“Should we just—” Julian started when the first woman, a pretty blond in her mid-twenties, began to convulse. “What the …” Julian’s voice drifted off. We managed to jump away just as a stream of vomit shot out of her mouth.
“Oh my God,” I gasped. “He turned her!” The other woman’s body began to convulse and we moved away, knowing her stomach contents would soon be making an appearance. “Her too!”
“What do we do?” Julian whispered as approaching footsteps pulled our gaze. A man with a cigarette between his fingers walked along the street, a dog trailing beside him. The man appeared clueless while the dog held its nose in the air.
“Burn them, I guess. If we don’t, they’re going to be killing people within an hour.”
That made sense, though the idea turned my stomach. They’d been alive not two minutes ago. “Do you have a lighter? Matches?”
“No.”
I checked the street around us. More late-night walkers. More witnesses. “Why are these people even out? Don’t they know what’s happening all around them?”
We’d run out of time.
People walking became people running, their phones already out as their boots pounded the pavement toward us. By the shouts, most were calling 9-1-1 but the man with the dog actually snapped a picture of the bodies. What the hell was wrong with people?
“Too late. Let’s go.” Julian yanked on my arm. We ran the way the fledgling had gone.
“Maybe we can still stop him!” I yelled. I had no idea how to fight but together, Julian and I could overpower him.
We rounded another corner, towards the shouts and bangs ahead. Julian seized my arm, yanking me back into the shadow of a doorway. A large truck parked along the curb helped our cover.
“What?”
Julian pointed at moving figures half a block ahead. Fledglings. Hundreds of them: running, attacking, running again. But that wasn’t what he was pointing at. A wall of soldiers in war fatigues marched into the area, arms laden with heavy-looking guns, all directed out.
“Don’t they know that guns can’t stop them?” I tried to keep my voice down. “They’re going to get slaughtered!”
I spotted the orange emblem of the fledgling we’d been chasing. He darted toward the soldiers just as one raised his gun and fired. As if in slow motion, I watched the bullet—a large torpedo-shaped silver object—sail through the air and drive into the fledgling’s chest.
The fledging dropped to his knees. “One … two … three,” I counted quietly, expecting him to rise. Orange flames suddenly sprouted from the fledgling’s chest. He let out a blood-curdling scream and then toppled over, his entire body engulfed in seconds.
“Holy shit,” Julian said as the soldiers took off, stopping to target the fledglings distracted by their kills. Countless fires burned on the pavement.
These were the special guns that Mage had talked about—the ones that made our kind highly mortal.
“We need to get out of here,” I warned Julian, grabbing onto his hand. We took off, sprinting past the soldiers without earning so much as a head turn. I silently commended them for risking their lives. Truly, that’s what they were doing. Because Julian and I could easily have snapped their necks where they stood.
As we ran deeper into Manhattan, more bodies littered the streets. Countless sirens wailed in our ears. And fledglings ran rampant.
We had to find Caden and the others. And then I hoped we’d run until we found peace, because I didn’t believe that any peace would come to this city despite our best efforts.
Chapter Ten – Sofie
Caden’s lone figure stood leaning against the bronze rabbit, like a beacon within our deep well of darkness. I allowed myself the smallest sigh of relief before distress bowled me over.
Amelie was not waiting us at the rendezvous point.
I rushed forward.
“Bro!” Bishop reached him seconds before me to slap him over the shoulder, Fiona on Bishop’s heels. The two of them had been physically inseparable since the Fates brought her back. I couldn’t blame either of them. If I could bring Nathan back from the dead—the real Nathan, not an emotionless wraith who resembled him—I would never leave his side.
“Is she okay?” I blurted out, halting mere feet away.
“Yeah, she’s fine. She’s …,” a small smile touched Caden lips, “better than fine, actually.”
I opened my mouth, about to press for more information, when Mortimer appeared, elbowing his way past me to demand in a rushed voice, “Veronique?”
Again, another tiny smirk flickered across Caden’s lips. “She’s fine too. They’re all fine.” His tone turned harsh. “Have you found Amelie?”
I could only shake my head. “I was hoping we’d find her here.”
Caden’s face mirrored my disappointment. He looked around. “Mage? Lilly?”
“They’re a minute behind me.” The last I saw, Lilly had been ambushed by two brutes—common thieves thriving on the chaos—thinking she was an innocent child. That was the downside of Lilly’s appearance. Or the upside, depending on how you looked at it. In any case, Mage hung back to help her. “Something feels very wrong about this. She’s been gone for hours now,” Fiona said.
“I know my sister’s flighty but not like this,” Caden agreed. “And how on earth could a fledgling take down Galen like that? It doesn’t make sense. We need answers.”
“No, you’re right,” I said carefully. If they came to the conclusion that I already had—that Viggo was behind this—they’d lose all focus.
“I’m going to do a few rounds through the subway system,” Caden said. “Maybe there are some clues.”
“No!” I barked but then softened. “We need to stick together.”
“We’re coming with,” Fiona was quick to follow, ignoring me. She gave Bishop’s arm a tug. “She’s got to be out there.”
Bishop nodded, his focus on the chatter crackling out of the police radio in his hand as he dialed through the channels. “Oh shit, guys. Listen to this.” A rash of voices erupted as Bishop cranked the volume. The rapidly delivered commands were hard to follow but I got the gist: the “dead” were coming alive in hospital morgues and attacking the staff. The Jersey City Hospital had declared a state of emergency.
A rare somber look fell over his face. “I guess they’ve crossed the bridge.”
“The humans would’ve transported them there. The hospitals here are probably overwhelmed,” Mortimer explained, his hand covering his frown.
I leaned against the bronze statue as my hands settled on top of my head, my fingers weaving a tight hold on my hair. Frankly, it didn’t matter how they got there. What mattered was that the fledglings were no longer contained to Manhattan. “That’s only five miles from Newark Airport.” What if the fledglings made it there? What if they boarded planes? They were evolving too quickly. If they managed not to kill the passengers and pilots in flight, they could be anywhere in the country—in the world—within hours.
Mage was right. The city was too far gone. “We need to retreat.”
Caden’s body stiffened, his stance ripe with confrontation. “Not until sunrise, Sofie. That was the plan. Amelie has until sunrise.”
“Our plan has failed.” The words tasted bitter in my mouth. “The city is in ruins. We cannot win.”
“You are not blowing up the city with her in it!” Caden’s voice ricocheted through the quiet.
“Then what? We risk an entire civilization because of her? Think, Caden!” I squeezed my eyes shut to avoid the horror in his, but I could still feel it burning a hole in my temple. He must know that this wasn’t what I wanted. He must know that I didn’t want to make this decision.
“Sunrise,” I heard Caden push through gritted teeth. “We’re going to lose this war regardless, so I’d rather you don’t blow up my sister before giving us a real chance to find her.”
“Fine.” I didn’t know what else to say. When I opened my eyes, he, Fiona, and Bishop were gone.
“And then there were four,” Mortimer muttered, taking a seat on one of the mushroom sculptures as Mage and Lilly appeared like ghosts out of the darkness.
What was I going to do now? There was no way I’d give Lilly the go-ahead to blow up the city with all of Evangeline’s friends in the crossfire, and Caden knew it. I had to buy us time. “Can Isaac take out Newark? Smaller missiles.”
Lilly regarded me for a long moment before her head dipped once. I paused. “And LaGuardia and JFK?”
“Yes, likely. But once he launches those, the place will be on high alert. They have ways of shutting down the grid.”
“And then we wouldn’t be able to follow through with the bomb in that sub,” Mage warned, though I’d figured that out on my own.
“Can’t he get into another one?”
Lilly shrugged. “Maybe. But … maybe not.”
“I need a better answer than that, Lilly,” I snapped.
“Galen would know, but …” Her childish voice trailed as sadness consumed her.
I softened my tone, reminding myself that Lilly had to be suffering. She’d just witnessed her longtime friend lying dead on a subway platform and in many ways, she was still an overly emotional child. To be honest, I wasn’t sure why she hadn’t fled. “Have you heard from Kait?”
“She’s not answering.”
“Just … keep trying. Maybe the battery ran out. Maybe she broke it. Maybe—”
“She had two phones and the two-way radio. She’s not answering any of them,” Mage interrupted.
“That’s not like her,” Lilly explained softly.
“Maybe she’s still in the tunnel and the reception is bad.” I didn’t believe that myself. When a look lingered between Mage and Lilly, my temper flared again. This wasn’t the time for secrets. “What?”
With 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.
“What 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 this 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.