Jamie had a question mark hanging over his head, but he didn’t argue. We could all see through Elliott’s IAC that Sam was cornered. He was in a room full of distressed mirrors, the kind that make you look like something else. I thought it was ironic in an Alanis Morissette sort of way. Sam didn’t look like himself at all—and he would die the same sort of creature he’d spent centuries destroying.
“Whatcha gonna do with me?” Sam was shouting at Elliott just before the mirror behind him exploded into a thousand shards of glass. He ducked and covered his face, but it was too late. Elliott had his Glock pointed right at the old man’s head.
“I don’t know,” Elliott replied. He was aware that Meagan was on her way, I could tell by the way his eyes were shifting toward the hallway, like he was waiting for her. But he continued to taunt Sam. “Maybe I’ll keep you in a cage in my apartment where I can torture you. Not sure.” Meagan rounded the corner, and Elliott added, “Actually, I’m pretty sure it’s not up to me.”
Sam looked up then, his bloodshot, gray eyes full of anguish. “What do you mean?”
Emerging from the shadows, Meagan opened fire, hitting Sam at least a half a dozen times, driving him back into the glass. Sam exploded into ash which mingled with the glass fragments littered all over the floor. “Take that, scumbag!” Meagan said, wiping her lip on her blood soaked shirt.
The two of them stood together for a few moments, staring down at the ashes, and I could only imagine how they felt. Relieved. Vindicated. Like a nightmare was over. Even if Sam couldn’t hurt Elliott anymore, he was still a threat until the very moment he became a pile of dust on the floor. This was a final send off for Sam. There would be no coming back from the dead for him.
“Come on, Meag. Let’s go home,” Elliott said, his arm slung across her shoulders.
He didn’t have to tell her twice. The two of them walked back to us, and I could see Elliott still wasn’t quite himself, but we were all going to be just fine. The rest of the team joined up with us in the parking lot. We’d gotten all of the Vampires, which was a relief. I was hoping for a relaxing drive back to headquarters.
As soon as I was strapped into the back seat next to Brandon, I checked my IAC and was shocked to see that my sister was lying unconscious on the ground outside of the warehouse they’d just cleared. I still couldn’t access her IAC, but it wasn’t because Holland was messing with it; it was because she was out cold. I was looking at her through Aaron’s, and even though he was the one who’d been shot, Cadence was more in need of Martin’s healing powers right now.
“What happened?” I screeched, not sure if she was going to be okay.
“She’s all right,” Aaron said, though there was a lilt in his voice.
“You seeing this, Cass?” Elliott asked me from the passenger seat. Jamie had decided to drive since Elliott was still recovering from the injection.
“Yeah, I’m seeing it.” Brandon squeezed my hand. Back to Aaron, I repeated my previous question. “What happened?”
“One of Holland’s cronies, a guy by the name of Fergus, snuck up on her. He hit her in the head with the butt of his gun a few times, but Alex took him out. She’ll be okay. Martin’s working on controlling the blood right now, and then he’ll wake her up.”
I took a few deep breaths, glad to hear exactly what had taken place. It did sound like Cadence would be just fine. As soon as her eyes started to flutter open, I sat back in my seat, glad to see she was okay but also thinking she might want to be left alone for a bit. I kept Aaron’s visuals on but didn’t ask Cadence for hers yet.
Instead, I decided to drop in on Paul. It had been a while since I checked on the Guardians who had been injected in Melbourne. He was in the process of moving them back to headquarters, which I thought was a good idea. I heard him say, “Keep giving them aspirin. The transfusions seem to be working. Even Stanley is doing better.” Once again, I decided not to interfere, but I was glad to hear it seemed like all of them would be coming through this unscathed.
I quickly checked on the other two teams. Aurora’s and Hannah’s teams had both cleared their locations of all Vampires without losing anyone. In fact, in the operations all across the globe my sister and Aaron had organized, we had been very successful. There were some fatalities, a few Hunters lost along the way, but the amount of Vampire cells loyal to Holland we’d taken out all in one night was impressive. I imagined she was beside herself over in Linz, trying to figure out if she should even go back to Melbourne. The last thing Paul did before he loaded up his vehicles was light a match and toss it on what was left of Larundel.
Jamie doesn’t drive as fast or recklessly as Elliott, but we still made good time. Osceola is a lot closer to Kansas City than Wichita, where we were coming from, so by the time we pulled to a stop in front of Jamie’s office, Cadence and Aaron were already inside his small operating room waiting for the Healer to take a look at them. I hurried along behind him, wanting to see my sister with my own eyes. Brandon and Elliott came with me.
Cadence looked awful. Her skin was pale, there was blood all down the side of her jacket to her jeans, and she was missing some hair. Aaron didn’t look much better, but they didn’t seem to be in too much pain. “I think I can fix this pretty quickly,” Jamie said, though he did actually place his hands on them, rather than just shooting a ball of energy across the room at each of their wounds.