It happened all at once, and Eliza wasn’t even sure what she was seeing at first. As if called by a siren in the distance, all of the creatures froze, even the ones mere inches from Eliza’s boots. In one accord, they turned their heads, looking up and peering across the street, toward the top of another building several blocks over. Then, they all slithered back the directions in which they had come, crawling across the roof and back over the ledges, down the walls, and through the yard. It took Eliza a moment to get her feet to follow them, but she moved to the edge of the rooftop, standing on the center point and watched in confusion as they filled up the shadows beneath bushes and trees, along the sides of buildings, and then skittered across the road like evil lemmings or cockroaches after the same scrap of food.
She watched in confusion for a minute or two, wondering where they were going and why. It didn’t make any sense. If they had been called away by their master, why wouldn’t he let them finish her off first? Daunator certainly had no reason to spare her. Or was it someone else they answered to? Her team had taken out all of his highest echelon of Vampires recently, except for one, and as far as they knew, he wasn’t even in Hungary at the moment. Why would they abandon their goal when Eliza’s blood was clearly within their grasp?
And then she saw him. Standing on what appeared to be an old factory building, at least three or four blocks away. The clouds parted just over his head so that the moonbeams shown down, illuminating his form in the distance. There was no way she could make out his facial features from this distance, but she was certain it was him just the same. Why would Lukas call the creatures away from her? And if he was capable of doing so, why hadn’t he done it when they’d first attacked?
She had no answers, and she wasn’t going to get any standing on the roof. They’d gotten their mark; Sylvester was destroyed, as were two of the three Vampires he’d had with him. If Aaron was upset about Sylvester being dead, he’d have to take that up with someone else. While they hadn’t gotten a specimen to take back for Jamie, either, they’d had lots of up close and personal contact with the monsters for him to examine. She was more than done. Still shaking her head over the oddity of the creatures leaving, Eliza stepped off the edge of the rooftop and landed with a thunk on the ground in front of the warehouse as headlights on the road out front told her Brit was back with the vehicle.
“One of them is still alive,” Cassidy said in her head, and Eliza’s feet stopped moving.
“What?”
“Over by the fence. There’s a creature that’s still alive. The rest have disintegrated into black powder, but that one is still moving around. You should get it.”
“Get it? You want me to get it? Like pick it up and put it in my pocket or something?”
“No, get Sergio over there with his rope, and get it. If you can keep it alive until Jamie gets there, maybe he can figure out how Daunator is making them.”
“You’re even crazier than I am, girl,” Eliza said, shaking her head again. She started walking toward the exit, not back to find the injured monster.
“Eliza! Don’t you think you owe it to Jamie to do this for him? It’s hurt—it can’t fight you. Just go get it. You could pick it up yourself with one hand.”
“Why would I owe Jamie anything?” Eliza asked. She was one of the few people he’d never had to save from the brink of death.
“Come on! I might not have been on the team back when you were in KC, but I know that Jamie was your friend, that even when you were driving everyone else crazy, he stuck by you.”
“Well, he hasn’t been much of a friend these last couple of years,” Eliza countered, wondering when the last time she’d even spoke to the Healer was before he’d contacted her and asked her to get him a specimen. She couldn’t remember.
“And whose fault is that? Eliza, you’ve done some pretty awful things to people who thought you were their friend. You can’t really blame anyone from jumping ship after what you did to my sister, can you?”
Of course, Cassidy had a point. But Eliza wasn’t sure she was ready to redeem herself by taking a monster home with her. Still, she found herself stopping short of the fence. “Damn.” She hung her head for a moment, hands on her hips. The old Eliza would’ve kept right on going. But she’d changed—hadn’t she?” “Sergio, you still got that rope?”
There were far too many people on the plane. Cadence Josephine Findley McReynolds was a complete pushover. She sat in the front next to the empty seat her husband had occupied up until a few moments ago when he’d had to go stop Aurora and Elliott from arguing. Cadence’s arms were crossed, as was her disposition; she should’ve never agreed to let Aurora come.
But she had. And just as Elliott had predicted, when Cassidy started to threaten not to do her job if her newly re-appointed boyfriend wasn’t allowed to go, she’d let Brandon come, too. Well, Aaron had been the one to make that decision, but he’d said he’d stick to his guns if Cadence wanted him to. She’d given in. Now, they were on their way to a mountain in the middle of nowhere to find their friend, fight off the most powerful Vampire ever created, and test the possibility that Daunator knew how to kill Guardians and manipulate Hunters. It was a great scenario, one she was certain they would easily triumph over, no doubt.
