Chapter 121

He saw her dress before he saw her face and recognized it instantly. It was the red and white polka dot one she loved so well, the one she’d worn when they’d gone to the dance hall only a week ago. She’d said it was festive; just a hint of Christmas color without overwhelming. She was wearing her red heels, and he imagined when she’d dressed, she’d been planning to visit him, not to wind up here, like this.
Jamie didn’t run over to her. From here, he could see that there was nothing he could do, nothing anyone could do. Instead, he took his time, winding through the others, the men and women someone else would cry over later when they made their own discovery that the world had crumbled when they weren’t looking, that nothing would ever be the same.
Ellie’s eyes were closed, and he might’ve thought she was sleeping if it weren’t for the blood red stain just over her heart, the one misshapen polka dot that did not belong with the others. She was lying on the floor in front of a row of chairs, next to another woman, one Jamie didn’t recognize when he carefully stepped over her. While Jamie would’ve liked to have seen those eyes again, he was glad for it. Better to remember them full of life, full of laughter, full of love.
Tears were streaming down his face as he pulled his gloves off and bent down to touch her. Ellie’s body was still warm, but she had no pulse. It looked to him as if she’d been hit by a bullet, likely through the roof of the car or as she had attempted to find shelter. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of bullets had fallen on Ohau that day. It had only taken one to change Jamie’s life forever.
He heard Dr. Cooper’s voice behind him. “Should I get her parents?” he asked quietly.
“No,” Jamie said quickly. “I, uh, I’ll get them. I want to… I want to make sure she’s… comfortable first.”
“I don’t know if we have any beds available,” the doctor replied.
Jamie turned and managed a smile. “Thank you, Sid,” he said, dismissively, and Dr. Cooper nodded in understanding and left. He would certainly be needed elsewhere, as would Jamie. But the world would have to wait one damn moment while he said goodbye to the only woman he’d ever truly loved.
He took Ellie’s still-warm hand in his and raised it to his lips. How he’d dreamt of asking her to be his wife, of leaving the Ternion behind to start a life with this beautiful soul. Now, all of that was over. This amazing woman, who would’ve been the perfect mother for his children, who would’ve never harmed a hair upon another’s head, was gone with no reasonable explanation, the victim of a conflict that had nothing at all to do with her.
Unable to hold it off anymore, Jamie broke down. He laid his head against her chest and gave into the overwhelming grief. There would be no recovering from this, no magical healing, nothing would ever rectify the hole in his heart.
He had no idea how much time had passed before he felt a strong arm on his shoulder, pulling him up off of the ground. He knew it was Aaron without even opening his swollen eyes. The reassurances his friend whispered that he knew his pain, that it was okay to breakdown, to curse the world, had Jamie sobbing again, and it wasn’t until he thought of Roger and Lois standing out in the other waiting room that he began to pull himself together.
“What can I do?” Aaron asked, once Jamie stepped back and began to wipe at his eyes.
“What can anyone do?” the doctor replied, choking with each word.
Aaron’s eyes were empathetic. “Nothing, but there are people here who need you. People you can save.”
Jamie realized he was right, and as much as he didn’t care about anyone else, he knew he needed to focus. “You’re an emotional manipulator, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Yeah, not like Hannah, but a little bit.”
“Can you… help?”
“I’ll try,” Aaron said, and a few moments later, Jamie felt like he wanted to get back to work.
“Thank you. I need to go talk to her parents, but I wish there was a bed, some place I could lay her where they wouldn’t have to come back here.”
“I’ll take care of that,” Aaron said, and even though Jamie had no idea what he might do, he believed he would.
With a nod, Jamie went out to face Ellie’s parents, feeling slightly stronger, though the hole in his heart was unbearable, he knew Ellie would want him to carry on, helping as many of these victims as possible. The pain would still be there later, after the work was done. It would still be there no matter how old he lived to be, no matter how many other pretty girls he met, no matter where his life might take him. Ellie Whitfield would live on in his heart infinitely.
Villisca, Iowa, USA, 2014
Jamie was lurking in the shadows, waiting, something he found himself doing more often than he cared to admit. From time to time, his mind would wander back to when he was a six-year-old boy doing everything he could to stay out of the darkness, afraid a creature of the night would come prowling for him. Back then, he never would’ve thought this is how his life would’ve turned out. He’d been hunting monsters for over a hundred years now, and yet, the shock never wore off, not entirely. Sometimes eternal life felt like a blessing; other times, he knew it was a curse. When he was alone, left with only a century and more’s worth of thoughts, he wondered what might’ve happened if he hadn’t ever chased Margie out the door that night, if he’d never Transformed, if he’d stayed a human doctor in Boston and become the surgeon he’d always dreamt he’d be.
Since he’d lost Ellie that fateful day over seventy years ago, he’d never truly given his heart to anyone. He’d found himself incapable of trusting another soul with his own in the same way, and he didn’t know when that might change. Looking back over the course of his life, he knew he’d needed women like Kit and Maryann to show him what love wasn’t so that when he finally did meet Ellie, he’d recognize what it was. Now, he knew he might find love again someday, but until he met another woman like Ellie, if one even existed, he’d spend his time perfecting his skills, making improvements to the Transformation process, weaponry, and technology. Seventy years had passed by in a flash.
He monitored the activity over the Intelligence Assistance Communicator, or IAC, he had implanted in his eye that allowed him to talk directly with any member of his team, as he held his position. At an Eidolon Festival, Vampires were allowed to do as they pleased, so long as they didn’t harm any humans against their will. Tonight would be different, he knew. He could feel it in the November air, and it wasn’t just the chill of an oncoming winter that let him know the world was about to shift and change again.
Jamie had spent the last half-hour standing beneath a tree, waiting to see if he was given any directions from Aaron, and not only had he been thinking of his beloved Ellie, he thought about Margie as well. It was true they’d never seen eye to eye, but she was an outstanding Guardian, and since she’d been assigned as Leader to the entire Australian continent, she’d been a little nicer to her younger brother. They didn’t chat much since they were worlds away, but she was happily married and had three children which were grown now and had also Transformed. Jamie was proud of all of them, though he supposed he could do a better job of saying so.
After Pearl Harbor, he’d been deployed to the European theater where he saved thousands of lives. He’d returned to Kansas City to work with Jordan and Janette again, along with Aaron, Hannah, Christian, and a few new recruits they’d acquired over the years, including a goofy guy named Elliott who’d driven Jamie crazy at first but now he counted as a friend. He’d survived a couple of Aaron’s crazy girlfriends, now ex-girlfriends, including Eliza, who was on the team now in a crucial role he hoped she didn’t mess up when things started going down, and Aaron, who was now the Guardian Leader, after Jordan’s untimely death and Janette’s retirement, was sure things would go down tonight.
It was actually Janette’s family that made the situation so volatile. The LIGHTS team had it on good authority that Cadence Findley, Janette’s granddaughter, would be arriving at the Eidolon Festival shortly, and the shift he felt in the air stemmed around the beautiful brunette who didn’t have any clue who she even was.
From that night on, everything would be different.
From that night on, everything would change.
But Jamie had been there before, through the trying times and the days when he was on top of the world. Whatever this new reincarnation of LIGHTS brought with it when Cadence Findley’s path finally crossed with all of theirs, Dr. Jamie Joplin would be ready.
“The eagle has landed,” Jamie heard Hannah call out over the IAC, and he knew that was Elliott’s ridiculous signal that Cadence had arrived. Jamie held his position in the shadows, watching her come into view, knowing whatever direction she headed, her trajectory was bound to intersect with his eventually, sending him out of the shadows, into the moonlight, fully prepared to take on whatever monsters he may encounter on the other side.
END VOLUME 2: JAMIE