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

by Jennifer Malone Wright

  Christina had gotten up during his story and stood by the window, flipping her giant knife around like a baton. “Well, I don’t understand why we don’t just take out Anthony, too.”

  “Good question,” Drew complimented her. “Two reasons, one is that he can help us find the remaining vampires, since he knows them. The second reason is a bit more complicated. We can’t prove it, but Anthony says that Trevor was of his line, which in turn ...”

  “Makes Chloe and I at risk to die if you kill him,” Zander finished for him.

  I nodded. “Yes. Exactly.”

  “Shit.” He bowed his head down into his hands.

  Gavin spoke up before anyone else had the chance. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen. We can’t risk it.”

  “We risk our lives every day,” I told him. “Each time we leave this house to go fight the vampires we take the chance that we might not come back.”

  Luke shook his head. “No, it doesn’t matter. Anthony stays alive then.”

  I threw my hands up in the air. “We don’t even know if he is telling the truth about this. He could be making it up just to save himself.”

  Gavin glared at me. “Not. Gonna. Happen.”

  I sighed. I knew they were all going to feel like this. “Another thing we haven’t thought about is that Zander and I are only half vampire, the concept of the line falling might not work on us because we were born, not made.”

  “I can probably find a blood spell somewhere, but we won’t be able to do it unless we can get some of his blood. That will determine if Chloe, Zander and Anthony share the same bloodline.”

  Alice appeared thoughtful as she spoke, as if she were already searching the spell books in her mind

  “You can do that kind of thing.” Christina questioned, her eyes wide.

  Alice nodded. “Of course.”

  Oscar leaned forward and flipped the pages of one of the magazines on the coffee table. “It’s strange that he would want to help in the first place.”

  “I thought the same thing,” Drew agreed. “I feel that he is genuine in wanting to get rid of the other lines. He says he is willing to give himself up, but he did go through some trouble to find Chloe and let her know that if he dies then she possibly could, too. That sounds like something a person would do to protect themselves.”

  Luke held his hands up. “Let’s take this one step at a time. The first thing we should concentrate on is finding the other lines. We can worry about Anthony Christos and his bloodline later. For now, we have the opportunity to take out, at the very least, one other line. If Dahlia is of Korina’s line, this should eliminate a large majority of the vampires who have taken over the city.”

  Drew raised his eyebrows. “So, we go to New Orleans?”

  Luke nodded. “We have to. Getting into New Orleans is not going to be easy, though. All of the cities are guarded.”

  I hadn’t thought about that part. What I had thought about was that if it was bad here, it had to be worse in New Orleans. Vampires there just walked around out in the open all the time, even before the attacks began.

  “I also think it might be better if we do not tell The Board about this,” Luke added.

  Suddenly there was a heavy silence that hung heavy in the room. No one seemed to know what to say. I know I didn’t. Luke wasn’t really a member of The Board anymore—they had pretty much booted him off for endorsing our infiltration of the Talon Building—but he was still a Hunter and he almost always went to them with important information. I guess he was more peeved about them not backing him with the Talon Building than I thought he was.

  Drew was the first to speak up. “All right. It’s just us then.”

  That was the downside to not telling The Board, we wouldn’t have any backup. I had a feeling that this trip to New Orleans was going to be one place we were actually going to need it, but at the same time I knew that collectively we were a force to be reckoned with. I had several superior skills, including my fire power, we had several trained Hunters, Gavin had his water power, Alice rocked a sword, Christina handled knives like they weren’t deadly weapons, Oscar was a siren who could compel people with the sound of his voice, and Zander was just a badass who liked to kill vampires.

  I had faith in us, but that didn’t mean that some extra Hunters wouldn’t have made this job a whole lot easier. “I’m game. But I had an idea today, to keep people safe while we go to New Orleans and try to fix this.”

  It looked like everyone was still taking in the whole bloodline ordeal. My group of friends usually had a lot more to say. I was especially surprised that Christina hadn’t been shooting off smarty pants comments the whole time. Even Drew and Gavin weren’t bickering like they usually did.

  “What do ya got?” Christina gave her knife a final flip and sheathed it before hopping onto Zander’s lap.

  “I know that this might be an inconvenience to The Board and the Hunters, but it would keep people safe.”

  Luke leaned forward, his curiosity piqued.

  “I want to get a couple of buses and gather up the survivors from the city who haven’t pledged to the Vampire Council yet. Arcadia Falls is safe and I want to take them there.”

  Silence followed. I shifted uncomfortably because I didn’t know what everyone thought of the idea. Sure, it would give away the secret of the community, but we could save a lot of people.

  “It’s genius,” Luke whispered. “My granddaughter is a genius.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” I mumbled.

  Finally, people started talking. Drew reached over and squeezed my leg. “I don’t know why we didn’t think of this before.”

  “Because we thought that we would be taking the barrier down,” Alice pointed out. “What would be the use of sending them there if the protection wasn’t going to remain around the community?”

  I continued with my train of thought, “If we cleared out the old gym, we could put up cots in the building and use it as a shelter.”

  Oscar, who had been quiet most of the time, adjusted his body on the couch. “If we do this, we are going to need to find supplies, too. A lot of supplies. Feeding all those people is going to be pretty hard. Plus, you will need cots and blankets. All of that is what we will need ... at the very least.”

  Luke stood. “I’ll run it by The Board right now.” He left the room to go contact whoever he needed to call. The Board members might not sanction a trip to New Orleans to find the head of a few vampire bloodlines, but this was something they would probably go for. A Hunter’s mission in life was to protect the human race from vampires by eradicating them from the world. In this case we could protect a lot of humans and they would probably be on board with that.

  Luke was on the phone for a while, I assume with several different people. He came back after a little while sporting a satisfied grin. “They’ll do it.”

  “Yes!” I executed a fist pump. “Let’s save some people from those blood suckers!”

  Luke chuckled and held up his hand. “They are spreading the word through the community and starting preparations immediately. If we are going to pull this off, it has to be in broad daylight, when it’s safest. For now we just need to worry about getting people there. They will take care of the details.”

  “Sweet.” I looked to the group. “You guys up for this?”

  There was a chorus of all kinds of positive responses while everyone got moving. I hurried to the hall closet and flung open the double doors. Yet another arsenal greeted me. I ran my eyes over all of the weapons and ammunition, then selected a box of UV shells for my gun.

  I turned over the closet to Alice and Oscar before hurrying to my room so I could get my weapons on.

  Excitement about what we were going to do made me giddy. I couldn’t help it, it was so rare that anything good happened lately. I wanted to savor the feeling. I strapped on my weapons as fast as I could, grabbed my bow, and headed out the door.

  This was going to be awesome.

 
; ~~~***~~~

  We locked up the house securely and all of us crammed into the Escalade to head into the city. Normally, we never left the house unattended—we always had someone stay behind to run the security system and keep watch while we were gone—but no one wanted to stay behind for this mission. Plus, we figured as long as we got it finished while it was still light out, everything should be fine.

  We headed straight for the high school in hopes that we could find a couple of buses there. Luckily, we picked the right school because there were two buses parked behind the school in a gated in lot. I burned the lock off of the gate and let our SUV pass through. Running behind them, I drew my gun before prying one of the bus doors open.

  After I was on the bus, I walked the aisle and cleared every seat to make sure there weren’t any vampires hiding out for the day. Once I was sure it was clean, I poked my head out the door. “It’s clear!”

  Christina and Zander climbed the steps up onto the bus with me, and Zander immediately checked the ignition. “We’re going to have to hotwire it.”

  “Do you know how to do that?”

  He spread his hands wide. “I’m a man of many trades.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I wouldn’t call knowing how to hotwire a vehicle a trade.”

  “Call it what you will.” He shrugged and sat down in the driver’s seat, then reached under the bulky dashboard, feeling for wires. “Honestly, though, I’ve never hotwired a bus, but I don’t see it being much different than a car.”

  “I’m sure it’s not,” Christina mumbled just as the bus shuddered and roared to life.

  “Piece of cake,” Zander told me as he stood up. “I better go help with the other bus now. Who’s going to drive this thing?”

  Christina smoothed down the red, oversized tank that she had on over a pair of black skinny jeans. “I think Drew is going to drive this one and Luke is going to drive the other,” she answered.

  I nodded. “Sweet.”

  In less than ten minutes we were divided up and pulling the buses out onto the streets. Drew joined me and took the wheel. Surprisingly, Gavin hurried up the steps and sat down in the seat right behind Drew, greeting us with, “Hey, guys, I’m with you.”

  “Really?” Drew muttered.

  I took the seat across the aisle from Gavin, closest to the door. “Shhh,” I scolded Drew, “we’re on a mission. Save that for another time.”

  Christina and Zander stayed on the bus Luke was driving, and Alice took over the wheel of the Escalade, so of course Oscar stayed with her.

  We only went a few blocks before we started seeing survivors. The scared humans scattered and hid when they saw the big yellow buses roll up. It was one thing to see cars out in the city, but no one used buses anymore.

  Drew stopped in the middle of the street and put the bus in park. A loud hiss sounded as he reached over and pulled the lever to open the door. “Ready?” he asked.

  “Totally,” I answered. “Let’s do this.”

  Gavin simply nodded and we stepped down off the bus into the street.

  The others were descending, and Alice had parked the Escalade behind the second bus. I watched Alice get out from behind the wheel. The harsh summer sun beat down on us brutally, but it glinted off her hair when she reached up and re-did her ponytail. Oscar stepped down from the passenger side and gazed over the top of the SUV to where she stood. He stared at her for less than a minute while she finished with her hair. She was oblivious to the look, but I saw it and it made me happy that she had someone who loved her. Well, someone who loved her and didn’t want to drink her blood.

  Suddenly, her head snapped toward him and she realized he had been staring at her. She flashed him a playful smile and slid her short swords into the sheaths crossed at her back.

  Focus, Chloe, focus.

  “I guess I’ll try and get them to come out ... let them know what we’re doing here.”

  “Good idea,” Luke agreed. I glanced over at Drew and he nodded agreement as well.

  “All right.” I made sure my bow was in a good position. “Here goes nothing.” I jogged away from the buses until I had a good distance between myself and them. Then, I sprinted back toward the first bus, pushing off when I knew the time was right. I leapt up into the air, hoping I had gauged the distance correctly. I brought my feet up and tucked them under me until I was directly above the roof of the bus.

  I landed on one knee with the other bent in front of me. Thank God I made that landing; it would have totally sucked if I had overshot it or not gotten close enough. I stood and turned a circle. Hiding behind the corners of buildings and behind cars, I could see curious eyes peering out at me, wondering why we were here.

  “Don’t be afraid. We are friends,” I shouted, hopefully loud enough for them all to hear. “We are here to help you. If you want help, we can take you to a safe place where the vampires can’t go.”

  Nothing. Silence.

  The eyes were still staring at me. The ones that I couldn’t actually see, I could feel. The group all stared up at me, every one of them squinting against the sun and smiling up with reassurance. “Um ... Do you see us here?” I swept my hand across the general area of where the group stood. “We are Hunters. We know how to kill the vampires, and we know how to stay safe. You have to trust me, but if you are going to come with us you have to choose to do so now so we can get you out of here before nightfall.”

  Again, I moved my gaze across the cluttered streets. Why didn’t any of them come out? It never really occurred to me that we would have to talk the survivors into joining us. I assumed that they would be so thankful that they would all run on to the buses.

  Then, I finally saw a man step out from behind a truck. He wore jeans and a dirty beige T-shirt. His hair was dark brown but had a bit of gray streaked throughout it. He looked exhausted and malnourished. “You can really take us to a place where the vampires can’t go?” He shaded his eyes and looked up me.

  “Yes, we can,” I called down to him.

  “Then I want to go, my ... my family needs safety.”

  “You and your family are more than welcome to come with us. Get them and get on the bus.”

  Luke approached the man and appeared to be talking to him. I turned on my super hearing and heard Luke telling him that we didn’t have time for them to go back to their home for personal items.

  “I’m sorry, but there simply isn’t time to wait. You will be provided necessities when you arrive,” Luke tried to reassure the man.

  The guy appeared to weigh the options between going to a safe place with none of their personal items and facing off with vampires every night. Should be no contest there, right?

  Finally, he turned and waved back in the direction of where he had originally come from. “Come on, Amber.” Not long after, a blonde woman dressed in jeans and a light blue button up shirt emerged from behind the truck. She held a baby girl in her arms. I couldn’t tell how old she was, but definitely less than a year. Another little girl was clinging to Amber’s leg. The little girl had blonde curls like her mother, and appeared to be about five years old. Not that I knew all that much about children or how old they looked.

  Luke beckoned to them. “Come on, no need to be scared. None of us will hurt you, it’s our job to protect you.”

  Gavin stepped up next to Luke. “Which is why we want you to come with us. It’s much safer where you will be going.”

  Amber’s husband peeled the little girl off of her mother’s leg and lifted her into his arms. He stared into his wife’s eyes, “Let’s go, honey. We have to.” He used his free hand to gently touch his smaller daughter’s head and his eyes flicked to the little girl he held. Amber seemed to understand what he was trying to say and nodded that she understood.

  “All right,” she whispered. She quickly strode over to the open door of the bus and stepped inside. Her husband followed right behind her.

  I let out a breath I didn’t even realize that I’d been holding as soon as
they were safely on the bus. After a couple of deep, cleansing breaths, I called out again, “Will anyone else join us today? I don’t know if or when we will be able to come back again, so please, if you seek safety then come with us.”

  I waited.

  The group waited.

  Eventually, they began to withdraw from their hiding places and come to us. Once several survivors had joined us, and I was fairly sure I wouldn’t have to stand on the bus and do anymore pleading with them, I hopped down. I joined the others and helped greet the survivors, who apparently needed reassurance before they got their butts on the bus.

  The main reason we were trying to greet each one before they got on the bus was to check for tattoos. We had to make sure that we weren’t putting someone loyal to the Vampire Council on a bus that would take them right into Arcadia Falls.

  We filled one bus and drove to another neighborhood. Once there, we had to go through pretty much the same process of convincing them that we were not going to hurt them and that we wanted to help them.

  We had the first half of the second bus filled when our luck ran out on us. I heard the cars coming and hollered to the group, “Someone’s coming!”

  The police cars appeared at every intersection, effectively blocking us from escape. The policemen who got out were dressed in the usual uniforms of the local law enforcement, but we all knew they were not on our side.

  Crap, crap, crap.

  I looked over at the rest of the group, discovering they were drawing their weapons. The survivors who weren’t on the buses ran off to hide, knowing that their lives were at stake by these people who had pledged themselves to the Vampire Council.

  “Surrender your weapons,” a male voice demanded from a loud speaker on one of the cars. “Set them on the ground and put your hands in the air.”

  Yeah, like that was going to happen. Wait, on second thought, I had weapons they didn’t know about.