Chapter 547
Moving the black creatures off of the ledge worked well, and I was just starting my second round when I realized my sister had taken off running toward Daunator. Christian had reached him already, a grenade in his hand. I prayed he didn’t get sucked down into another hole. The fact that Cadence was so far away from Aaron was worrisome, but he was busy with the creatures. While Cadence was slowed a few times by the minions sinking their teeth into her arm or grabbing at her heels, for the most part, they seemed to be letting her through, which seemed like a bad sign to me. Did Daunator want her to fight him?
A blast of light illuminated the mountain, and then a wave of smoke obscured my view of Christian and Daunator. He’d thrown a grenade, the old kind, the ones he knew wouldn’t work. When the smoke cleared, Daunator’s laughter echoed through the air, and Christian went flying twenty feet in the air.
Paul’s voice came over the IAC as I tossed another group of creatures over the edge. I was working as fast as I could, but there were just too many. “You’ve got three Vampires on left, and a couple more on your right.” He was talking to Cadence, but we all needed to know that. Sure enough, I could see their forms now, coming over the top of the mountain. I’d seen some bad looking Vampires before, but these folks looked like a brute squad. I wondered where Daunator had been hiding them all these years. Probably in holes in the ground....
“Can you take them out?” Cadence asked our cousin, but the answer was going to be no. Paul was too far away. Aaron sent in the first line, still holding Brandon’s group in reserve, but we were going to need everyone soon enough. Christian opened fire on Daunator, popping sounds filling the air as he emptied his clip. Daunator didn’t waver. My sister had almost reached her target.
“Lex’s behind you,” Paul was telling Cadence. “It’ll take him a few minutes to get there, though.”
Lex was coming from further over to our right, so he wouldn’t have to go through the same group of creatures the three Guardians in front of me were currently combating, but there were still plenty between them. I didn’t think he’d reach my sister before the Vampires did, if they intended to try to stop Cadence, but I had the feeling they wouldn’t impede her progress. Daunator wanted her.
I didn’t get to find out. Our teammates who’d been stationed on the other side of the mountain came in from behind the Vampires, opening fire, and causing the monsters to turn around. My sister sped up, covering the ground between herself and Daunator even more quickly as Hannah, Kaycia, Moira, and several other familiar faces held off Daunator’s lackeys.
If I’d had more time, I would’ve tried to figure out who those other Vampires were, but I was still moving creatures off of the battlefield. Gunfire rang from behind me, over my head and through the trees around me, so I knew I needed to be careful, even though I didn’t think any of my teammates could kill me. It would still hurt. The cover fire was helping hold the newest creatures to spill out of the ground back from Aaron, Elliott, and Jamie, but there were still plenty of them between the Guardians and my sister, and Lex was having a tough time fighting his way through as well.
“Everybody in,” Aaron said over the IAC, which was a relief. It would help to have the rest of the team fighting the creatures, and I knew that meant Brandon would be here in a matter of seconds, even though I was pretty sure his dad didn’t want him this close to the front.
“Heather are you able to do anything at all to weaken Daunator?” Aaron was asking my counterpart.
“I’m tryin’ but he’s a tough devil. I’m workin’ on keepin’ the ground from shakin’, but it don’t seem to be doin’ much.”
“Maybe you should start moving some of these creatures out of the way like Cass is doing,” he suggested. It seemed like a fine idea to me. If Heather could get some of the ones back here, I could try to clear a path for Aaron.
She agreed, but she started moving the ones to my right, the ones closer to the edge of the mountain, which would help Lex, but not Aaron. I was about to ask her to shift when I glanced up to see my sister had reached Daunator. He was shooting fireballs out of his hands at her, much like Holland had right before she’d turned into that dragon, but Cadence was deflecting them somehow. It was so strange. I had no idea how she was doing it. Her hands were moving up and down quickly in front of her face, the beams of light and power bouncing off of them each time.
“What the crap is Cadence doing?” I said aloud, not really knowing if I was close enough to anyone to get an answer.
“I have no idea,” Aaron said in response. I tore my eyes away from my sister to look at him, and even though he was focused on the creatures in front of him, it was evident he wanted to get to Cadence. Christian was doing something to try to help her, but he wasn’t going to be that useful. Cadence needed her husband.
My tornado was ready to dispatch, so I turned to my right to work the creatures off of the side of the mountain and had just about gotten all of them over the ledge when I heard Jamie scream, “Watch out!”
Flipping back around, I saw a fireball go sailing right over Aaron’s ducked head. “Daunator,” I whispered. “He’s shooting past Cadence now that he can’t hit her.” I still didn’t know how she was doing what she was doing. Maybe the fireball had ricocheted off of her. It didn’t matter. My sister was moving closer to the Vampire. “She’s going to try to implant that grenade isn’t she?”
“Probably.” Aaron took a deep breath as if to say he was worried but he knew there was nothing he could do to stop her, and rammed his knife through one of the creatures.
I doubted there was anything I could do either. If I could move the creatures out of Aaron’s way, maybe he could get up there in time to take over for Cadence. With my hands out in front of me, I focused on the next batch, but then I saw movement out of the periphery of my left eye and immediately knew something was wrong.
Three shots stood out from the rest of the gunfire as I whipped my arms around in an effort to prevent them from hitting their target.
I was too late. I watched in horror as Elliott hit the ground, hard. He landed face down, but even from this angle, I could see crimson blood mingling with the darker substance the creatures spewed when they were injured.
Rage boiled up inside of me. I wanted to kill Aurora almost as badly as I wanted to kill the Vampire in front of me. I yanked the Glock out of her hand and hurled it off into the forest before I also managed to get the Beretta off of her back and flung it, too. Her eyes were wide, as if it was just registering what she’d done, and I was certain Daunator had taken hold of her mind, but at the moment, I didn’t care. Still using my powers, I picked her up and flung her as far away from Elliott and the other Guardians as I could toss her as Jamie and Aaron both made it to Elliott’s side.
I needed to keep the creatures away from them as Jamie checked Elliott. His IAC was still on, so I knew he wasn’t dead. And I reminded myself that he shouldn’t be able to die, that because he’d been through the Blue Moon Portal, those shots shouldn’t be able to end him. I yanked my Glock out and opened fire on the creatures closest to the scene as Aaron sent out a warning to the other Guardians and asked for assistance.
Jamie’s blue light lit up the area around Elliott’s chest, and I took out a creature just as its claw reached for the Healer’s back. They were closing in, though, and Jamie had to shoot with one hand and Heal with the other. I needed help.
“Dad!”
Brandon came flying out of the trees behind us, and I was relieved to hear Elliott reply to him through the IAC. “I’m okay. It’d be nice if you could keep these cockroaches off us while Jamie patches me up, though.”
After a quick glance at his dad to make sure he wasn’t bluffing, Brandon drew his Glock and started picking the creatures off from the other side as I continued to shoot the ones on their right. Shane joined us, and for once in my life, I was glad to see the burly trainer. With two guns firing at close range, I decided to holster my weapon and start scooping again.
“He’s going to be fine,” I heard Jamie say, and relief washed over me. If anything happened to Elliott again, I don’t know how I could stand it. I wasn’t losing anyone I loved that day.
Margie and Grant had Aurora now and used handcuffs to secure her to a tree behind the battle line. Grant was a Hunter, too, but I wasn’t too worried about him shooting anyone. I figured the only reason Daunator was able to make Aurora do something so heinous was because she already hated Elliott so much.
A few minutes later, Elliott was up, blood on his shirt, but other than that, the same as always. He smiled at me in assurance, and I wiped my brow overly-dramatically to show him I was relieved he was okay. He picked his weapon up off of the ground and started firing into the sea of black so that Aaron could finally catch up to my sister.
On the top of the mountain, Cadence and Christian continued to battle the Vampire, and while it looked like they were holding Daunator off, something was going to have to give—eventually. I had a feeling it wouldn’t be long now. One way or another, the battle would end, and we’d either walk away victorious or Elliott wouldn’t be the final member of our team to fall.
