“Did you get anything?” Cadence asked, praying she’d been able to find Stewart.
“Not much. But I know he’s running. I decided to see if I could find Holland instead. If I can figure out where she’s hiding, I can stop the signal.”
Looking over her shoulder briefly, Cadence said, “But you haven’t been able to do that for months.”
Cassidy sighed. “I’m out of ideas.”
“Okay, okay.” Cadence put her hands out, trying to show she wasn’t trying to irritate her sister. “Whatever you think. Stewart’s got to resurface eventually, though. He’s a professor. Do you think he’ll just walk away from all of that to serve Holland?” They were out the door and headed to the SUV.
“Maybe.” Cassidy slid into the back seat and Cadence went around as Job got in and fired up the engine. Hannah got in as well, and they headed out. “Whoever they got to do this can’t be your typical college prof.”
She had a point. Cadence rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. “We also have to remember that Holland wanted the Guardians out of the way for a reason. So sooner or later, she’s going to have to come out of hiding. Because she’ll be coming for me.”
“For us,” Cassidy corrected. “She wants me, too.”
Cadence didn’t like to think about that. “Right. So... maybe there’s another way we can figure out what this is and what happened without knowing where Stewart or Holland is. I mean, they had to find out about it from somewhere.”
“Didn’t you say you had Christian go over all of the books in the archives?” Hannah asked, turning to look at her. “Before we left KC?”
“I didn’t—Aaron did,” Cadence corrected. “So if there’s nothing in any of those books, where else might we find information about this phenomenon?”
“The archives in Kansas City are the only place that would have that sort of information,” Job said, sounding certain. “I can’t think of another place that would house books that predate what Christian can personally remember.”
“Who is the oldest Guardian still alive?” Cadence asked. “There’s gotta be some older than Christian.”
“Sure there are a few, but most of them are scattered, and none of the really old ones have IACs,” Hannah said. “How old is Ward?”
“Aaron’s friend Ward?” Cadence clarified. He was the one coming in from the UK for the wedding. “I have no idea.”
Job shrugged. “I’d say he’s at least a hundred years older than Aaron. Do you think he’d know something?”
“I don’t know, and he doesn’t have an IAC.” Hannah shook her head. “Surely, Aaron would’ve asked him.”
“He doesn’t know.” Cassidy’s voice was even, and they all turned to look at her. “Neither does Schmitz, who is also older than Christian.”
Schmitz had helped the team find out about Daunator, Cadence remembered. “Does Ward know Aaron’s gone, or did you search his mind without tipping him off?”
“I didn’t tell him anything. I just searched for information about a blood moon.”
Cadence nodded. Maybe it would be better if she did tell him. “Anyone else from Roatan in that age bracket?”
“Probably, but we’ll have to check. There aren’t any that I personally know of,” Hannah said with a shrug.
Not letting the frustration well up inside of her, Cadence tried to focus on the landscape flying by outside of her window. Traffic was light that early in the morning, and the few cars they encountered were overtaken expertly by Job as he quickly got them to the outskirts of the nation’s capital.
Trying to keep herself calm, Cadence decided to take things one step at a time. First, they’d look at the footage and whatever recreation Job’s team had come up with. Then, they could send at least one person back to Kansas City to go through the archives again. Was it possible Cass’s abilities could work on books, too? Could she scan over the archives and find materials that mentioned the blood moon? There was the possibility that Christian had missed something....
They pulled to a stop in a parking lot next to what looked like an ordinary office building, though it was a little run down. Cadence assumed that was the difference between being an Independent and having government funds. She didn’t dwell on it, though, only followed Job inside, trying not let her anxiety show.
Cass slipped her hand into Cadence’s, and she was glad to have her sister there for comfort, even though she hated that she was hurting just as much as Cadence was. If she could do anything to alleviate that pain for her sibling, she would.
Job did some quick introductions as they encountered personnel both in the hallway and in the large conference room. Some of the people Cadence recognized from the night before; others were new to her. Trina was tall, almost as tall as Aurora, with short blonde hair that stuck up on top sort of like a mohawk, and Oswald was short and stocky. If she had to guess, she would’ve put them both in their mid-to-late twenties but figured they were much older than that. Oswald had an air about him that made her think he had to have been born in the 1800s.
Christian was sitting in the corner with a laptop in front of him and headphones on. He gave her a sympathetic smile when she caught his eye, and for a moment, Cadence was reminded that she used to consider him a friend. Before he showed that recording of the two of them making out to Eliza, which eventually ended up in front of Aaron, she’d thought Christian was a good guy. He’d even stood up to Aaron and Elliott for her after her first hunt had gone badly. When he smiled at her, she saw hints of that guy, the one who’d waited outside of her apartment for her that night, to tell her he thought she was amazing. It was a far cry from the annoying, know-it-all she’d gotten used to the past few years.
“Okay, this is the festival grounds,” a tall guy Cadence remembered meeting the night before was saying, gesturing at a 3D model they’d hastily put together on the table. “This is where we found the first set of objects, here and here, and this is where we know Aaron and Elliott were stationed.”