The ladies walked into the conference room silently and in a somber mood, all of them exhausted except for maybe Hannah, the only Guardian of the bunch. The scent of coffee infiltrated Cadence’s lungs immediately—not the burned variety she’d noted in Mina’s RV when she’d stepped in to help Cass—but the kind that promised revitalization. It was a shame she hated the stuff. Still, she noticed a lidded disposable cup sitting in front of her chair and assumed she looked as weary as she felt. She made her way over, managing a smile at the gentlemen assembled around the long connected rows of tables shaped like a large rectangle with an opening in the middle, and took her spot, waiting for the rest of her crew to find a place to collapse.
Aaron reached over and squeezed her shoulder as he began to address the team, his way of greeting her without making everyone else feel uncomfortable, and she touched his hand lightly before he moved away. She wrapped her hands around the warm cup. Holding it to her nose, she realized before the dark liquid even scalded the inside of her mouth it wasn’t coffee. The delicious taste of melted chocolate coated her tongue, and she instantly felt ten times better. It might not have the kick of java, but it made her feel slightly alive again. She caught his eyes in a silent thank you for his thoughtfulness. Thank God for the Keurig.
“I know most of us are drained or at the very least covered in Vampire residue, so I don’t want to make this meeting any longer than it needs to be,” Aaron began, standing in front of the display screen. “However, we have quite a bit to discuss. I’d just as soon skip the tactical side of all of this. I didn’t have an issue with anyone where that’s concerned. I feel like you all did exactly what you needed to do. Cadence, you concur?”
Setting her beverage aside, she surveyed the sea of faces staring at her. There wasn’t a single noted incident she could think of where someone had screwed up. “I concur,” she nodded.
“Great. So everyone is okay if we skip that?” Aaron asked, looking the group over as well. Normally, most of the meeting would be about the different positions everyone took, how they reacted, etc. Tonight, that seemed arbitrary, and everyone indicated they were fine with skipping it.
Aaron continued. “Then—I believe that leaves three main discussion points. First of all, the odd array of shapeshifting we saw tonight—including what might’ve brought those abilities about. Secondly, we need to look at where we feel the Vampires are traveling to. Mina mentioned it to Cassidy, and we’ve seen a pattern in their movement lately, though it’s not clear what might be happening. Finally, we need to talk about some of the other things Mina said to Cassidy.” He looked at the youngest member of the team, who was sitting between Elliott and Brandon with her arms crossed, a posture Cadence found quite odd for her little sister these days. It was like she was mad at her boyfriend about something. Normally, they would be holding hands. Cassidy only nodded slightly in Aaron’s direction, and Cadence could tell she was already going over what Mina had said to her. There was so much to consider.
Seeing that everyone seemed to be with him, Aaron looked at the Healer. “Jamie?”
“Sir?” Jamie looked up, and Cadence realized he was still fatigued from the healing he’d had to do that night. His eyes were only half open.
“What the hell was that? I think you can explain it better than any of the rest of us. Christian and I saw some of that shit when we were in Wallachia, but I think you have more experience with it than the rest of us.”
Jamie took a deep breath and pondered the request for a moment. “I did see a lot of it in Wallachia, which was a hell of a long time ago. Once you’ve seen shit like that, though, memories of how to defeat it don’t go away.
“What’s Wallachia?” Ashley asked. Every eye shifted to look at her, some of them widening like she was an idiot for asking, but Cadence was secretly happy the newer Hunter had posed the question. While Cadence was sure she’d heard the word before, she’d forgotten where or what it was.
“It’s where we destroyed Dracula,” Christian replied, turning to his left to look at her, his tone indicating he agreed she was an idiot.
“Oh,” Ashley replied, her skin turning almost as red as her signature lipstick. “Sorry.”
“That’s okay,” Jamie said. He had not been one of the team members looking at her like she was two steps behind.
Cadence felt her gut tighten realizing that Jamie was about to tie the strange Vampiric behavior from that night in with the portal. She turned her attention to Elliott, who was sitting across from her, across the wide gap of empty space between the tables. Nevertheless, his eyes were already on her when she flickered around to look at him.
When the doctor began to speak again, she turned her attention back to him. “The good news is, we already know how to defeat them in those states. The bad news is, as you all discovered tonight, it’s hard.”
“Was that thing a werewolf?” Aurora asked, leaning around Meagan and Shane to look at him.
“No, it was a Vampire, but under certain circumstances, we’ve discovered they can shift into the forms of wolves. Sometimes bats. I don’t know if there’s anything else. I don’t know why, or how some can do it and others can’t. Then there are the mist monsters, which aren’t as hard to kill once you realize they do have necks. Vampires in general who’ve been affected by this particular phenomenon are just stronger—like that real life version of Dr. Facilier who jumped out at Cadence and Brandon.” That got a snicker out of the teenager, and Cadence agreed it was a good comparison. She would’ve laughed, too, if she wasn’t so damn tired. “The bottom line is, bullets alone are not going to cut it against these creatures. We have to weaken them and then use more concentrated forms of silver. And we have to be persistent.”
