“That’s incredible!” Christian Henry gushed, looking at images of the vampire-crocodile Cadence and Elliott had dispatched on their Houston trip. They were back in Kansas City now, and even three days later, Cadence could still feel the rats crawling on her skin, despite dozens long, hot showers, and several apologies from her betrothed, none of which made it seem as if he was actually more sorry than amused.
“What is it though?” Jamie asked, sitting next to Christian in the conference room where the team had gathered to go over recent missions. There’d been so many lately, these fly-by raids, as Aaron often referred to them, it was impossible to stop after each one and go over everything that had transpired. Since the retired Guardians from Roatan had come up to help, the Kansas City team had been dispatching groups across the country to work with the locals to take care of as many of these pockets as possible, and the meetings were more of an opportunity to talk about anomalies, such as this creature, than a rehash of exactly how each hunt went down.
“Well, it’s definitely a crocodile,” Christian said, handling the picture. “Its snout is narrow, and its teeth stick out when its mouth is closed.”
“I knew he’d know,” Cadence muttered.
“Okay—but what is it?” Jamie repeated, taking the picture back and setting it aside so that Christian wasn’t the only one who could see it “Why would a Vampire take the form of a crocodile? In Houston of all places?”
“Do you mean who is it?” Christian asked. “As in who did it used to be that it developed the ability to shift into a crocodile instead of the usual mist monster or wolf?”
“Sure,” Jamie said with a shrug as if he thought that might be the only way to make any progress with the one person they all thought might know something about this phenomenon when Jamie admitted he’d never seen it before.
Christian shook his head. “I dunno,” he admitted. “But it’s really cool.”
Cadence bit back the sarcastic answer that was about to roll off of her tongue involving the question, “Why do we invite you to these meetings?” She turned to look at Aaron instead, who was standing at the front of the room. “Can we expect this to be the new normal?”
“Yeah, can they just be any critter they want?” Elliott asked.
“I have no idea,” he admitted with a loud sigh. “But the important thing is that the silver blade worked on it the same way it has the others.”
“But if we don’t even know what’s a Vampire and what’s an animal…” Cadence began.
“Does it matter?” Aurora asked, her long red hair falling on her shoulders as she raised and lowered them. “Even if it was a regular old alligator—”
“Crocodile,” Christian corrected her.
She narrowed her eyes and continued. “Crocodile, wouldn’t you have killed it just the same?”
“I wouldn’t have wasted an entire clip of ammo on it,” Elliott muttered.
“Maybe,” Cadence conceded, ignoring Elliott’s remark. “But… it makes me even more uneasy to know that they can pop up in whatever form they like whenever they like.”
“We’ll do some more research on the matter, talk to some of the other old timers and see what they know,” Aaron said, but she could tell by his voice that he was placating her. He didn’t really seem as concerned about this new threat as Cadence was. Even in the moment, when she was literally wrestling with a croc, he seemed to think it was nothing to worry about. She wondered if it was the weight of everything else on his shoulders or if he was close to another break down. Since the last one had caused him to temporarily kill himself, she had to keep an eye on him, even when it seemed like there was nothing bothering him—especially when it seemed like there was nothing bothering him.
“What else do we need to talk about?” Cadence asked, wishing this meeting was over. It wasn’t even that long, and she liked almost everyone in the room—with the exception of Christian who’d only been called in because she hoped he could explain the newest shifter. Since he couldn’t, she was ready to throw him out. Elliott, Jamie, Aurora, and Hannah Roberts were all people she considered friends, but when her eyes fell on the tech guy, she wondered if they could still consider bringing in Hattie, the tech guru from Billings, Montana.
“Hannah, how are things in Iowa?” Aaron asked, pulling his chair out and sitting for once. It seemed like he preferred to stand anymore, another sign that he was on edge. He ran his hand through his light brown hair and narrowed his pristine blue eyes in the direction of his number two, a strawberry-blonde Guardian who had been a counselor in a former life.
“Better,” she said with a nod that assured Cadence that what she said was true. “We’ve got a handle on things now that you’ve moved Maxine Campbell to oversee operations there. I think, whatever Holland was up to, it’s over with now, or at least she sees that she can no longer be successful.”
Cadence let out a long breath she had been unconsciously holding and nodded. She’d grown up in Shenandoah, Iowa, and had only moved to Kansas City a little over a year and a half ago. It had been a few weeks since Holland had decided to make the small town her playground, and Cadence didn’t like to think about the havoc she’d wreaked in just one night when the LIGHTS team’s defenses had been lowered. Six people had been killed, all of them somehow related to a Hunter or Guardian one way or another, some distantly, others who would’ve been able to Transform themselves if they’d wanted to. Shenandoah had become a bit of a haven for their family members since Cadence’s grandparents, Janette and Jordan Findley, had decided it would be nice to have as many families as possible in one location, and while that idea hadn’t exactly taken off, it had been enough for Cadence’s father to move there.
Now, Cadence wasn’t sure if it was a great idea that would’ve done better with more backing or a horrible idea that left many families vulnerable to attacks like the one that had happened in early March, the one that had left her sister’s friend Lucy Burk without a dad and cost so many other families just as dearly.
