Chapter 420
Ashley popped her head between my sister and I. “What’s happening?” she asked, and I realized she had no idea what was going on, like none at all. She’d missed out on my little dance with the moon, and it probably hadn’t occurred to her that there was even an eclipse tonight, though I thought Aaron might’ve mentioned it during our meeting.
“We don’t know,” Cadence admitted.
I turned to Ashley to say more, but there really wasn’t much else to say, so I didn’t. I stayed in Hannah’s head and watched her as she and the others did as Cadence had said—rounding up Vampires, searching for Guardians, questioning anyone who looked suspicious.... It was all a chaotic mess, and I wished my sister could somehow drive even faster than she already was.
When we pulled into the field next to the Eidolon Festival, Cadence dodged several parked cars to stop as close to the entryway as possible, and we all jumped out and sprinted toward Hannah. She was standing near the remains of the bonfire with a broken mirror in her hands, puzzling over it.
“Hannah!” My sister’s voice brought her head around. “What is that?”
We all three stopped next to the Guardian. “I don’t know. One of the local Guardians found it. There’s another mirror over there.” She pointed across the field to a spot on the other side of the bonfire. “And each of them had a bucket of water and this strange rock next to them.” She pulled it out of her pocket, and I immediately knew what it was.
“Obsidian.” I’d seen it in some of the books I’d read while I was trying to figure out my own powers. It’s flat and highly reflective, so there’s a lot of lore about it being used in witchcraft—not that I think witches are real. But then, I didn’t think Vampires were either....
“What is it for?” Hannah asked me.
I assumed she meant what was it doing here, so I admitted, “I have no idea. But it’s rare.”
“Keep all of this stuff,” Cadence insisted. She looked around us, and my head followed along. There were Guardians running everywhere. I didn’t know very many of them since Aaron had called in people from all over the area, but they all looked really busy. “Where’s Mika?” Cadence asked, which was about to be my next question. I needed to get into her head.
“Over there with Christian,” Hannah replied, pointing across the circle at a small Asian woman cowering from the much taller Guardian who was screaming in her face.
“Seriously?” Cadence mumbled, taking off in that direction. I’m glad my sister agreed that his methodology wasn’t working.
Ashley trailed us, and Cadence, and I arrived next to the pair a few seconds later. “Tell us what you know!” Christian was shouting. I think Mika would’ve been crying if she was capable of producing tears. “We need to know what you did!”
“I told you!” she shouted back, her arms folded in front of her. “I don’t know anything!” Her fangs were out, another sign that she was upset.
I popped into the Vampire’s head as my sister said, “Christian, I’ve got this,” and Ashley started battering him with questions. They both walked away, and I heard Cadence asking Mika other questions, more calmly than Christian had been, though it was obvious by my sister’s tone that she was also a bit frantic.
Inside of Mika’s mind, I heard her response—she didn’t know anything. But that wasn’t exactly true. She was telling my sister she’d only been the one to call and organize the Eidolon Festival. But it hadn’t been her idea. She’d gotten a suspicious phone call from a stranger—more than one call, actually. Two? Maybe three? They’d chosen her to contact Aaron because of her clean record. But it wasn’t clean anymore. I dug for the contact’s name.
“I don’t know anything!” Mika insisted.
“She’s lying—she knows more.” At the sound of my voice, Cadence turned to look at me, but my eyes were locked on Mika. “Who is Bruce? Is he here?”
Her eyes enlarged, like she was shocked I’d come up with that. I didn’t have time to reveal my magic tricks to her. I dug around a bit more in her head and discovered she truly didn’t know who he was or what he looked like.
If he was there, I could find him. There were dozens of Vampires standing around nearby since Cadence had ordered that none of them could leave. Most looked like they were just hanging out, waiting, checking their phones, bored. A few were agitated and demanding that they knew their rights. My eye went immediately to an average looking guy with curly, unkempt hair who was glancing around nervously like he was hoping to continue to be overlooked.
“There! That’s him!” I pointed at him, and when he looked at me, I saw the alarm take over his face. I was in front of him a second later, leaving my sister behind. “But it’s not Bruce. It’s Bryce.” Way to change your name so as not to be detected, moron.
Cadence yelled, “Wait, Cass!” but I didn’t listen. She stayed with Mika for a few seconds, maybe until someone else came by to watch her.
Bryce was completely uncooperative now. He took several rushed steps backward, like he might try to run away. That caught the attention of the Guardians nearby, and two of them hurried over, taking him by the arms and holding him in place for me, which I appreciated.
I dug through his head as quickly as I could and found out he, too, had received a phone call from a person who had changed her name. It didn’t take me long to pick up on her thinking, though, as I scanned around me. A blonde Vampire in her mid-forties by sight looked nervous enough to pass out. I ran to her just as Cadence fell in line behind me and shouted to the Guardians to keep Bryce.
I could see Alice’s contact with Bryce in my mind, but I also picked up on the thoughts of several of the other Vampires nearby. Six of them had something in common—they were all newly turned. And four of them had been students at the same university until recently. Why they had been turned was another question, one I’d come back to. For now, I needed to trace down the Vampire who had called Alice.
Alice led me to Norm, who led me to Vic, who led me to Rog—who finally led me to Dr. Hamish Stewart. Rog had much more information in his mind than the others, and what I saw was enough to make me want to collapse on the ground and burst into tears. Not that it wasn’t what I’d already suspected from the moment I’d come out of my moon trance.
I spun around the field one more time, looking for Stewart. I was certain he wasn’t there because Rog had thought about him leaving, and I hadn’t detected him, but I needed to make sure. They’d obviously already tricked me once that night. I didn’t see or feel him anywhere.
Cadence was watching me closely, and after my spell, I couldn’t blame her. I finally stopped spinning and said, “He’s not here. He’s gone.”
She was confused. “Do you mean Brandon?” she asked, putting her hand on my shoulder.
“No,” I said at first, because that’s not who I’d been talking about. But then I realized the conclusion she’d drawn was still accurate. And it wasn’t a sentence I could formulate, so I didn’t. Not exactly. “I mean, yes.... But the person who put all of this in motion, he got out before we arrived.” I could see him scurrying away in Rog’s memories. I thought about what that man had done, and my confidence was restored. The fear and anguish that my boyfriend was taken from me was temporarily replaced with a rage like I’d never felt before. “We’ll need to track him down.” He wasn’t getting away with this.
“Who is he?” Cadence asked, still confused. I couldn’t blame her. I wasn’t making a whole lot of sense, but I’d just had a ton of information dumped into my head at the same time and was still trying to sort through it myself.
“His name is Dr. Hamish Stewart. I only know that because four of these Vampires are his students.” That I’d gathered in the head of a girl with long brown hair who looked suspiciously like me or my sister. “He teaches atmospheric science and physics at McGill University in Quebec. Most of the Vampires I just talked to were turned specifically for this operation.” Talked to sounded nicer than brain-probed.
“But what is this operation?” Cadence asked, her tone both hesitant and racing at the same time.
I had an idea how to answer her, but it wasn’t solid. I still hadn’t seen anything in Stewart’s head because I couldn’t find him—not physically or mentally. So I didn’t tell Cadence what I was thinking. She had to be guessing along the same lines as I was considering my incident earlier and what had happened here. “I still don’t know,” I said cautiously. “None of them knew what they were doing. Until I find Stewart, I won’t be able to answer that question.” In the minds of the newer Vampires, I could see bits and pieces of what they’d been told to do, but they’d been under someone else’s influence, so some of the thoughts were missing. I had a feeling Holland had forced them to take part in whatever it was Hamish had organized—which was probably the reason I couldn’t find the prof now. He was in charge of this, but he wasn’t really in charge of anything if Holland was involved.
My sister mulled that over for a minute and said, “Okay—so let’s find him.”
