Liz opened her apartment door, looking exhausted, and waved for Cadence to come in. She wrapped her arms around her mother and then greeted her father with the same sympathetic gesture before asking, “Where is she?”
“In her room. Floating above her bed in some sort of trance.” Liz sounded completely defeated as if it had been hard enough to control her teenage daughter before she could essentially fly.
Cadence entered her sister’s bedroom with caution. She wasn’t sure she was prepared to see her that way again, but Cassidy was sitting with her legs crossed, her hands out, palm up, about a foot above her bed with her eyes closed. “Cass?”
Nothing changed, so Cadence took another step inside the room and cleared her throat. “Cass? Can you hear me?”
With a sigh, Cassidy fell back to the bed and then opened her eyes. “What?”
“Nice to see you, too,” Cadence muttered. “Sorry to interrupt, but I need to know if you figured anything out about Melbourne.”
“Not much,” she admitted with a shrug. “I can see that the stairwell is hidden behind the wall, that there’s a sliding panel that leads to it, but I have no idea how to tell Paul even where to look for it, other than that it’s at the back of the building.”
“Have you tried looking at blueprints of the original Larundel?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes. But they hired a Vampire carpenter, and he’s essentially redone the entire bottom two floors. So it didn’t help any.”
Cadence sighed almost as loudly as her sister had as she took a seat on the end of her bed. “All right. What about the cells?”
“There are ten of them. They’re made of some sort of reinforced steel with concrete outer walls a few feet thick, so even if the Guardians managed to hammer their way through, which theoretically they could do if given enough hours, they would have a lot harder time getting through the steel rebar. And they are equipped with vents that would allow the Vampires to gas them with the same chemical Hines injected into Paul. It doesn’t look good.”
Dropping her head in her hands, Cadence ran her fingers through her hair. “We need to be over there.”
“That would be exactly what Holland wants, you know? She didn’t let Hines build those cages for just anyone. She wants you guys. And me. By the way, Hines thinks he’s come up with something else, some other sort of passage he can use somehow to transport Guardians. He didn’t explain it to her, so I’m not sure what he’s talking about, but he said it won’t work until late summer, and walking around in his head is kind of like sorting spaghetti noodles. It’s slippery and it doesn’t ever lead where you think it should.”
She raised an eyebrow at her sister’s analogy but then let it go. “Well, we can worry about that later then,” Cadence said, dismissively. One problem at a time. “Okay. Can you relay everything you just told me to Aaron? I’m going to go check on Jamie, and then I’ll hunt Aaron down and see what we need to do.”
“Yeah, I’ll let him know, but listen, Sam and Laura are on a plane, and I think they’re on their way back here.”
“Perfect.”
“Christian is tracking the tail number. Why would they bother? Do they really want us to kill them again?”
“I don’t really have an answer for that, Cass,” Cadence admitted. Both former Hunters would have to know they were walking into a death trap, even if Holland could somehow make them more powerful. They couldn’t kill the Guardians, so it would just be a matter of time before they were ended once and for all.
“Holland’s baby is a disgusting demon who looks a lot like a blood-red version of Sméagol.”
Cadence’s attention was back on her sister. “Say what now?”
“Yeah, she thinks that being a demonic Vampire allowed her and Carter to mate their demon parts. It’s really gross and could probably do a lot of damage if it gets out of its cage.”
“She’s keeping her baby in a cage?”
“The other Vampires locked him up while she was still out of it. It had to be a C-section because he was so ginormous.”
Cadence opened her mouth to say something but the words wouldn’t form into a sentence, so she closed it again. After a moment, she simply said, “Thank you for all of the information.” She patted her sister on the knee and noted she felt a little cold. “You know, you’re freaking Mom and Dad out, though, right?”
“I know. I can’t help it. I’m not trying to.”
“Why did you….” Cadence stopped herself. She was sure Cass had already been given the third degree by her parents about her reckless behavior, and it was pointless for her to ask, too.
“Sometimes, my impulses outweigh my ability to make rational decisions,” she said with a shrug, like she’d snatched the last cookie from the cookie jar.
“And what is your consequence?”
“I mean, what can they do, really? I am not allowed to see Brandon outside of work for a month, but that won’t last. He has to help me with my algebra, or I’ll fail, and they won’t like that.”
“Okay, Cass, I guess they can’t do much to you. But I’m your boss. I can.”
“What are you going to do, Cadence? Not let me go on the hunt? That would be really stupid on your part because you know no one else can do what I can. Not take me to Melbourne if you go? Of course you will. Remember how idiotic Aaron was for not letting you take enough Guardians to Lexington? You won’t be that stupid.”
“That wasn’t Aaron,” Cadence snapped. Her sister seemed to have a knack for sounding like a teenage brat these days, and Cadence needed to get away from her before this turned ugly.
“I mean, I know it wasn’t actually his decision,” Cassidy said, a sort of apology. “But he still said it. Anyway, you know you can’t do that.”
Cadence’s face puckered up as she contemplated whether or not she knew she could do that. Maybe she could get along just fine without her sister’s help. She’d done quite well for herself before Cass even knew Vampires existed. “Look, I’ve got a million things to do.” She pulled herself up off of the bed. “Why don’t you go pretend to be your old sweet self and clean the kitchen or something?”
“Sure. That sounds like fun, actually,” Cassidy said, bounding up off of the bed.
Cadence was puzzled and stopped on her way to the door to consider her sister. “What do you mean?”
A dirty pair of jeans began to levitate off of the floor and made its way across the room to the laundry hamper. Cassidy smirked at her and folded her arms.
“You are such a weirdo,” Cadence muttered, not sure what else to say. She headed for the door but soon found herself floating. “Put me down!”
“Say you’re sorry.”
“You’re sorry.”
Cadence continued to float up toward the ceiling and her parents watched with their hands over their mouths like they still couldn’t believe it.
“Fine. Let’s find out your range, little sis, shall we?” Somehow, Cadence was still able to move despite the fact her feet were nowhere near the ground. She propelled herself forward, toward the front door, grabbed the knob, and went out into the hallway. She was almost to the elevator before she began to sink back to the ground, but she didn’t know if Cass had given in or if she really couldn’t keep her up from that distance. Frustrated, Cadence jabbed at the down button with her finger, rather than using her IAC and waited for the elevator to stop.
