Cadence’s head was pounding when she woke up. A glance at the clock told her Aaron had let her sleep in. It was past 9:00. Normally, she’d be grateful, but they had so much to do, things she’d hoped to be a part of, she found herself feeling irritated at more than just the sledgehammer in her head.
Popping a few aspirin, she went to the bathroom, turned on the shower, and took care of nature’s call. She couldn’t tell if the headache was stress induced, hormones, or just bad luck, but she knew it wasn’t two glasses of wine, not when alcohol never even affected her anymore. Her stomach was a little queasy as well, though it was mostly her head bothering her. She hoped she wasn’t coming down with something. Now was not the time to get sick—assuming she was even capable of that. As soon as she was out of the shower, she’d be paying Jamie a visit. If he could heal her arm while it was on fire, surely he could stop the Mack truck plowing into her brain and the uneasiness in her stomach.
Aaron hadn’t left her a note, but she assumed he was in his office. Once she was dressed and ready to go for the day, she took a few bites from a bowl of cereal, glad she could keep it down, and headed out the door, praying Jamie was in his office. She could’ve contacted him first, but it seemed sort of silly to ask where someone was just because she wasn’t feeling well. She’d catch up to him eventually.
The air was starting to smell like fall. It wasn’t quite October yet, but the weather was cooler than it had been the last few weeks, and she was hoping it would clear her head. Her IAC was full of the usual morning reports from Hunter Leaders around the globe. None of them had anything particularly concerning to report, except for those near the European epicenter where people were going missing by the truckload. They had activity, and Cadence knew she’d be needing to deploy more team members to those places sooner rather than later if they were going to stop the madness.
Jamie was in his office. He looked up from behind his desk as she swung through the door. “Good morning. Are you feeling all right? You look a little pale.”
“It’s just a headache and a little bit of queasiness. I was hoping you could help me with that.” She stopped in front of his desk as Jamie rose to meet her.
“Sure.” He reached out and touched her forehead, and in an instant, she felt much better. Even her stomach felt calmer. “Any idea what caused it?’
“No, but I’m exhausted, so it might be that.”
“Didn’t sleep well?”
Cadence definitely wasn’t going into what had kept her up for the latter part of the night, but she did say, “We stayed up pretty late talking about what’s happening.” That should be explanation enough.
Jamie nodded. “Yeah, I talked to Aaron a little while this morning. He’s in his office.” Shaking his head like he was out of ideas, he said, “I just don’t know what these creatures could be or where they might’ve come from. I asked Eliza about tissue samples, and she laughed like that would be impossible. Until I can get my hands on whatever these things are, I have no idea how I can figure out how to stop them.”
“They looked destructible enough when Eliza was fighting them,” Cadence pointed out. “Especially considering she was taking on a couple dozen or more on her own.”
“Maybe. But... what are they?”
Folding her arms and taking a step back, she said, “You tell me, Doc. I haven’t the foggiest. It’s just hard to imagine that, in all of the years you guys have been battling monsters, none of you have seen anything like this before.”
“Not even Ward. Elliott said he was fascinated but clueless.”
“I know the feeling.” She shrugged, not sure what else there was to say about it. So she changed the subject. “You’ve talked to Elliott, then?”
Jamie’s head rocked back and forth slowly, indicating he knew what Cadence was wondering about. “You gonna ask her?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“You could go straight to Heather, let her find Christian. Then, you won’t have to know whether or not Cassidy is lying to us.”
“We should be able to trust each other. Why wouldn’t she tell us if she knows where he is?”
“I have no idea. But I think, if she’s hiding it, there’s got to be a good reason, and it can’t just be because Christian asked her to. There’s no love lost there.”
“The way she was talking about him yesterday, though, like she felt sorry for him because he’d been hurt, maybe things have changed.” Cadence couldn’t fathom her sister changing her mind about Christian in such a short amount of time, but without the benefit of seeing what was in his head for herself, it was hard to know for sure.
“I have no idea. The sooner we find out what she knows, the better. We need to get a move on.”
“Even if we go over there, though, how do we stop him? Can we stop him?”
“We have to stop him,” Jamie reminded her. “No one else can. When I first heard about Dracula, how powerful he was, I was terrified. But seeing Van and her team in action, I shouldn’t have been worried at all. She was a beast, ripping through the castle, tearing his monsters apart, with little more than the knife Aaron has now. Daunator may be just as daunting as Dracula was to me back then, but we’ll figure it out. We always do.”
Cadence thought of Sierraville and how they hadn’t figured it out then. And how, with the Blood Moon Portal, they hadn’t figured it out until it was too late for Alex. “All I know is, those new weapons Christian came up with had better work.”
“Even if they don’t, we’ll get him, Cadence. I have every bit of faith in you.”
“I’m glad someone does.” Cadence said it like she was joking, but on the inside, she was serious. For the first time in a long time, she felt like there was a chance this was a monster she couldn’t defeat, not unless they were able to figure out some sort of an Achilles’ heel they had yet to think of. And time was running out.
