to be fine. We will get the barrier down tomorrow and I’ll be back home.”
I turned to Alice. “Make sure to get some rest. You did so good tonight.”
“So did you.” She smiled weakly and cuddled into Oscar who I gave a knowing look.
“Make sure she sleeps, a lot.”
“I will.” His eyelids looked heavy, too. “I’ll even go siren on her if I have to.”
“Good!”
Finally I looked at Gavin, who had moved over to the side of the van so he could lean against the wall now that he had the seat to himself. “Thank you, Gavin, for helping tonight.”
His eyes were tired and drooping. “I’m always here for you, Chloe. I should have been there before, but I am now … and forever.”
Oh, for crying out loud, did he just say that in front of the entire van full of people? Seriously, like what happened over the headsets wasn’t enough already. My mouth fell open and words just did not want to come out.
Drew grabbed the handle of the van’s sliding door and pulled me back. “See you guys tomorrow sometime.” With that, he slammed the van door shut and turned me around. I was still so shocked by Gavin’s words that I didn’t even argue with him about his rude behavior.
Christina linked arms with Zander and me with Drew as we climbed the stairs into Zander’s apartment. Christina called out a hasty
goodnight and went straight to Zander’s room while Zander got us some blankets so we could camp out on the couch. Drew and I squeezed side by side onto the narrow cushions and covered up with a blanket.
“You know you didn’t do very well with fulfilling your promise today,” I groggily whispered to Drew.
“I know,” he whispered back. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me. I’m going to keep trying.”
I nodded a bit. “The only reason I’m still here is because I understand you. There are people that don’t understand why you are the way you are, but I do.”
“Thank you for loving me,” he whispered into my ear.
“You guys good?” Zander asked before he headed down the hallway to his room.
“Yeah, this is fine,” Drew answered, pulling me in closer and snuggling his head into my neck.
“Hey Zander,” I called out with fatigue in my voice. “I do trust you. You know that now, right?”
He smiled. “And I trust you even more than that. Thanks for saving my ass little sister.” And then he was walking down his hallway, removing his shirt so that his warrior angel tattoo was the last thing I saw before I drifted off to sleep.
That night, my dreams were filled with burning buildings and smoke filled air. I could even smell the smoke, it drifted up in billowing clouds of black and grey, sticking to my clothes and hair.
I rose up out of a smoldering pile of ash and raised my bow, taking aim on my target. Before I could shoot, the sound of many human footsteps dragging along took my attention away. I looked across the sea of fire and there I saw hundreds of humans, tied together and being led into the blackened land that was not still aflame.
Then, there was no fire, there was the white house … and it was filled with vampires. Dahlia sat behind a large wooden desk. She signed a few papers and licked her pale pink lips.
“What about the new shipment of humans?” she asked
“Madam, they are en route to the capital now.” The vampire man speaking to her lifted his head and seemed to be able to see me, to look into my eyes, and when he did I recognized our president of the United States.
“Good.” Dahlia smiled. “Make sure to ration them accordingly to each division and send out the troops for another batch.”
“Yes, madam.” The President bowed his head a little bit and then raised up to meet her again. “We also have the reports in for the new additions.”
“Oh good!” Dahlia clapped her hands together once. “I just love hearing how much our vampire family is growing … and growing … and growing …”
Her voice faded off and the dream changed again. This time, I was looking down at two bodies lying in the middle of a darkened street with blood surrounding their bodies. A loud female scream rocked the night from an unseen source and then called out, “Please! Please! Help them, help me!”
With a bright, blinding light from above, the black clouds opened up and a man who could only be described as beautiful descended from within. His wings had feathers of both black and white, protruding from his back and expanding the length of probably eight feet. He carried a glimmering sword that appeared to be just as long in his right hand. When his feet touched the earth, he slammed the sword down into the pavement and the earth rocked violently. “My child, you have called and I have been allowed this chance to assist you.”
“Who are you?” the female voice, whose body I could not see, called out.
“Why, child, I am the warrior angel. Back again, to rid this world of the demons you call vampires once more.”
When my eyes shot open the afternoon of that same day, I knew with certainty that it would be a warrior angel of one kind or another who would save us from this impending vampire apocalypse.
~~~***~~~
READ AN EXCERPT FROM
THE ARCADIA FALLS CHRONICLES BOOK 3
This is an un-edited excerpt, at this time of uploading Arcadia Book 3 has not been published yet.
~Chloe’s Diary~
When I was a little girl, we moved around a lot and I never really had many friends. I’ve always been the loner in school, mostly because I knew that eventually we were going to move again. At the time, I had no idea why my mother moved us so much, but in the long run it made us super close. She was pretty much my only friend … my only anything.
One thing that occurred to me as I made my way through all the different towns, different schools, and different people was that I didn’t have any inkling of what I wanted to do when I grew up.
I never knew, all the way up until my mother died.
When I lost her and was found by the Hunters, I found something that my mother probably never really realized that she was depriving me of … my family, my friends, and my destiny.
I’m sure things would have worked out differently if I had grown up on the community. Mom was just trying to keep me safe, and if I had lived there growing up I probably would have never gone to Trevor’s, which means I never would have met Alice or Oscar.
I know that I shouldn’t dwell on the past, but I can’t help it. I wonder sometimes what would have happened if time had passed differently. If I had grown up in Arcadia Falls surrounded by Hunters, would I have made such a terrible decision later in life?
It’s been six months since the Talon Building fell and the world is now a very different place then it once was.
Zander and I still can’t get through the shield that Alice put up around Arcadia Falls, which is probably a not such a bad thing at this point. Almost the entire community is ticked off at me for pretty much triggering the vampire apocalypse.
Yeah, that’s right … vampire apocalypse.
Dahlia warned me, and she wasn’t kidding. In the last several months baby vampires have been popping up everywhere all over the world. These young vampires have no control whatsoever and are killing anything that crosses their paths.
So … we train and we fight and we kill them.
The world is changing, people were all obsessed with that stupid zombie apocalypse and preparing for that when they really should have been worried about what to do if half the population suddenly turned into vampires.
Six months ago, people were oblivious to vampires, to the monsters lurking in the shadows and now they are fighting them in the streets simply to stay alive.
The community of Arcadia Falls is right to shun me, I did this. I am supposed to kill these demons and save people, but instead, I made a bad decision that is now getting people killed. More than just getting people killed, it’s was a decision that is diminishing our population.
Now that the world is aware of what kind of creatures are out there, the Hunters have also come out into the open. It’s crazy, but it’s a necessity. The hunters are pretty much the only people equipped to fight the vampires, so the rest of the population just lets them.
Training centers have even opened so that people can learn how to defend themselves. Sort of like a self-defense class, but instead of learning how to stop a purse thief or a sexual assault, people are learning how to off a vampire.
Each day, the television and the papers have more bad news for us. Hunters can’t be called in from anywhere else because they are just as busy as we are, trying to kill them off. The vampires are turning faster than we can kill them.
We are basically screwed.
The world is going to crap and it’s all my fault.
I am not giving up yet. None of the hunters are, it’s just not our way. But, we seriously need a better plan because killing them off one by one doesn’t seem to be helping much.
Meanwhile, nothing else matters. Every other problem that I thought I had before is now miniscule and forgotten. I have to make this right. What I don’t know is how I am going to make it right, so until then, I am just going to take them out one at a time.
If you have enjoyed the books in The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter series please consider leaving a review wherever you purchased it.
Thank you!
Other Books by Jennifer Malone Wright
Savior (A Higher Collective Novel)
Once Upon a Zombie Apocalypse – Jade (Always free)
Once Upon a Zombie Apocalypse: Episode 2
The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter Part 1
The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter: Part 2
The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter Part 3
The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter: Part 4
The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter: Part 5
The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter: Part 6
The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter: The Complete Collection
(All six parts a total of 72,000 words)
The Arcadia Falls Chronicles is The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter story continued
Love & War (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles 1)
Taking Talon (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles 2)
About the Author
Jennifer Malone Wright is best known for her short story series, The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter. Other works include the follow up to The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter series called The Arcadia Falls Chronicles and her vampire novel called The Birth of Jaiden. Jennifer also co-authors a series called Once Upon a Zombie Apocalypse.
She resides in the beautiful mountains of northern Idaho with her husband and five children where she practices preparing for the zombie apocalypse. Just kidding!
But seriously, between the craziness of taking care of her children, Jennifer has little time left for herself. The time she does have left, usually leading far into the night, is spent working on her beloved fiction or chatting with her equally crazy friends.
Jennifer also loves coffee, has a passionate affair with red bull, wishes the sushi were better where she lives and dances while she cleans.
Please visit Jennifer’s website at