The Arcadia Falls Chronicles: Omnibus (Books 1-6)

by Jennifer Malone Wright

  Quietly, we all ran up a flight of metal stairs, which spilled us onto the main floor of the Talon Building. Nicholas cautiously opened the door and silently slipped out, clearing the room as they did. Nicholas to the right, Drew to the left, Gavin to the center. I halted at the doorway until I saw all three signal that to their knowledge the room was clear.

  Gavin waved his gun at the security desk. No one was sitting behind it. We had been prepared for the security to be on the main floor, but they weren’t, which meant they were probably on a break or a walk around within the building. I nodded, as did everyone else, letting him know that we knew what he meant. Luke and Nicholas were staying on the main floor and working with the explosives there while Drew, Christina, and Gavin stayed together and set the bombs on the other planned levels.

  Drew grabbed me by the wrist as I passed by him and gave me a quick kiss. “Be careful,” he whispered, his lips so close to my ear they brushed against it.

  I nodded, not wanting to speak, and squeezed his hand. He released me and let me go with Zander. Before we took off, I caught Gavin’s eyes and gave him a nod. He smiled and then mouthed, “See you in a bit.” I smiled back, turning as Zander touched my shoulder and waved me over to a door beside the bank of elevators that I’d been in once before, when we brought Alice to the will reading.

  Opening the door we were faced with a narrow stairway. Go figure that I would get the job that required me to climb a zillion flights of stairs. I hadn’t thought about that before. I should have thought about it, though, because it was part of the plan that they would wait to trigger the bombs until all the team members from the top floors were back on the main floor. It was dark, but not pitch black, due to the low fluorescent lighting framing the ceiling.

  My heart was pumping pretty hard from adrenaline already, but after fifteen flights of stairs I was starting to wear down. Luckily I was in good shape, way better than Zander, who was really breathing hard. “You should work out more,” I whispered with a smile as we turned the corner to start up to the sixteenth flight of stairs.

  A few chuckles came through the earpiece from those overhearing us.

  “Shut up,” he whispered back, but he was probably thinking that he really should. He was crouched over, trying to catch his breath. He was the perfect example of why we trained so much. Just because he wasn’t out of shape, didn’t mean that he had the endurance for this sort of thing.

  The headsets stayed silent for the most part except for little bits of random questions or conversation. Everyone was doing their best to keep it quiet.

  We went all the way to the top where we exited the stairwell door; it spilled us into one of the levels that housed an office. It was darker up there than down on the main floor. I didn’t have a problem seeing in the dark, but I’d never spoken with Zander about his eyesight so I wasn’t sure if he could see better in the dark than a full human, like I could.

  This particular office had bluish grey carpeting, cubicles lined up on one side, and offices with glass windows on the other side. With my bow over my shoulders and my gun in my hand, I hurried in front of Zander all the way to the other end of the office. Once I reached the far wall I holstered my weapon and held my hands out. “Ready?” I asked him.

  He reached into his pack and pulled out two bottles of lighter fluid. “Yup. Let’s light it up.”

  Just then, I heard a commotion coming through the earpiece. “Damn it!” and then two muffled gun shots.

  I reached up and covered my other ear. “Is everyone all right!”

  Zander motioned me to hurry up. “Come on, they can take care of themselves. Let’s do this.”

  “We have vamps on level four,” Gavin’s voice told us and was followed by the sound of fighting. I could hear grunts and cursing, and with the exception of Christina I couldn’t tell who was who.

  I stood there listening to them fight instead of moving on with my own mission. “Come on, Chloe, this is sort of time sensitive,” Zander complained.

  Suddenly, a blur of black flashed before me and I was thrown across the room. “Zander!” I called out, trying to warn him. I hit one of the desks, bounced off of it, and landed on the floor. I was up within a second, cursing my aching back and the vampire who attacked me. “Don’t let him get away!” I called out.

  “Vamps on top!” I warned everyone what was happening.

  “Are you okay, Chloe?” Drew asked.

  “She’s fine, Drew. Let her do her thing,” Gavin told him. “You’re just distracting her.

  Grunt, something slamming, gunshot.

  “Right, I’m the distraction, that’s a new one. Usually that’s your job,” Drew threw back at him.

  I spun in a circle, looking around me in all directions, but I didn’t see anyone. Zander was quiet, probably not wanting to give his position away. I needed to know he was all right. “Come and get me, coward,” I taunted the vampire, sliding my gun back out of its holster.

  “Shut up,” Drew told Gavin.

  “Sure thing, boss. Everyone always does what you want, don’t they?” Gavin pushed. “Someday, you’re going to regret treating her like that because she will get tired of it.”

  Crashing noise. Breathing hard, gunshots.

  “That would make you happy, wouldn’t it? Then you can have her, just like you’ve always wanted,” Drew shot back. “You’re sure helping that along every chance you get.”

  “Oh, dude, you’re pushing her away all on your own. I have nothing to do with that.”

  Muffled laughter echoed through the earpieces from those who were listening.

  I wanted to rip the earpiece out because they were taking all my attention off of what was in front of me, but at the same time I really wanted to hear what they were saying.

  The blur zipped in front of me again and I felt a great push on my chest, which practically knocked the wind out of me. I flew straight backward, crashing into the far wall. My back hit first, and my head snapped forward and then back, bashing into the wall. I slid unceremoniously to the floor. “Damn it,” I moaned. “Where are you?”

  This time I ripped off my headset and switched on my super hearing so I could use my ears. I heard him coming from my left side and swiveled before he could grab me. Squeezing the trigger, I fired two rapid shots. The male vampire dropped to the floor, crying out obscenities and clutching at the holes in his heart. His pale skin darkened with his demon blood as it seeped from the wound and through his fingers.

  The UV was already starting to work its way through the vampire. Light filtered through the body, eroding the flesh, eating away his life. He screamed out, shouting for help, and I ignored him. I stepped up close to him and bent over his already dying body. Placing the barrel of my gun on his heart, I squeezed the trigger. Then, to stop his horrible screams, I did the same to his forehead. His screams ceased instantly.

  I kicked the body away, not wanting to look at it anymore, and replaced my headset to hear Luke hollering, “Chloe! Chloe, check in now!”

  “I’m fine, I’m fine. Zander, let’s move!” I called out, wondering where the hell he was while I’d been fighting off the vampire.

  “Yeah, that isn’t really an option right now, sis,” Zander called to me from somewhere in the room.

  Wonderful. They had him, too.

  The boys were still going at it between all the sounds of battling vampires.

  “Just stay away from her, you already have everything else I should have had, you could at least let me have the one thing that means more to me than my own life,” I heard Drew through the earpiece.

  “Yeah, if she means so much to you why did you let her go get plastered with her good for nothing brother?”

  “Screw you both and shut up!” Zander growled. “Chloe doesn’t need your crap right now.”

  “All of you knock it off this instant,” Luke ordered.

  I kept my mouth shut, trying to be as silent as possible while I crept along the row of desks, following the directio
n Zander’s voice had come from. As I rounded one of the cubicles, I found another vampire in a suit holding Zander in a head lock, his hand in position to snap his neck.

  “Don’t move another inch,” the vampire drawled. His voice was low and foreign; probably British from what I could tell.

  I didn’t move. My brain was scrambling for what to do. It was one thing to protect myself, but Zander’s life hung in the balance.

  “Just go!” Zander yelled. “Get the hell out of here. Now!”

  “I’m not going to leave you, Zander.”

  “Don’t be a dumb ass.”

  The vampire’s lips curled up into a smile. “Yeah, sis, don’t be a dumb ass. It wouldn’t benefit your brother at all.”

  “Chloe! What’s happening?” Drew was in my ear.

  “Shut up! For God’s sake, no one is benefiting from you two and your ‘God I love Chloe so much I’m going to get her killed on the mission’ attitudes. Just shut the hell up!” Christina screamed so loud that I almost lost concentration and pulled the earpiece out.

  Without thinking, not giving that idiot vampire any time to consider what I was doing, I raised my gun and fired.

  The bullet hit its target and the vampire howled in pain, releasing Zander on pure reflex. I’d shot him in the elbow of the arm holding Zander’s head. Zander didn’t hesitate; he plowed his own elbow up into the vampire’s jaw, ramming him backward, and then spun around and kicked him in the chest. I fired again as the vampire’s body flew backward onto one of the desks, hitting him in the chest. Zander marched forward, drawing his own gun, and shot him in the head.

  There was still a ton of bickering and battle commotion going on in my ears, so I said, “I’m offline.” Then I reached up and took the headset off, tucking it in my cargo pocket. Quickly, I dropped my clip, replaced it with a full one, and holstered my weapon because I needed both hands free.

  Zander did the same with his gun and retrieved two more bottles of lighter fluid out of his pack. “You ready now?” He grinned.

  I nodded and summoned the fire. I aimed both my palms down toward the carpeting and watched Zander take off in front of me at a dead run, squeezing the lighter fluid onto the carpet as he ran. I went right behind him, shooting flames down onto the fluid saturated fabric.

  A steady line of flame followed us all the way down the hall way and right on through the stairwell door. As we hit the landing after two more office levels, Zander tossed the lighter fluid bottles and reached into his backpack for two more.

  “Take it easy on that or we won’t have enough!” I hissed at him in the quietest voice I could manage. The hallways were beginning to fill with smoke, making it harder to breathe; my lungs were burning already.

  He popped open the top on one of the bottles. “I am taking it easy. If we run out we run out and we get the hell out of here.”

  “Let’s skip the floors. We are never going to make all of them and we have to get out of this smoke,” I choked out. Just then a loud siren erupted, echoing throughout the hallway at an ear drum bursting level.

  “All right,” he nodded, “hopefully the hallways will take care of anyone trying to escape.”

  I pulled out my headset and put it on. “Alice?”

  “What is it?” she answered, followed by a gunshot and a grunt.

  “Skip the floors, light up the hallways and get out,” I yelled over the siren.

  “Got it!” she yelled back.

  “Leave your headset on!” Luke ordered.

  “I will if everyone will keep their damn mouths shut!” I yelled back.

  Zander bolted down the stairwell, flinging the lighter fluid as we ran. We were officially on a time limit; the fire crews and police were probably already on their way. We had to get to the main floor ... fast.

  Going down was entirely different than going up. We were trying to outrun the smoke, our adrenaline was surging and the fear of being caught by the fire crews drove us faster. We hit the main floor landing at almost the exact same time as Alice and Oscar. We emerged through the door, and maybe thirty seconds had passed before they emerged from their set of doors, coughing from smoke inhalation and looking totally exhausted.

  Alice reached up and took her headset off to make it easier to wipe the sweat from her face. She carried one of her short swords in the other hand; its normally gleaming blade marred by dark, dripping blood.

  Without any warning a blur sped through the lobby and Oscar flew across the room. I raised my gun, along with everyone else, and Alice raised her sword.

  The blur flashed in front of our eyes again, and this time Drew was pushed, his body flying straight backward into the huge lobby desk.

  I focused and tried to catch sight of the vampire. It blurred by again and I was able to keep track of its movement. “Alice now!” I hollered.

  Alice swiped blindly, but with all her strength, and suddenly what was once a blur was an almost cut in half vampire. Alice held her sword out in front of her, breathing hard and shaking a little.

  Drew, up off the ground seconds after he hit the desk, simply aimed and shot him twice; once in the heart and once in the head. I caught his eye and he ran to me, scooping me up. “You all right?”

  “Let’s get out of here,” I yelled. “Are we set to blow?”

  “Damn it!” Oscar cried out. “My headset is gone.”

  Everyone did their best to give a quick glance around.

  “I think that bastard ripped it off when he pushed me.”

  “Forget it,” Luke said. “We don’t have time, we take care of this back at home to stop transmission. Let’s move.”

  “All set for detonation.” Drew set me down and did a quick head count to make sure everyone was with us. “Let’s move people!” he hollered, no longer afraid we would be heard. “We have to blow this place before the crews show up! It could kill them if they get too close.”

  The entire group ran out of the building from the back door. The empty warehouse sat behind the Talon Building, and as planned, we headed for that. I looked behind me to make sure Luke was still with us. I was worried about him being able to keep up at his age. I shouldn’t have worried at all, though. He was a Hunter, and even the aged ones kept in shape; he was right behind me and Nicholas was right behind him.

  Drew and Gavin got to the sliding metal door first and it crashed open with their help. “Push it!” Nicholas called out after the door was completely open.

  I could hear sirens in the distance, not quite to the building yet, but close. “Hurry!” I cried out. “They’re almost there!”

  “Everyone down!” Gavin shouted, withdrawing a tiny remote and hitting a button.

  I threw myself to the floor and covered my head along with everyone else.

  The explosion rocked the ground as all the bombs planted in the building went off at the same time. Loud crashing noises rained down onto the roof of the warehouse and I closed my eyes, trying to shut out the noise and praying that no innocent people got hurt in the blast. It was only a moment until the ground stopped shaking and the debris stopped falling. I opened my eyes, exhaled a huge sigh of relief, and rolled over onto my back. “We did it.”

  Drew crawled over to me and stared down into my face, examining every inch of it. His hand went to my cheek. “You all right?”

  I reached up and he covered his hand with mine. “I’m fine. How about you?”

  “Where are Alice and Oscar?” Christina shrilled from beside us.

  I rolled and hopped to my feet. “What?”

  “They’re not here!” She spread her hands. I don’t think I had ever seen Christina look so scared. Despite her non-caring attitude, she had a deep love for hunting and she would never leave anyone behind. I knew that she cared about us, she just didn’t show it like the rest of us did.

  Luke stood up and dusted off his jeans. “We have to go look for them. Let’s go.”

  Every single one of us took off back out the huge opening of the sliding door. Outside, it
was clear what devastation we caused. Giant flames licked up above the structures beside what used to be the Talon Building, with great billowing clouds of black smoke rolling up into the night’s sky. Sirens wailed, echoing over any other noise in the city.

  Drew’s phone buzzed. Still running, he pulled it out. “It’s Oscar!” He crinkled his brow. “Where are you man?” he answered. “What? All right, we are on our way.”

  Drew changed direction and we followed him.

  “Where are they?” I huffed. My energy was running out more quickly than I expected.

  Drew sounded tired, too. “You won’t believe this. Just come on.”

  He rounded the corner with all of us following and stopped. “They’re in here somewhere.”

  “No way!” I told him. They couldn’t be in there. He had spread his hands to demonstrate the expanse of burning rubble from the Talon Building. There was so much, it would take all night to search through that much debris and that was if it wasn’t on fire. “How is that possible? And ... he called you?”

  Gavin stepped up beside us. “You guys might want to move back a little bit.” He knelt down and felt the cement beneath him as we backed off.

  “What is he doing?” I wondered.

  “Just let him be,” Luke replied.

  Gavin had his palms flat on the ground and his eyes closed. After only a moment I felt the ground beneath me start to rumble. “What is that?” I looked up at Drew who only shook his head in response.

  A second later my question was answered. The cement began cracking and separating, and then a huge geyser of water exploded from beneath us.

  “Holy shit!” Zander backed up, along with the rest of us. “How in the hell?”

  Gavin stepped back from the rising wall of water and held his hands up, somehow pushing it downward into the flaming rubble which held our friends captive. He pushed and pushed, keeping the water flowing. After a minute, Drew ran underneath the raining wave and began digging through the pieces of cement, glass, and wood. As we joined him and tossed the pieces aside, I had no idea how Alice and Oscar would have survived being hit by any of the debris.