by K. A. Tucker
His arm rested lazily over my shoulder. “Relax and trust your abilities. We’re not going to fall. Vampires don’t fall.”
I inhaled the fresh, cold air, enjoying the much needed space after spending an hour enlightening Celine about the impending doom of our world and witnessing the excited sparkle in her bright blue eyes extinguish.
This excursion hadn’t come without a heated telepathic battle with Max and the need to compel Veronique and Celine from tailing us. At first I hadn’t even wanted Julian with me, afraid of what might happen if he crossed paths with a human. What if I couldn’t compel him? But, after agreeing to stick to the high mountains where risk of running into a human was almost nonexistent, I yielded.
“Do you think there’s another planet like ours out there? One that, in seven hundred years, will be facing human extinction?” Julian asked.
“I don’t know.” It was a good question. Would a girl just like the old naïve, confused me show up in the middle of the woods one night seven hundred years from now, believing that she was sleepwalking, a glowing pendant searing her chest? Would she meet and fall in love with a creature too beautiful to be human? Would she find herself in one trap and then another, and another, fighting for her life and her happiness?
The demise of Ratheus may have begun on a different path, according to Mage, but the path led to the same dilemma we faced today. How many more paths led here? What other games did the Fates have up their billowy sleeves? What entertainment at the expense of entire worlds did they relish?
My gaze shifted southeast, toward New York City. Nothing but black.
Julian groaned. “I’m gonna lose my shit if I don’t get my hands on Amelie again and soon. I just need to be near her.” A pause. “Is it like that with you and Caden?”
“Pretty much.” I bit the inside of my mouth before I blurted out more, fighting the urge to pull out my phone and call any of the numbers programmed in the speed dial, hoping to reach him. It had been an hour and Caden hadn’t called yet. He should’ve made it there by now.
Maybe he had even found Amelie too.
“What’s wrong, Evangeline?”
I dropped my eyes to the darkness below. “Who says anything’s wrong?”
“You’re biting the inside of your mouth. You’re trying not to blab.”
“My, haven’t we become perceptive.”
“You’ve always done that and I’ve always noticed.” Julian smirked, but then his face turned serious. “What gives?”
I sighed, deciding to lessen part of my burden. “The fledglings killed Galen.”
“What?” Julian’s body jerked as if zapped with electricity, the sudden shift in weight pulling me backward.
And then I was falling.
I screamed as I plummeted, as the broad expanse of sky loomed over me. It felt like an eternity of falling, fear paralyzing my body.
I eventually found myself standing in front of an equally disoriented Julian.
His head tipped to regard two hundred feet of rock wall as he brushed the snow from his sleeve. “See? Like cats. We always land on our feet.”
Judging by the broken branches and crimson stains on the ground around us, I’m pretty sure we didn’t land on our feet like cats. I’m pretty sure that about five seconds ago, we were two bloody messes embedded in the ground.
“I think that was my fault,” Julian admitted with a sheepish grin, but it faded quickly. “How did Galen die?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Caden didn’t get into specifics.”
“Damn. That’s going to crush Cecile.”
“Yeah. That’s why we can’t say anything. She’ll go nuts.”
Julian’s face screwed up. “But Galen was like a freaking commando maniac. How could a fledgling take him out?”
“Good question.”
“If they can take Galen down, then …” Julian’s face smoothed over.
“Who will be next?” I finished. This was ridiculous. I couldn’t sit around, waiting for Caden to come back. Not when fledglings were obviously so much more dangerous than Caden had led me to believe.
“I want to go help Amelie,” Julian insisted.
“You can’t, Julian! You’ll get distracted by humans and become a target!”
He flung a muscular arm back in the direction of the mine. “But look at all that human blood I just walked away from!”
I groaned. This was giving him a false sense of security. In truth, I could go. I could leave now and run straight for New York City, not stopping until I found Caden. But how could I in good conscience lead Julian there? Sofie and Caden had a valid reason for keeping Julian and the others isolated. It just didn’t apply to me. “You need to stick around here, Julian. Maybe we should head back to …” My nostrils caught the sweet scent of a warm-blooded animal a second before I felt its heart throb inside my throat.
Julian took off through the trees.
Crap! I went after him, pushing through the thick brush, terrified of what I might see each time I cleared another tree. I found him a hundred feet away, hovering over the twitching body of a deer, the scent of freshly spilled blood assaulting my nostrils. Tracks leading off in the opposite direction told me its companion fled the scene.
Hunkering down on a fallen tree trunk, I sat quietly and watched my best friend as he partook in an urge that not long ago he had condemned.
So much for being able to handle it.
I lasted five minutes before I insisted, “That’s enough, Julian. You’ve had enough.”
He dropped the carcass to the soft snow. I knew that wasn’t typical fledgling kill behavior. They’d normally suck the creature dry. That meant that I had compelled him. I didn’t even have his full attention and I managed to make him stop.
I couldn’t explain this ability but my instincts were telling me it could be of some use in the city. That or my conscience was searching for a good excuse to break my promise and run for New York now.
Julian didn’t immediately stand or talk, kneeling in front of the dead deer, head hung. And then I heard it, just a light whisper. “I hate not being able to help myself. I feel like some sort of addict.” He turned and I sighed with relief when his pretty brown eyes settled on me. “How are you not affected, Evie?”
I shoved my hands into my pockets and ambled over to regard the body. “I guess the Fates gave me a break. For once.”
He admitted in a low voice, “I don’t want to kill anyone, but part of me just wants to get it over with. Just so I know how much control I actually have.”
Or how much control I might have over him.
Was it worth it to try? If I could help him, then we could track down Caden and the others together.
“Come on.” Reaching out, I roped an arm through his. “I have an idea.” Probably the dumbest one I’d had yet.
Chapter Six – Sofie
“Dear God.” The words slipped from my lips as we stood in a roughly erected doorway. A set of metal stairs led down to the ground of the Second Avenue subway construction site, a cavernous space three stories below street level.
And it was crawling with vampire fledglings. There had to be a thousand or more. “Kait says they’re filling up the tunnels too,” Lilly informed us. “She’s down in one right now.”
Thousands.
“Tell her to get out of here. It’s too risky if they discover her.” I scanned the sea of heads. With this many, it was relatively quiet, a low buzz permeating the space. They all seemed too preoccupied with buckets of red to hear our guarded whispers. Discarded plastic and upturned coolers littered the ground.
“I guess we know where the city’s blood supply went to,” Mage said, her black eyes drifting over the crowd, narrowing as she surveyed faces. I knew who she was looking for. Her right hand, the mutant who had betrayed her. It wouldn’t be hard to spot him if he was here. That gaunt demonic face would stand out anywhere.
A chorus of snarls erupted, pulling my attention down to a tall, dark-s
kinned man who walked among the fledglings, tossing bags at their feet like dogs. Several more were doing the same in other areas.
“They must’ve been the first of Jonah’s,” Mage said. “They’ve evolved. They’re his soldiers now.”
Soldiers. So Jonah has been preparing for war since day one. From the corner of my eye, I saw a fledgling leap on another one, kicking and punching and raking eyes as they fought over the delivered blood.
In the far corner, one of Jonah’s “soldiers” rallied a group of fledglings. They seemed more interested in getting back to their blood but as his lips moved, saying something I could not hear, their focus changed. The fledglings shifted excitedly on their feet, flocking toward the soldier.
He pushed open a door and waved them through. I counted as they passed, until the door closed. “He just released forty fledglings.”
“Smaller groups move fast and scatter farther,” Mage explained. “If Jonah was trying to keep us from discovering this, having us run all around the city would certainly help.”
“Why bother with all the bags, though?” Fiona whispered, her pretty face stark. “There’s a city to feed from out there.”
“He’s building their strength and their dependency on blood. When the bags stop coming, they’ll get really restless. I’m sure that’s when Jonah plans on unleashing them.” Black eyes full of warning shifted to me. “It’ll be near impossible to staunch this horde if they get out.”
“But why would he want to do this?” Fiona pressed. “He knows what will happen to our world. He lived it!”
Mage’s head shake was almost indecipherable. “Mutants tend to lose their grip on rational thought. Perhaps it’s as simple as that.”
“Or maybe someone has convinced him that it’s a good idea,” Mortimer suggested, hitting too close to my own thoughts. Viggo. A silver-tongued, revenge-riddled psychopath who probably convinced Jonah that this was his best way of distracting Mage. Viggo didn’t care about the repercussions. He wanted war.
Enough to form allegiances with a creature he despised more than anything else in the world.
“We need to get rid of them. Now.” Mage’s tone was uncompromising.
“I agree, but how? How do we do that without letting the ones in the tunnels escape?” I was powerful—some would argue the most powerful witch in existence—and yet even I knew my limitations. To ignite this entire space in one shot would sap me, allowing them a chance to run. Or attack.
As I pondered the “how,” Lilly was on her phone again. Rushed words were exchanged and she hung up. “She made it to the next station construction site.” Blue eyes flashed to me. “It’s full of fledglings too.” I closed my eyes, another wave of despair crashing over my shoulders. How had this happened so fast?
“Look! They’re already rounding up another group to release.” My eyes opened in time to see that Mortimer was right, another soldier snapping his fingers, kicking the fledglings to get them up.
“Can you close this entire station off?” Mage asked.
“That won’t kill them,” Bishop argued.
“No, but it may buy us some time,” she countered. “The next station is within a minute’s running distance. We take this one down, burn them, and then go and do the same thing there before they know what’s happening. There, there, there.” She pointed out all the access points, all the ways this plan could fail if not done correctly.
Failure was beginning to feel like the only path out, and yet Mage had such confidence in my ability, I couldn’t help but want to try. If we could win here, this could soon be over.
I plucked at the helices floating within my body, each one powerful enough to cause destruction, all of them combined capable of devastation. “All of you, be ready to run. Lilly—tell Kait to get the hell out of there. Now.” A worry hit me. “Has anyone heard from Amelie?”
Head shakes answered. I had to believe for her sake—and Julian’s—that she was nowhere near this. “Can someone get hold of Caden? Maybe he’s waiting at the rendezvous point with her and—”
“They’ve seen us,” Mortimer hissed. My gaze snapped down to catch the soldier’s eyes locked on me, a wicked grin on his face. A shout of, “She’s here!” erupted from his mouth.
Without thinking, I incinerated him where he stood.
The other soldiers were quick to zero in on me and the sight of fire broke many of the fledglings’ feeding daze, their eyes widening with the threat.
I’d run out of time. “Get behind me!” I yelled as I unleashed a powerful torrent of magic, targeting one entrance after another. They came down like dominoes, steel beams stumbling, chunks of concrete breaking off. There was nothing stopping the fledglings from tossing the boulders off to the side, but Mage was right—this could buy us some much-needed time.
I stalled as three sizeable chunks of concrete rained down, crushing several in the crowd where they sat. I watched the ceiling with trepidation, wary that my onslaught might be too much for the structure.
That momentary lapse gave the soldiers time to scale the stairs. I found myself facing off against five large men. Normally I wouldn’t care, but I couldn’t fight them and finish closing off this place.
Luckily, I didn’t have to. Five forms jetted out from behind me, having ignored my demands that they stay back. They quickly dispatched the attackers so I could return to the task at hand.
To my dismay, fledglings were running for the tunnels like rats under threat of water, an image Mage had described earlier and, now that I witnessed it, couldn’t be more accurate. We couldn’t have them warning the other station.
I unloaded several more blasts of magic into the tunnels, reaching deep within to close them off completely. Beneath my feet, a tremor vibrated the staircase we stood on, but I ignored it, focused on the remaining fledglings now trapped, intent on burning them to ashes.
But the rumbling didn’t stop.
And when the cracking sound drew my attention to the fissure overhead, up and all around the curved ceiling, my stomach tightened.
I knew what was about to happen.
Mage grabbed hold and yanked me through the only exit left intact. We made it to the street level just in time to watch the pavement open up as the construction site caved in.
“Oh my …,” Fiona gasped behind me as vehicles and pedestrians disappeared into the chasm.
Chaos exploded around us. People scrambled to get away, hugging their loved ones as they ran down the street. In the distance, the screams of sirens bounced off buildings. I couldn’t say if they were rushing here or to the crash site of the runaway train.
And, in the mix of it all, were the fledglings. And they were scattering.
“The park!” Mortimer yelled as they took off, leaving Mage and me standing still in the midst of disaster. I could’ve yelled after them, demanded that they stay, that we needed to stick together. But I didn’t.
Instead, I stepped to the edge, my insides knotting as I witnessed the worst of it unfold below. People trapped in cars—the ones not already crushed anyway—peering through the darkness, their shocked faces frozen, the few seconds of relief as their doors are ripped off or their windows smashed, when they think they’ve been saved.
The screams of horror when they realize the truth.
“Do you have any magic left in you?” Mage asked.
“Some,” I said, my voice hollow. For what good it would do us, I didn’t know.
“Then you need to finish this. Eliminate what you can.”
I turned to gape at her. Was she serious?
“They’ll be climbing out soon and when they do …” She left the words hanging like the death sentence that they were.
My teeth cracked against the weight of this decision as I took in dozens of cars, the figures still moving inside.
“Sofie, their hearts may still beat but they are already dead,” Mage said more softly.
She was right. Mage was always right.
I closed my eyes as I d
epleted every last trace of my magic, igniting the massive hole with witch fire. The last heartbeats faded almost instantly.
And I knew that this night would haunt me for years to come.
Chapter Seven – Evangeline
The small wisp of smoke floating from the chimney told me that someone was home.
“Looks like everyone’s asleep,” I whispered as we made our way toward the dark log house, about five miles from the mine. Of course, we’d know soon enough. Their heartbeats would throb in our throats; the scent of their blood would fill our nostrils. And I’d know exactly how stupid I was for suggesting this.
I grabbed hold of Julian’s arm. “Wait.” His feet slowed. “Julian?”
Eyes mixed with excitement and wariness shone in the full moonlight as he turned to me.
Though I still didn’t really know what I was doing, I was quite sure that part of compelling someone required meaning the words. They couldn’t be a flippant comment, a passing request. I had to feel their importance. Thankfully, that wasn’t hard this time around, because I hoped with every fiber of my being that this would work.
“Julian, this is a test. You won’t hurt anyone in there. You will not feed on anyone. You’ll be able to resist the urge.”
He blinked several times and then turned his attention back to the quiet home, nodding slowly.
This has to work. “Ready?”
“Yup.”
I crossed my fingers that it would really be that easy.
A turn of the doorknob revealed the door to be unlocked.
“What’s the point of a deadbolt if you’re not going to use it?” Julian muttered.
“I guess they don’t expect to be bothered out here.” I left fresh snow tracks on the tile floor as I stepped into the house. The smell of them—of human life—hit me instantly, an appealing waft, like stepping into a warm bakery on a cold winter morning. I inhaled instinctively.
And reached out to grab hold of Julian’s forearm. Turning back, I found his eyes squeezed shut.
