by ID Johnson
“I agree,” Aaron said, nodding, his slight smile assuring me that he wasn’t holding my comment against me. “With the part about there being more, not that I’m old.” He winked at me, and I felt my face go red. “But until Eliza can figure out where he’s actually headed, the whole point is kind of moot. We can’t arrive where he’s at if we don’t know where that is….”
Suddenly, I remembered my phone ringing earlier and thought about my friends at home and how Emma had spotted Giovani the first time. “Oh, actually, that reminds me, Lucy called a little bit ago.” I dug my phone out of my pocket and continued my train of thought. “They’ve been looking at that footage. Maybe she knows something.”
I ignored the obvious IAC conversations going on around me and FaceTimed Lucy, thinking Emma might be there, too. Lucy answered very quickly, Em beside her on Luce’s bed. “Oh my gosh, Cassidy. I thought you’d died.”
One of these days, I thought Lucy would start to consider her word choice a little more carefully. Today was not that day. “Uhm, it’s been, like, forty minutes. What is it?”
Lucy started talking so quickly, I was struggling to keep up. “So, Christian gave us access to their site that livestreams the footage out of the airports, right? So, we’ve been checking it, and we saw Giovani at Heathrow!”
“Shut up!” I exclaimed. “When? Today?” I had a feeling if she was calling me it might have something to do with Giovani. The fact that they’d carried on with their quest after we got the new access the night before hadn’t surprised me.
“Yes!” Lucy replied in response to my question. Emma had her laptop out, and Lucy pulled it around so I could see, holding the phone near the screen.
Cadence leaned in and looked over my shoulder as Lucy hit play on the video. It was difficult to see considering we were watching a low quality video over FaceTime, but it did appear as if Giovani and Zabrina were making their way through security at a rather large airport. I could see the stamp LHR in the corner, and I knew from all of my own hours and hours of research that those were the letters for London Heathrow. The timestamp showed it was about ten hours ago.
Cadence mumbled, “Oh, wow,” as she agreed with my silent approval that we were looking at the two faces she’d been hunting for so long. Jamie and Aaron were not straining to look at the tiny screen in front of us, but I assumed they must be watching through Cadence’s IAC.
As Giovani passed the camera, he paused. Slowly turning his head up and angling it so that his face was looking directly into the camera, he snarled a vicious looking smile, flashed the peace sign, and then flipped it around turning it into a not so nice gesture. The hollow stare in his eyes stayed with me even after the laptop was pulled away from the phone and I was staring at the familiar, lovely faces of my best friends.
“See? It’s him, right?” Lucy asked.
My sister’s voice was confident and slightly haunted. “It’s him, all right.”
“But why is he telling us ‘peace’?” Lucy asked, and I almost rolled my eyes at my sweet friend’s ignorance.
“That wasn’t peace,” Cadence explained. “That was the opposite of peace. Lucy, can you email that to me, please?”
Lucy seemed confused, but she replied, “Sure. So--what are you going to do now?”
Cadence looked at Aaron for a second before she said, “Well, we need to figure out where he’s headed. Can you check to see what flights were leaving Heathrow around that time, where they were going, and start checking airport footage for where he might have landed?”
Emma had her laptop back and replied, “Already on it.”
“Awesome. Thanks a lot, girls!” Cadence said, and then leaned away from my phone. I imagined they’d all be busy IACing it up for the next several minutes.
Since Emma was busy, Lucy replied for both of them. “No problem!” By then, I could tell my sister was already chatting to someone and wasn’t even paying attention to Lucy. “Hope you’re having a good time, Cass.” She must’ve known I was the only one listening now.
I really wished I could tell her everything, but now was not the time. “It’s been interesting,” I replied. “I need to go, but thanks again for all your help.” If I was going to stay involved, I couldn’t let them have this conversation through their eye computers.
“Sure thing! We’ll keep working!” Lucy assured me before she said goodbye, and I disconnected the call.
I completely missed everything they had just been talking about and only tuned in to hear Aaron say something out loud about my friends being here in a few years. “Huh?” I asked, hoping they’d fill me in, but they moved ahead, and I struggled to catch up.
“Eliza just messaged me that she had a report that Giovani may have been spotted at Heathrow earlier today. She’s on her way to check it out,” Aaron said, his expression a mixture of bewilderment and amusement.
“I can give her the dollar she’s short, but I can’t give her another minute, let alone a whole day,” Cadence muttered. I took it she meant Eliza was a day late and a dollar short, but I thought it was good confirmation to have the information we’d just stumbled upon established by another source. Changing the subject, Cadence asked, “Where the heck is he going? Why did he want us to see him?”
“Because he wants us to know where he’s at so you can arrive there,” Aaron reminded her. “You can’t meet him wherever he’s going if you don’t know where that is.”
His answer gave me chills as I thought about my sister being lured into some sort of a trap. What game was this sicko playing? Hopefully, my friends could figure out where he went. It stunk that Christian wasn’t here right now when he’d be the best person for this job, I assumed.
Cadence replied to Aaron’s comment, “Well, then, he should have held up his boarding pass or something because it could still take us days to figure out where he went, especially if he doesn’t give us some sort of a signal once he arrives. Heathrow is huge.”
“Maybe he needs a few days,” Aaron said, running his hand through his short brown hair. I could see his eyes darting around, but this time, I didn’t think he was talking to anyone. I was sure he was trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Surely, we had all of the information we needed to find Giovani if he wanted us to, we just needed to put everything in order.
Building off of Aaron’s last comment, Cadence asked, “Why? Why would he need time?” She got out of her seat then and began to pace, though she still held her arm against her stomach, and I knew it was still bothering her.
“He must need to do something.” Jamie was thinking aloud as well. “Get something--find someone.”
If that was the case, if he needed more time to find something, or someone, who might that be? My sister’s thoughts echoed my own. “Who? Is there another Vampire more powerful than him that we aren’t considering? Someone he can get on his side? Someone he thinks he may need to defeat us?” She continued to take a few steps and turn sharply before going back the other direction.
Neither Aaron nor Jamie answered her, though I could see them thinking things through. Perhaps my ignorance would be helpful in this situation. So, thinking of what Cadence had said earlier, not all bad people are Vampires, made me ask, “Are there any bad people in the world that are actually Vampires?”
“What’s that?” Cadence asked pausing by my chair.
I looked up into her brown eyes. “You know what you were saying earlier--about how not all bad people are Vampires, some are just bad people? Well, are any of them actually Vampires? Someone really bad?”
I thought Cadence was going to ask me a follow up question, but before she could get it out of her mouth, Aaron shot out of his chair, making me jump, as it tumbled backward onto the ground. He said a word my dad says occasionally when someone cuts him off in traffic, followed by the exclamation, “I know where he’s going!”
Cadence and Jamie looked at each other as if neither of them was surprised although I certainly was, and they both said togethe
r, “Of course you do.”
“Philadelphia,” Aaron said quietly, turning to look at me. “Gibbon. Of course! Cassidy--you’re a genius!”
“What?” I asked, looking up at him, confused. “I am? Huh?” Granted, it had been our conversation about the news broadcast earlier that had gotten me to make the comment, but I didn’t follow Aaron’s leap in getting there.
Aaron wasn’t answering me. Instead, he was talking to Jamie and Cadence, but at least it was aloud, so I wasn’t as annoyed as I otherwise would’ve been. “We need to alert the team in Philadelphia. They need to get that hospital covered as soon as possible. If Giovani actually gets ahold of him and has the opportunity to turn him, we’ll have one heck of a time destroying him.”
“God, it’ll be like Jack the Ripper all over again,” Jamie mumbled. I turned and looked at him, not sure I’d actually heard what he said.
“And I do not ever want to go through anything like that again,” Aaron agreed. So many questions tumbled through my mind. I looked at Cadence, and she looked as confused as I felt.
“Whaaat?” she asked. Neither male answered her, so she shook her head as if trying to bring herself back to the twenty-first century. “Cassidy, can you call Lucy and Emma back and let them know to check Philadelphia International?”
“Sure,” I shrugged. Just for clarification, I asked, “For Giovani?” I assumed they didn’t think Gibbon was going anywhere since as far as I knew, he was still in police custody.
“Yes,” Cadence nodded. Then, as if she was spelling it out for me, she said, “We think that Giovani might be on his way to Philadelphia to turn Steven Gibbon, the Jogging Path Killer, into a Vampire.”
“Oh.” I realized that’s what they were aiming for, but I still didn’t quite grasp the reasoning behind it. “Why would he do that?” I didn’t understand exactly why Giovani thought he needed Gibbon, and I was sure I was still missing a lot of information.
Cadence looked at Aaron, holding his gaze for a long moment. I thought she might not want to answer me for some reason, though I didn’t know why. Until she did. “Because he thinks Gibbon will make a powerful Vampire, and he wants to use him to stir up trouble.”
Her answer wasn’t very thorough. I needed more. I deserved more. Thinking back to the poem, what Giovani had said about drawing my sister out to where he was to deliver the kiss of death, I looked my sister in the eye and asked, “Cadence, is Giovani going to use Gibbon to try to kill you?”
Cadence plastered a smile on her face that looked a little fake to me, and dropping to her knees in front of me, she returned my stare and said, “You don’t need to worry about that, Cassidy. There’s no Vampire alive--none that can be made--that can kill me. I promise you that.”
I wanted to believe her, but somehow, I wasn’t sure. I thought back to the face I’d seen on the news, the monster, and remembered how I’d thought he would be even worse as a Vampire. Thinking of him Resurrected into some sort of a nightmare beast made my stomach tighten. I couldn’t imagine my sister going after him, no matter how strong her team of Guardians was. One thing was for certain; there was no way I was letting Cadence go to Philadelphia without me.
Chapter 13
It had taken some serious negotiation, but I had managed to convince Cadence to let me stay in the operating room with Brandon, with Aaron’s help. I reminded her that I’d promised the new Guardian I’d be there when he woke up, and when Aaron assured her Jamie would be right next door, she finally gave in. She and Aaron had a lot to do, so she hurried off, back to her apartment, and Jamie disappeared for a few minutes, coming back with a bed identical to the one Brandon was sleeping in, which he wheeled over to Sleeping Beauty’s left.
“What’s this?” I asked as he pushed it into place.
“Well, I thought you might get tired,” he replied with a shrug. “I’m not sure how long he might be out, but I can’t imagine you’re planning to stay awake all night.”
“Thanks, Jamie,” I said, thinking it was a really nice gesture. “Look, I’m really sorry I was such a brat earlier, in your office.” This was the first time I’d had a chance to apologize to him for my previous outburst.
The doctor shrugged. “It’s okay. I know how badly you want to be a part of all of this, but you have to think about your sister’s position, too. She is trying to figure out what’s best for thousands of people all at the same time, and sometimes it might be hard to understand the decisions she makes.”
I was certain he was alluding to the fact that Cadence had made the decision to let Brandon go with them because she felt it was best for the team, and it turns out that was true. If she hadn’t let him go, he might not be here right now, and he was definitely going to make a good Guardian.
“I know all that,” I assured Jamie. “It’s just frustrating not being a part of everything, watching it pass me by.”
He stepped around the bed and put his hand on my shoulder. “Believe me, there will be plenty to do when the time has come. There will always be another Vampire to destroy. From my perspective, a year can pass by in the blink of an eye. You’ll understand one day.”
I couldn’t imagine being as old as he was, and I understood he had a point. It just didn’t seem that way from my perspective. I nodded and forced a smile.
“Get some sleep. I’ll come in and check on Brandon every couple of hours. I’ll try not to wake you.”
“Okay, thanks,” I said, assuming he probably could be pretty sneaky if he wanted to be.
The mattress was fairly comfortable for being a hospital bed, and even though I wished I had my bag so I could at least brush my teeth, I was happy to be here. Brandon appeared to be snoozing peacefully. I slipped my shoes off and moved them underneath the edge of the bed and then laid back, putting my hands under my head.
Staring up at the ceiling, I pondered everything that had happened. My sister knew Giovani was in Philadelphia because of my friends’ work. I wondered if they would be able to get to him in time to stop Gibbon. The fact that they knew he was after the Jogging Path Killer, or at least they thought he was, made me think it would be pretty easy to keep Giovani from getting what he wanted. It was simple—be where Gibbon was and don’t let Giovani be there.
The room was a little chilly, so I sat up and grabbed the covers from the foot of the bed and pulled them up around my shoulders. The note Giovani had left came to mind, and I went over it again. It still seemed so odd that he’d taunt my sister with a schoolyard song. What, exactly, was he trying to accomplish? Aaron had mentioned that something I’d said had helped him figure out that Giovani was going after Gibbon, and I wondered if having me around would continue to be helpful. I tended to see things from a different perspective than they did; maybe my lack of experience was an asset. If I continued to hang out with them, maybe I could be more useful.
I was still thinking about what it would be like to go on the hunt with them when my thoughts began to mush together, and I soon realized I was dreaming. I was back at the homecoming dance, but this time, it wasn’t just Elliott watching from across the room. I saw the face of Steven Gibbon, and rather than wait for him to pounce, I set off across the space, dodging through dancers to get to him first. Even as we fought, I felt another stare bearing down on me and turned to see Brandon’s impenetrable gaze.
My eyes flew open, but the sense that someone was watching me didn’t dissipate. I realized almost instantly where I was. The hospital. Brandon. I turned my head.
The room was fairly dark, but I could see him looking at me. “Hey there,” I said quietly, leaning up a bit off the pillow. I blinked and rubbed my eyes and then asked a stupid question. “Are you awake?”
Brandon’s throat was froggy. “I guess so,” he said before coughing and attempting to clear his throat.
“Oh, here,” I said, sitting up quickly. It was obvious Brandon was still disoriented, and the medicine must’ve dried his throat out somehow. “Jamie sat some water next to your bed. I’ll get it.” I
hopped down, reached over, and grabbed the cup of water and made sure the straw was steady as I leaned over and helped him take a sip. “Better?” I asked once he was finished.
It took him a second to answer. “Yeah, thanks,” he said. I put the cup back and sat down on the edge of my bed.
After a long moment of silence, I finally asked, “How do you feel?”
He seemed to consider the answer, and I couldn’t blame him. He probably felt very strange. He lifted his arm and stared at his hand for a moment. He picked up his other arm and waved that hand, too. “Weird. Like I’ve been electrocuted or something. It’s so bizarre. I feel like my hands are moving a lot faster than they should be.” Continuing to move his hands in front of his face for a moment, his forehead crinkled, he tipped his head to the side in bewilderment.
“They are,” I agreed, wondering if his eyes were also moving faster so that the phenomenon looked different to him than it did to me. “Does it hurt at all?”
“No,” he assured me. He licked his lips and finally put his arms down, which I was thankful for. They were starting to make me dizzy. “It hurt a little bit when Jamie put the first dose in, but I think I was already out by the time he gave me the second one, the pain medicine.” I nodded. I had thought he was already unconscious before the second shot, too, but it was hard to tell. “What time is it?” he asked, looking around like he might be able to see the clock, which was behind him.
I had stowed my phone under my pillow, so I pulled it out and looked at the time, seeing I had a text from Lucy from about an hour ago asking if there were any updates on Brandon. I’d have to answer her later. “It’s just after midnight.”
