Chapter Text
~~~~~~~~ Chicago, Illinois ~~~~~~~~
Parking the car Adria sits back in the seat looking out onto the car lot until her eyes settled on the bar. ‘could she have picked a place more crowded’ she thought, watching shadows dance by the windows. Shutting off the engine Adria pushes open the car door and exits, swinging the door close. Walking towards the bar she glances around, forearm slightly pressing against her side to check for the concealed gun before entering. Adria is hit by a wall of sound as rowdy fans cheer for their teams, focus solely on the game playing on the widescreens. Looking around she maneuvers through the crowd until she hears her name,
“Adria, over here!”, she turns to see Cherry sitting in a booth with a couple of beers, waving to her with a mischievous smile. Adria heads to the both settling down lightly in the opposite seat with raised brows. “pretty crowded don’t you think?” Adria spoke, voice slightly raised over the noise, “ah, these people can barely focus on who’s right next to ‘em, besides who would even believe the crazy shit we do” Cherry states taking a swig from her beer. Adria leans back in her seat grabbing her beer, looking around at the many people, ‘lucky’ she thinks, taking a sip of her drink. Turning back to Cherry, of all the names she could choose, she sits her drink down and leans in, Cherry following suit, “what are we looking at?”
“I don’t know”
“you don’t know?"
“I checked everything, twice. They’re moving again”
“where are they going”
“I’m not sure but I know where we can get some answers, there’s a vamp nest not far from here, moved all the way from Maryland, bout two dozen, maybe more. You up for it?”
Adria smirked, hearing the playful remark, “are you?” she challenged drowning her beer. Cherry laughed leaning in closer, she blinks, eyes becoming an abyss as blackness engulfs them, “I’m always down for a fight”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ time skip ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“he’s getting away”
“no, he’s not” Adria shouted running after the rogue vamp with a large machete gripped tightly in her hand, leaving Cherry to deal with the remaining. Forcing herself to speed up Adria keeps her eyes locked on the running vamp trying to regulate her breathing, ‘you had to hide out in a mine’ she thought to herself as the vamp rounded another corner, “fuck this” skidding to a halt she throws the machete with a grunt catching the vamp in the leg. With a surprised cry the vamp falls to the ground stunned, he makes an attempted to stand but Adria is there driving her knee into his face, pulling out a syringe full of dead man’s blood she sticks it into his neck pushing the blood into its system, she steps back trying to catch her breath. The vamp groans weakened by the blood and make to get up, but Adria is quicker, kicking the vamp once again and knocking it out. Cherry jogs around the corner barely breaking a sweat, “aye, you got em”
“shut up and bag him” Adria heaves following the tunnel to the exit, Cherry only laughs easily lifting the vamp onto her shoulders before following. “hey, drinks on me” “oh yeah”
~~~~~~~~~~ Jefferson City, Missouri ~~~~~~~~~~
“this can’t be right” Jayden whispers, breath clouding in front of her. Looking around she finds that she’s in an alley, not where she is supposed to be, ‘how the hell did I get out’. Walking towards the mouth of the alley Jayden sees that she is now in a city, sidewalk littered with a few pedestrians and noisy traffic. She catches sight of one license plate that reads ‘Missouri’, backing up into the alley she presses up against the wall, right hand covering her eyes, “this ain’t real, it can’t be real no one gets out.” Pulling her hand from her face she notices weird tattoo-looking marks in the palm of her hand, looking closer she sees that there are more going up her sleeves, it is then that she notices her dirty clothes, “okay, maybe this is real, what now Jayden? What’s next.” She asks herself, leaning her head back onto the wall taking deep breathes. She formulates a plan in her head running through different scenarios, eyes snapping open she pushes off the wall and leaves the alley disappearing into the night.
On the rooftop looking down onto the alley, two beings stand watching as Jayden leaves, “are you sure she is the one?”
“do you doubt his commands?”
“I doubt her, of all the beings her chooses that, hell beast.”
“to doubt her is to doubt him. she has arisen now brother, we will recognize her as such.”
“… yes, Joshua”
~~~~~~~~~~~ Denver, Colorado ~~~~~~~~~~
“Wes!”
Looking up from the front desk Wes turned to see Loran standing awkwardly behind the wall whispering loudly for her to follow. Looking around the reception area she makes sure no one is paying attention before slipping away moving towards Loran. When close enough they began to walk down the hall, “what are you doing here?”
“what do you think I’m doing here, Wesley” Loran states stopping with Wes who rolls her eyes.
“Firstly, its Wes, secondly, we have already talked about this, I’m out, done.” Wes hisses, moving closer to Loran when the hall becomes a little crowded, “and I respected that for the past five fucking years, you weren’t the only one- “Loran cuts herself off, realizing that she was getting a bit loud, “look, we all regret what happened, if things weren’t as bad as they are now I wouldn’t have bothered you, but we need you Wes” Loran’s voice dies down to a whisper. Wes sighs, hand running down her face, she looks Back at Loran, “one, last, time. and this is it, okay Loran, I’m serious.”
Finding an empty observation room Wes locks the door turning on the lights, meanwhile Loran pulls her laptop out off her bag turning it on, setting it on the chair she turns back to Wes, “okay, Adria called me about a nest of vampires passing through Chicago from D.C. nothing new, only thing is they weren’t the only ones, werewolves, ghouls, shifters, they’re all coming out the woodworks. But then I noticed something else when I got in touch with some other hunters.” Typing something into her computer she then turns it showing different locations throughout America with a list of creatures found there. “looks like they’re moving inland, but why, are they running from something?” Wes asked,
“that’s what I thought originally, but I’m not so sure anymore”
“what are thinking?”
“I’m not really sure, but …” Loran strays off as she turns the laptop towards herself, leaning down to looks closer. Wes crosses her waiting on Loran to continue, “but?”. Loran frowns typing on her laptop before staring slightly shocked at what she was seeing. “wow”
“what?” perking up Wes walks around the chair to look at the computer screen, she doesn’t see what has Loran now riled up, “I’m not seeing it”, turning to Wes Loran becomes animated with her movement. “Wes, they’re not running they’re gathering holy shit! But why, and where?”.
“Okay, so you got that, why did you need me again?”, Loran blanks for a second, obviously forgetting somethings, snapping her finger, Loran reached into her bag pulling out a silver dagger and laying it on the seat, “you know what this is?” Loran asks as Wes slowly reaches for the blade barely grazing it when violent images flash across her mind, eyes turning a ghostly white as she collapses to the floor, “Wes!”
Loran catches Wes’ head before it could hit the hard floor, “Wes! Hey, come back, Wes come on girl hear me!” hands going to the side of Wes’s face she watches as the woman slowly comes back, blinking in confusion before the vision she just had comes back to her. Gasping she sits up, Loran moving to help her up, “what the hell is that thing!” Wes roars, no longer caring about being heard.
“Damn Wes tell the whole ward would ya! I don’t know what the damn thing is I was hoping you could tell me”
“I’m not touching that thing again, ever” Wes declares, stepping away from it, Loran sighs, “could you at least tell me what you saw, do you feel anything, give me something.”
Looking wearily, Wes leans against the counter shifting through her thoughts, “It was bright, brighter than anything I’ve ever seen and burning, it felt old, ancient and powerful. I don’t know what that belonged to but its way out of my league, just thinking about it makes my head hurt.” Running a hand over her forehead Wes tries to forget the whole thing. Loran wants to ask for more details, but she holds back, “I’m sorry things turned out the way they did, I really am, Jay would have loved this, I’ll tell Maria you’re doing alright, stay safe” Loran finishes as she packs her things and leaves. Wes only watches her go, leaned back against the wall, “you too” she whispers before leaving the room herself.