Cadence’s thought was interrupted by her sister. “Too late,” she said, her voice sounding a little more like the little girl from Poltergeist than Cadence would’ve liked. “He’s... coming.”
“At least she didn’t say, ‘They’re here,’” Elliott mumbled, still staring off in front of them. “Where?”
Before Cassidy could answer, the ground beneath their feet began to shake, and Cadence shifted, trying to stay between the holes that were certainly opening up to suck them down. The idea that all of them could be trapped in a matter of seconds was terrifying. “Run!” Aaron insisted, letting go of Christian, and giving his wife a good shove in the direction from which they’d come.
Cadence’s instinct was to run, but not the way that Aaron had pushed her. Still, he seemed determined to make her move away from the danger this time, and she took a few hurried steps back toward the tree line. It looked as if the ground was quaking there, but the holes that sprang up all around them didn’t quite reach the trees. They might be safe if they could fall back to the place where they’d paused to consider the extraction a few moments ago.
Not everyone was as eager to get away from the Vampire as their Leader. Cadence knew Aaron was thinking more about her safety than anything else, but she was ready to fight. She wasn’t the only one. A glance over her shoulder revealed that Christian had broken away from Aaron’s grip and was running in the opposite direction. He would’ve ran directly into Elliott if the ground hadn’t opened up right beneath the mammoth Guardian just as Christian reached him. Without pausing to lend a hand, Christian hurtled over top of Elliott who’d grabbed ahold of the ledge of the hole, and continued to skirt around the deep shafts.
“Elliott!” Cass screamed, stopping mid-flight to turn around and pull him out of the ground. It only took her a second, but in that moment, watching her sister operate, Cadence saw Daunator standing atop the mountain. He’d grown himself so that he was at least eight feet tall, his arms spread like great bird wings as the moonlight cast an eerie glow to his white face. The black cloak he wore lent itself to the illusion that he was death incarnate, and Cadence no longer felt capable of running away from him.
“Cadence—go!” Aaron insisted, pushing her shoulder. “I’ll go get Christian, but you need to get out of here.”
“It’s too late,” she said, meeting his eyes. “We said if he showed himself, we wouldn’t run. And I won’t run from him, Aaron. I can’t.” He knew her instincts well enough to understand what she was saying. Even if her mind told her feet to take off down the mountain, her gut was telling her it was time to fight.
“Shit.” There was more frustration than anger in the expletive. “Could you please just let me handle him, and you find something else to destroy?”
“Like what?”
Aaron didn’t answer her—the ground did. Out of every hole she could see, a black hand appeared--and then another. The dark creatures scurried to the surface, pockets of dust and debris obscuring them at first, but then Cadence saw the glow of red eyes and realized there would be plenty of evil to contend with.
Elliott was out of the hole now, cursing at anything and everything, except for Cass whose mouth hung open in astonishment at the sight of the creatures pouring from the earth like ink spilled on a sheet of white paper. There was no time to discuss tactics or strategies. They’d have to start fighting, taking the monsters out as quickly as possible, because not only were they surrounded by them, Christian had reached his target. He was standing a few feet in front of Daunator, a grenade in his hand.
Cadence had a feeling that wasn’t going to work, and she really didn’t want to launch Rescue-Christian-Round-Two, so as Aaron began to combat the black creatures crawling their direction, Cadence followed her compulsions and began to fight her way after the wayward Guardian.
There had to be at least a hundred creatures between herself and Christian. Their nails were sharp and cut into her arms as Cadence punched and pushed her way through them. She was faster than any of the others they’d combated before, however, and most of them didn’t attempt to latch onto her once she made contact with them. One or two sank their claws into her and took more than a shove to push away, but she continued to fight her way through as Christian and Daunator faced off against each other. The Guardian threw the first grenade when Cadence was about twenty feet behind him. The sky lit up, but when the smoke cleared, Daunator looked unscathed, and evil laughter echoed around the mountainside.
“You’ve got three Vampires on your left, and a couple more on your right.” Paul’s voice in her head was so unfamiliar, Cadence didn’t even register it was her cousin speaking until after she’d already shifted to see what he was talking about.
“Can you take them out?” she asked, not slowing her pace. Christian opened fire on Daunator, emptying at least half a clip into the Vampire who didn’t waver. She needed to pick up the pace, but there were still several black creatures in front of her.
“Not from here,” Paul answered. “Lex’s behind you. It’ll take him a few minutes to get there, though.”
“Okay.” She didn’t know what else to say. She realized Aaron had sent in the first line a few moments ago, and a quick check on him from her IAC let her know he was tangled up with the black creatures, trying to keep them away from Cass, who was doing her best to slow the monsters down. It seemed Daunator’s powers were too much, and Cassidy was having a hard time figuring out what she could do to stop him.
The Vampires in question were all heading toward Cadence, and even a quick glimpse let her know they were not the kind that would be easy to tear down. In fact, all of them looked like they’d been around for a long time. It wasn’t that they were old, just the way they carried themselves. If there were a such thing as professional Vampires, this had to be the A team. Where they’d been the entire time Holland was ordering her type around, Cadence had no idea, but she wasn’t going to be able to take out five of them.
Help arrived well before they reached her, though. Coming in from the other side of the mountain, familiar faces engaged with the groups on either side of her. Leaving the other bloodsuckers to the likes of Hannah, Kaycia, and Moira, Cadence pressed on, hoping to reach Christian before he found himself back in the ground. One more punch to the face of a half-demon/half-Vampire, and her path was clear.
