“Fan out!”We darted down different pathways. I went with Armageddon and listened to the others getting farther away. I wondered if Bella would be killed or if the cage would keep her safe.Either way, she deserved what she was getting.I frowned, worrying my lip as I realized that she wasn’t wearing my mother’s necklace.Where had it gone? Was it back at Wolf Fang?I turned on my communication charm. “Can everyone hear me? Are you alright?”“It’s chasing us!” Dune and Apollo said. “Circle back as you can. We’ll try to lose it in the caves.”“Don’t lose yourself—”“Vampires!” Gilgamesh screamed.The hair on the back of my neck rose as Armageddon took us down another pathway. I felt someone coming up behind us. He stopped and turned, throwing me behind him before lifting his arm and swinging. A sharp crack echoed through the cave. A body dropped to the ground.A long strip of fire went through the air and sliced down.Something hissed further in the cave and he turned.“Quickly!” Armag
I couldn’t turn fast enough. There were people shouting through the communication system, but I couldn’t make out all of what they were saying. Armageddon stepped in front of me. He cut through the air with blade of fire and set the area near us on fire. He pushed me back towards the rendezvous point.“We found an entrance!” Someone said through the communication system. “About a three-minute run west of the rendezvous point.”“Everyone converge on that point,” Armageddon said, grabbing my hand and pulling me away. He wasn’t running as fast as he had been earlier.“You’ve used your powers too much.”“Just run, Pandora!”I looked back at line of fire. The creature had shuffled around the fire and was following us. It wasn’t going to give up until it had caught us. We passed the rendezvous point and he turned, throwing his hand back. The ground surged up and opened as the creature rushed forward. It formed a spike and pierced the creature before tumbling over itself and sinking the cre
“Isn’t that… Sibyl of the Red Moon Pack?” I asked. What the hell was she still doing here? Candido had banished her days ago.“It is,” he said lightly. “The king banished her from his territory for assaulting his ward… But what else do you see?”Not much. I didn’t recognize the building, but a faint glimmering scrip above the door caught my eye. It was the same script as the script in the vampire book. “It looks like the writing that was on the painting,” I said. “That means it’s related to vampires, right?”“Come to the haven of the children of the night,” Armageddon said softly. “It’s used to mark safe spaces. Whether the spa knows that they’re in one of those buildings, I don’t know, but it almost doesn’t matter.”My heart lurched, “You can read it? Without blood?”“What do you mean without blood?” He asked.I winced. “I… found a book full of that script, but it’s only legible when there’s blood spilled on it.”“… Your blood?”I didn’t answer, hearing the tension in his voice. I
“I don’t know, but we’re about to find out.”We drove for a while, tailing Norton. I was listening in on the conversation in the car, waiting for them to speak, but they weren’t saying anything. It was almost as if they were waiting to get somewhere else to talk. Sibyl was crying softly. Norton sped ahead, cutting through a light that was right on the edge of the capital where they hadn’t yet set up a barricade. It was a little-known or used road. We followed to keep pace, but to not be obvious. We followed him down the winding road. We went around a curve but Norton’s car vanished into a bank of trees.“Damn,” he cursed, continuing down the road. I kept my eyes peeled for some sign of them in the trees, but there was nothing.“You understand what this means, don’t you?” Norton’s voice came through the laptop.Armageddon pulled over to the side and cut the engine so we could listen.“But Daddy, I did everything—”“No, you idiot,” he hissed. “I’m not talking about your botching of the
I tried to call the number back, but there was no answer the first or second time. I couldn’t do much with just my phone, so I headed home to try and get online using Moon Shadow. Maybe I could trace the number and narrow down an area from where the call came. If it was just a prank or someone trying to lure me, it would be one thing, but my gut told me that wasn’t the case. With Francium still missing and her body gone, it could have been her.But how? Did that mean she wasn’t dead? Did that mean she had been revived somehow? But how? And why? My stomach lurched at the thought. I had to cross that bridge when I got to it, not right now. I tried to call the number again, but there was no answer. Quickly, I snuck back into the condo and stripped out of my clothes, and changed into some loungewear. Before I could get to my laptop, the doorbell rang.It was too early for anyone from school to be here, and what would they want with me right now anyway? More than that, the security team wo
He said nothing as he headed to the door. The door closed softly behind him, and while I knew I had won that argument, it didn’t feel like a victory.I stood and went to the balcony. I watched him get into the jeep. He didn’t even stop to look up. The jeep sped off and away. I tilted my head and went to grab my laptop to pick up my work on tracing Claire’s call. The scent of pastries faded into the background as I set my jaw and tried to find where the call could have come from.It was at least an hour later before my stomach demanded more food, and my mood felt so low that I made myself a cup of hot chocolate with extra whipped cream. I spent hours trying everything I could to find out what I could from the call, but there was nothing. Whatever phone she used was a temporary one. Wherever she’d made, the call had no ambient noise I could use to identify it. It was as silent as the grave.My gut told me that she was with Francium, but that meant nothing as the investigation by the Int
“No,” the woman said evenly. “She’s been turned.” The guards came in after the Blue Moon team had left, but I sat, wrapped in a robe, in the living room, trying to think through all the information that they’d told me. Claire was alive. She was with Francium. She was now a vampire. Claire was a vampire. She was our enemy, but was it possible that she was still Claire? We could kill her, but would that be the right thing to do? It wasn’t her fault. Or was it? No one knew how vampires turned people. We didn’t even know that a werewolf could be turned into a vampire! It was all so confusing. I didn’t know what to do next. I wanted to call Candido, but I held back. Telling him anything might blow my cover as Pandora, and the leader trusted me with this mission because of my judgment. They searched the whole place before coming back to me and asking me what had happened. I didn’t know if it was my silent that made the whole situation seem more serious than it was or if it was just pro
I fumbled through my backpack for a pen and paper before offering it to him. As he wrote, I noticed the Moon Shadow crest on his watch. My heart sped up. He was an operative. Was he also the mole? Maybe he wasn’t. I’d need to try and contact him as Pandora just to see who he was. Now that I had a direct connection to the Moon Shadow leaders, I might be able to get his operative record. “Tell him to hang in there, yeah?” He asked. “Sometimes… the Moon Goddess has plans for all of us and we can’t always see the full path.” I nodded. His words seemed oddly devout. I thought of the red cloth that was found at the scene of the attack. As I left, I checked my phone and saw another message from Candido. Will you come to lunch with me? I want to see you. I winced at the request, looking down at the paper before reconsidering it. I would need to eat before I headed there. If I did eat with Candido it would be free, and I’d be able to shake my escort team a little easier. Besides, if I didn