Absolution: The Clandestine Saga Book 4 Read online

  Jamie was sitting directly across from her, running his hand through his spiky hair. The other teammates had filled in around the table, and most of them looked supportive, but nervous, as if they weren’t quite sure how this conversation might go down. Cadence folded her hands in her lap atop her black leather pants, and waited for Aaron to start the discussion.

  Utilizing the equipment in the room, the Guardian Leader pulled up a picture of Skyler, the recently deceased Vampire. “I don’t want to keep you guys too long,” he began, his hands on his hips as he stood behind the chair next to Cadence. “I think things went really well. We went in, did our job, and got out without a mess and with no witnesses. However, I am aware that there are some concerns, so if any of you have anything you’d like to discuss, let’s go ahead and get it out on the table now.”

  There was a moment of complete silence while Jamie continued to run his hand through his hair. Every eye in the room fixated on him, and when he finally looked up, it was quite obvious they were waiting for him to speak. With a deep sigh, he said, “I… I just don’t know. I mean, Cadence, I am doing my best. I just have no idea what you’re doing.”

  “I know…” the Hunter began before Jamie cut her off.

  “I mean, we even talked about it before the hunt this time. You said you’d take the shot, that you weren’t going to close in….”

  “I said I wasn’t planning on closing in,” she corrected, leaning forward in her chair a bit.

  “Okay—but you did. And I had no idea it was coming,” Jamie continued. “If I had known, maybe.... Well, no. Even if I had known,” he corrected midsentence, “I still would have had no idea what you were doing. I’m sorry. I just don’t think I’m the best guy for this job. I just cannot seem to anticipate what you’re doing or how you’re going to do it.”

  “Maybe with a little bit more practice….” Aurora offered from her seat near the other end of the table.

  “We’ve been practicing,” Jamie reminded them all. “It’s not a big deal as long as you don’t get yourself killed, Cadence, but I can’t guarantee we’re always going to be facing brand new Vampires who are unarmed and have no idea what you are or how to kill you.”

  Cadence sighed, shaking her head so that her brown hair danced around her shoulders. “I know,” she replied quietly. “It isn’t your fault, Jamie,” she assured him. “You’ve done everything you can. Maybe I…”

  Her pause was lengthy, and eventually Aaron asked the question everyone was wondering. “Maybe you what?”

  Running her hand through her hair, she quietly replied, “Maybe I should just start directing, instead of actually taking part in the hunts, like Aaron does.”

  Once again the room was silent for a moment before everyone answered almost simultaneously in the negative. “You can’t do that,” Hannah’s voice broke through the others. “We absolutely need you on the field. No one else can do what you do.”

  “I guess,” Cadence shrugged, “but I don’t know what else to do.”

  “Maybe I should come down and start protecting you myself,” Aaron offered. “Hannah can direct. I trust her to do that.” His blue eyes were on Hannah, who happened to be his second in command now that Elliott was no longer with them, and the strawberry-blonde woman’s face scrunched up a bit as if she were considering the proposition.

  Cadence cradled her face in her hands, elbows on the table. “I don’t know. I just wish I could learn to work well with others.”

  “It’s not that,” Jamie assured her. “I understand that you just follow your gut, and it really doesn’t matter what plans we make ahead of time; you can’t stick to them. I get it. But you’re kinda irreplaceable, and if something should happen to you, I just don’t want that on my shoulders, you know?”

  “It wouldn’t be,” Aaron reminded him. “We’re a team, and we take care of each other. All right, from now on, when we go out, I’ll stay with Cadence, and Hannah you’ll direct from above.”

  “Oh, Aaron, I don’t know,” Cadence began, dropping her hands on the table. “I trust Hannah, but you’ve got to be able to do your job.”

  “Keeping you safe is my job,” he replied, his hand on her arm. “We’ll continue to look for a Guardian capable of keeping up with you, but in the meantime, this is the new plan. Everyone okay with that?” he asked. “Jamie? Hannah?” Both of the Guardians nodded slowly in agreement. “All right then, let’s call it a night. We’ve had a huge stir up since Sierraville, and if we don’t stay vigilant, we’re going to have a much bigger problem on our hands. We’ve got to continue to stay on all of these infant Vampires before they really learn their trade and start an epidemic.”

  As the rest of the team filed out, Cadence lingered at the table, her own IAC catching her attention. It was ablaze non-stop now, just as Aaron’s had always been, and she paused for a moment to reassure the Hunters in the field around the world that she was with them in spirit and appreciated the updates.

  Aaron’s words were true; with the incident in Sierraville, Vampires had grown brave. Knowing the LIGHTS team was distracted had allowed a lot of borderline Rogues to take the full plunge, preying on Innocents around the world. Now, months after the team had killed off Camille and Finn, and captured Laura, newborns were continuing to spring up everywhere. It was all they could do to keep a lid on it in the United States, and there were places around the world where things were certainly getting out of control.

  Glancing over at Aaron, she could see her own exhaustion in his expression. He was sitting next to her now, the only two remaining in the room, and she couldn’t tell if he was on the IAC or if he was just taking a second to catch his breath. After a moment, he smiled at her weakly and gave her arm a squeeze. “You okay?” he asked.

  She nodded, her expression not showing confidence in her response. “I’m just not sure what we are going to do.”

  “I take it from your tone you don’t mean Jamie?”

  Shaking her head, she said, “There’s just so many of them now, and they’re really getting out of hand.”

  “I know,” he agreed.

  “I think…” she hesitated for a moment, not really sure if she should say the words she was thinking, but then realizing they needed to be said, she continued, “I think we need to give Eliza a second chance.” She glanced at him, saw his eyebrows rise. “I mean… I know as well as anyone why she was sent to Siberia, but she’s got experience. We need to put her in Europe, Czech Republic or some place we can’t get a handle on. Otherwise, we may lose it. And then it will just start to spread… like a cancer we can’t control.”

  After a moment of staring at her wide-eyed with no words, he finally began to nod his head. “Okay,” he replied, quietly. “That does make sense. I just don’t think we can trust her.”

  “I know we can’t trust her,” Cadence agreed adamantly. “But I think we are about out of alternatives.”

  Again, Aaron signaled his agreement. “And what about Laney? Should we pull her out of Africa?”

  Cadence hesitated. Laney had done a fabulous job of shutting down her uncle’s titanium mine, the one being used to create bullets that allowed a Hunter to kill another Hunter, and, as they discovered with Camille, also allowed a Guardian to kill a Hunter, but it might be a job for a Hunter with lesser skills. She nodded, but then added, “If she feels she’s ready to go. I don’t think it’s wise to put Laney and Eliza in the same region, though.”

  “No,” Aaron affirmed. “We’ll find some place else for her. In the meantime, we’ll keep recruiting. There are some promising Hunters and Guardians going through the program now, and some will be ready to graduate before too much longer.”

  “That’s true,” Cadence replied, leaning back in her chair. “No one spectacular yet, though,” she reminded him.

  “No, not yet,” he admitted. “We’ll just have to keep looking. Who knows? Maybe the next super Guardian will show up at our door any day now.”

  Cadence chuckled. Wouldn’t that
be nice? “I’m exhausted,” she finally said, standing and stretching. “Unlike some people, I still require a few hours of sleep.”

  “Let’s head home then,” he replied. “Hopefully, nothing too exciting will happen tomorrow, and you can get some rest.”

  That would also be nice, Cadence thought as she followed Aaron out of the building. What she wouldn’t give for a day with no excitement!

  Chapter Two

  Tyler Jones was a pretty stout young man. At five-seven, two-hundred-twenty pounds, he made most of the other fifth graders in Ms. Lawrence's class look like first graders. Despite his crooked grin and the charm he often layered on thick, Tyler spent his fair share of time sitting in the principal's office thinking about his choices. As he shuffled down the hallway towards class, his backpack thrown over one shoulder, his lunchbox grasped firmly in his fist, he tried to push the unpleasantness of that morning out of his mind. Perhaps if his father drank a little less in the evenings, he'd be more inclined to get up and take Tyler to school in the morning, maybe even make it to work himself. But Tyler had learned a long time ago most teachers didn't really care what happened to you at home so long as you left it at the doorstep and became "proactive" the second you walked into their classrooms. Ms. Lawrence was a little different than most of Tyler's other teachers, though. She could usually tell when his day had started off out-of-sorts. And he was hoping today she would have a special job for him, like she often did when he was upset, something that would take his mind off of home and give him the opportunity to start his day fresh.

  Ms. Lawrence would have been short even if Tyler wasn't so tall, but it didn't matter; she stood by her door with a smile on her face, her blond hair perfectly pulled up in a loose ponytail, her outstretched hand waiting for his. "There's my guy! How are you doing Tyler?" she asked in a voice that indicated she was definitely a morning person.

  Tyler couldn't help but smile in response as he shook her tiny hand. "I'm good, Ms. Lawrence," he replied, suddenly feeling much more optimistic. "Do you have a job for me today?"

  Ms. Lawrence looked around the classroom as if she wasn't prepared for the question. After a moment, however, inspiration hit her. "Yes, Tyler, I do! Can you see all of those papers and things laying on the floor behind my desk?"

  Tyler glanced into the classroom, his head bobbing to and fro as he attempted to see around other students. "Yes, ma'am," he finally nodded.

  "I think they may have gotten knocked off while the custodian was vacuuming. Would you mind picking all of that stuff up and setting it back on the counter for me, my friend?"

  "No problem, Ms. Lawrence," Tyler beamed, proud to think of himself as friends with what must surely be the best fifth grade teacher in the universe.

  "Perfect!" she called as he crossed the room. "I knew I could count on you, Tyler!"

  Tyler was still grinning from ear to ear as he tossed his backpack and lunchbox into his seat. He'd worry about putting those away later. Right now, Ms. Lawrence had given him a very important job, and he needed to tend to it right away. Stooping down wasn't always the easiest for him, so Tyler dropped down on his knees, scooping up the offending items as quickly as possible. Once he was sure he hadn't missed anything, he struggled back up to his feet, placing the objects on the counter. He paused for a moment to survey his work; he had done quite an efficient job of picking up this mess, after all. He was puzzled to see that one of the items was a cell phone. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Ms. Lawrence's familiar iPhone on her desk. He had seen her use it lots of times before, so he knew this older model smartphone in a black case definitely wasn't hers. Tyler had always wanted a smartphone. He'd asked for one for his birthday and Christmas both of the last two years, but he never got one. In fact, his mom had made it pretty clear she wasn't planning on getting him a phone at all anytime soon. Holding the object of his desire in his hand, he eyed Ms. Lawrence carefully, and then glanced back at the phone. It wasn’t hers. She probably wouldn’t even know if he took it. Despite the nagging in the back of his head that he was slipping back into his old ways, Tyler shoved the phone into his pocket, straightened up the rest of the items he’d rescued from the floor, and went over to his desk to get his backpack and lunchbox, hopeful that no one had seen him take the phone.

  Of course, Tyler couldn’t get off that easily. “Hey, what’s that you’re sticking into your pocket?” Max Morris asked as he plopped himself down in the chair next to Tyler’s.

  “Nothing,” Tyler shrugged, hoisting his backpack over the back of his seat and approaching his appointed hanger. Max pushed his glasses up on his nose, staring after his neighbor. He was the kind of guy Tyler would normally want to punch in the face, but since Ms. Lawrence talked so much about everyone being friends, he’d been a little nicer to Max. Still, as he crossed back over to grab his lunchbox and stick it in the basket by the door, Max’s insistence that he “saw somethin’” was beginning to get on his last nerve.

  As Tyler threw himself into his seat and pulled out his journal to begin his morning work, he couldn’t help but notice Max was still staring at him intently, like he was about to find out some important information. With a heavy sigh, Tyler whispered, “My mom got me a new cell phone, all right? But it’s just for emergencies. I don’t wanna put it in my backpack, so just be quiet about it, and maybe Ms. Lawrence won’t know it’s in my pocket, okay?”

  Max pushed his long brown bangs up on top of his forehead. “You didn’t find it on the ground over there by Ms. Lawrence’s desk?” he asked suspiciously.

  “No! Tyler shot back, his annoyance about to boil over now. “I had it in my pocket, all right? Jeeze. Now, leave me alone, and get to work on your journal assignment.” Tyler gave him a stare that was a warning to Max that he had better back off or face the consequences.

  “Whatever,” Max finally acquiesced. “Probably just a piece of junk that doesn’t work anyhow,” he added.

  Tyler dropped his pencil, his head flying up from his work. What if he was right? What if he’d finally gotten a smartphone, and the lousy piece of junk didn’t even work? His hand shot up into the air, gaining Ms. Lawrence’s attention as she was crossing back over to her desk, a look of tragic importance scowling up his forehead.

  “What is it, Tyler?” Ms. Lawrence asked, her voice teetering on concern.

  “Can I go to the bathroom?” he asked, hoping she could hear the urgency in his tone.

  Ms. Lawrence sighed, and Tyler was pretty sure she was going to ask what any other teacher would ask; why hadn’t he gone before class. But she didn’t. “Of course,” she replied. And that was why Ms. Lawrence was the best fifth grade teacher in the universe. Tyler pulled himself out of his desk and made his way as quickly as possible to the bathroom, his hand placed carefully over the outside of his pocket.

  Tyler was the kind of kid who didn’t have to say anything to get the bathroom to clear out as soon as he opened the door. In this case, there were just a couple of second graders admiring themselves in the mirrors. One stern look from the hulky fifth grader and they left pretty quickly. Tyler ducked into the closest stall, locking the door behind him. With an anxious sigh, he pulled the stolen device out of his pocket. “You’d better work!” he mumbled quietly, hoping he could threaten the cell phone to do his bidding much the way he had other students at recess or lunch. He pushed the home button on the bottom of the screen, hoping it would instantly bounce to life. It didn’t. He muttered a swear word he’d heard his dad say lots of times but one he wasn’t allowed to say. He tried shaking it, but that didn’t work. He held it up to his ear. No dice. Turning it over and over again in his hands, he noticed a button on the top of the phone. He thought he had seen his mom press this button on her phone once or twice when she was angry with it, so he decided to give it a try. He pressed it. Nothing happened. Aggravated, he pressed it again, this time a little harder. “Work, you stupid piece of….” Before he could even finish his insult, a light came on, and he could feel a warmth ema
nating from the device. He turned it over to look at the screen and could see an apple coming to life in the center. “Yes!” he whispered, a congratulatory fist pump marking his victory. He waited just a few more seconds to make sure it came all the way to life before he heard a noise at the door and realized he needed to get back to class. Pressing that top button again, and holding it down, he waited for the phone to go back to sleep before shoving it into his pocket and rushing past a startled third grader on his way back to class.

  When he returned, Ms. Lawrence was giving directions to the class, but she smiled at him sweetly, welcoming him back to class. He slid into his seat and glared at Max Morris. As soon as his teacher was done speaking, he threw an elbow into Max’s scrawny ribcage. “Shows what you know. My phone does too work!” he whispered.

  Max grimaced and put his hand on his side, but he didn’t say anything. He knew the old Tyler well enough not to tattle on him. He wasn’t buying this new goody-two-shoes Tyler. He’d find another way to make sure Tyler got what he had coming to him.

  ***

  Cadence bolted upright in bed, not sure if she’d heard a knock on her door or if the zombie apocalypse she’d been dreaming about had infiltrated her bedroom. She wiped the drool from her mouth and glanced at the clock. If that was the door, and someone was actually knocking on it at 8:30 AM the morning after a hunt, this better be pretty damn important. Another banging noise let her know that it was, in fact, the door. “Stupid non-sleeping, non-human Guardians,” she mumbled as she pulled on her robe and clambered out of bed. Her IAC wasn’t on, and since no one could force it on, not even Aaron, the only way anyone could contact her was through normal methods--a phone call, a text, beating her door down. She glanced through the peephole and sighed, throwing back the locks. “Christian, what do you want this time of morning?” she asked before the door was even completely open.