Chapter 1: Viva Las Vegas

The pounding of her heavy boots rang off of the marble barricade as Cadence Findley sprinted down the promenade, leaping between ornate columns every few feet, careful with each jump to situate herself so that the landing hit on the narrow top of the only barrier between her and a nice fall to concrete several stories below. The Vampires in front of her were not being quite as cautious, but they were being smart; by sprinting away from her up here and not on the walkway itself, they were preventing her from firing her Glock. After a missed shot had splintered the ferro of a gondola in the canal, she was leery of taking out any more Vegas landmarks.

“Just because they’re running up there doesn’t mean you have to,” Elliott Sanderson said in her head. He was serving as lookout, perched in the clocktower at the end of this passage. Cadence was hopeful the trio of bloodsuckers in front of her would run right past him, and maybe he could get the shot she was missing. She doubted her team would be that lucky.

“I know I don’t have to,” Cadence replied without opening her mouth, leaping around a corner. “But there are pedestrians in the way.” It was nearly 3:00 AM, and in most cities, that would mean they had a clear chance of taking down their prey without many witnesses, but not in Las Vegas where people were more likely to be up in the middle of the night than in the middle of the day—not that that was any better time for stalking the undead.

“The escalator’s right ahead of you,” Cadence’s fiancé, Aaron McReynolds, reminded her. “They might have to slow down when they get there.” He was busy himself, back at Madame Tussades where this had all began.

“Right.” She could see the escalators up ahead. But there were still marble columns that ran along either side of it, and she had a feeling this group wouldn’t give her any easy shots. The idea of sprinting ahead of them so quickly they wouldn’t even see her crossed her mind, but there was a chance they might detect her move and go back the other way. This direction, she had help further up the strip. Behind her, there was nothing but more strip before it faded into the desert. If they got out there, the chances of hunting them down that night would be nil to none, and since this was one of the last cells that had been working directly with Holland, they needed to be extinguished tonight.

One of the male Vampires, a tall one with long, greasy black hair, made a break for it by leaping off of the barricade and sprinting between a group of college-aged kids who seemed to be going out for the night. For a flicker of a second, Cadence had a shot, but she knew if she fired, there was a chance she’d hit one of the innocent bystanders, so she kept her finger from pulling the trigger. She heard Elliott curse under his breath, thinking she should’ve taken it. “Just exactly what kind of patching up do you want to do when I’m done?” Cadence asked, thinking the sort of interference he could clean up wouldn’t involve a human body count. As far as she knew, no one had accidentally hit a human in at least a hundred years, and she didn’t want to be the first.

The other two Vampires, a short girl with a punk rock hairstyle in shades of pink and red that plumed out of the top of her head like feathers, and a tall, broad shouldered man who might’ve been the rocker’s significant other, continued along the divider, but Cadence was done running at half speed. “Get ‘em out in the open,” Elliott suggested. “Maybe I’ll have a better shot.”

That was exactly what she’d been trying to do, so she didn’t respond. Whizzing through the kids who were actually her age or a little older but seemed like mere children, Cadence kept the other two in sight out of the corner of her eye in case they wanted to turn back. At the lip of the escalator, the first Vampire hesitated, not sure what was out there in front of him. Cadence slowed, too, just as the other two came even with her. They’d have to make a choice as well.

They saw her just as the barrier they’d been dancing across terminated into a wide open concrete area near a fountain. The tourists were a few yards behind them but closing quickly on the moving walkway. Vampire number one took off running toward the fountain as Cadence brought her weapon around, checking there was nothing behind the pair poised on top of the marble wall. She fired at the man first, thinking she could see the girl better with her hair, should she get away. He was hit in the shoulder, the titanium bullet leaving a gaping hole. He grabbed ahold of his wound and jumped backward off of the marble wall onto the concrete and started running, but Cadence knew the shot was fatal.

The girl’s eyes bulged. She looked back at the group of humans that had nearly caught up with them, though the sound of Cadence’s gun going off sent them backward a few steps, scrambling down the escalator the best they could, running into other families who were trying to make their way up. Elliott would have to fix all of this later. Even with a silencer on her gun, it was obvious shots had been fired. Luckily, no one near the fountain had heard anything.

Until what seemed like a meteorite slammed into the Vampire with the long black hair as he tried to cut around the fountain. Cadence glanced up, the overhang of the moving walkway actually swaying from the breeze her partner had created when he leapt from the tower. Tiny splinters ran through the pavement, ending at the lip of the escalator. “So much for not ruining anything,” she muttered just as the girl took off back the way she came. “Dammit.” She leapt over to the marble, thinking it would be easier to follower her there than to try to cut through the panicked people running into each other on the walkway.

As Cadence sprinted after the girl, a rush of tourists seemed to appear out of nowhere. “Where are all of these people coming from?” she asked over her IAC, not of anyone in particular.

“One of the shows just let out down the strip. Maybe from there,” Dr. Jamie Joplin, their resident Healer, who was further down the street from the Venetian, around Paris, Cadence thought, answered in her head.

“Are they all staying at this hotel?” Cadence barked back, but there was no answer that time. The people seemed to be in a rush, and she wondered if it had more to do with the fact that there were Hunters and Guardians with guns everywhere. Maybe Elliott’s descent had caused a panic, or maybe her shot at the Vampire a few moments ago had inspired the stampede. At any rate, she was having trouble keeping up with the smaller woman who wound her way through the people more quickly.

The doors that led back inside to the shops and the canal were just ahead of them. Cadence needed to reach the woman before she went back inside. Her gun wouldn’t help her now; there were too many people in the way. So she holstered it and ducked around a woman with two small children who should’ve been in bed ages ago.

The woman paused with her hand on the door and shouted, “Oh, my God! She has a gun!” The small crowd of people picked up speed and started running in every direction, many of them colliding with Cadence, the very person they should’ve been trying to get away from if they had any idea who the punk rocker was shouting about.

“Son of a bitch!” Cadence muttered just as the Vampire ducked back inside. She’d never had one of them try to influence humans to blockade her progress before, and it sort of made her feel bad that she was about to destroy someone so clever. Nevertheless, she had to. This cell had been part of the group Holland had organized to invade the Reno Area headquarters. Cale and his team had made short work of their allies, but this group had managed to hide out in a desert ghost town and had only come back to civilization a few days ago. Aaron had gotten his team on a flight within hours, and now here she was running back the way she’d come, chasing a Vampire who was just about out of options.

The canal was up ahead of them. This time of morning, there were no boats on the water at least, though there were plenty docked nearby, including the one Cadence had already accidentally destroyed. The Vampire glanced behind her and then looked around, trying to decide whether or not to make for one of the shops or try to find another group of people. Out of options, she did the one thing Cadence was praying she didn’t do and dove into the canal.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Cadence muttered, jumping in behind her. The water was cold and murky, and there were a few directions the girl could go. It took Cadence a moment to see her, up in the distance, swimming back the way they’d just come toward a waterway near the fountain. Resurfacing for a moment in order to draw in a deep breath, Cadence took off after her, hoping the woman was about to swim her way right into Elliott’s waiting arms.