“Zabrina!” Giovani shouted, throwing open the curtain that served as a door to their makeshift hut.
She was sitting beneath a tree, focused on weaving palm fronds into a rug. “What is it?” she asked, glancing up at him. She couldn’t help but smile at his enthusiasm, though experience had taught her that this conversation would likely end in either an argument or a desperate attempt on her part to bring him back down to Earth.
“You’re never going to guess what Robert just told me,” he replied, plopping down Indian-style across from her.
She placed her project over to the side so she could give him her undivided attention. “What’s that?” she questioned.
Robert had been Giovani and Zabrina’s neighbor when they lived in Omaha and had been a frequent hunting partner of theirs. He was able to communicate with Giovani via telepathy. “He said that bitch Laura pulled off some sort of ambush against the Kansas City LIGHTS team and wiped out about half of them,” he responded, smiling broadly. “Can you believe that shit?”
Zabrina considered the statement carefully before replying, “Actually, no, I can’t. Where did he hear that?”
“He said it’s all over the place. It’s all anyone is talking about. I guess she told them she knew where you and I were hiding, and she was able to lead them in there and gun them down,” he further explained.
The skeptical expression was still on Zabrina’s pretty face. “Who exactly did she annihilate?” she probed.
“He didn’t know for sure,” Giovani admitted. “But it was part of that same team we encountered, Cadence and those other jackasses.”
“So, you’re telling me that somehow Laura single-handled gunned down the main LIGHTS team out of Kansas City?” Zabrina clarified.
“Well, no” Giovani admitted. “I don’t think she was by herself. He said that Cowboy Sam—that guy whose family we took out in Dallas—he was with her and some other Hunters who had, had enough of Aaron and his prickish ways.”
Zabrina was shaking her head. She turned and picked up her weaving again. “Okay, Giovani. I don’t quite believe that, but if that’s the case, so what?”
“So what?” he asked, ripping the palm fronds out of her hand and tossing them aside. “Don’t you see, Zabrina? This is what we’ve been waiting for,” he replied.
She was clearly annoyed that he had taken her work away from her, but she let it go. “What do you mean, exactly?” she questioned.
“They’re going to be so busy looking for these assassins, they’re not going to be thinking about us at all now. We can get out of here, go to Europe, or Australia, wherever, and they won’t be thinking twice about us. It’s perfect.”
Once again, Zabrina was having trouble believing her ears. “Giovani,” she stated calmly, looking into his steel gray eyes, “we have talked about this. We need to stay here for a very long time. The last thing we need to do is draw attention to ourselves.”
It was Giovani’s turn to sigh now, but clearly the anger was rising, and when he finally spoke, it was with a full measure of determination. “Zabrina, Cadence Findley killed Holland. My mother. Your mother. She wiped out hundreds of members of our coven in one swoop. Surely, you must want revenge as badly as I do.”
“I do want revenge,” Zabrina assured him. “But I also want to calculate and minimize our risk, darling. There’s no sense in emerging right now when we are still fresh on their minds.”
Giovani pounded his legs with his fists in frustration, causing Zabrina to jump back a bit. “You’re not listening to me! They’re not paying attention to us now. They are out looking for Laura and Sam. Now is the time, Zabrina. I’ve been wasting away in this hellhole for six months now. I’m ready to go!”
“Giovani,” Zabrina pleaded, “I just don’t think…”
He was done listening. “You can stay here, if you’d like,” he shot back at her, standing, “but I’m leaving in the morning. I’ll let my contact know I’ll be needing transportation, and I’m making my way out of here. With or without you.”
* * *
Sam had been running for months. He had initially made his way to Mexico, choosing to hide in some of the border towns around Mexico City where he thought it was unlikely any Hunters or Guardians would spot him and report him. For the first time in over 150 years, he had changed out of his comfortable cowboy clothing and began dressing like a typical man in his mid-sixties. He had cut his hair, shaved, and done his best to try to blend in. He knew he could rely on absolutely no one. He had not attempted to reach out to any of his former teammates. In fact, he wasn’t sure if any of them had even made it out of the ambush, though he thought he heard at least one other motorcycle peeling out as he was making his escape. Nevertheless, despite the cell phone he continued to carry, he didn’t dare turn it on or attempt to talk to anyone. He was an island unto himself. He kept the lifeline for emergency purposes only, just in case he needed to reach out to Sharon or someone else he trusted.
He knew they would be coming for him. As soon as he made any sort of an appearance on the web, on a video camera, anywhere—LIGHTS would be coming. And he expected the same amount of mercy from them that he had meted out on their team member, Elliott,--none.
Despite this information, he couldn’t tolerate the conditions of squalor he was living in and decided to head back north a bit. He had a fake driver’s license, a fake social security card, and a fake passport that he always carried with him. No one knew the name on it, not even Laura, and he felt fairly confident looking for work in Texas under the assumed name Danny Yokes. There were certainly types of employment and certain locations that were likely to get more attention than others. After exploring his options, he applied for several vacancies in school districts outside of Dallas, eventually taking a position as a night janitor in the small town of Lavon, Texas, at an elementary school. The job was simple enough, and chances were, he would be able to avoid any sort of attention.
Danny Yokes lived in the burned out shell of a trailer he found on half an acre off of a dirt road near the school he worked out. No one ever came out there to check on the property, and though there was no electricity or running water, he was able to make due. Lake Lavon, a large body of water, was nearby, and he relied on nature and the school for his hygiene needs. He made enough money to eat and put some back so that he could potentially rent a small house someday. His hunting skills came in handy, too, and he did not require a gun to catch the wild boar and deer that roamed the area.
Life was not ideal for Danny Yokes, but he was content to live the rest of his years in hiding in Lavon, carrying on his charade as a custodian. Everything was going well until one night in mid-October when he was vacuuming one of the fifth grade classrooms and didn’t realize his cell phone, the key to his freedom, had fallen out of his pocket and slid underneath the teacher’s desk. He wouldn’t realize it was missing until the next day, and by then, it would be too late. By then, a massive man hunt would be underway, and Danny Yokes, former Vampire Hunter turned renegade, would become the prey of an extremely determined band of Hunters and Guardians hell-bent on revenge and their own absolution.
