“Thanks, Ahmed,” Job said with a nod before a shorter, spunky girl with pink hair picked up.
“Brandon and Jamie were over here, on the other side of the festival grounds.” She pointed to the side closest to the parking lot. “And Dax and Alex were here.” With her pointer finger, she indicated an X on the model nearer the center of the activities. “The second set of objects was picked up right about here.”
Cadence took it all in and visualized those locations from where she’d spent most of the twilight hours. “All right....”
“So Brandon and Jamie must’ve crossed through here on their way to Elliott,” Cassidy filled in.
“Yeah, I’d told him to go find his dad,” Cadence remembered, “because you were telling me the moon was moving.” It all came back to her very clearly, not as if she’d forgotten before Cassidy brought it up, but it certainly hadn’t been at the forefront of her mind. “So he was worried.”
“He must’ve taken off through here,” Ahmed traced a line with his finger.
“Do we have audio of the conversation he was having with Jamie while they were headed that direction?” Cadence asked.
“Christian is working on that,” Job reminded her. “Lisa, can you step over and ask him if he’s gotten that far?”
“Sure,” the pink-haired woman replied and did just that.
“You were saying the moon was moving?”
The sound of Oswald’s voice made Cadence jump. For a moment, she’d forgotten he and Trina were standing behind them. It had been a long night, and she was exhausted.
“I was,” Cassidy replied, running her hand down her face. “But I don’t remember it.”
“Do we have that?” Trina asked.
“I probably do.” Cadence accessed her IAC and quickly pulled up the visuals she’d recorded from the night before. She’d had her visuals on because she’d been talking to Aaron at the time, and it was just habit. Hearing his voice as she replayed the scene in her head made the situation even more difficult, but she managed to hold back her tears. Utilizing the projector she had on her wrist, she showed the rest of the team what had been going on in the B and B around the same time that the Guardians in the field were disappearing.
“Holy crap,” Cassidy muttered, watching herself react the way that she had. “I really don’t remember that at all.”
“Brandon was concerned,” Cadence said, having trouble watching it again. “I told him to go find his dad.” She bit her lip. Now, she was wishing she never would’ve turned her IAC connection off. Maybe if she’d stayed with him, she’d have some idea where her sister’s boyfriend was.
“I’ve got some footage for you, too,” Christian said, startling Cadence back to reality. She flipped a switch on her projector, and they all took a few steps over to where Christian and Lisa were situated.
With a deep breath, Cadence put her arm around her sister and took a few steps closer to Christian, happy to feel Hannah’s presence behind her since she was also doing what she could to keep them both calm.
“All right,” Christian began, flipping on his projector but not starting it yet. “I’ve been through the raw footage from Aaron’s and Elliott’s IACs. There’s no audio, just what they were looking at.”
“Why is that?” Cassidy asked.
“Because of the nature of the operation. If it had been a hunt, we’d have all of that, but we don’t automatically collect data all the time from IACs, or else, as you know, we’d have a lot of private conversations recorded that no one would want anyone else to hear. So... in this instance, we didn’t turn to full hunt recording mode on the drives, just observational.” That made sense to Cadence. “If we would’ve actually gone into hunt mode, then the audio would’ve automatically kicked in.” She wasn’t aware of that last part, but since he was the tech guy, she trusted him. “That’s what happened as soon as Cadence arrived on scene this morning and started interviewing Vampires.”
“All right. So what’s this?” she asked, not sure she wanted to know.
“This is about thirty seconds before Aaron’s IAC cuts out.”
Christian pressed play through his IAC and the projection went into motion. At first, it was obvious that Elliott was worried about something, and if Cadence could read lips, she thought he said he was leaving. She assumed that was when they were both worried about Cass. A few seconds later, Aaron looked beyond his friend, and Cadence felt a chill crawl up her spine. “That looks like me.”
“Right,” Christian confirmed as they all watched a woman approaching from across the festival grounds. “Elliott sees the same thing. They start walking in a hurry, and then, at 2:32, just as the moon hits its culmination....” He let it play, and they watched as Elliott looked down at the ground, as if he’d stepped on something, and then he disappeared in front of Aaron, just a split second before Aaron’s IAC went dead.
Cadence didn’t even realize a whimper had escaped her lips before her sister’s arm came up around her neck. A tear rolled down her cheek, and she swiped it away. There was no time for that.
“Thanks, Christian,” Hannah said, her voice still calm. “Do you have similar footage of the others?”
“Yeah. From Dax’s perspective, Brandon and Jamie are gone for a few seconds before Dax goes barreling in behind them, and then, if you switch to Alex, he turns his audio on and says, ‘Oh, bloody hell,’ and jumps in, too.”
“So... you think Alex knows what this is?” Cadence asked, confused.
“I guess he had enough experience with portals to figure it out,” Christian replied with a shrug.
“How do you know it’s a portal?” Cass’s voice sounded a little jagged, and Cadence increased her grip on her sister’s shoulder.
“I mean... I think it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?” Christian replied, still seeming a little too nonchalant for Cadence’s liking. “Clearly, the Blood Moon Portal exists after all, and they just walked into it.”