Anomaly (Causal Enchantment) (6 page)

If the
call needed to be made, it would need to be made by me. I could not dither, I could not doubt.

New York City would need to burn.

It seemed so … drastic.

“We could
still turn around. We could head back to the mines. You could make the call. This entire mess would be gone within two hours, if all proceeds as planned with Isaac.”

My head shook
as I watched the hundreds of innocent people below, doing their jobs, trying to make sense of what had happened at this Fifth Avenue address. I could not so simply extinguish their lives, along with eight million other innocents. All because of what … a few hundred fledglings, maybe?

If we could find them, m
y witch fire could consume them quickly, as long as they were contained. After that, we’d have the media footage to deal with, but we’d somehow figure that out. We always have. “No, let’s fix this now.”

“And Viggo?” Mage’s black eyes flashed with fire. “You know he
’s out there, somewhere, waiting for us.”

My eyes skittered over to the others, looking for signs that the name was caught on one of their ears. When satisfied
that it had not, I murmured, “Yes. I’m sure he is.” Perhaps it was my own paranoia but I could feel his presence even now. I’d always been able to, like a strange sixth sense, the hairs on the back of my neck spiking whenever the psychopath was near.

I knew that the chaos Viggo was creating was not just his retaliation against Veronique’
s choice. It was a marker, letting me know where he was. That I shouldn’t forget about him. He assumed that Evangeline was dead and I was crushed. He assumed I would come looking for him, ready to incinerate him. In fact, if we were to go visit the scene of the city mayor’s death, he would probably be there, waiting. Expecting me.

It was best to stay away from
Viggo, though, and keep Caden out of sight as well. As long as Viggo believed Evangeline to be dead, then he’d keep us alive to suffer. I would bet my existence on that.

“
If anyone were to catch wind of Viggo, they’d be running back to the mines faster than the fledglings will flee upon attack,” Mage pressed. “I wish you would’ve let me kill him back in France.”

I snorted. “So do I.” I would
have had to lie to Veronique, tell her that the witches had killed him. Looking at the situation now, I would have swallowed the guilt of that lie happily. Six of us standing on this roof had someone back in that mine—protected by wolves and werebeasts, none of them a match for a vengeful Viggo—who he would gladly take from us. Part of me was desperate to run. Grab Evangeline and run to the most remote rainforest in the world, where we would be sheltered from him.

But that wasn’t an option
, and I could read between the lines with Mage’s warning—keep everyone in the dark about Viggo, at all costs.

Her brow pinched together for a second before smoothing to that placid mask of indifference. “What do you make of Evangeline’s transformation? Something is not quite
… right, wouldn’t you agree?”

I exhaled heavily.
“I don’t know what to think of that. I couldn’t find a thing within her that was off. She felt exactly like any of us do.” That I hadn’t left her hovering over a bag of human blood like a mongrel was more than surprising. A relief, to be honest. To
not
be consumed so completely, to
not
lose all humanity … that would be a gift from the Fates. But I had never known the Fates to be generous with their grants and so I could not focus on anything but my concern. “We’ll have to figure it out after we’ve done what we came here to do.”

Mage’s head bobbed. “Good. That’s best, not to be distracted right now.”

“I appreciate your counsel, Mage. As always,” I said truthfully, “but we’d better get going.” We made our way back to the others, who were deep in conversation.

“
Bloody media, all over the place.” Kait sneered at the CNN crew below.

“It doesn’t help that the ground
outside was littered with evidence,” Mortimer answered. Countless markers sat on the snow-covered ground, indicating where the dozens of bodies with snapped necks had been discovered after the blast.

“
We didn’t have time to compel witnesses,” she threw back.

“Did you even try?”
From what I’d heard of Kait and what I had myself witnessed, she wouldn’t be the type to even try. Unlike me, human life meant nothing but a meal and lifestyle security to her.

“It doesn’t matter. It
had already gone viral,” Lilly said, ending the back-and-forth in her childlike voice. She shook her head. “The humans are stupid. They see a massacre and instead of running for their lives, they pull their cameras out and begin recording. Look at them.” She gestured toward the crowd outside the police tape. “Even now, they’re eager to catch a glimpse.”

Early
reports were fast to label it a terrorist bombing, but the eyewitness accounts of those who escaped, coupled with images and videos circulating the Internet, quickly connected the dots into a terrifying picture that no reputable journalist would give credibility to without first investigating.

“They’ll be finished with
analyzing the images soon,” Mage said softly. “And then the president will make a speech, declaring that everyone must remain in their homes for safety. No one will label us for what we are yet. Look, there.” Her long, slender finger aimed to a single military vehicle rolling down the street, past the police barricades. “By this time tomorrow, those trucks will be all over the streets.”

“What’s the
body count at now?” I asked.

“
NYPD reports say two hundred and six, but my inside source revealed it’s double that,” Lilly replied, earning my groan. “The last reports of an attack were at a college campus residence not far from here.” So they were staying relatively close. That was good. “Thirty bodies, found an hour ago. The attack style sounds like fledglings.” Lilly’s voice hinted at nothing. Was anyone else afraid? No one seemed to be. Not sufficiently, anyway. Well, except for Mage.

“Why don’
t you make yourself useful and hit this place with another blast of your magic, Sofie?” Mortimer suggested as we watched the forensics team struggle to scale a heap of stone, evidence cases in hand.

“
My magic is not endless, Mortimer.” I would love to level the rest of Viggo and Mortimer’s home with another explosion but I needed all of my power for what we were about to face—it was far more threatening than a few army trucks and a forensics team. “I also want something that
may
still be inside.” A small canvas bag that held the only natural substance toxic to vampires. There was a very small chance—but still, a chance—that it remained intact.

“I’ll come with you,” Caden offered.

My mouth opened to refuse him. I probably would be better off going alone, but this ensured that Caden was not out of my sight. I’d promised Evangeline that I would protect them. I knew that Caden was at the top of her list. “Fine, the rest of you, stay here. If it looks like we’re in trouble, provide some sort of distraction. If we separate, you all know where to meet.”

Though
Galen was a thorn in our heel every step of the way, he had prepared us well, arming us with programmed cell phones and two-way radios, blow torches and lighters for effectively killing fledglings where my magic might not be available, and a rendezvous location in front of the
Alice in Wonderland
statue in Central Park should we find ourselves dislocated. The last thing we wanted to do was lose track of our small team, especially when sunrise—and my difficult decision—would come quickly.

Caden and I
scaled down the fire exit, leaping from one platform to the next with the ease of ghosts and without regard for spectators, though I doubted anyone would notice. They were too focused on the mayhem across the street.

“How do you want to do this?” Caden
murmured as we ducked under the police tape.

“As quickly and quietly as possible,” I hissed back as several
police officers raised their hands to stop us. “Starting now.” I ran, sensing Caden’s presence beside me as we sprinted past the officers, forensics, and firefighters, leaving them scratching their heads.

As I
’d hoped, the blast of fire had demolished everything above street level, but the underground remained passable. Several of the entrances were still open for passage, propped up by constructed wooden supports. Even in utter darkness, I could see numerous dusty footprints. The humans had already been down here, likely scouring for survivors.

But t
he small crowd of investigators hovering around the blood cellar had discovered something more. Judging by the frowns and low hum of voices and flashes of a camera, it was very concerning.

I couldn’t
blame them. The room resembled a morgue—Viggo did design it after all. Stainless steel panels stretched from floor to ceiling, and behind each one was a refrigerated drawer. The supply had been almost drained, leaving perhaps one or two drawers with evidence.

I’d destroy those before we left here tonight.

“Excuse me
, gentlemen,” I crooned, stepping into a beam from the temporarily erected light. “And madam,” I added, nodding to the single female with a camera in hand and an FBI badge around her neck. Heads slowly turned toward my voice, unrushed, likely expecting another officer or specialist, there to feed them important information. “You shouldn’t be down here. It’s very unstable.”

When
their eyes scanned over my black attire, my wild red hair, my oddly casual smile, I saw the flickers of suspicion ignite.

Quickly p
enetrating each gaze with my own, I pulled all five minds into mine, watching the swirl of cloudiness take over their irises. “Forget you ever saw the contents of this room,” I droned. “Turn around, walk to the end of the hall, and take the stairs up. Do not come back down. Report that you have found nothing of interest.”

Like
drones, the five began moving past us in single file, in the direction we’d just come. Caden edged past the last person to step into the very familiar cellar. He and his friends had spent many hours in here, trying to curb the uncontrollable urge that came with tasting human blood again.

T
hat’s when the tall, dark-haired man bringing up the rear raised a gun and shot Caden three times in quick succession. The sound of the blasts ricocheted through the hall, no doubt reaching the ears of those above.

With the
handgun a mere foot away, the bullets exploded into Caden’s back. Two of them exited his chest. The third did not.

The shuffle of feet behind me stalled, t
he loud bang interfering with my compulsion. “Exit, now!” I commanded, my eyes wide as Caden dropped to his knees with a growl, his face grimaced with pain.

The
n the man turned the gun on me.

Luckily
I was ready.

And I was faster
.

Flying forward, I shoved the gun upward as his finger
tugged the trigger, sending the bullet through his chin and into his skull. His body dropped to the ground in a heap, and his heart stopped beating a few seconds later. Yanking his limp hand, I immediately spotted the telltale tattoo of the People’s Sentinel—an angled cross—on the meaty part of his thumb.

Lilly was right. They
truly had infiltrated everything. And this one had clearly been spelled by the witches to resist compulsion.
Dammit!
I knew it was possible because I’d already faced it several times, but this time there were no signs, no warnings. The witches had somehow advanced their spell! As if we didn’t have enough to deal with already.

Caden’s g
rowl stole all other concerns from me. “I won’t heal!” He pushed out through clenched teeth, on his knees, his hand pressed against his chest.

“Shit,” I cursed, dr
opping down to meet him eye to eye. Viggo had been kind enough to ram a wooden stake through my heart more than once so I knew how painful this was. One of the bullets must’ve lodged itself in Caden’s heart. The Fates had designed our kind so strangely. Our hearts no longer beat, no longer sustained our lives, and yet we needed them wholly intact to function.

Footsteps pounded down the stairs
in the distance. We’d have countless witnesses to deal with soon, which would lead to countless bodies. I’d hoped to avoid that. We needed to get out of here and I didn’t have time for finesse. “Okay, hold still. This may hurt.” Caden fought with gritted teeth to hold his scream in as my magical coils penetrated his chest, coiling around the bullet. Sure enough, it was lodged in his ventricle. I gave it a sharp tug, tearing through walls of muscles and bones and lungs and skin until the bullet clanked onto the dusty concrete.

I lost myself staring at it
for a split second. What if that had been a “special gun,” like the one that Mage had described, the kind that used explosive bullets specially designed to kill our kind? Caden would be dead! We hadn’t been in the city for an hour and I’d have to go back to the mines and tell Evangeline that, after all that she’d been through, I’d gotten him killed. And for what? A bag of merth?