Sitting behind her desk in the office she shared with Aaron, Cadence had been discussing some of the new weapons her dad was working on with her husband when she’d gotten a strange call from one of the Guardians at the front gate, the barrier visitors came to on the rare occasion they had any. An older “gentleman” was asking to see her--alone, without Aaron. He claimed to be a Hunter, but he didn’t have any identification, no IAC, and he wanted to talk to Cadence by herself, saying he had valuable information about, “her enemy.”
Aaron hadn’t wanted to let her speak with him, even though he admitted he had no idea who it might be, but Cadence postponed her appointment with Cassidy to go downstairs and meet the man. He was sitting on a bench near the chapel, the one where they’d had Elliott’s funeral. Dressed similarly to the way Cowboy Sam had been the first time Cadence had met him, in dusty brown pants, a faded denim shirt, and a vest, he was nervously looking around, an old beat up hat in one hand. His head was mostly bald, but down the sides and back, tufts of white hung to his shoulders, matching his shaggy white beard. If Santa Claus had a cowboy brother who’d seen better days, this guy might be him.
He saw her coming a long way off, which made his anxiety amp up to an even greater level. As soon as Cadence was within shouting distance, he yelled, “You ain’t got no weapons do ye?”
Despite the oddness of the question, Cadence raised her hands and spun around slowly. She was wearing jeans and a sweater, so there weren’t a lot of places to hide anything. “Should I?” she called back.
“No, but I ain’t taken any more chances than I already done. You gotcher eye computer on?”
“No,” Cadence lied. She was close enough to him now that she could see the worry in his eyes, a shade of light green she’d never seen on a human before, but maybe on a reptile. “Who is he?” she asked Aaron in her head.
The only response she got was, “Holy hell.”
“Great. That doesn’t make me nervous.” Aloud she offered her hand. “I’m Cadence. And you are?”
He looked at her hand and then up at her face again before his sweaty, grimy palm shook her hand. “I’d rather not say right away.”
“Okay. Mind if I sit or....”
He scooted over on the bench, even though there had been plenty of room before he did so. “I can’t stay long. And I ain’t gonna be able to answer ya everything, but I’ve come to warn ye.”
“Warn me? About what?”
He was shifty, this one. Reaching into the pocket of his tattered pants, he pulled out a wad of newspaper clippings and thrust them at her. Cadence took them, not sure what she was looking at, and began to unfold each one. “This ain’t the first time, ye know. It’s happened before. Last time, I went to figure it out. Biggest damn mistake of my whole life. Well, led to it anyway.” He mopped at his head with an off-white handkerchief he must’ve also pulled out of the same pocket.
Still confused, Cadence began to read through the clippings. They were old, the paper brittle and yellowed with age. Some of the writing was difficult to make out because it had been in his pocket for so long it was smudged with dirt and who knows what else. But she got the gist of the situation really quickly, despite the fact that some of the articles were written in foreign languages she didn’t understand. “Hundreds of people have gone missing from the area before?”
“Yep. Look at the date.” He jabbed at the top paper with a bony finger. Cadence had already noticed. 1872. “This ain’t the first time he done this.”
“You think Daunator took these people, too?”
“I know he did. I seen it with my own two eyes.”
His own two eyes were wide with conviction, and Cadence couldn’t help but believe him, whoever the hell he was. “You went over there? Did you see Daunator?”
At least one of those two questions seemed too much for the man. He wiped at his brow again, bent at the waist, and breathed heavily. “I seen him. Saw them critters, too. They ain’t right.” He looked back at Cadence. “Ye can kill ‘em easy enough, them black things. It’s the monster himself ya ain’t gonna be able to destroy, Miss Findley.”
Cadence didn’t bother to correct him; if he didn’t know she was Mrs. McReynolds now, then so be it. “How do you know that’s the case?”
“He’s too damn powerful. He’s been through all of the portals, some of ‘em multiple times. It’s the Blue Moon, though, gave ‘im his strength. The Blood Moon gave ‘im the ability to make them critters. The others... he comes and goes as he pleases. Ye ain’t gonna be able to get ‘im.”
“Wait—are you saying there’re more than two portals?” Cadence was trying to stay with him, but this information alone was enough to alarm her. “What are the others?”
“I ain’t come here to learn ya about the universe, girl. Now, pay attention. If ya do send a team over there, cause somethin’ tells me ye will, even though I’m tellin’ ya right now to leave it be, ye should know, he can do what he says he can. But it ain’t how ya think. And that’s where you gotta be careful.”
More confused now than she had been when he was talking about the portals, Cadence held up a finger to slow him down. “What do you mean? He can do what?”
“He can kill Guardians, just like he always said. It’s tricky, tricky business. And ye gotta be careful. If yer team is foolish enough to face ‘im, don’t send no Hunters. He’ll make ya regret it.” He took a deep breath, his hands pressed to his knees as he sucked in air, and Cadence noticed tears forming in his eyes. “He’ll make ya regret it every damn day of yer life.”
Part of her felt compelled to place her hand on his shoulder, to comfort him, but she also didn’t know how he would react, so she didn’t. “Sir, if you could tell me a little bit more about what you’re talking about....”
“He made me do it! Don’t ye see? I didn’t want to? I had no control! All those years, those decades! After I got away, I thunk I had my head on straight. But I didn’t. And then... and then... I saw her again. And I thought, maybe we could get along. Maybe we could be friends. It had been over a hundred years. Surely, in a hundred years, I could break the hold he had on me. But I spent so much time in that damn hole—and that’s how he gets to ye. Sure, he says it don’t matter, he can get in yer mind in a matter of seconds. But it’s when yer down there stewin that he really bakes on ye. And you don’t know what’s up or down. I didn’t mean to do it. You’ve gotta understand that.” His eyes were wide as he looked Cadence directly in the face, and then his bony hands jetted out and took hold of her shoulders, alarming Aaron, but the man wasn’t hurting her. “Ya believe me, don’t ye? Please say ya do. Say you’ll forgive me. I never woulda... I never woulda....” He broke down in tears, letting Cadence go and doubling over on the bench.
The only thing that stopped her from comforting the man was the sound of Jamie’s very angry voice in her head, something she couldn’t even comprehend at first. Never, in the years that she’d known the mild-mannered doctor, had she ever heard him use some of the words he was spewing as he told her he was on his way to deal with that bastard.
And then suddenly, it all clicked.
