Repercussion: The Clandestine Saga Book 3 (3 page)

Once again, Nick and Phoebe were nodding their heads in agreement. Cadence shook her head in disbelief. "Sounds like some extremely misinformed offspring," she commented, wondering which Vampire would create a host of children and not let them in on the rules.

              "Well, that's the thing," Dr. Ryan said, meeting her gaze, leaning in across the table, his hands cupping the standard issue white diner cup. "These fellows all came from the same place. One Rogue Vampire very well-known for creating minions who will go out and destroy, completely unaware of the consequences."

              Cadence was confused for only a second before she realized she knew precisely who the doctor was referring to. "Giovani," she muttered, her eyes locking on a spot on the white laminate table where a wayward drop of coffee was slowly forming a brown stain.

              "Precisely," he replied. "So you know, they haven't been properly warned of the rules, or the consequences of their actions, and they have no intention of trusting or listening to us at this point. They are programmed to kill, and they don't care about the ramifications."

              There was a very clear set of guidelines that all three members of the Clandestine Ternion--Hunters, Guardians, and Vampires--must follow in order to co-exist among humans without them ever knowing of their existence. One of these rules was that new Vampires must report to LIGHTS to be tagged with a tracker and given clear instructions about whom they could and could not feed off of. If it worked the way it was designed to, the Vampires would actually benefit society in some ways. They were allowed to feed on criminals, citizens who were deemed harmful to the rest of society. They were not allowed to interact with or feed off of Innocents--humans who had committed no heinous crimes. It was up to the Guardian Leader to determine when a Vampire had broken this rule and change their status to Rogue, which meant Hunters had the right to pursue them at all costs. The Guardians were there to protect the Hunters from the Vampires. While a Vampire could kill a Hunter, they could not kill a Guardian. It was a physical impossibility. Likewise, a Guardian could not kill a Hunter. A Hunter could, however, kill a Guardian, so they had to operate with extreme caution. Until recently, a Hunter was also incapable of killing another Hunter. Cadence had been in a recent incident that seemed to prove that was no longer the case.

              "Giovani needs to be stopped," Aurora was saying, shaking her head and causing her red locks to dance around her broad shoulders.

              "While I agree with that," Cadence replied, "we haven't heard much of anything out of him for almost four months. Until he reappears on someone's radar, we've got other concerns. And it sounds like these five gems are next on our list."

              Aurora nodded in agreement, and Cadence silently wondered how she got to be the boss. It had sort of just happened. Aaron, the Guardian Leader, had always told her it just came naturally to her. Maybe he was right. Her mind started to drift off again at the thought of him, so she met Dr. Ryan's pale blue eyes, a stark contrast to the piercing blue ones she had been staring into a few months ago, and asked, "What would you like us to do for you first, Dr. Ryan?"

"Please, call me Cale," he replied. "I guess I'd like it if you could accompany us to the location tomorrow night. We're certain they won't be there if we go around midnight. They will likely be out wreaking havoc on our city at that point. It might give you an indication of what we are up against. Then, if you have some ideas, we could figure out a time to catch them when they are actually there--possibly the next morning--and try to orchestrate a hit."

              Cadence nodded as she listened, trying to weigh his suggestion. She thought it was probably unnecessary to visit the location ahead of time. She came from a long line of Hunters and Guardians, and her DNA was highly saturated with the coding it took to be effective at her job. She was very confident she could go in and take this group out fairly quickly, despite the doctor--Cale's--warning that they were some tough guys. Nevertheless, she was willing to give his way a try. "All right, Dr. Ryan... uh... Cale," she agreed. "Let's do that. Give us the address and we'll meet you there tomorrow night."

"Sounds like a plan," Cale said, smiling. "I'm so glad we have you three on our team," he added.

              "We're happy to be here," Meaghan smiled.

"Now, who's ready to go back to the club and dance?" Aurora asked. Meaghan groaned and reached around Cadence, giving her a shove. "What? The night is young!"

              "Not me," Cadence replied. "I need to get back to the hotel. I've got a call to make." They said their goodbyes, and Cadence absently crossed back to where they had left their motorcycles, Aurora and Meaghan chatting behind her. Her thoughts were solely locked in the past, and she suddenly felt extremely homesick. The sooner she was by herself, the quicker she could hear the voice she longed to hear.

***

              "That's it, I was right! It is rutile!" Christian exclaimed, paper in hand, bursting into Aaron's office. Elliott glanced over his shoulder, a puzzled expression on his face as he paused midsentence to see what their lead tech person was so excited about.

              Aaron looked a little less confused but still needed some clarification. "Christian, come on in," he said sarcastically. "I take it you got your report back from Dr. Patrick then?" He sat behind his imposing oak desk, peering at his teammate with an intense blue stare.

"Yes! It only took four months for the renowned scientist to squeeze it in, but nevertheless, here it is! The bullet was an amalgamate of titanium extracted from rutile." Dr. Ernest Patrick was a Guardian who had been an extremely successful chemist before his Transformation. Often, if one was particularly good in one area before they Transformed, those skills would be amplified once the change process was complete. That was the case with Dr. Patrick, who happened to work out of Edinburgh. "Dr. Patrick was able to trace these specific deposits back to a mine in Sierra Leone. So, if we can pinpoint who would have had access to that mine, then we'll know who made the bullet. And if we can figure out who made the bullet, then maybe we can determine how they knew titanium could allow a Hunter to take out another Hunter and why they would want to create such a weapon."

              "Oh, that sounds simple enough," Elliott replied, rolling his eyes. "Since there's no reason to suspect that it was a Hunter or a Guardian who formulated the magic bullet, we'll just interview all of the people in Sierra Leone. That can't be more than, what, a couple million people..."

              "Actually, the population of Sierra Leone is roughly six million people," Christian interjected.

              "Oh well, then..."

              "I know who it is..."

"That should be no problem at all. Just six million people give or take..."

              "I said, I know who it is!" Aaron repeated.

It registered the second time. "Of course, you do," Elliott said, shaking his head in disbelief. Aaron always seemed to know everything. He wasn't quite sure how his best friend was always five steps ahead of everyone else.

              "What? You do?" Christian asked, clearly more shocked then Elliott.

              Aaron was temporarily distracted as he pulled up information on the IAC which he promptly shared with the two team members that were present. "Yes," he finally replied. "I should have known from the beginning. Laura's uncle, Kenny Comer. He works for the Titanium Resource Group. He's one of their leading scientists. He must have been working on this for her for years."

              "But why?" Elliott interjected, pulling his hefty body up in the chair. "How could Laura of known years ago that she might need to take out another Hunter?"

              "I don't think that's what she meant to do," Aaron admitted. For months, he had wondered if Laura was actually trying to kill Cadence when she had shot her in a failed attempt to destroy Giovani. The Vampire had been using Cadence as a shield. Laura had taken it upon herself to attempt to shoot Giovani despite the barrier, and the wound had almost killed Cadence, something that should have been impossible. Anytime a Hunter shot another Hunter the bullet should bounce clean. This time, the bullet lodged in Cadence's shoulder, and it had taken emergency surgery and the expert skills of the team's Healer, Jaime, to save her life.

              "What do you mean that's not what she meant to do?" Elliott asked, the skepticism clear in his voice. "I watched it happen, Aaron. She meant to shoot Cadence."

              "No, that's not what I meant," the Leader attempted to explain. "Maybe she really didn't think that the bullet would affect Cadence."

"Then why would she need a special bullet?" Christian asked, still standing though there was an empty chair in front of him.

              "I'm not sure," Aaron replied shaking his head. "Maybe she thought the bullet would affect Giovani differently. Maybe she just wanted a stronger bullet. I don't know." He paused to think. "You said it was an amalgamate. It still had some silver in it, then?"

              "Yes," Christian confirmed, glancing down at the paper.

"Maybe she just thought the titanium would make it stronger for some reason. It still doesn't explain how it could allow a Hunter to kill another Hunter," he reminded them.

              "True," Christian agreed. "But titanium is an element. So, it's possible it has different effects than other elements, such as silver."

"Which means we could potentially be looking at any number of elements reacting differently when fired out of a weapon. Awesome! Hope no one decides to lace a bullet with lithium. We'll all end up strung out..."

              "All right, Elliott," Aaron said dismissively. "I doubt we have any other elemental weapons to worry about right now. But at least we finally know the source of the bullet. We need to contact Mr. Comer and see what else we can find out. Can you take care of that, Christian? He may be willing to help us if you let him know the result of his little experiment."

              "Sure thing," Christian agreed. He had always been willing to help out however possible, but his eagerness when it came to following orders was increased by his recent involvement in Aaron's break up with Cadence. A bit of indiscretion on Christian's part had led to the leak of a video he should have never made, one of him and Cadence making out.

              "Great, thank you!" Aaron said in a tone that effectively said, "Now get the hell out of my office," and Christian headed toward the door. Just as he reached the doorknob, Aaron sent him a private message on the IAC. "
How's that other project coming?"
he asked.

             
"Getting there,"
Christian replied, glancing back over his shoulder.

             
"Good. Let me know when you get it figured out."
There was no reason to let Elliott know about the other task he had assigned Christian. He would just ask too many questions for which Aaron had no answers.

"So, anyway, as I was saying," Elliott stated, returning to the conversation they had been involved in before Christian burst through the door, "we think Giovani and Zabrina may have entered the Amazonian rainforest. There's just no sighting of them after they landed in Peru. So, we are sending a team in to see if we can track them in there."

"In the rainforest?" Aaron asked, attempting to clarify.

              "Yep, I know it sounds impossible, but we are giving it a shot," Elliott responded.

              Aaron shook his head. "Wouldn't it make more sense to continue to monitor all major airports near the rainforest? They'll have to come out eventually, once they think the coast is clear."

              "Well, of course we will continue to do that," Elliott replied. "But I don't want to just sit around do nothing while he's still out there." Aaron raised his eyebrows, causing him to further explain. "Okay, so I'm sitting around doing nothing... but my people need to keep working."

Aaron stifled a laugh. "You're not going down there yourself?"

              "Hell, no," Elliott responded. "It's hot down there, damn hot. And the bugs are huge. No way am I going down there."

              Aaron couldn't hold his laughter back any more. Of course, he knew Elliott wouldn't be headed to the Amazon any time soon. "All right. Keep me updated then."

              "Sure thing. Any word on our number one bitch?" the burly man asked, scratching his head, his curly brown hair left disheveled but of little consequence to him.

              Aaron shook his head. "Ever since she took the IAC out of her eye, there's been very little on the newsfeed about her. It's possible she was seen at an airport in Mobile a few days ago, but no one is sure it was her, and they didn't get any clean video."

              "I still can't believe that is possible. I can't imagine having my IAC cut out of my eye..."

Aaron nodded in agreement, a baffled expression on his face.

"Is she still riding with Cowboy Sam?" Elliott asked, returning his focus to Laura's whereabouts.

              "Hard to say," Aaron replied, leaning back in his chair, a look of defeat on his handsome face. He wasn't use to not knowing what was going on, and having Laura and Giovani on the run without being able to track them was beyond frustrating.