“Cadence, darling, do you know what the word clandestine means?” Grandma Janette asked.

Nodding her head, Cadence said, “Yes, it means secret.”

“That’s right,” Janette concurred. “What about the word ternion?”

Cadence thought for a moment. That word did not sound familiar to her. She shook her head.

“Ternion means a set or group of three, like a triad,” she explained.

“Like a trilogy?” Cadence asked.

Janette nodded her head, “More or less. Today, you are going to learn about one of the most well-kept secrets in the history of the world, the Clandestine Ternion.”

Cadence looked at Eliza and Jamie, and they were both smiling reassuringly at her. “Okay,” she said quietly, grabbing a pillow off the edge of the sofa and pulling it to her chest.

“You see, the Clandestine Ternion is made up of three distinct types of beings. As of last night, you have now been introduced to all three types. Do you know what they are?”

Again, Cadence stopped to think. She was sure about two of them. “Well, Vampires,” she said, watching the rest of the group nod. Gesturing at Eliza and Jamie she said, “And Guardians.”

“Those are both correct,” Janette agreed. “And the third?”

Cadence swallowed hard, hesitating. “I take it the correct answer isn’t humans?” She watched the others shake their heads. Then, she thought back to what Eliza had told her in the car. “Hunters?” she asked meekly.

They all nodded and smiled proudly, and Cadence felt like a kindergartner who had correctly identified her colors. “Now, you should know that we refer to each of those groups as a Passel. Within the Clandestine Ternion there are three Passels; Vampires, Guardians, and Hunters.” Janette continued, “What do you think each of those Passels does?”

If Cadence had known this was going to be a quiz, perhaps she would have drank some coffee or gotten more sleep. “Well, I know what Vampires do,” she said, starting with the easiest one. “Obviously, they kill humans and drink their blood.”

“That’s true. Some of them do that, amongst other things. Go on.”

“Well, I assume that Guardians guard things—uh… people… uh… Passels? And I think that Eliza told me that they guard Hunters, right?”

“Yes, that’s correct,” Janette confirmed.

“And then, I guess Hunters hunt.” That answer seemed obvious enough. But what did they hunt? There only seemed one possible answer, and a lump formed in her throat before Cadence managed to squeak out. “I guess they hunt--Vampires?” She looked to the others for confirmation and focused on Jamie’s reassuring smile for a moment.

“Very good!” Janette said clapping her hands together. Jamie and Eliza looked pleased at Cadence’s answers, but also amused that Janette was so impressed by Cadence’s simple responses. “Let’s go a step further, all right?”

Cadence nodded, wondering what all of this had to do with her and slightly afraid to hear the answer.

Her grandmother continued. “What you must understand is that there are forces and powers beyond your present human understanding that balance the Clandestine Ternion and keep things in order. There are some rules that you must recognize, and there are some laws that simply cannot be broken. Let’s go over those, all right?”

Again, Cadence nodded, still trying to figure out how she fit into this picture.

“First of all, a Vampire is not capable of killing a Guardian. If a Vampire could kill a Guardian, the entire Ternion would be off balance, and things would quickly spiral out of control. We would end up with a world ruled by Vampires.”

Cadence needed some clarification. “Wait—are you saying that they are not physically capable of killing a Guardian or they truly cannot kill them?”

Eliza chimed in this time, “Cannot!” she said, shaking her head from side to side vigorously.

“Okay,” Cadence said, understanding. “So, if Vampires could kill Guardians they would just kill them all, kill all of the Hunters, and kill all of the people?”

Three heads nodded up and down confirming her assumption.

This made perfect sense to Cadence, though she wondered why whoever made this rule didn’t just make it impossible for anything to kill anything, but that was beside the point at this juncture.

“So, can anyone kill Guardians?” Cadence asked. The room went silent, and Cadence got the impression that she may have crossed a line or jumped ahead.

“We’ll get to that, I promise,” Janette said, clearly trying to stick to the order she was supposed to follow while explaining the Ternion. “Vampires can kill Hunters, and of course, Hunters can kill Vampires. However, Guardians also guard against Hunters wiping out the entire species of Vampires.”

“What? Why?” Cadence asked, thinking it would be a great idea to just completely wipe out all of the bloodsuckers and do away with the problem completely.

“Because, believe it or not, Vampires do serve a purpose,” Janette explained. “When they do their job correctly, Vampires clean up the under-belly of the human population. They eliminate evil and corrupt humans.”

Again, Cadence had to check the room to make sure she understood correctly. She looked at Jamie this time. “So, Vampires are allowed to kill humans as long as they are bad?” He nodded his confirmation, making her head swivel to Eliza. “But, who determines who is a bad vampire and who is a good vampire? Or who is a bad human or a good human? How do I know for sure that jackass I killed last night wasn’t on the Nice List?”

“You’re jumping ahead again, darling,” Janette stated, bringing her back down a bit. “We’ll get to all of that, all right?”

Cadence nodded in agreement, though she wasn’t quite sure why, and Janette continued.

“There’s just one more thing you need to know,” she hesitated and looked at Eliza and Jamie for support. “It rarely happens, but it is possible, for a Hunter to kill a Guardian.”

Cadence’s face took on a look of confusion. “Why would a Hunter ever want to kill a Guardian? Aren’t Guardians there to help Hunters?”

Janette said nothing, so Eliza picked up for her. “Yes, our primary role over the years has become the protection of Hunters who are engaged in battle against Vampires. However, occasionally, and on extremely rare occasions, a Hunter will find reason to eliminate a Guardian, and there is very little that we can do to protect ourselves because a Guardian cannot kill a Hunter.”

Cadence thought she understood precisely what Eliza was saying, but she didn’t quite understand why her grandmother was so upset. Having learned from her previous mistakes, she chose not to ask just yet but to wait and see what topic came up next. After a moment, Janette seemed ready to continue. “You asked who determines which Vampires are good and which are not?” Cadence nodded. “Well, the Guardian Passel has a Leader, and that Leader determines the majority of what the Passel does. He or she communicates with all of the Guardians and the preponderance of the Hunters and lets them know the status and location of all of the Vampires. It is solely up to the Guardian Leader to determine who is considered a Rogue Vampire and who is considered a Compliant Vampire. Hunters are not allowed to hunt Compliant Vampires, and if they are caught doing so, the Guardians will no longer provide service to them.”

“Wow,” Cadence muttered, pondering all of this new information. “It seems like it would be nearly impossible to keep up with all of the Vampires in the world and then adding in most of the Hunters. How in the world does the Leader keep up with it?”

“I will defer that question to Jamie, since he is more of an expert on the current system,” Janette said, looking in his direction.

Jamie sat up a little straighter and cleared his throat. “Well, every Hunter and every Guardian has a device implanted directly into his or her eye. It’s called an Intelligence Assistance Communicator, or IAC. It’s basically the smallest and most powerful computer ever invented. It allows you to communicate via thought with anyone else who also has an IAC implant. We can also access the use of each other’s eyes, record data, etc. just by our thoughts.”

Cadence looked around the room to see if anyone else was buying this. “Seriously?” she asked, “You expect me to believe that you each have a computer chip in your eye that lets you communicate telepathically? No way, that’s not possible. I believe the Vampires, Ternions, and the Pastels, or whatever they’re called, but there’s no way I believe that you have a chip in your eye. That’s insane! If that were true, we’d all have them.”

Jamie and Eliza exchanged glances. “I guess you’ll believe that part later when we implant yours then,” she said, laughing. Suddenly, her demeanor changed, and she looked like a scolded puppy.

“See now, what was that?” Cadence said, picking up on it as she pointed across the room at the other woman. “Why did you make that face?”

Eliza’s eyes were wide with innocence. “What? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she began.

“Yes, you do!” Cadence insisted.

“It’s all right. You can tell her now,” Jamie said calmly.

Eliza glanced at him and then back at Cadence. “Sorry. I guess my first instinct was to lie. Because, I just got in trouble for saying you’d be getting your own in soon!” she emphasized the “in trouble” portion as if she was not speaking to Cadence when she said it.

“In trouble? What? From who?”

“From Aaron,” Jamie explained. “He didn’t want her to say that, so when she did, he told her to stick to the protocol. Now that you know about the IAC, though, Eliza didn’t need to lie to you about her reaction.” He looked at her sharply, but she ignored him.

Cadence was still puzzled. “So, you’re telling me that Aaron, who is somewhere in Villisca or Shenandoah or God-knows-where, just told you not to say that to me through your eye?”

They both nodded. “Yes, that’s correct,” Jamie confirmed.

“And then, all of those strange facial expressions you were making on our way here were because you were talking to him?”

“Well, I don’t know about making strange facial expressions…” Eliza began.

“Oh, you do!” Jamie agreed. “You always make crazy faces when you’re talking on the IAC.”

“I do not!”

“You do!”

“All right,” Janette chimed in, bringing them back to the topic at hand. “I think that’s enough about the IAC for now. I don’t have one. I prefer to communicate the old-fashioned way,” she said, gesturing at her house phone. “Cadence, whether you choose to accept its existence right now or not, you will find out eventually that it does exist, and it is how Aaron coordinates the thousands of Hunters and Guardians around the world.”

Cadence nodded, but then the entire message sank in. “Wait, what?” she asked. She could see her grandmother’s face going back over what she had said, attempting to figure out what her granddaughter was questioning. “Did you say that Aaron was the leader of the entire Guardian Passel?”

As if she hadn’t realized how intensely her granddaughter was looking at her now, Janette confirmed, “Oh, yes. He is the Guardian Leader.”