Anomaly (Causal Enchantment) (17 page)

Wi
th the lightest sigh, Lilly said, “Evangeline’s on her way here. She should be here any minute.”

“What?”
Mortimer and I exploded at the same time.

“She
called and said they’d be here soon. Then her phone cut off. That’s all I know.”

“Who
are
they?
She and Max?” I would skin that dog alive for allowing her out of the mine.

“She didn’t say.”

“How far away is she? Does she know about the rendezvous point?” My eyes widened with panic as I drew a mental map of the airports and the likely routes for Evangeline to take. Was she at risk now? The streets were crawling with fledglings and military. “Which way is she coming from?”

Lilly stared blankly at me
.

“Wh
at about the others? Who’s watching over them?” Mortimer’s dark brown eyes flared with anger. “We’ve left a bunch of fledglings in the care of the
wolves
?”

“
Who cares about
them
right now!” I yelled. “They’re safe!”

“Might I remind you that one of
them
is your sister?” Mortimer’s voice dropped a few octaves, each word clear and crisp. I knew that tone. It meant he was considering putting my head through a wall. Right now, I felt like saving him the effort and doing it myself.

“I’m going back,” he announced.

I grabbed onto his powerful forearm. “No, not yet. Please.” I didn’t bother trying to hide the pleading in my voice. I would drop to my knees and beg if I had to. These decisions were weighing too heavily on my shoulders as it was. We’d had more than our share of differences in the past but Mortimer’s presence and his opinions had helped significantly these past few weeks.

“Veronique is alone!” He jerked at his arm but I wouldn’t let go.

“Still feeding like a feral animal, I’m sure,” I assured him.

“She’ll be angry
when she finds out she was left alone there.”

“Not as angry as she’ll be when she finds out you abandoned me to thi
s mess to sit and watch her in that state.” I honestly didn’t know if that was true, but I knew it would stay his urge. Upsetting Veronique was the one thing Mortimer had never been able to handle.

His
tension dissipated. “No longer than sunrise.”

Sunrise. What would the city look like? How far would the fledglings have scattered? How much would the world have seen by then? Too much to hide the truth, ever?
If we waited until sunrise and could still not find Amelie, then what? Had we waited for nothing and given doom a stronger foothold on this world? These questions pounded down on me in quick succession, all pointing in the direction of one answer.

We couldn’t wait. Not for one vampire.

But Evangeline …

Mage’s heavy glare
weighed on me. She knew as well as I did that my weakness was that girl.

I didn’t know what to do.
“It seems like everything we’ve done has only made things worse. Now we’ve lost one, we’re missing two, three more are at risk …” I wrapped my arms tight around my chest.

“There is much more at risk than three,” Mage reminded me. I knew what she’d do. She wouldn’t hesitate for a second. She was a true leader, ready to make the hard decisions. Me
… All of my motives and choices were still made based on what would keep my girl happy and safe. And until I had her in my sights again, my ability to make the impossible decision was paralyzed.

I kicked the edge of the statue.
I winced through the pain, my eyes trailing the bronze mushroom as it sailed across the park.

And
landed at Evangeline’s feet.

Chapter Eleven
– Evangeline

By the look on Sofie’s face when our eyes met, I wasn’t sure if she was going to hug me or strike me down with bolts of fire.

An instinctual part of me cowered
next to Julian as she closed the distance with lightning speed. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at the mine? Are you insane?” The questions fired out of her mouth, giving me no chance to answer before she wrapped me in a fierce hug. It lasted only a minute and then she released me. “I told you to stay away! You can’t be here!”

I
’d never seen Sofie so frantic before. Whatever was going on, and I’d now seen firsthand to know that the situation was grim, Sofie was finally unraveling.

This probab
ly wasn’t the right time to inform her that I could compel vampires and heal humans. Given what we’d seen and heard, what
I
could or couldn’t do hardly mattered.

Mortimer, Mage, and Lilly sidled up to loom behind Sofie.
No Caden, though, I was dismayed to see.

“How are you
two even here?” Mortimer’s piercing eyes shifted from me to Julian, and back to me, narrowing. “I know there’s something off about you, Evangeline, but Julian, we left him feeding like a wild animal …” His hawkish gaze swung to the left with the sound of squeaky wheels. A homeless man pushing a cart down the path approached. All eyes locked onto us.

“How are you able to withstand that?”
There was accusation in Mortimer’s tone, as if I’d done something to make this happen. In Julian’s case, that was true.

“I don’t know,” Julian admitted.
“Maybe because I’m more focused on finding Amelie. I’m glad someone is,” he added icily, “seeing as you guys are just sitting around, doing
nothing
to find her!”

“Caden
is out looking for Amelie right now,” Sofie muttered, her displeasure with that prospect painted across her face. “Bishop and Fiona are with him.”

My stomach twisted
. Going out there, with all those fledglings and the military, was dangerous. What if Caden went missing too?

“When will they be back?”

“Better be by sunrise,” Mortimer said under his breath.

My
eyes drifted to Lilly, standing quietly next to Mage. She told me the city was lost. What if they didn’t make it back by sunrise? That meant … “Sofie, you can’t give Isaac the go-ahead! Not until they’re all out!” My body trembled as I lunged forward, grabbing her hands. “Please! If I lose them all, I’ll—” I choked on the words.

The veil
over her eyes lifted for just a second to disclose sadness before dropping with a hardened gleam. “Calm down. I will not give Isaac permission to do anything yet.”

“Promise?”

Her jaw tensed visibly. “I promise.”

My head dipped as I accepted her word
, relieved. Sofie had never let me down. She’d never stopped trying. She’d never given up. She wouldn’t give up now.

“Where could Amelie be?
How could she just be
gone
?” Julian pressed, his voice desperate.

Sofie shook her head.
“I have no idea, Julian. Honestly.” Her mint-green eyes scanned the darkness, and I sensed the air of suspicion swirling around her. Another batch of sirens called out into the night; another set of blood-curdling screams made us cringe. “Let’s find a less visible place to wait.”

Chapter Twelve
– Sofie

“This one.” I pushed through the entrance of the monstrous glass building, the small heels of my boots clicking against the lobby’s tile floor. “Mortimer, can you please get us into the penthouse with minimal disturbance. Take Evangeline and Julian with you.”

I knew giving Mortimer a task right now was the smart thing to do. It was only a
matter of time before he bolted back for the mines. From there, who knew? I might not see him or Veronique again for decades.

Within seconds, Mortimer had the security guard compelled and oblivious
to our existence. I waited until he, Julian, and Evangeline stepped into the elevator, waving them off. “We’ll grab the next one.” In truth, I needed the three of them away from me so I could talk freely.

The
second the doors shut, Mage spoke.

“We cannot sacrifice everything
for one vampire.”

“Two,” Lilly corrected, her round blue eyes tinged with sadness.

Mage dipped her head slightly. “We cannot sacrifice everything for two vampires. And we cannot wait any longer or it will be too late to change the course of fate.”

I closed my eyes, listening to the doors of the next elevators slide open, pause, and slide closed, without us on board.

What Mage was suggesting was sacrificing two of our own for a gamble. It could already be too late to change the course of fate. Worse, I knew that it was the right thing to do. But how could I make that decision now? “I just promised Evangeline …,” I muttered.

“
You made a promise that is impossible to keep,” she said. “Would you really risk this entire world for two of our kind? If I were out there instead of Amelie, I would not want you sacrificing everything just for me. I can only imagine that Amelie would feel the same.”

For the sake of my conscience, I had to believe that.

“We
clear the surface and then can go back in and get rid of any that have survived in the tunnels. It’s a simple plan but it’s our best hope,” Mage pushed.

After a long pause, I said,
“Losing Amelie and Kait is one thing but we cannot lose all of them.”

Mage wasted no time. “
Lilly, can you reach Bishop?”

Lilly’s
black bob swayed with her nod.

“T
ell him that Evangeline is here and she needs to see the three of them immediately. She’s frantic. They’ll come.”

Blue eyes shift
ed to me and caught my nod. Lilly pulled out her phone and dialed the number.

The knots in my stomach tightened further.
“She’ll never forgive me.”

“This must be do
ne, and now, Sofie,” Mage pushed softly. “We both saw what was there.” Her voice dropped an octave, out of Lilly’s range. “And we both know what happened to Galen, and Amelie. And I presume Kait.”

Viggo. That’s what happened.

“Doing this will rid us of that problem too.”

That would certainly be a silver lining. Viggo, dead, without putting up a fight? But
…

“Leaders can
’t please everyone all the time,” Mage continued. “They make the hard choices because they’re the right ones. You know it’s the right one, don’t you?”

“Ye
s.” The one word felt like sandpaper against the inside of my throat. “How do you propose we get everyone to vacate the city?” I knew Mortimer wouldn’t be a problem. It was the others.

A grim smile responded.
“By doing what you do best.”

Chapter Thirteen
– Evangeline

“Caden is on his way,” Lilly told Sofie and Mage.

My heart skipped a beat and a smile curled
my lips. But then I remembered, unless they miraculously found Amelie in a city of eight million people, Caden’s springy-haired sister probably wouldn’t be with them.

My smile
dissolved.

“
All of them? How far?” Sofie asked, staring out of the floor-to-ceiling window, arms folded across her chest. Like a group of con artists, we’d slipped through security, up the elevator, and into the penthouse. It was already vacant, the owners away on Christmas vacation according to the friendly, compelled man at the front desk.

“No more than five minutes, he promised.
All three.”

“And Isaac?”

“It’s ready.”

Sofie’s lips pr
essed together. “Okay.” Pale green eyes darted to the white sectional where Julian and I sat before shifting back to the skyline. The glass reflected her grim reflection perfectly.

I frowned.
What was going on? What was ready? What were they up to? I had the distinct impression that something had been set in motion since the three vampiresses swooped through the penthouse door, sharing hushed whispers. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what, though, and how it related to Isaac. He had one job on that submarine and until we were all out of the city, he couldn’t be delivering on it.

Beside me,
Mortimer scanned the various news broadcasts, a sullen scowl marring his handsome face. It seemed the world was watching one thing and one thing only, and it was the state of emergency in one of the greatest cities in the world.

He cleared his throat, still focused on the screen.
“How was Veronique when you left?”

“Fine.”

His head snapped toward me. “Just
fine
? How much blood was left when you abandoned her?” Dark, accusing eyes bore into me, a sure sign that Mortimer was ready to lose his temper. “What’s going to happen when they run out of blood? Who’s going to get more for her when she needs it?” He snorted. “Max? With his opposable thumbs?”

“
I stole a blood truck and we restocked so there’s more than enough for days. And Max will take good care of them.” I hadn’t heard from my werebeast since just before the accident. He was likely sulking over my abrupt dismissal. I needed to check in with him soon, although then I’d have to explain how I’d lied and then risk him running here.