How Not to Be a Vampire Hunter (The Chronicles of Cassidy Book 3) Read online

  How Not to Be a Vampire Hunter

  The Chronicles of Cassidy Book 3

  ID Johnson

  Copyright © 2018 by ID Johnson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Book cover by Sparrow Book Cover Designs

  https://www.facebook.com/sparrowbookdesigns/

  Created with Vellum

  For Shauna. Thanks for your punctuality and dedication!

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  A Note From the Author

  Chapter 1

  There are defining moments in our lives where we can look back later and think, “That was when everything changed,” or “that’s when I knew.” For me, that moment came shortly after my sister told me the man I thought of as an older brother, Elliott, had been killed by a Vampire Hunter. Even though I’d known for the last several months that I would go through the Transformation process like my sister Cadence had as soon as I turned seventeen and was considered old enough, when I found out that Elliott was dead, that I’d never turn around to find him standing just over my shoulder again, or watch in surprise as he snuck into my bedroom window to talk to me in private so as not to alert my parents, or look up into a crowd and see his smile, that’s when I knew what I would do with my life, the path I would choose.

  It's too bad fate had other plans, ones I would’ve never seen coming that sweltering June day when Cadence told me about Elliott.

  I had fallen asleep that afternoon, dreaming that Elliott was still alive, that this was all some sort of a not-so-funny joke, so when I awoke a few hours later to the soft sound of my mother’s voice next to my ear, telling me I needed to come down for dinner, it was like everything hit me all over again, and fresh waves of nausea and despair made me burst into tears once more. My mom understood; she had loved Elliott, too, and she wrapped me up in a tight hug and held me until I was finally able to temporarily pull myself back together again.

  Cadence was likely still downstairs with her boyfriend Aaron, and both of them had been very good friends with Elliott. I’d remembered wondering how they were even functioning earlier. Why were they not both hanging on by a thin thread like me? My sister has seen a lot of death lately—her friend Drew was, apparently, killed by Vampires, though I still didn’t have the whole story on that one—and her ex-boyfriend Jack had actually been turned into a Vampire, though I don’t even know how that happened either—and Cadence had shot him a few months ago. What I do know I am knowledgeable about only because Elliott trusted me enough to tell me what he could. Everyone else had been lying to me for months, or in the case of my parents, years, and I was getting quite tired of it. Eventually, once I was able to breathe again, my intentions were to start asking questions. But for Elliott’s sake, I would try to stay calm and endure for now.

  With my mom’s arms around me, I managed to untangle my legs from the blankets and head toward the door. She didn’t let go of me, even when we reached the foyer. “We are all going to fly to Kansas City tomorrow,” she said quietly. “There will be a memorial.”

  I looked up at her, thinking that seemed awfully quick, but then, I guess I didn’t even actually know when Elliott had died. Rather than asking that question, I simply said, “Okay,” and walked a little ahead of my mom into the dining room.

  My dad, Eli, and Cadence and Aaron were already there at the table, and everyone had food on their plates, including me. I sat down in my usual chair, next to my sister, and noted that Aaron was sitting where Elliott had always sat when he visited. I tried not to hold that against him. He had been more forthcoming with information earlier than my sister had been, and now that they were officially dating, I thought I should do my best to try to like him, even though the hatred I’d felt toward him for months for choosing to date some other girl, Eliza, instead of my sister, made it a little more difficult.

  “I think we should say a prayer,” my mother announced. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d prayed over dinner, except for on a holiday, but I didn’t mind. I was doing my best not to think, not to feel, just to be there so that I could make it through mom’s baked chicken without breaking down again. I took my sister’s outstretched hand and my dad’s and bowed my head, trying not to question how the God my mom was speaking to, the one that she said, “loved us completely,” and “held our hearts in His hands” could keep taking the people we loved away from us, but then she gave Him a bit of a reprieve when she said, “we cannot always understand Your ways, but we know that they are for the best.” I thought long and hard about that and decided now was not the time to try to figure out the secrets of the universe, especially since I was new to a whole bunch of its secrets very few people knew anything at all about, so once my mom was done, I began to cut up my meat, marching pieces of chicken around my plate so it looked like I was eating while I listened to the grownups make small talk.

  I wasn’t hungry, and I imagined if I actually put any pieces of chicken into my mouth, I might regurgitate everything I’d eaten hours ago for breakfast right there all over the dining room table, so I took a few bites of mashed potatoes but nothing more solid than that. My mom was asking Cadence about Ireland, and I tried to remember if I knew my sister had been there. She’d told me more than I expected earlier, thanks to Aaron allowing her to do so, but I would have to go back over the conversation a few times to figure out exactly what all of it was. Right now, I didn’t want to think or feel or be aware of anything.

  After dinner, my mom and sister began to clear the table, and I thought it was nice that Aaron at least volunteered to help, though my mom sent him off with my dad to the living room. I assumed this was so she could ask Cadence the questions she couldn’t ask in front of Aaron--questions about him—and I excused myself. I just wanted to go back to sleep. I still hadn’t called my friends, though, and since Lucy and Emma also knew Elliott, I felt like they needed to know what was happening.

  I trudged through the living room and only glanced in my dad and Aaron’s direction as I headed for the stairs. My dad called, “Are you going back to bed, honey?”

  “Yeah,” I replied, not bothering to explain the truth about what I was about to do. I didn’t know if Elliott’s demise meant no one would be listening in on me anymore, and since Cadence had told me I wasn’t allowed to talk to Lucy and Emma about any of this, I realized I might be setting my best friends up for another brainwashing—they’d endured a pretty intense one of those before, courtesy of Hannah, one of my sister’s co-workers—but I needed to talk to them just the same. I was obligated to pass on the horrific news in a timely fashion even though I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to get the words out of my mouth.

  I decided it would be best to tell them together, and they needed to see my swollen, blotchy face to know that I was telling them the truth, so I pulled out my laptop and FaceTimed them both. It didn’t take long for Lucy to answer b
ecause I’m sure she wanted to know why my sister was there. A few seconds later, I had Emma on as well.

  “OMG,” Lucy whispered. That was her favorite expression, and she usually used it in moments of exhilaration, but she took one look at my face and could tell something was very wrong.

  “You look awful,” Emma, who is honest to a fault, said. “What happened?”

  “I’m not sure how to say this,” I began, wondering if I could even say it, “but… Elliott, uh… died.”

  The word fell out of my mouth in an unnatural way. I didn’t spit it out or curse it; it was just there, like an unwelcome visitor, the kind that will never leave, the kind you have to find a way to coexist with because nothing can ever make it change back to the way things were before.

  Neither of my friends said anything for a very long time. They just stared at me in the same kind of disbelief I’d been attempting to exist in for the last few hours. When they finally did speak, I expected a bunch of questions I didn’t feel like answering, some of them I couldn’t, but what I got instead was sympathy. “I’m so sorry,” Emma said. “That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

  “Thank you,” I said, knowing without question she meant it. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have come out of her mouth.

  “Me, too,” Lucy agreed. “I can’t even believe it. I feel… awful. I can only imagine how you must feel, Cass. I wish I was there so I could hug you.”

  Both of my friends had tears in their eyes, and even though it pained me to see them also so heartbroken, in a strange way it made me feel slightly better to know I wasn’t alone. “Thank you,” I muttered again. “I don’t know exactly what happened right now. Apparently, they were hunting a Vampire, and Elliott was killed by a Vampire Hunter.”

  “Killed by his own side?” Emma asked. “Like Stonewall Jackson?”

  I wasn’t sure who that was, so I wasn’t certain how to respond. “I don’t know,” I said. “I just know that there was some sort of an ambush or trick or something. I’ll see if Cadence will tell me more later, but as you can imagine, she’s pretty upset, too.”

  “Well, yeah, I would think so,” Lucy replied. “Aaron, too. They were pretty close, weren’t they?”

  “Yeah,” I nodded. I took a deep breath and tried to stay focused so I wouldn’t fall back into sobbing, not until I got off the phone anyway. “I guess we’re flying to Kansas City tomorrow for a memorial.”

  “Flying?” Emma repeated. “Wouldn’t it be easier to drive? By the time you get to Des Moines… assuming that’s where you’d be leaving from…”

  “Actually, I think they have a plane here or something. Elliott told me more than once that he flew up to see me, and that he had a pilot or something. I’m not sure.”

  “Really?” Lucy asked, her mouth hanging open a little bit. “You didn’t tell us that.”

  “I know. There are probably a lot of things I haven’t told you, actually, not because I didn’t want to but because it’s hard to keep track of everything. Cadence told me a whole bunch of stuff this afternoon I’ll pass along to you as soon as I can. But she told me I couldn’t tell either of you.”

  “What else is new?” Emma groaned, shaking her head.

  “I really wish they’d just trust us already,” Lucy agreed.

  “It wasn’t even Cadence who decided I could know,” I pointed out. “She wasn’t going to tell me anything, but Aaron said he thought I deserved to know.”

  “Get out of town!” Lucy exclaimed. “And here I was thinking he was the one keeping us all in the dark.”

  “I know. I always got that impression, too, but I think maybe it’s been more my parents. Maybe yours, too. I don’t know. Anyway….”

  “Why would our parents matter?” Emma asked, crinkling her forehead at me. “Do you think they know about all of this?”

  “Maybe,” I replied with a shrug. “At this point, I have no idea who knows anything.”

  “Are you saying you think whatever this is runs in our families, too?” Lucy asked. “Or can just anybody become a Vampire Hunter?”

  “I don’t know,” I said again. “But it turns out Elliott wasn’t a Vampire Hunter. He was something else, something called a Guardian. Aaron is one, too.” Talking about Elliott in the past tense was a fresh kick to the gut, and I knew I needed to get off before I lost it again.

  However, their gaping mouths told me I’d just unleashed a whole new line of questioning. “A what?” Emma asked.

  “Are you serious?” Lucy was shaking her head. “Just when we think we have everything figured out.”

  “I know. Listen, I will actually be at her headquarters tomorrow, which would be great if it was for any other reason in the world than a funeral, but it will give me a little bit of a chance to see what I can figure out. Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to talk to Cadence, too. Maybe by the next time I talk to you guys I’ll have more information.”

  “Okay,” Lucy nodded, “but we’ll understand if you don’t.” She had tears in her eyes again, and I assumed she’d probably be mourning the loss of Dr. Sanderson as soon as we disconnected, too. In fact, if the student body of Shenandoah High School found out about his death, there would be hundreds of kids crying and no one to cheer them up since that had been his role.

  “Have a safe trip,” Emma said, smiling sympathetically at me. “And if you get to ride on one of those little planes, take some pics if you get a chance. I’ve never been on a little one before.”

  I had to smile, thinking about how life was like one big science experiment to her. “Okay.”

  “Love you, Cass,” Lucy said. “Thank you for telling us.”

  “Love you both, too,” I replied, doubting Emma would be willing to say that she loved us. It just wasn’t her thing.

  But before I could push the button to disconnect the call she said, “I love you guys, too. Even if I’m not always quick to say so.”

  “Thanks, Em,” I smiled, glad to hear it.

  I closed my laptop and set it aside, looking around my room and wondering what to do with myself. If we were leaving tomorrow, I should probably pack a few things, though I had no idea what I would even wear to another funeral. I’d gone to Jack Cook’s funeral back before Christmas, but it had been cold then, and something told me that Elliott wouldn’t want me to wear black. I thought, if I closed my eyes and concentrated, I could still remember his scent, leather and that unique aftershave, and remember how safe I felt when his burly arms were around me. I didn’t think I could ever feel that way again.

  A knock on my bedroom door made me realize I actually had closed my eyes. “Yeah?” I called, blinking back to reality.

  “Hey,” Cadence said, sticking her head in. “You’re not sleeping again?”

  “No, not yet,” I replied as she came inside and sat down next to me on the bed. “I was just thinking I have no idea what to wear tomorrow.”

  “Oh, yeah. Me neither. Hannah said that she doesn’t think Elliott would want any of us to be sad, though I don’t know how it would be possible to get through his memorial service without feeling that way. Maybe you should just wear one of your favorite dresses.”

  I nodded. I’d been thinking the same thing. “What are you going to wear?”

  “I’ll figure it out when I get back to my apartment,” she said with a sigh. I imagined she had more pressing things on her mind and felt kind of silly again for even asking her. “I just wanted to come and check on you. You didn’t even eat any dinner.”

  “I’m okay,” I assured her. “Or, I will be anyway.”

  Cadence wrapped her arm around me. “You will be. We all will be. It just takes some time.”

  “Are you… still upset about Jack?”

  It seemed like a stupid question, but my sister had no idea I was aware that she had been the one to destroy Jack after he had become a Vampire. So, my question wasn’t quite what it might seem on the surface.

  “I’ll always miss Jack,” she said, letting out a dee
p breath and taking her arm off of me so she could scoot back against the wall. I did the same. “Things with Jack were very complicated toward the end. That’s making it a little bit harder to just let everything go.”

  “Cadence,” I said quietly, “I know you probably don’t want to do an entire recap of everything that’s happened since you met all of these people and took your new job, but at some point, could you please let me know what happened to Drew? And Jack?” As much information as Elliott had allowed me to hang on to, anything I hadn’t figure out on my own was never discussed, and I still had no idea what had happened to Cadence’s first friend at the Eidolon Festival in November.

  “Yeah, I’ll tell you someday,” Cadence promised. “There’s just… so much. I don’t want to overwhelm you. You need to talk to Grandma.”

  Apparently, Grandma was the keeper of all of the family history when it came to LIGHTS, the organization my sister worked for. “Okay,” I said quietly, knowing I wouldn’t get anywhere further tonight and too exhausted to think about it.

  “Aaron and I are staying at a hotel tonight. We’ll be back in the morning to take you guys to the airport. You might pack a few days’ worth of clothes since I’m not sure when you’ll be back.”

  “Okay,” I said again. I had a million questions but chose not to bombard her with any of them just then.

  Cadence hugged me and kissed the top of my head before she slid to the edge of the bed. “I hate that you’re missing him so much, Cass, but I am glad that you got to know him. He was an amazing man.”

  I knew if I opened my mouth, the tears would start again, so I only nodded.