Chapter 132

The sound of single bullets being fired in a rhythmic pattern had Cadon’s heart in his throat as he sprinted down the hallway, looking for where the prisoners were being kept. To him, it sounded like the ping of assassins putting people down, execution-style.
“I’ve got them!” Elliott shouted, and then, the single shots were interrupted by a barrage of gunfire. Cadon recognized Elliott’s Beretta’s tone as it fired repeatedly. He was fast, and his aim was good. Hopefully, he took down enough of the Vampires and Assassins that no one else would be killed.
Cadon was running in the direction from which the gunfire was coming, other members of his team behind him, when suddenly a body appeared in front of him. Dressed in black, with menacing sharp teeth exposed, the man had a savage look about him.
He must have dropped from the floor above them. His claws were out, and he was ready to pounce on Cadon. He didn’t appear to be carrying a weapon. Perhaps he’d intended to land on Cadon and his timing was wrong.
The Hunter didn’t have time for this. The body was too close to get his gun up and fire into the bastard, so he threw a punch instead, hitting him in the face and driving him backward. The Vampire hissed, his head springing back, but then he recovered and came at Cadon again.
The blow had given Cadon enough time to get his gun up. He fired into the Vampire’s trunk, aiming for his chest. The first bullet hit him in the area where his heart was supposed to be, but the Vampire didn’t go down as most of the others had done on the first shot. A hole appeared in his body, smoke trailing out the other side. But he was still itching for a fight.
Knowing that this bloodsucker was preventing him from saving his teammates, Cadon took matters into his own hands--literally. He threw a punch at the Vampire and then yanked a silver knife out of a sheath on his belt. He hadn’t thought he’d need to stab anyone, but he wasn’t going to hesitate to use a tool he knew would work when it was available to him.
Deciding there was no time to saw the bastard’s head off, Cadon jabbed the knife into the Vampire’s chest near the hole he’d created with the bullet and yanked the blade straight down.
The monster let out a shriek and then burst into a cloud of ash.
Relieved that he’d gotten rid of the first viable obstacle he’d faced, Cadon continued on his way. Ahead of him, he heard the rhythmic firing he’d noticed before suddenly interrupted by a barrage of rapid-fire and knew that other members of his team had reached the assassin Vampires.
He needed to get up there with them. If any other Vampires jumped down in front of him, they’d better be prepared to die a quick death. Cadon wasn’t playing around anymore.
Cadon reached the end of the first hallway and entered one lined with cells. All around him, chaos reigned. He saw blurs of movement as Guardians and Hunters took on the Vampires who had been shooting the prisoners. Healers quickly began to move in to help anyone who had been shot that was still alive. Cadon prayed that Jamie and the others reached the wounded in time. It would suck to come all this way just to have the prisoners all killed before they could get to them.
Flying down the hallway, Cadon noticed that most of the cell doors were unlocked. It seemed the Vampires had left the cells where they’d already done their shooting open while the others down the line were locked. They would need the keys to get their teammates out. Unless Heather could override whatever substance the Vampires had contrived to keep the Guardians and Hunters from simply breaking through the old metal bars and locks that Alcatraz had used to keep humans behind bars. There was no Hunter or Guardian alive who wasn’t strong enough to burst out of a normal cell.
“Cadon!” Elliott shouted from a few feet in front of him. “Watch out!”
He didn’t have time to process what his uncle was telling him until it was too late. A bullet hit Cadon in the right arm. He turned to see a Vampire hanging from the ceiling, which doubled as the floor for the row of cells above them. “Bastard!” he shouted as his arm began to gush blood. It hurt like a son of a bitch, but he didn’t have time to think about it. He fired off three quick rounds at the Vampire, hitting him and terminating him before he could fire again.
Cadon looked around for a healer. They were all occupied at the moment. Knowing he wasn’t going to die from a shot in the arm, Cadon tried to put it out of his mind and moved on, letting the healers focus on those who had been shot in more serious body parts.
Keys. They needed keys. While the others were taking out Vampires, Cadon scoured the area for the keys they’d need to open the cells. “Aurora,” he said, using his IAC. He could see that she was still alive because he had a feed from her. “Do you know where the keys to the cells are kept?”
“There are a couple of Vampires that have the keys. Not all of them. A woman with dirty blonde hair and giant boobs and a tall, thin man with slicked-back black hair. I know both of them have keys.”
“Do you know what it is they’re doing to keep you from getting out?”
“They’re using the same substance that Holland and that quack doctor of hers used to hold Guardians back in the day when they were trying to turn them into humans and kill them. I have no idea what it is, though.”
“Great,” Cadon muttered. He didn’t even know what she was talking about. It had to have been something from before he was born. “Do you think Heather can break through it?” he asked.
“I would think so, but I don’t know. I’m sure Cassidy can. Is she here?”
Cadon took a moment before he answered, wishing he didn’t have to disappoint her. “No, she’s on another mission.”
“Damn,” Aurora replied. “I would have Heather try. Otherwise, we’re all just standing in our cells, waiting for them to burst in and shoot us.”
“All right, I understand,” Cadon replied as he shot another Vampire and tried not to think about how badly his arm was hurting him. “Heather, where are you?”
“I went back out to try and protect our arsenal out here, why?” she asked, sounding perturbed as usual.
“I need to see if you can bust through these cells in case we can’t find the keys. Leave that stuff and get back in here, please.”
He could’ve done without the litany of swear words she muttered under her breath before she said, “Fine,” and headed in his direction. Now that he was tuned into her location, he saw her coming into the building through the IAC and hoped she’d get there fast enough. For all he knew, there were other hallways filled with prisoners. So maybe there were others being killed that he didn’t even know about. Aurora had seemed to think all of the prisoners were in this one section of the old prison, but did she even know for sure?
Deciding he needed to catch up with the assassins and not worry about the other Vampires, even though a lot of them were attempting to shoot him, Cadon sped up and dodged around the members of his team that were in front of him and the enemies they were fighting. He hoped he was moving fast enough that the Vampires wouldn’t even see him, but the Hunter Assassins could potentially move just as fast if they’d had more than one dose of Transformation serum. Elliott was hung up at the moment, fighting a brutish male Vampire with long, flowing dark hair. Cadon shot around the side of them, becoming the closest infiltrator to the prisoners.
He needed Heather to get there--or the key.