The Vampire Queen was pissed, and she was doing her best to take it out on Cadence’s friends. That wasn’t going to do—not at all. The Hunter Leader chewed up the space between them as Elliott fell into step to her right, Margie, who’d seemed to materialize out of nowhere on her left. Up ahead, Jamie was ready to literally put out any fires Holland created while he healed those who’d already felt her wrath. Cassidy was doing her best to offset what Holland was doing with the other Vampires, but it didn’t seem like there was much she could do about the redheaded monster herself
Holland saw them coming, but she couldn’t stop all three of them at the same time, and as she aimed her balls of fire, Cadence and the two Guardians were able to sidestep them, their speed unquestionably a surprise to Holland. With less than a hundred yards between her and the grieving mother, Cadence tried to determine how best to take her out once and for all.
Her plans all fell apart when the ground around Holland started to shake. At first, Cadence thought it was an actual earthquake, but then she realized it was only a small radius around the queen that was shifting. Whether she was summoning energy from the earth itself or the vibrations were just an over product of what she was doing, the movement caught them off guard, and Cadence stopped short of her target.
What she was looking at didn’t seem real at first. It was like she was watching a Disney movie—the kind that causes parents to question what in the world the writers were thinking putting this in a children’s show. The vibrations rose out of the ground into Holland’s form, and she began to mutate. There was no puff of smoke or cloud of magical powder to hide what she was doing, so Cadence watched in awe and horror as the Vampire took on an extra set of legs, followed by massive wings and a pointy tail. Though she wasn’t ginormous like Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty, she was big enough. The red scales that covered her body matched her hair and the plume of fire shooting out of her nostrils.
“Son of a bitch!” Elliott exclaimed loud enough for Cadence to hear.
“How the hell....” Margie stopped herself, probably not sure she could even finish the sentence. She didn’t need to.
And Cadence wasn’t going to stand around and see what Holland was planning. Taking advantage of the fact that the Vampire didn’t quite seem to know how to handle this new form, Cadence took off again, and as she ran, Elliott and Margie opened fire on the dragon. The titanium bullets had little effect on her, other than to royally piss her off, and she turned her attention to them.
The fireballs she was generating now were much bigger than they had been when she was in her more human form, and it took some more dodging to get out of the way. But when Elliott and Margie ducked out of reach, other Guardians and Hunters took their place, shooting at the dragon and then jumping back to safety when she sprayed her fire. A few of her fireballs hit their targets, keeping Jamie busy. Elsewhere, the rest of the LIGHTS team was having success against the Vampires weakened by Cassidy and Heather’s efforts, and as the ghouls disintegrated into ash, or took off into the night, more of Cadence’s friends turned their attention to the enormous dragon.
It was enough of a distraction for her to run right between Holland’s tree trunk legs. With Cadence’s speed and determination, Holland simply couldn’t keep up with the Hunter. Once she was behind her, she used Holland’s own tail to propel herself onto her back.
The dragon wasn’t expecting it, and when Cadence drew a silver knife from her pocket and plunged in between the scales on the back of Holland’s throat, at the apex of her neck and back, the dragon screeched in pain. Cadence withdrew the blade and rammed it in again, pulling it down with the weight of her body.
But Holland wouldn’t be destroyed that quickly. With an earsplitting roar, she began to flap her wings, and before Cadence realized what was happening, she found they were being lifted off of the ground.
She had no choice but to pocket the knife so she could hold on with both hands. She dug into what would’ve been Holland’s shoulders as the dragon began to buck and loop, doing her best to throw the Hunter off of her. There was no blood coming out of the wounds on Holland’s neck, but there was ash, and every time the dragon swooped down, a cloud of black hit Cadence right in the face, causing her to cough and sputter. It wasn’t easy to keep her grip, and she found herself starting to slide off the dragon’s back.
They were high now, so high Cadence could hardly see her friends. Through her IAC, she realized many of them had been telling her to jump, back when Holland was closer to the ground, but now that Cadence was at least a mile away from the earth, all she could do was hold on. She’d shattered her ACL once before, when Aaron tossed her out of an airplane. And she’d seen Brandon splinter his leg from a height closer to the ground than this. If Holland wanted her off, she’d have to find a way to make it happen. Cadence dug her knees into the dragon’s sides and tried not to think about what she was doing.
Holland was trying to get rid of her, that was evident. She looped around, swooping back toward the ground at a rapid pace, and did a buzz over the heads of everyone on the ground. It wasn’t enough to dislodge Cadence, nor was it enough time for her to convince herself to let go. As Holland began to ascend again, she took a sharp turn, and Cadence realized they were headed straight for the landmark.
“Jump!” Cassidy shouted both in her head and aloud, which Cadence faintly picked up over the rush of the wind displaced by Holland’s wings. It was clear now what Holland intended to do. She would use one of the top stones of the structure to scrape Cadence off. At first, the Hunter thought maybe she could jump off of her and land on top of the stone, or leap over the top and land back on the dragon, but it was evident even with her strength and speed she wasn’t going to be able to do that. With the ancient rock closing in, she had to make a choice.
“Jump!” her sister shouted again. “I’ve got you!”
It was the greatest trust fall imaginable. Even though they were fairly close to the ground now, Cadence was going so fast, she couldn’t imagine she’d actually be able to land without getting hurt. But the fact that her little sister insisted she had her covered made it a little easier to let go. As Holland bore down on the structure, Cadence prepared to jump, but she left Holland one last little present. Out of her belt, she pulled Christian’s greatest invention yet and squarely shoved it into one of the holes she’d left in Holland’s back, and then Cadence let go.
The fall itself was leisurely, her sister’s powers wrapping around her as she started for the ground. The timing of the grenade exploding in the Dragonpire’s back could’ve been better. As Holland swooped between two of the pillars of Stonehenge, the ones that had been holding a third rock between them for centuries, the explosion rocked her out of control. She careened into one side of the structure. Both sides began to rock, and then the piece on top started to come down, headed right for Cadence.
She didn’t have much time to think about being squashed by the stone because she was suddenly falling at full speed again. It didn’t make any sense to her as to why until she realized the enormous stone was no longer baring down on her. It was still descending, but not at such a great speed. Her plan was to roll out of the way as soon as her back hit the grass, but that didn’t happen either. The feel of strong arms around her let her know she was okay as both she and Elliott toppled to the ground in a heap and then rolled together to the side as the stone came to rest where they had landed.
