Chapter 72

Most attacks came under cover of night, which didn’t make a whole lot of sense to Jo when she stopped to think about it since Vampires could see almost as well in the dark as they could in the light, but since most of them did sleep at least a few hours per day, it would make sense to try to catch the majority of them while they were snoozing. In this case, there were plenty of Vampires standing guard to detect them the moment they attempted to breach the wall in front of the palace or come down the mountainside.
Hopefully, no one had detected their infiltration through the chimney, and they would be able to get inside of the palace before the attack began on the outside so that they’d have a fighting chance of locating Holland and taking her prisoner before she could escape. Jo had several pairs of the specially made silver handcuffs hanging from her belt that were meant to keep Vampires from escaping, though she had no idea if they would work on someone as powerful as Holland. The fact that Holland had uncalculated powers would make it even more difficult to bring her in alive, which was precisely why Jo had wanted to simply kill her rather than capture her. But then… if Holland did know something about her mother’s disappearance, destroying her would be a mistake they probably couldn’t undo for the second time. Or was it the third? She was losing count of how many lives this cat had left.
“Do you think these will work on her?” Cassidy asked, holding up a pair of the handcuffs that Jo had given to her. Dax had some as well, as did the Souled Vampire Lucas had assigned to go with them. Jo had spent some time trying to get to know Ingrid since she’d be playing such an important role in the attack, but the girl said very little, only chomped on a piece of gum--highly unusual for a Vampire of any kind--and answered with one word responses. “Yeah,” “nope,” “sure,” that sort of thing.
“I sure hope so,” Jo replied to her aunt about the handcuffs. The four of them sat in the same vehicle, Brandon driving them back to the palace site. They’d launch from the mountainside behind the fortress this time since it was closer, and they’d be less likely to be seen than if they went from the other mountain, the way that Cassidy had the first time. Brandon would be part of the attack coming down the mountain, by his own choice since Jo had wanted to assign him to his father’s team, so he would have to be at the location anyway. The idea was for the four of them to talk about strategies as Brandon drove, but no one was saying a word, other than Cassidy’s question regarding the cuffs.
Jo had already told them she’d be going in first. Cassidy would float the three of them in before she entered herself, meaning she’d come in last, which was dangerous because if she were able to detect anyone’s thoughts that recognized they’d been infiltrated, she wouldn’t be there to use her powers to protect the others. Jo hoped to get out of the chimney quickly and then find a place to wait for the others where she couldn’t be seen. But then, if the possibility of finding Holland presented itself to her, even if she were alone, she’d take it.
She had no idea how difficult it would be for Ingrid to kill other Vampires. It took a pretty powerful regular Vampire to kill another one of their own kind, without a soul. Since she was a Souled, it was slightly different. It could be done, but she assumed it would still be hard. She’d asked Lucas earlier if he’d ever killed another Vampire, and he’d said no, but he’d seen it done plenty of times. Jo’s understanding was that it had to be by beheading, and it usually involved the twisting and removal of the head, not a knife or a gun or anything else, but she didn’t know if the fact that Ingrid was heavily armed meant she knew something Jo didn’t or that she just liked to shoot things. If there were Assassin Hunters present, she’d be perfect for taking them out.
Ryker had cost her some troops again, but this time, they were Lucas’s people. He’d left two Souled Vampires back with the American, two of the older, slower females who had volunteered to help but would be better serving in that capacity. Jo still hadn’t gotten a chance to speak to Ryker about his family or figure out why he’d come to the pre-hunt meeting. She wished she could go back to that night she’d picked him up and leave him to the villagers. It would solve a lot of her current problems.
It was past 2:00 in the morning when the SUV arrived at the destination they’d agreed upon to begin their ascent up the mountain. The wind whipped the snow up off of the ground, stirring it around as if it were falling from the sky, but at their present altitude, nothing was dropping from the heavens--yet. Jo wasn’t looking forward to climbing the mountain. Not only was this one steeper and more rugged, it was taller, and the peaks were mostly ice.
Putting those thoughts out of her mind, she got out of the SUV and checked for the hundredth time that she had all of the gear she intended to bring with her. Satisfied that the silver knives, her Glock, Beretta, the handcuffs, four regular grenades, three silver nitrate grenades, and an ax with a silver tip would be enough, she followed the others to the base of the mountain.
Several other vehicles had already pulled in near them, Lucas’s folks flying up the mountain as if it were nothing at all. He would be coming through the gate with Elliott’s team, so Adrian, who still spoke next to never, would somehow lead this assault. Perhaps he spoke to his people mentally more than he used his mouth.
“Ready?” Brandon asked her as they ran out of horizontal places to walk.
She looked her uncle in the eye and almost told him no, but she heard her voice saying, “Yes,” even though she didn’t believe it. Would she ever be ready?
“Yeah, you are,” he said with a confident smile. She had to assume he was faking his belief that she could do this because there was no reason to think that she could, but she’d take it.
With a deep breath, Jo began to climb, reminding herself the trip down would be much faster.
It didn’t take long to reach the top of the mountain, despite the snow that greeted them about halfway up, swirling down from the night sky and hitting them right in their faces as they grappled for hand grips on the nearly sheer surface. The rocks that were there bit into fingers and palms. Jo had on thick gloves, but that didn’t matter with some of the razor sharp rocks. By the time she pulled herself up to standing on the narrow surface at the top of the mountain, her gloves were more or less shredded, and both of her hands were bleeding.
Scott was part of the team that would be attacking from the mountainside. He was already helping repair some minor injuries to the team, traveling on foot from one teammate to the next so that his blue lights didn’t give away their location to the Vampires below. Jo waited patiently for him to reach her. Without a word, he found some exposed skin between her gloves and the sleeves of her jacket and touched a bare finger to her skin. Immediately, the cuts healed. That’s all it took--one brief touch of his skin to hers.
“Thanks,” Jo said, quickly catching his eyes before he hurried off to the next person. He only nodded, and she had to wonder if it was more difficult for him to touch her than the others standing on the mountain.
His skills didn’t work on the Vampires, but from what she could tell, none of them were affected by any cuts they might’ve gotten. They didn’t bleed, only lost puffs of ash and smoke when they were injured, and she saw little of that. Perhaps they were also thicker skinned than Hunters and Guardians.
Once everyone had arrived, and she’d gotten word from Elliott’s team that they were in place, having only just needed to park a few miles away and walk across even ground, Jo gathered her three volunteers and sent word to Mikali and Mila. “It’s time. Are we all ready?”