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The group didn’t ask questions, instead they also changed direction and followed her. Vidar held up his phone for the other to see, Charlie assumed he had got the same message as shet had. She was grateful the hotel had been cleared of humans, they didn’t need to conform to human speed. They managed to get to the war room in minutes. As they walked inside, the monitors that had been used to track the three vampires using Charlie’s software were all displaying the same message box.
‘WARNING! Broken pattern with proximity to target locations.”
“Charlie, what does all of this mean?” Caine asked as he walked up to them.
I only created one warning in my software, it’s not designed to do other things than to track individuals and groups. But I was nervous for my brother and his family and for us. So I added this feature. But it wasn’t supposed to trigger,” she said as she hurried over to one of the work stations that displayed the message.
“What does it mean?” Vidar asked as everyone followed her.
“If the three targets break the pattern the software has determined and that deviation is one
of three target places, the software sends out a warning,” she explained..
“What are the three target places?” Caine asked.
“Home, Vegas and Hong Kong,” she told them. It had been the three places where they had people that were important to them.
“Are you saying your software has detected that someone on our list of targets have travelled to one of those three places?” Jun asked, the tone in his voice was worried.
“Not necessarily, I’m checking on it now. It can just be that the places are mentioned or that they have interacted with businesses in that city,” Charlie said as she pulled out the data that had set of the alarm. She froze when she read through the details,
“What is it?” Vidar asked.
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“There are emails sent between the three of them, I’m bringing the emails up, but the software indicates they are all mentioning Vegas,” Charlie told them. Soon seven screens showed an email each. They had all been sent that day. They spread out and read them.
“Tracker located in Vegas.” One said.
‘Still no contact from subject in Vegas.‘ The next one said, Charlie wondered about the tracker.
“f**k, we didn’t consider that they might have placed a tacker on the traitor,” Caine swore. Charlie looked at him.
“Millard is here?” she asked.
“We didn’t know if we would need further information from him,” Jun told her. Charlie skimmed through the emails, they were all trying to confirm the location of “the subject“, she got to the last one and felt dread overtake her.
‘Subject location confirmed in Vegas. Go ahead with plan A. No information can leak, full
elimination needed.”
“f**k,” Vidar swore and yanked Charlie up from the chair she was siting on. “Secure Millard,
I’ll get Charlie out,” he told Caine. Caine nodded and they all started moving toward the door. All the other members had their phones out.
“We have started getting the word out,” Henry said.
“Our allies are getting ready for an attack,” Nasir continued. They were in the corridor and
Vidar headed for the stairs to go up. His grip on Charlie’s hand was firm. The others headed the opposite direction and Charlie looked around to say goodbye when there was a loud bang and the building started to shake. Charlie yelped and grabbed on to Vidar. There was another explosion and Vidar drew her into his arms to steady her.
“We need to evacuate the building.” Henry told them. Vidar changed direction and he and Charlie followed the others as they all headed down, the people in the war room joined them and Caine directed them to form a group surrounding the clan. The corridors and stairwells.
made it hard for the formation to work, but Charlie was surrounded at all times. They were
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about halfway down the stairs when Charlie could hear a strange sound. It was hard to place as the stairwell echoed with the sounds of everyone’s footsteps.
“Do you hear that?” she asked Vidar.
“Stop!” he shouted and everyone froze in place. The sound became more audible, it was a whiny sound, almost like a weed whacker. From below them a drone appeared and as Charlie was still trying to manage her surprise, Vidar pushed her toward the wall, placing himself between her and the drone. A strange feeling flowed through Charlie. It was as if someone had drained her of all energy. She was struggling to keep on her feet as she stumbled against the wall, grabbing the railing to help her. There was a click and she was about to turn around when she felt Vidar crash into her back. He grunted and then the world exploded. Charlie’s ears hurt from the shockwave that bounced around in the narrow stairwell and her eyes from the intense flash of light. Everything was shaking and debris was falling. Charlie tried to keep her eyes open but someone, probably Vidar, was forcing her head down. She relented and curled into a ball, covering her head with her arm. She heard shouting around her and the weight of a b*dy pressing into her. The air was thick and smelled of metal and chemicals. All of Charlie’s senses were overloading with everything that was happening around her. When the building underneath her feet stopped shaking and her head stopped spinning, Charlie looked up. Vidar stood doubled over, holding her. She could feel him breathing which calmed her. She saw glimpses of blood, chunks of the building and metal.
‘Vidar?‘ she linked him, she needed to know he was okay.
‘I’m okay, baby. Are you hurt?” he replied and tried to stand up..
‘I’m okay, I think,‘ she answered. The strange feeling of overwhelming tiredness had gone. ‘Caine?‘ she sent next. The seconds ticked by slowly and she didn’t get a reply. ‘Vidar, Caine isn’t responding to me,‘ she linked Vidar.
‘I know, Charlie,‘ he told her.
‘What do you mean ‘you know‘? Where is he?‘ she asked, feeling her panic rise.
‘He’s slumped over me,‘ Vidar linked. ‘He shoved me into you and covered us both when he felt the magic.‘
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‘Magic? What magic?‘ She felt so confused by everything.
‘It’s okay, Charlie. I’ll explain things to you when things have calmed down,” Vidar said.
“Sure, sorry. Do what you need to do,” she told him.
“Adisa, some help,” Vidar called out.
“f**k,” Adisa said as he got to them. Charlie didn’t like that.
“Carefully,” Vidar said. Charlie saw Henry hurry over to help Adisa. They moved something from Vidar’s back and put down beside them. As Vidar straightened his pose, Charlie could see it was Caine that was laid out besides them. He was pale and Charlie couldn’t see his
ch*st moving.
“Caine!” she called out and tried to get up on her feet. Vidar helped her up and they both turned around and squatted down beside Caine.
“We need to move, if another one like that comes we are sitting ducks,” Henry said.
“Is he alive?” Charlie asked Vidar, ignoring Henry.
“He has a weak pulse,” Adisa informed them both.
“It’s okay, we will make sure he gets out as well,” Vidar told Charlie and k*ssed her temple. She could only nod. She was doing her best not to cry. Vidar lifted Caine up and put him over his shoulder. Charlie saw the stairs where he had been laying and she gasped. The rubble and dust were covered in blood. She looked at Caine.
“Oh no,” she said and reached out a trembling hand towards him, but changed her mind and withdrew it once again. His back looked like one big open wound. Pieces of debris were sticking out and it looked horrific.
“Can
an you handle this?” Vidar asked her. Charlie swallowed several times to get her stomach
under control, took a deep breath, which was a mistake and then nodded. For the first time she registered her surroundings. There was a big part of the stairs missing, several bodies were strewn about that even Charlie could see had to be dead. Injured people were checking
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on eachother. But as she scanned the members of the clan, she saw they were relatively unharmed. Liwei was checking a cut on Jun’s arm. Henry, Adisa and Nasir looked dishevelled, but she couldn’t see any blood except on their hands from lifting Caine.
“Okay, down we go,” Nasir said, taking the lead and jumping over the big gap in the stairs. Liwei and Jun followed.
“Your turn, you can do it,” Vidar told Charlie.
“What about you?” she asked and glanced at Caine.
“It’s an easy jump to make, even with him,” Vidar told her. Charlie nodded and found he was right. With her vampire strength, the jump was easy to make and she watched Vidar follow her. They all felt the urgency and rushed to move down the stairs. A floor below the explosion and the stairs looked fine. They could move without having to go over rubble. They were almost at the bottom floor when another explosion was set off somewhere below them.
“f**k, we need to clear the building so we can set it on fire,” Henry yelled as the started moving again.
“What?” Charlie asked, by this point she was so confused she had a hard time getting. anything to make sense.
“Too many dead vampires. Too public of an attack. We can’t hide the evidence in time so we need to get rid of it,” Henry explained as he held the door to the ground floor open for her and Vidar. They sprinted out into the main part of the lobby. There were signs of an
explosion, but the chaos Charlie was expecting wasn’t there. Instead Vidar’s parents calmly stood waiting with the two gargoyles and what used to be Millard. Millard looked more like a corpse than a living being. Charlie felt hatred for someone for the first time in her life. In her eyes, this was all because of him.
“He’s useless,” Vidar told Bishop. The gargoyle nodded and took out a stake dipped in silver.
He drove it into Millards ch*st as they watched. There was a silent sigh and Millard fell into a pile on the floor. Bishop took the stake out and nodded towards Vidar.
“Everyone that didn’t die in the first explosions have been moved to the second location,” Vidar’s father said. The clan, except for Charlie, nodded.
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“We will join them,” Nasir said. Together they walked out through a side entrance and heard. the sirens in the distance. When they rounded the corner to the next block, Henry took out
his phone and did something. There was an explosion ten times the ones they had lived through and then the sound of fire. Charlie looked back and saw the dome building engrossed
in flames.
“I’m sorry,” she told Henry. He shrugged.
“1
get to build an even better one next time,” he said.