I tried to stand, but my legs ached in protest. They needed more time.
“Go help however you can. I’ll be up and running in a few minutes, then I’ll come find you.”
It took someone else yelling for help to finally push Ethan toward doing what needed to be done. I knew him well enough to know that wasn’t who he was, but he had to be in his own kind of shock. We all were.
“And if you see Taya, or...”
Ethan nodded, knowing what I needed. I watch his back as he climbed back up over the rubble and sent a thousand prayers out into the night for him and everyone else to be okay.
The room we’d fallen into was filled with wood and stone. I could make out where the door out to the rest of the cellar probably was, but it would take some work to clear a way out in that direction. My group was still off to the side, in the hallway around the side of the cathedral. They hadn’t been anywhere near the front or back walls, which I hoped meant they’d been out of the path of danger.
If I were them, I’d have probably tried going back out the way we came. We knew where the door to the cellar was, which was probably one of only two remaining doors. Unless they’d wanted to climb up over what used to be the front wall and out into the night.
Sirens wailed in the distance. The humans had figured out that something terrible had happened. How many of them were already watching from afar? How many had already stepped forward to try to help?
No one else could get hurt tonight.
Unwilling to wait any longer, I braced my weight against a fallen beam and pulled myself to standing. Knowing better than to push too far, too fast, I tested my legs, then my arms, my back, then my neck. I’d never know for sure, but it felt like at least a few bones were still knitting themselves back together. The vampire blood would stay in my system for almost a full day, but if I was going to be of any use to anyone I’d need to be careful not to re-injure myself.
I took a few careful steps toward the door, wanting to at least try to get to the rest of the cellar before attempting to climb back up to the main floor. If I couldn’t manage that, I’d try my cell phone.
“Melanie!” A voice called out.
I looked up, expecting to find someone staring down at me, but no one was there.
“Here.”
I turned and found Simon standing behind me. “Ethan said you were down here,” he explained.
“You?” I looked up, confused. God, my head hurt.
“We think the protection spells broke when the building came down. I’ve already been back to get Leda, and she’s transporting people out of here.”
“Don’t bring them to the castle,” I said right away, immediately feeling selfish. But we didn’t know who we could trust. We didn’t know who had done this to us.
Simon shook his head. “Right now, we’re just focusing on getting people out.”
“The injured come first, but also focus on anyone who might be a risk to the humans.”
The last thing we needed was for this disaster of a summit to lead to the very thing we’d been trying to avoid: the humans learning something they shouldn’t.
“Right.” Simon reached a hand out to me, and I took it. I felt our bodies jump together right away before we appeared back upstairs, beside a gaping hole in the floor. It turned out that a trip that only traveled a few feet was just as jarring as one that went between countries.
I turned right away, taking in the scene around me and hoping no one had seen us appear in place who shouldn’t have. But power had died inside... well, what was left of inside. I could see a few streetlights in the distance, but mostly there were shadows. A fog of dust thickened the air. The only element I could make out clearly was the haze of magick still running strong through the survivors.
When I turned back to ask Simon what had happened to the rest of our group, he was already gone.
More than anything, I wanted to take out my phone and start texting everyone, but I’d already seen the shape of someone lying prone on the ground beneath what was left of an ornate pillar. I rushed toward them, terrified of what I’d find.
A fae man lay unmoving. I used the light of my phone to give myself a better look at his face as I reached out with my other hand to feel for a pulse. I wasn’t even sure if the fae had a pulse, but what else could I do? His grass-green hair was matted to his forehead with blood. His eyes stared, unblinking. Blood dripped from pointed ears. Only the slightest trace of green magick remained on his body.
He was long gone.
And we were all so incredibly screwed.
I looked around for help to try to hide the body, but everyone still moving was either trying to get out or trying to help those who were still living. I was on my own.
The first time I’d disguised a fae corpse to look human, it had been a young woman. I couldn’t even guess at this man’s age, his pointed features didn’t look all that near human. But applying the glamour didn’t hurt me any less.
I reached out and closed his eyes, letting fae magick flow through me.
When they found him, he’d look human. It wouldn’t last forever, but it would give us time. Assuming the sirens that now blared from right outside hadn’t belonged to humans who were already in here with us, seeing things they shouldn’t.
I knew humans well enough to know just how good so many of them were, especially in Galway, the city that had taken me in. If there weren’t humans here already, there would be soon. And they needed to be protected from us as much as us from them.
Walking over to the first person I could see radiating witch magick, I tapped an older woman on the shoulder, trying not to panic more than I already as when she jumped a little at my touch.
“Hi,” I said before realizing this was not the time for niceties. “We need to shield the humans from...” I gestured all around us. The witch stared at me, probably both dazed and confused. “Can you cast something that will keep them from realizing what they’re seeing?”
Slowly, she nodded. “I might be able to keep them from understanding while it’s dark, but it won’t last for long.”
“That’s a start. I can glamour the bodies of the dead if they don’t look human. It won’t do much good in an autopsy, but one step at a time.”
She nodded again, more resolved now. “If anyone records something they see, I can’t change that, or their perception of it.” I was still a little surprised that this woman was listening to me at all. And that she’d given me a good idea.
“I think I can take care of that. If you need anything else to make this work, find me. I’ll see what we can do.”
Who exactly was we? I thought I’d meant it as me and my people, with our unique array of powers. But maybe I’d meant “we” as in all of us there, together in the rubble, united in tragedy.
But the time to dwell was gone. I reached into my pocket and sagged with relief when I felt the familiar weight of my phone at my fingertips. Without pulling it out, I could tell it still had the two things I needed from it: power and a wifi connection.
I pushed my magick into the device and felt for any nearby internet connected devices. There were hundreds. I didn’t have time to sift through them and figure out whose belonged to humans rather than the supernatural, so I simply destroyed the recording capabilities of every single one of them. Disabling the feature instead would have required finesse that I no longer had the focus for.
As the spell finished, I also used my power to send out a group message to everyone who had been here with me and everyone who was waiting back at Castle Elgan, worried about the people they loved.
And then one more, using the tiniest bit of magick just to activate the telephone app, calling the number I’d used most since all of this had begun.
Somewhere on the other side of the hall, Taya’s ringtone echoed into the night.
Chapter 9
I followed the sound of Taya's phone, trying to prepare myself to find it on her lifeless body.
But how could
anyone prepare themselves for any of this?
Instead, I found my friend crouched over a dark-skinned witch, pressing down on her abdomen with a tattered old shirt. "Taya! Thank God."
At the sound of my voice, Taya looked up, her face sticky with sweat and dust. Her hands remained firmly pressed on the woman's stomach. "Mel! I'm so glad you're okay." I leaned down to join her. The witch she was helping flinched at the sight of me but didn't seem to have the energy to do much else. "We heard the explosions, but we didn't know what had happened to you."
"I was wondering the same thing about all of you. I'd hoped you'd gotten out." Taya shot me a look that said quite clearly what she thought about the idea of turning tail and running away.
"What can I do to help?" I asked.
Knowing Taya was okay made it a little easier to focus on the surrounding chaos.
"Can you find Nina?" she asked. "She ran in here at the first yell for help, but I haven't seen her since."
Finally, something useful I could do. And something I probably should have thought of sooner. In the dark, I couldn't make out much in terms of faces, art or debris. But the sight of magick burned as brightly in my vision now as it ever did.
There were far fewer people in the ruins of the cathedral than there had been when it was standing in its full glory, but it was still hard to make out specific clouds of power. How many of the people gone had escaped, and how many had we lost forever?
At first, I couldn't find any colors outside of those belonging to the main factions as one person's aura bled into the next. And Nina's powers had always appeared to me as a vibrant, rosy pink. Beautiful, but not something that necessarily stood out when surrounded by the red of vampire magick.
Thankfully, I had other options, at least if Nina still had her phone.
I found Nina as quickly as I could, directing her to Taya, who slumped with relief when backup arrived. Minutes later, she was there with me when I practically tripped over the keening form of a woman I'd faced head-on recently. The Mistress of Dublin held a quickly decaying body in her arms while tears of blood flowed freely down her face. Most of what she was saying came out in an ancient sounding language that I didn't understand, but one word came through loud and clear.
Eduardo.
Her consort was dead. One more person gone forever.
I stepped away, knowing I would be the last person she'd want to face in that moment. "We need to get her out of here." I whispered to Taya.
The next hour passed in a blur of medical emergencies and lingering fear. And the longer we stayed, the harder it got to avoid the humans who were now crawling all over the ruins, intent on helping.
I didn't see Bryan, but with the number of Garda taking control of the scene, I suspected he was around somewhere. At least from the outside, to him, it would look like everything he'd feared had come to pass. The supernatural world had descended on his city, and one of their most beautiful structures had been destroyed. He'd have no way of knowing that no locals had been hurt. I wasn't even sure no one from Galway had been close enough to feel the impact of the blast.
Eventually, half the battle became trying to figure out who the police had managed to get ahold of for statements or transportation to the hospital. After my recent run-in with the law, I knew I needed my name out of any official reports, but eventually we needed to designate some official survivors. Witches would be safe to be examined by doctors, and at least a few had been taken away in ambulances for emergency surgery. Werewolves healed too quickly to risk a doctor getting a close look but worked well as police witnesses. The fae insisted on keeping to their own and didn't seem keen to share their exit strategy with the rest of us.
But everyone, vampires included, knew it was in all of our best interest to keep them away from any human interaction.
At least the bodies of those they'd lost would never be found.
Unlike Nico's body, which had been left behind, surrounded by the wall he'd been crushed under. Like the rest of our group, he'd had a clear path to safety, but had chosen to stay inside to try to help.
Another talent gone.
Another person.
We were still searching for survivors when the sun rose over the Corrib river. Everyone from Simon and Leda, to the police, to every witch who had been working magick to erase human memory was exhausted beyond words.
But as the world woke up around us, it was time to go.
I looked back toward the rubble one last time as my legs followed Ethan toward the rabbit hole, practically on auto-pilot. In a field behind the church, I watched as a fleeing vampire burst into flame and collapsed into dust.
"News from Ireland shocked the world this morning as details begin to come in about an alleged terrorist attack in Galway city, late last night."
Squished beside Jeff and Tilly on the couch, I watched the morning news with bleary eyes. Some of the guests at the castle had fallen asleep already. I suspected Simon and Leda would sleep for a week each especially after everything they'd done.
While every one of my bones ached with exhaustion, I wasn't sure I'd ever sleep well again.
Taya was stress cooking in the kitchen, and I didn't even know where Nina was. Probably wearing herself thin in an attempt to save more lives. Ethan had gone back to his rented house to be with his pack.
And to make a plan.
News of the explosion had spread far from Galway, even beyond Ireland's borders.
But, like us, most news outlets had more questions than answers.
The news feed switched over to the anchor to a live shot of what remained of the church by the river. The front of the building had been almost entirely blown away, and the structural damage had taken most of the right side as well. From the angle of the camera, you couldn't make out any of the collapsed floor or the back of the building.
But I didn't need the reminder.
The memories of that one night would be with me for the rest of my life.
"While some reports are alleging that this was an act of terrorism, the attack’s timing is raising many questions the world over. The Galway City Council has already commissioned a more in depth analysis of the site, and we hope we'll know more soon."
"Great," I grumbled. "How are we supposed to investigate what happened when there will be humans crawling all over the city? We'll never get anywhere near the detonation device or the explosives until long after the official investigation has ended."
Tilly was still shaking slightly beside me. "You shouldn't be thinking about that right now. In any other universe, the victims would never be asked to investigate something this awful. We should be in hospitals, or in therapy. I never want to set foot in that city ever again, let alone go back to where it all happened."
I started to argue but didn't have it in me to form a sentence, let alone a coherent thought.
The anchor interrupted footage of search and rescue working the scene with an update. "Breaking news. We're hearing reports out of Galway that a survivor has been pulled from the wreckage. While a few, yet unidentified bodies, had already been removed from the scene, this is the first person found alive."
My heart stopped for an instant as I let myself wonder if maybe it had been Nico. But it hadn't. I'd seen his body myself. Still, a single person being found alive was news to celebrate. Or would be, whenever my body remembered how to do those kinds of things.
Of course, we had to investigate. The factions would be. And they'd all seen me standing in the center of the room, making my case for equality when the room had exploded. They'd think it was me. Maybe not all of them. But enough of them.
And putting the blame onto us would be more than enough to derail every single inch of progress I'd made by showing up in the first place. This would be enough to push the call to war against lesser magicks to a full-scale slaughter. Especially because I suspected that the person actually responsible was as much a lesser magick as I was.
Aoife had wanted to stop the summit. When tha
t hadn't worked, I fully believed she'd resorted to far more extreme measures.
But a suspicion wasn't enough. I needed to get a closer look. And to claim Nico's body. And to find a way to make things right with the factions.
We had no way of knowing for sure what the humans would find as they descended on the cathedral. Maybe our precious, supernatural secret was already destroyed, and all of this had been for nothing.
"I’ll head upstairs," I said to no one in particular.
"I'll let you know if anything changes," Tilly promised.
"Sleep if you can," I countered. There would always be someone around who could get me up to speed. But anyone who had been there needed to focus on themselves first.
I resisted the urge to look back at the tv, but the image of everything I'd seen re-entered my mind anyway.
By the time I'd reached my room, the tears were already flowing freely down my face.
I made it to the room, shut the door behind me and slumped down behind it.
And then I let it all out, and slowly lost my mind.
Chapter 10
The factions took one whole day to lick their wounds and mourn their dead. And then they came out swinging. Not focused, but ready to do some damage.
By the time I woke up the next morning, Nadir was already calling for my death.
A few others were calling for the deaths of anyone who had been in attendance without an official invitation. I guess because we were party crashers that meant we also had to be terrorists.
So far, there'd been no official response from the moderators, but it would be coming as each faction made their own recommendations on what to do next.
"Could this have been a reaction to Mel's announcement?" Tilly asked as I got up from the table for a second round of pancakes. About half of the people we had staying with us seemed to be coping with trauma by cooking, which was helpful since I seemed to be coping by eating.
Magic In My Blood Page 6
