Chapter 55
Within minutes, Aaron began to feel a little bit different. While he still found Eliza very attractive, some of the things she said, the questions she asked, were no longer cute or endearing; they were annoying. He realized she was asking basic questions, things she should know by now. Clearly, she wasn’t paying attention while he went over the first part of the meeting, because once the Hunters joined them, she asked about some of the topics he’d already covered. It was too early to admit it, but he realized there was a possibility that Elliott and Jamie might be right.
Eventually, Eliza ran out of questions, stupid or otherwise, and the team loaded up and travelled to the zoo. Even though he was beginning to wonder about his relationship with Eliza, she sat next to him as he drove one of the two SUVs full of team members, and when she reached for his hand, he gave it to her, hoping he’d feel different about the possibility he was being manipulated once the hunt was underway.
The task should’ve been a simple one. There had been reports of strange behavior at the local zoo. Two of the chimpanzees had died recently under mysterious circumstances, and while they usually wouldn’t intervene on behalf of animals, they had good reason to believe that the culprit was a known noncompliant Vampire, an insane older man by the name of Wigdon. In the past, he’d fed on other innocents, even children, and so following him into the zoo late at night to dispatch him was well within their boundaries, even if his most recent victims were primates.
Aaron would direct the hunt from atop the gorilla house across from the rest of the primate cages. At night, most of the animals went inside to sleep, and so he’d placed his teammates in locations where all entry and exit points were covered. Likewise, he had Elliott in an observation tower that surveyed most of the zoo in case Wigdon decided he preferred another mammal this evening.
After the debauchery at NYC, Aaron had done his best to recruit better Hunters. He hadn’t made a lot of headway, but he did have an older gentleman named Rusty and a woman named Connie on the team now. Both of them were in position, paired with Hannah and Eliza respectively. Jamie was nearby in reserve, only there at all in case someone was injured.
Rusty was a bit slow, and Connie was hit or miss, but both took direction well, which his teammates appreciated. Not having any argumentative teammates was a plus from their perspective.
He had heard recently that Laura was trailing Giovani across the country, that she’d recruited her sister to help her. She seemed to think she needed to destroy Giovani in order to show everyone that it was Aaron’s fault she’d been confrontational and dropped the ball that night. He’d wondered why she blamed Giovani when Holland was clearly the ringleader, but he supposed it was easier to hunt the local Giovani as opposed to chasing Holland across Europe.
He hadn’t heard a thing about the redheaded Vampire queen since she disappeared out of the club that night, but he was pretty sure she was still out there wreaking havoc, just more below the radar than she had been before.
“We have movement by the front gate,” Elliott called.
“Affirmative,” Aaron replied. “Everyone is in position.” He had resolved recently to give less direction and let his team work, and it seemed to be a positive change. He did find himself clarifying a lot for Eliza, however, and he attributed that to the fact that she was relatively new.
“We are going in first, right?” Eliza asked only him.
“No, Connie and Hannah are team one. You are team two.”
“Right,” she said. “I forgot.”
“Forgot or weren’t listening,” he muttered aloud. Usually, he found her forgetfulness cute, but tonight he found it annoying and distracting.
“Here he comes,” Elliott warned them.
Through Elliott’s IAC, Aaron could see the dark figure of an older man, hunched over, with crazy black hair, slithering towards the chimpanzee cage. He weaved in and out of the shadows and seemed to do a dance step now and again.
“Man, this guy is a nut,” Elliott said, only to him.
Team one had directions to move in just as soon as Wigdon made entry into the monkey cage. Aaron almost always preferred weaponry these days to combat. It was safer, and while most Vampires did not use guns, there was little threat of a shootout. Tonight, he insisted the teams be careful with their weapons because they didn’t want to injure or scare the animals.
Once Wigdon was in the chimpanzee cage, they recognized an intruder and began to cry out to each other. “All right, move in,” Aaron directed, assuming everyone was on the same page and team one would attack.
That’s not what happened.
As Connie and Hannah began to sneak up on the Vampire, Eliza flew across the cage, her weapon drawn, and knocked the Vampire to the ground. The chimpanzees began to scream, and Wigdon, who was caught off guard at first, began to laugh. A few minutes later, he stood, the gun in his hand, and began to wave the weapon around in a circle, shouting, “Bam! Bam!”
Eliza jumped up, and as Aaron ordered her to fall back out of the way so that Rusty or Connie could take the shot, she lunged for her weapon. Expecting her to go the opposite way, Connie fired, and the bullet just missed Eliza’s head.
With the sound of the gun going off, the chimpanzees shrieked even louder and began to jump up and down, swinging from a faux tree, and throwing whatever they could get their hands on at both Eliza and Wigdon.
Taking advantage of the chaos, Wigdon made for the same fence he’d just scaled to gain access in the first place, an attempt to escape.
“Dammit!” Aaron shouted, and unwilling to let this one get away, he sprinted the length of the gorilla building, knowing Wigdon would likely pass by in a second. As soon as the Vampire appeared beneath him, Aaron launched himself off the roof, taking the Vampire completely by surprise. Before he could even make a sound, Aaron had him by the head, and a few seconds later, there was nothing left but a pile of ashes.
Without a word, he dusted his hands off on his pants and made his way out of the zoo toward their vehicles.
