Cadence was on a plane. They didn’t know for sure where they were going, but they did know they needed to get across the ocean. When she discovered it would take about fourteen hours to get to Rome and not much less than that to get to England, she decided it was time to head that direction.
She had finally eaten something, taken a shower, and rested for a while before she grabbed a few things and threw them in a suitcase. At the last minute, she’d also decided to take Aaron’s bag with her, the same one he’d packed just a few days ago to take to West Virginia. Everything was already in there, all of the items he usually packed. So she thought she’d be the eternal optimist and take it along. Hopefully, she wasn’t jinxing herself.
Lots of people had insisted on going with her, and she’d given in because she understood they’d want to see the Guardians again as soon as possible. Cassidy and Tara were there of course. Lucy had stayed behind to keep them updated on the Holland situation, which Cadence appreciated. But Ashley and Aurora were on the plane, as was Amanda Keen, which was really awkward since as far as Cadence knew, she had no idea Elliott had been involved with Aurora at all.
Ward had stayed behind with the book, but Hannah, Cale, and Christian were with her. She’d decided to leave Meagan and Shane in Shenandoah, even though she thought she might be able to use them if a fight broke out. But they were her parents’ quickest lifeline to what was happening because of their IACs, and both of them had agreed to stay behind.
There were over sixty Hunters and Guardians converging on the Colosseum, and she also had teams moving into place in the other three locations—Stonehenge, the Cliffs of Moher, and Latrabjerg--even though it would likely be the next day before the portal would open in any of those latter locations. But Cadence wanted to be ready. Ward had managed to identify several other locations he thought might be on the list in Europe and Asia, so they alerted their teams in those areas as well.
In the back of the plane, another passenger was bound and gagged and given the same very strong sedative his brethren had given both Paul and Elliott recently to make them sleep. She’d decided not to bring all of the Vampires with her, though, despite their involvement. Most of them hadn’t had any idea what they were doing. This one certainly did.
Margie Joplin, Jamie’s sister, was on her way to Stonehenge from Melbourne. She said she would divert and head to Rome if Jamie ended up there, but she thought she may as well head for Stonehenge since the text Cadence had sent the captive Guardians gave them the time and location for when they expected the portal to open in Wiltshire, England. Once the portal opened in Rome, they’d have a better idea what to tell the Guardians about how to identify which tunnel would be the one that led to Stonehenge. Cadence felt like this was important; if she was going to abide by the portal’s rules that there must always be one left behind, she’d need Aaron to know her plan precisely so they could all act in unison. Otherwise, something might go haywire, and she didn’t need to make the situation any worse than it already was.
Tracking the portal opening got tricky as they traveled across time zones, but they’d been following the messages and portal opening by the Central Time Zone even before they left Virginia, so she hoped it wouldn’t be too confusing. The pilot said if they headed to England, they would arrive about three hours earlier than if they went to Rome, but Cadence wasn’t exactly sure what time it would be in those places when they landed. Either way, she should be near enough to Stonehenge when the portal opened there to put their plan into place, assuming nothing crazy happened the next few times it opened.
There were Vampires in Rome. They hadn’t even made it out of the airport before she’d started getting calls from her people on the ground there. Apparently, Seonaid had given Hines enough information to cause him to move his forces in. Though there were only about twenty, according to Lex, her Hunter Leader for that part of Europe, they had congregated around the Colosseum like they were waiting for something. Luckily, it was still early morning there, so there weren’t any tourists to get in the way if Lex had to move in. His forces well outnumbered the Vampires, and he brought in even more when he was able to confirm something was going on. None of these Vampires had ever been hostile, so Cadence could assume Holland was manipulating them. If there was a fight, it could be brutal, like the one she’d been engaged in at Shepherdstown. She left it in Lex’s capable hands and tried to concentrate on the things she could control.
As soon as they had been cleared to move about the cabin, Cadence realized she was still famished despite her earlier meal. She had fixed herself a ginormous sandwich and swallowed the whole thing in just a few bites. She’d also guzzled down a few sodas and eaten most of a bag of chips—a family size bag. She noticed her sister wasn’t holding back on staving off the hunger pains either. Now that she had a plan in place, Cadence felt like she needed her strength. So, once she got the message from Aaron in a few hours—fingers crossed—she’d be falling asleep for as much of the trip as the turbulence would let her.
Her phone had already started to shift time zones once they crossed the line into the Eastern part of the United States, so she was going by the time on her IAC, which she’d held in the Central Time Zone. A few minutes before midnight, Cassidy got up from her seat next to Tara and took the empty one next to Cadence, wrapping her fingers around her sister’s.
Right at 12:00, her phone buzzed, and her IAC started flickering. But beyond that, there was more activity, something she wasn’t expecting at all. Lex let her know they were engaged almost at the same time that her phone went off, and then there was the fact that not every flicker on her IAC had died out the way they had before.
Cassidy tensed up beside her, and Cadence could only assume she was trying to contact Brandon. In the meantime, she took a deep breath and opened her messages.
The text read, “Cadence, things have gotten a little dicey here. Something new has shown up, and we’re not going to be able to wait and all go out together the way we’d planned. The next time the portal opens, we’re sending Brandon, Dax, and Heather out. Hopefully, they’ll be somewhere safe, somewhere you can find them easy enough.”
That was the first message, and even though it came from Brandon’s phone, Cadence was sure Aaron had sent it. There was more. “There’s something else in here now. Heather calls them demon hunters. So far, they’ve left us alone, but I don’t want Brandon and Dax here if we can get them out. There was no service the last time the portal opened. I guess you know that. Hopefully, next time it opens, you’ll get this. And the kids can get out.”
The other two messages were older, probably sent before the portal didn’t open the last two times. Cadence glanced through them but then returned her attention to Cassidy who had tears streaming down her face. “Is he out?”
“Yeah,” she said as Tara burst into tears a few rows back. “But he’s hurt. And there are Vampires everywhere.”
“It’s okay. Lex will get to him,” Cadence assured her sister. She wrapped her arms around Cassidy really quickly and then handed the phone to Ashley because it would be easier to let her read it then explain everything. She needed to turn her attention to Italy. So much for catching a few Zs.
As she tuned into what was happening across the ocean, she headed toward the cabin of the plane to tell the pilot to head to Rome.
