Chapter 221
Council Bluffs is not exactly a metropolis, but they do have one thing we don’t—a mall. When I asked my mom to take me shoe shopping after school on Tuesday, she almost died, she was so excited. It was the first time I’d done anything “normal” since my Transformation, at least in her opinion, so I did my best not to be the depressed angsty teen I’d recently turned into and even forced a smile on my face as I tagged along beside my overly chipper mom as we hunted for the perfect pair of Converse.
Mom said I could pick out whatever I wanted, which made me think perhaps becoming a Hybrid was worth it, but then I realized I didn’t even really care about getting a new pair of sneakers, not that I couldn’t find a pair I liked. Why bother, though? I don’t think Vampire Hunters wear tennis shoes, do they? Seems like my sister usually had on heavy black boots in the videos I watched, and I know that’s what she was wearing when Giovani took her. But I didn’t mention this to my mom because she would remind me that I would be doing lots of other activities for the next year until I was old enough to join the team for real—something I didn’t want to hear.
As my mom was checking out a new dress at Dillard’s, I decided to give my Vampire transistor radio skills a try. Once again, at first, all I got was static, but then, after a few minutes, I began to pick up on some odd words again, as had happened before. My mom said something to me that I didn’t quite catch, so I just smiled at her and followed along as she went to the dressing room.
I took a seat by a middle-aged man who looked like he wanted to either fall asleep or melt into a puddle on the floor and did my best to pay attention to what the Vampires were saying. Once again, I could make out separate voices and the back and forth of a conversation. Occasionally, I even heard laughter. It didn’t sound maniacal like Giovani, so I didn’t freak out. And then I picked up a strand of conversation.
“It won’t be long now,” the first voice said.
“I know. Everything is changing. The time draws near,” the second one agreed.
“We… hold on… moon,” the first one replied.
“Tomorrow. After Wednesday….”
I had no idea what the end of that sentence was, and my mom came out to show me the new floral print dress she’d picked out. “For church? What do you think?”
“The pink looks good with your complexion,” I nodded.
“You think?” She held the skirt out and stared down at it. “Not too frumpy?”
“No,” I said. “I like it.” The dress really wasn’t that bad—for something a mom might wear to church. She smiled and went back to the dressing room, and I went back to work.
This time, I picked up on an entirely different conversation, which sounded like it was fairly far away. I heard something about the Bears, which made me think perhaps I’d actually stretched my mind all the way to Illinois, not that there couldn’t be fans elsewhere, I supposed. Then, what seemed to be an older male voice said, “Might not matter anymore soon enough.”
“True,” came the response. “Just have to hold on a little longer….”
My mom was out of the dressing room before I could hear more, and I moved with her to the cash register, trying to concentrate on what she was saying. She asked me if I saw anything I liked, and I shook my head, but by the time I tried to tune the conversation back in, the moment had passed.
The rest of the afternoon, I was able to catch a few words here and there, some more close by than others. It was possible some of the conversations were actually happening right there inside the mall they were so loud. Some of them were talking about hits and marks, which I knew to mean victims, while others did seem to be talking about an event that was about to happen. A lot of them alluded to this—whatever it was. By this point, I was truly beginning to think whatever was going on with the moon this week was going to have some sort of impact on bloodsuckers near and far.
When I got home, I tucked my new red Converse into the closet, intending to wear them to school the next day, and picked up my laptop. I did a quick search for more information about the blue moon but only found out some basic facts about blue moons in general. There didn’t seem to be anything special about this one. A search for blue moons and Vampires was only full of speculation, of course, since the vast majority of people do not even believe Vampires exist. The sites that did discuss Vampires as if they were real did say that they believed Vampires could become more agitated during blue moons, blood moons, harvest moons, super moons, and of course, full moons in general, but none of them specified anything particularly fascinating about this upcoming event.
Sighing, I decided to give up that particular search for now and went back to an old one, one I hadn’t touched for a few weeks. After I got back from Philadelphia, I became slightly obsessed with learning about the city, trying to figure out all of the places that Gibbon might be hiding. I began to compile a list of locations, but I soon realized no one was interested in any of my findings. When I tried talking to Cadence about it, she said, “That’s great, but we have experts in Philly already looking into all of that.” Now, I went back to it not because I thought she would be willing to listen to me anymore than she was the first time, but because I needed something to do that seemed to be helpful. Perhaps it was the moon messing with me as well, making me antsy.
There are plenty of old abandoned buildings in Philly, or ones that are dilapidated but still in use for various purposes. My list included West Philadelphia High School, an old coffee house, a prison that now serves as a museum, and a creepy old steam factory. I decided to read over more information about some of these locations to refresh my memory, and then, I closed my eyes and tried reaching out with my mind, all the way to Pennsylvania.
“Where is Gibbon?” I asked, concentrating as hard as humanly possible on trying to send the message out into the atmosphere, hoping another like me would pick up on it and answer.
All I got in response was static.
Sighing, I reached up and turned my bedroom lights off and tried again. “Where is Gibbon?” I asked again. “Where is the Jogging Path Killer?”
Once again, there was some static, and then, I heard a distinct voice in my head say, “Who is this?”
I jumped. I was used to hearing voices in my eye—familiar ones, ones I could identify. This was something else entirely. I didn’t respond. In fact, I flipped the lights on and did my best to come completely out of whatever state I had been in, the realization that another Vampire had been inside of my head too much to handle.
A few minutes later, when my heartrate had begun to normalize again, I called Brandon on the IAC. “Are you okay?” he asked. “You sound like you’ve been running.”
“Thanks,” I muttered. “No. Something weird just happened.”
“Something weirder than talking to a half-Vampire/half-Vampire-Hunter through your eye? Because that’s what I’m doing right now, and I’ve got to tell you, it’s a little strange.”
He was trying to make me laugh, and it worked. I sank down onto my pillows and recounted the situation for him, telling him all about what had happened at the mall, the questions I’d sent out, and the response I’d gotten. He listened without interrupting, until I was done and asked, “What do you think that was?”
“I’m only guessing here, but I think you made contact with another Vampire, and he or she was trying to answer you.”
I didn’t take offense at his implication that I am also a Vampire. In this context, I was, and the thought had sort of become easier to accept, somehow, recently. “Okay, but why not just answer? Why scare the crap out of me?”
“Maybe you scared them. Maybe they weren’t expecting you either,” he reasoned.
“I don’t know. It’s not like I just dialed a wrong number. I wasn’t trying to contact anyone in particular.”
“Well, next time, make something up. Tell them you’re Gibbon’s daughter or something and you’re looking for him.”
It was a good idea, though I didn’t think it would work. “How do I know they can’t read my mind?”
“How could they? You can’t read people’s minds. We’ve never read anything about Vampires reading minds, just talking with them.”
Once again, he seemed to be right. In all of my research, I’d never heard anyone legitimately claim that Vampires could read minds—and I mean legitimately in the most speculative way possible. “Well, it just freaked me out.”
“That’s okay,” he assured me. “That doesn’t mean that you can’t try it again sometime, now that you know what to expect. I’m sure it had to catch you off guard, but next time, you’ll be ready.”
Talking about it with Brandon made me feel better, as our discussions often had a tendency to do. “Thanks,” I said, letting out a deep breath. “I don’t think I’ll try again tonight, though.”
“I don’t blame you.” I could almost hear the smile in his voice.
“Have you heard anything from my sister yet?”
“Not a peep,” he replied. “You?”
“Not since she recruited me to try to contact my own kind,” I replied sarcastically.
He chuckled. “I have no idea what’s going on with her, but I have absolutely steered clear of Aaron. Irritated doesn’t even begin to describe that dude right now.”
“Really?” I asked, wondering what in the world could possibly be going on. “I wish she’d tell me something.”
“You’d be happy you don’t know if you could see his face. I feel sorry for Jamie and Christian, because he thinks they do know where she’s at, and whether they do or not, they’re getting cold shouldered like you wouldn’t believe.”
“So crazy,” I muttered. I think the only time I’ve ever been on Aaron’s list was when I was unconscious, so I didn’t see any of that, and by the time I’d come to, he was just happy I was somewhat normal. “Well, hopefully it will all be over soon, and she’ll have a logical explanation.”
“Yeah, I just hope she’s not….” Brandon stopped talking.
“Not what?” I asked, wondering what he could possibly think she might be up to.
“Oh, nothing.”
“Brandon?” If he had a theory, I wanted to hear it. Nothing we’d come up with so far had made any kind of sense at all.
“I just… I hope she’s not out with Cale or anything like that, you know, giving that a try again.”
“Seriously?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Brandon, Cadence would never do that. She loves Aaron. A lot. You don’t really think she might be sneaking around with Cale behind Aaron’s back, do you?”
“No,” he said, but his voice sounded weak. “I mean… I don’t think she’d cheat. I just wonder if she didn’t tell Aaron she wanted to take a break or something, and then she decided to go visit her ex.”
“No way.” There was no way in the universe that was the case. If it was, I’d feel even more confused than I had the moment I’d awoken to find out I was half-Vampire. “There’s no way my sister would ever break up with Aaron. Ever.”
“Okay,” he said, maybe a little more defensively than he should have. “I believe you.”
“You don’t sound like you believe me,” I countered.
“I do.”
I didn’t think he did, but I decided to change the subject. We spent the next forty-five minutes talking about other things, mostly school, training, and Vampire hunting in general, before I realized I was getting very tired and decided I needed to go to sleep. So I told Brandon good night and got ready for bed, thinking I’d let Cadence know what I’d discovered the next day since it wasn’t much.
With minty fresh breath, I climbed beneath the covers and reminded myself that the voice I’d heard in my head wasn’t in my house. The next day was Wednesday, the day of the blue moon, and if the Vampires I’d been eavesdropping on for the last few hours were right, I’d find out what was going on soon enough.
