Melissa and Chris stopped beside her, their heads turned slowly as their gazes fixed upon the woods. Nothing stirred amongst the darkness, but she knew that something was out there. Knew that whatever it was it was evil, and it was thirsty. She shivered, her arms wrapped instinctively around herself in a useless attempt to fight off the ice in her veins.

The crowd of students moved and shuffled around her, their laughter loud in her frozen ears. Their joy was oddly out of place in the pulsing malevolence encompassing her. Whatever was out there, she could feel its eyes upon her. Feel it watching her.

“We have to go,” Melissa said softly, her normally strong voice wavering slightly.

Cassie tore her attention from the woods; her gaze instinctively fell upon Devon again. He was no longer watching her as he had turned back to the forest. His attention was riveted upon the woods, his body taut once more. A jolt tore through Cassie as she realized that somehow, she didn’t possibly know how, he felt the evil too.

CHAPTER 13

“I believe that an Elder is here.”

Cassie’s legs ceased their swinging motion on the island she was sitting upon as Luther slapped the paper down in front of them. The large headline blazed up at her in big black lettering. ANOTHER WOMAN KILLED BY WILD ANIMAL. Though she tried, she could not tear her gaze away from those words. The paper had been on her counter this morning, but she had thought nothing of it as she breezed by to grab a box of cereal. Then again, she had not thought about much since Devon had entered her life. But now, for the first time since she had met him, Devon was not foremost in her thoughts.

Horror and nausea rolled through her. Her stomach in a tumult, her body broke out in a cold sweat, and her temples pulsed with the fierce beats of her heart. For a moment she thought her life was flashing before her eyes, but then she realized it was just white lights blazing because she had forgotten to breathe. She inhaled sharply, the air burned through her tortured lungs.

“An Elder?” Chris asked softly, his voice tight and choked.

Luther nodded vigorously, shoving his glasses back up with his index finger. “Yes, murders are up, and animal attacks have doubled over the past couple of weeks. You know what that means. Now, it could be a young vampire, but I don’t believe so.”

“But you don’t know for sure?” Cassie asked her voice higher pitched than she would have liked.

He nodded again, his gray eyes grave as they met hers. “I’m fairly positive Cass. This thing has been stalking people for a little while now. It’s covering its tracks very well, something that younger vampires are not so discreet about, and tend not to do. I wouldn’t have noticed the trend if I didn’t follow the newspapers so carefully. I firmly believe that this thing is older, more powerful, and it is hunting here.”

Cassie shivered; she wrapped her arms tightly around her middle again. The painful knot in her stomach only clenched further, seeming to twist her intestines. An Elder. They had never dealt with an Elder before, never even come close to one. And she had never wanted to.

It had been The Elders that had grouped together to destroy The Hunter line, determined to take them all out in one fell swoop. Though they had not completely succeeded, they had managed to slaughter hundreds of men, women, and children. Including their parents. The massacre had left The Hunter line straggling, broken, scattered and lost across the globe. The survivors had fled for their lives, moving about continuously in order to stay hidden and alive.

Before the carnage there had been almost six hundred Hunters. After, there were only thirty two known ones left. That number included Cassie, Melissa, and Chris who hadn’t been old enough to walk, let alone fight for their lives when The Slaughter occurred. It had been left to her grandmother, Luther, and Chris’s mom to keep them safe and alive.

Chris had been telling the truth when he’d said that Luther was good friends with Melissa’s parents. Luther had also been their Guardian; one of the people entrusted to train and protect The Hunter line. His duties as a Guardian consisted of schooling them in the old ways, navigating them through Vampire and Hunter lore, and teaching them how to fight. When The Slaughter occurred Luther had fled with Melissa to Germany, then Japan, and finally to the U.S. where they had bounced around in search of survivors. During the carnage, Guardian’s had also been slaughtered; there were only twenty one survivors that had been accounted for. Her parent’s own Guardian, Brent, had been murdered with them when The Slaughter occurred.

All the Guardians had known where The Hunters had been located before The Slaughter, but in the aftermath, many had been lost, maybe forever. Luther continued to search for more survivors, but his journeys always came up empty handed, and Cassie knew he worried that he wouldn’t find anymore.

With the small number of survivors, it was feared that The Hunter line would eventually die out. Cassie did not plan on having children. There was no way that she would leave them orphaned and alone after saddling them to this life. And if she didn’t have kids, and the others did not survive to have children, then it was only a matter of time before there was no one left. It was Luther’s biggest fear; after their deaths, of course.

Cassie tried to swallow the hard lump that had imbedded itself in her throat, but it was choking her, cutting off her air as it remained lodged in her windpipe. It seemed that their time had come, much sooner than she had expected, far sooner than she had wanted. Tears burned the back of her eyes. However, they were not tears of pain or sorrow, but of anger.

She was angry at fate, and this monster that had come into their lives. It was not fair that she had finally found something good in her life, and now she was going to lose it. She glanced around the room, her heart breaking for the only family she had ever known. Chris looked shell shocked, Melissa’s gaze was distant and unfocused; Luther was frantic.

“What do we do?” Chris asked softly.

Luther turned toward him, the normally soft lines in his face hard and fierce. “We run.”

There was a moment of stunned, breathless silence, before Cassie and Chris exploded at the same time. “What!?”

Luther nodded briskly, he folded his hands behind his back as he started to pace the confines of his kitchen. “None of you are ready to face an Elder. You haven’t had enough training; you do not know the full scope of this creature’s abilities. No one fully knows what an Elder is capable of. You cannot go up against that.”

“The three of us…”

“Are not enough,” he interrupted Chris sharply. “Your powers and abilities are nothing compared to what this creature may be able to do.”

Cassie’s head spun, her extremities went numb. She felt as if she could slide off the kitchen island and become a limp pool of body parts on the floor. There was nothing left to her. “How can you be so sure that this is even an Elder?” Chris asked softly.

Luther heaved a large sigh as he continued his relentless pacing. “I cannot. The biggest clue I have is the lack of evidence that the police have. This monster is killing for the pleasure, and power, of it. He is not turning them; he is leaving their bodies behind with no blood, when he leaves them behind, but he also leaves no hint of his mark upon them, which is something that new vamps tend not to do. The lack of blood at the crime scene is stumping police, but they are not digging too deeply into it. Probably because they don’t want to know. Also, most new vampires do not survive their first month.”

“What? Why not?” Cassie gasped in shock, breaking free of her paralysis.

Luther rolled his eyes as he shook his head. “You never listen to me,” he muttered. “Most new vampires are killed in their first month.”

“Why? How?” Chris demanded fiercely.

Luther shot him a fierce, disapproving look. “Either by Hunter’s, especially when there were more of you, or by other vampire’s.” Cassie stared at him in stunned silence, her mind spun with the revelation. Luther shoved his glasses back up his nose and returned to pacing. “Older vampires don’t want a lot of newbie’s around. They do not want the human population to know that vampires are real, and young vampires tend to be careless about the conditions they leave their victims in, and the amount of bodies they leave behind. They tend to raise questions that the Elders don’t want raised. Also, hunting and killing another vampire is more power than a human, and more thrilling for them. I imagine that they thoroughly enjoy it.”

Cassie inhaled sharply; she found the brutal picture he was painting extremely disturbing. They fought amongst themselves in search of a more thrilling kill, and more power? She knew that they were monsters, awful, horrendous, and despicable, but this was far beyond her scope of disgust and hatred for them. Nausea twisted in her already sour stomach.

“How come we didn’t hear about this fact before now?” Chris demanded.

Luther stopped pacing; folding his arms firmly over his chest he glared at him. “Because you and Cassie didn’t want to learn about the lore, and the behavior of vampires, you just wanted to learn to fight.”

Cassie had the grace to look chagrined, Chris did not. Melissa stood silently to the side; she already knew what Luther was talking about. Having grown up in the life, Melissa had been taught everything as a child. She also firmly believed that if she was going to know the future, then she needed to have a tight grip on the past. And Melissa was very much about the future and the things that were revealed to her. However, Cassie had resented her heritage as it was; she did not want to learn more about it. And Chris, well if it didn’t involve food, girls, and action then he wanted nothing to do with it.

“Well it’s all boring crap,” Chris muttered defensively.

Luther’s jaw clenched, his eyes narrowed slightly. “Well you just learned something new, and important, from that boring crap!” Luther snapped. Chris finally had the grace to look discomfited as he ducked his head. “So that is why I believe that we are dealing with an Elder now.”

“The thing in the woods,” Cassie said softly, looking wildly at Melissa and Chris. “That’s what was out there tonight, and at the beach the other day.”

“How could it have been at the beach? It was daylight,” Chris argued.

Cassie shook her head, hopping off the counter as she began to pace rapidly. “It was overcast though, probably cloudy enough for them to come out at that point of the day.”

“What are you talking about?” Luther demanded fiercely. Melissa quickly filled him in on what had happened the other day, and the strange feeling they had all experienced again tonight. Luther’s face was grave and thoughtful, his eyes distant as he studied the far wall. “We may never know exactly what an Elder is capable of. The scope of their powers may be far beyond anything we can even imagine.”

Cassie’s stomach rolled over again, and she was very fearful that she was going to throw up her strawberry shake before this night was over. “If it is watching you, then it’s likely that this creature knows what you truly are. It is also likely that the three of you may have drawn it here. It may have sensed your powers, and abilities, and it also may have noticed the deaths of its brethren do to you. That’s why we must leave. It will hunt you until it destroys you.”

Cassie abruptly stopped pacing; she nearly tripped over her own feet as she stared at him in disbelief. Melissa slid limply off the island; she rested her hand against it as her legs buckled slightly. Chris took a step forward, his eyes turbulent, yet blazing with a fiery determination.

“No,” Cassie said softly, swallowing heavily as she tried to wet her parched throat. “No, I am not leaving,” she managed more firmly.

Luther looked at her in surprise, his eyes blinked rapidly behind his Lennon style glasses. “What do you mean no? You don’t understand Cassie…”

“I understand that you think this thing will kill us, and you may be right. I also understand that we may have led this thing here; I will not abandon the town, and the people I have known since childhood, to this monster. It may kill us, but we are also the only defense that they have against it. I will not leave them to be slaughtered because of us.”

“Neither will I,” Chris said firmly.

Melissa wet her lips nervously before straightening her slender shoulders. “We can’t Luther. Cassie’s right, this thing may be far more powerful than us, but we are the only defense here. We can’t abandon them; it would be like leading the lambs to the slaughter.”

Luther stood silently for a moment, disbelief and something akin to pain bloomed in his eyes. “I understand your desire to stay, and I commend it, but I cannot allow that to happen. There are not enough Hunter’s left to risk your lives. I must keep you safe. You cannot stay here.”

“I will not allow innocent people to die because of us!” Cassie retorted fiercely.