Anomaly (Causal Enchantment) (16 page)

In mere seconds, the wound was gone.

Unfastening the car seat, I pulled the pacified boy out, his clothes soaked with blood and shredded by glass. With one last look at his round, chubby face, I handed the boy off to a middle-aged woman nearby who I could sense was eager to protect him. She would keep him safe until the police came, which could be some time.

To any human there, Julian and I simply vanished.

As did an unfortunate man’s blue pickup truck, heading for the bridge into Manhattan.

Despite
the pending doom, a smile stretched over my lips.

The
Fates may have been kind to me, after all.

*

My smile didn’t last long.

We soon abandoned the stolen truck
and instead traveled the rest of the way on foot, easily weaving around the cars. There was too much traffic for this time of night, even for New York City. Most vehicles seemed to be moving in one direction: out.

For me, the throbs of heartbeats, though still fascinating, were beginning to fade into the background, in comparison to all the other things I could do. Of course, I didn’t assume that the steady drum of
human life had faded for Julian and so I kept within two feet of him at all times, my attention split between the growing chaos ahead and my friend, whose eyes seemed locked on our path.

Maybe Julian finally had beaten his irrepressible urges. Or maybe he was just that worried about Amelie.

We were maybe six blocks from the north end of Central Park when we ran into the first fledgling. He looked ordinary enough—shoulders hunched, hands tucked into his pockets as he sped down the sidewalk.

Until he
suddenly reached out and yanked a passerby into him, his mouth latching onto her neck. My feet faltered and I blinked several times, making sure I wasn’t just paranoid. Her friend’s screams beside them quickly confirmed that I wasn’t. In a matter of seconds, he finished with the woman, leaving her body to tumble to the ground as he went for her friend.

“We need to do something!”
I took off, charging for the fledgling. Julian’s feet pounded the pavement next to me.

The fledgling
released the second body with a hiss. He took off down the street, the orange sports emblem stitched into the back of his jacket disappearing around the corner just as we reached the two women.

“Are they
… dead?” Julian asked. We stood over the two victims.

“No heartbeats usually means that,” I
said, glancing around, suddenly worried that someone would think we did this.

“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 s
houts 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, m
ore 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 ther
e 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, remindin
g 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?”