She huffed, the mane of feathers running over her head and down her back standing up like a peacock displaying its impressive tail. They lay back down as her spine grew straighter. “In here,” she said, gesturing around the park, “I’m the only queen.”
I’d get home a lot faster if I played her game and bowed to her. “May I asked what your Flyers have done with Hawk?”
She stared at me for a few seconds as if she was trying to understand the question. Then she lashed out, cutting Spatza’s other cheek with the edge of her wing. I got a glimpse of the sharp spikes tucked between her feathers, a nasty weapon I prayed I’d never find myself up against. “Get him!”
Spatza was her whipping boy—or girl in this case. It explained the fear on her face when I seemed hesitant to comply with the queen’s request.
A minute after Spatza disappeared, a flock of Flyers filled the sky and dumped Hawk on the ground a few yards away. He stood up and brushed the dirt from his clothes and started to walk toward me.
“Stay where you are.”
He gave the queen a frustrated look but was wise not to push her. Stopping, he glanced at me and conveyed with his eyes that I would be wise not to test her either.
But I was still the queen of Clan Winterborne, and I deserved a smidge of respect. If I showed her any weakness, she’d never forget it, and I’d spend eternity trying to hold my own with the Flyers. “It’s four a.m. Why am I here?”
She studied me, her thin lips twitching on one side. “The Flyers are under attack.”
I glanced at Hawk, trying to read his face, but he looked as clueless as I was. “Attack by what?”
She raised her wings and a swarm filled the sky. The sound of thunder echoed in the distance and seemed to roll closer with each second, as if a deafening crack was about to shatter the silence. But the sound rumbled as if it had stalled. The park went dark as the swarm grew denser, blocking out the night sky. And then the queen opened her mouth and let out a cry that sent the flock scattering, opening the sky back up to a bright light that seemed to have no source.
I started to run when I felt the ground shift beneath my feet, but I stopped as the grass began to roll back like a giant sheet of sod to expose a deep hole in the ground. The queen’s wail grew louder, but it wasn’t the sound of rage or a war cry. It was the sound of pain.
Defying the queen’s order, Hawk approached me and stood at my side. She was too preoccupied to notice. Too caught up in her grief to care. The hole was filled with bones, fur, and feathers. Mountains of dead Flyers so desiccated it was hard to identify what they were before something had done this to them.
When the awful wail subsided, the queen pulled her eyes away from the carnage and looked at me, uttering a single word. “Vampires.”
Hawk shook his head. “No.”
“Yes!” she spat back. “They’re hunting us. Hundred gone in just two days! We don’t even see them coming. They just discard the carcasses for us to find.”
“You think Night Walkers did this?” I said.
“Not Night Walkers.” Her feathers sagged, and for the first time she looked defeated. “Something much worse.”
Hawk looked at me, and I knew we were thinking the same thing. The Caspians had done this. But why?
“Because they want our power. But our blood is just an appetizer.” Either she was a mind reader or it was a lucky guess. My money was on mind reader. “They’ve drained my children of their essence.”
I noticed Spatza trying to fade into the background near the edge of the stones. For a queen who mourned so deeply for her “children,” she was equally as sadistic to the loyal creature she kept by her side.
“You think the Caspians did this?”
Her eyes darted to mine. “Is that what those devils are called?” The hatred in her stare gave me the chills. “I know they did this!”
“You still haven’t answered my question. Why am I here?”
She closed her eyes for a moment as if bracing herself, and I could sense her getting ready to eat a pretty big plate of crow. “Perhaps I’ve been… harsh with you in the past.”
“Perhaps?” I muttered under my breath.
“The Flyers’ alliance with the clan is vital for our survival,” she continued. “But let me remind you that the alliance is a two-way street.”
“Get to the point.”
She took a deep breath and got to the real reason for summoning me in the middle of the night. “We need protection. Those devils will wipe us out if the clan doesn’t help us. And you owe us!”
The clan didn’t owe them anything. Like she said, it was a two-way street, but the Circle took the brunt of that deal by putting ourselves in the middle of the battlefield. All the Flyers did was scout for Walkers. But we had to do something or the alliance would die right along with them.
I took another look at the mass grave and felt a surge of anger—and fear—rush through me. “This kind of damage wasn’t done by one or two Caspians. There must be a cell already here in the city.”
“At least a dozen,” Hawk said. “Probably more.”
If that was true, surely the Order would have known by now. But Samuel had made it seem like they were barely here, were just sending scouts to prepare for something big. If he was lying to me, we had a problem.
“I’ll talk to the clan,” I said. “In the meantime, I suggest you all stay in hiding until we can figure this out.”
“Stay in hiding? There are thousands of us. Where do you suggest we hide?”
“Either hide or die. That’s the best I can offer you until I’ve spoken with the clan.”
It was clearly not the suggestion she was expecting, but what was I supposed to do? Wave a magic wand to seal the park? She needed a more powerful witch than me for that.
Finally accepting the reality of the situation, the queen disappeared in the blink of an eye. The grave also vanished, leaving unsuspecting New Yorkers ignorant of what the ground beneath their feet concealed.
“I have to talk to Samuel,” I said to Hawk. “Now.”
He glanced at his phone. “It’s not even five a.m. Maybe we should go back to the penthouse and think this through for another hour or two before knocking on his door.”
“I don’t care. Either he’s been lying to me or he’ll thank me for waking him up so early to let him know we’ve been invaded.” Either way, something had to change. The Order couldn’t handle an invasion of Caspians with a handful of hunters. It was time to join forces with the Circle. I just prayed it wouldn’t start a war between brothers and get all of us killed.
Chapter 11
Samuel swung the door open with a scowl on his face. “Christ, Morgan, you know what time it is?”
“Time for us to have a talk.”
He stepped aside and allowed me to enter, giving Hawk a wary look as he followed me in.
“We just came from the park.” I turned around to look him in the eye when I asked the next question. “How many Caspians are already here?”
“What were you doing in Central Park this early in the morning?”
“I was summoned by the Flyer queen.”
His eyelids lowered slightly. “Really? What for?”
“Something is hunting them. I just got a sickening look at a mass grave.”
Charlotte came down the hallway, wearing a fluffy robe and slippers. “What’s going on?” She abruptly stopped and gasped when she reached the edge of the living room, falling backward but catching herself on the edge of a chair.
Samuel went to steady her. “Are you all right?”
She was gazing at me with a surprised look in her eyes. “She knows.”
“Knows what?” Despite my aunt nearly getting knocked on her ass from the anger emitting from me, I felt very little sympathy for either of them. “You’ve been lying to me.” My heart began to sink when I realized my allies in the clan were dwindling.
“Calm down, Morgan,” Samuel said as he helped Charlotte to the sofa. “You�
��re upsetting my wife.”
“If you want me to calm down, tell me the truth.”
He ran his hands over the top of his head and groaned. “I wasn’t lying to you. And if you’d waited a couple more hours before knocking on my door, I would have told you.”
“Well, I’m here now, so start talking.”
“I went back out to Brooklyn after I dropped you off the other night, to see if I could find any security cameras in the area near Foster’s shop. The local businesses weren’t too keen on wasting their time helping me, but I did find something else.” He glanced at Charlotte. Because I was starting to cool off, she was settling down. “I also decided to take another look at Foster’s apartment, and I found something very interesting.”
“Please tell me it’s a lead on the missing box.”
“Sort of. I found a Caspian tearing the place apart.”
I don’t know why that surprised me. If they were already here in droves, it was inevitable to stumble across one, especially at Wesley Foster’s apartment, where they’d been before. Even Samuel had decided to give the place a second look.
“Where is he?” I asked, glancing around the apartment.
“Well, you don’t think I’d bring him here, do you? He’s at the brownstone. I would have told you last night, but I knew you were having dinner with Avery.”
“Yeah, that’s another story. Her new boyfriend, Decker, isn’t what he seems.”
“I think he’s a vampire,” Hawk said, chiming in. “But he’s no Night Walker.”
Samuel stared at him for a moment as if the words were still sinking in. “A vampire? With Avery?”
“That was my first reaction,” I said with a short laugh. “She’s so enamored with him she doesn’t care if he’s the devil. In fact, those were her exact words to me when I had a little talk with her in the kitchen. And get this, he’s the campaign manager for Benjamin Fuller.”
“The guy running for Senate?”
“That’s the one. Why is a vampire involved with a politician?”
Charlotte’s muttering caught everyone’s attention. When she looked up at us, her eyes were filled with dread. “It took some doing, but I finally broke him.”
“Broke whom?” I asked.
Samuel gazed at his wife’s face for a moment, reading her expression. “She’s talking about the Caspian I captured. What did he tell you?”
A brief smile appeared on her face and then vanished. “I thought I’d pushed him too far and his mind had scrambled, but I think he gave me a valuable clue. I can see that now. It all makes sense.” She suddenly looked at Hawk as if noticing him for the first time. “You’re a vampire.” Her smile slowly reappeared. “The one accused of attacking Rebecca. She’s full of shit, you know.”
Hawk smiled back at her. “I’m well aware of that.”
The sensory overload in the room was distracting her again, so Samuel tried to refocus her. “Darling, what did he tell you?”
“Right,” she said, seeming to clear away all the clutter bombarding her mind. “He said in the future we would all bow down to a new king. Said the path to the castle has just begun.”
I shook my head, more confused than ever. “What does that mean?”
Charlotte continued. “I didn’t know myself, but I can see the castle clear as day now. That vampire at the brownstone is talking about the path to the White House.”
We all stared at her for a moment, and I wondered if she’d gone over the deep end to that place where reality was optional.
Samuel was the first to break the awkward silence. “She’s not crazy. It all makes sense.” Glancing back and forth between Hawk and me, he seemed to debate whether or not we trusted his assessment of his wife.
“He just told you all this?” I finally asked her, finding it hard to believe he’d be so candid with his captor.
She gave me a sly smile. “He had no choice.”
Samuel chuckled. “Charlotte can be very persuasive. Trust me, you don’t want my wife in your head. Now, tell me everything about this Decker.”
“He’s your basic arrogant asshole. He controls every move Avery makes and calls it ‘therapy.’”
Hawk offered his own recollection of Decker. “He has a tattoo on his wrist.”
I cocked my head. “I didn’t see a tattoo.”
“I noticed it when he shoved his plate away after he finished his dinner. His sleeve inched up, but he pulled his arm back in a hurry. I don’t think he wanted anyone to see it.”
Samuel’s face went stone-cold. He headed down the hallway and came back with a photo in his hand. “Did it look like this?”
Hawk looked at the picture for a few seconds. “I only got a brief look at it, but yeah, that’s the same tattoo.”
Samuel slowly shook his head. “Son of a bitch.”
“Let me see that.” I took the picture from Hawk. It was a close-up of a man’s chest or back. I couldn’t tell. The tattoo was about two inches wide and reminded me of a hieroglyphic symbol. “It’s like the symbols on the box.”
“That’s because it is. It’s the mark of a Caspian. That’s a picture of the chest of one we killed in Edinburg, but they can carry the mark anywhere on their body.”
“Are you telling me Avery’s boyfriend is a Caspian?”
“It seems that way. He’s probably using her to keep an eye on the clan. And he’s using a fake name obviously.”
I debated whether to tell him the part about what Decker offered to help her with, but betraying her was the only way to protect her. “He says he’s some kind of spiritual guru on the side, and he’s offered to help her ‘shed’ her immortality.”
“What?” Charlotte stood up and smiled nervously. “Is your sister mad? A vampire won’t be very helpful in that regard.”
“He’s manipulating her,” Samuel said. “Telling her what she wants to hear. My guess is he’s planning to use her to keep an eye on his enemies—which is us—and then he’ll slowly start to get her to switch sides.”
“You mean—”
“Technically vampires are immortal, but a pure immortal is much more powerful. Can you imagine the weapon they’d have if they could turn one?” He took a step closer and looked me in the eye. “On your thirtieth birthday when you reach your majority, we’ll all find out.”
My father knew what I would become in five short years. That’s the reason he took me. If it hadn’t been for Hawk and the crow, there’s no telling where I’d be right now. Years of imprisonment would have probably broken me and turned me into that weapon Samuel just mentioned—a vampire and an immortal witch with enough power to slay the guardians of whatever kingdom the Caspians chose to conquer.
“Since they failed with you, they’ll focus on a more willing target.”
I scoffed. “You mean a gullible target.”
He shrugged. “I was being kind. Avery is a smart woman, but we all know her track record when it comes to men. She was ripe for the picking.”
“Can we get back to this theory about the White House?” Hawk said. “Are you telling us you think Benjamin Fuller is a Caspian?”
Charlotte gave him a cunning look. “Not at all. But I know one thing—a Caspian has his eye on the Oval Office. It could just as easily be Decker himself. But all they really have to do is get their candidate elected and then turn him.”
The thought sent chills through me, and I knew I had to get my sister away from Decker. “I’m getting Avery out of that apartment if I have to drag her out myself.”
“No, you won’t,” Samuel said. “Now that Decker has her where he wants her, he won’t do anything to compromise his position. At least not yet.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “So you’re suggesting we use her the same way they are?”
“She’s safer if they think they have her snowed. More importantly, they need to think the clan is in the dark.” His eyes grew thoughtful as he contemplated our next move. “The first thing we need to do is identify the pla
yers in the game. Decker is a given, but I think it’s time we met Benjamin Fuller. Perhaps the Winterbornes can take an interest in his campaign and suggest a fundraiser.”
“That won’t be necessary. They’re throwing a party at the Whitney Museum Friday night, and guess who’s on the guest list.”
He got a wide grin on his face. “Need a date?”
I glanced at Hawk. “Would you be terribly hurt if I take my uncle instead of you?”
Hawk laughed. “You’d be doing me a favor.”
“Then it’s settled.” There was still the issue with the Flyers though. “Based on the number of bodies we saw tonight, there has to be a large cell of Caspians already here.”
Samuel’s brows rose. “I have no doubt, and I know what you’re about to say—too many for the Order to handle. I might be able to get some of my team from Edinburg to New York.”
“Samuel,” Charlotte said, giving him a wary look, “you know what has to be done.”
He took a deep breath and shook his head. “I won’t do that. Cabot will get himself killed.”
“Then I will,” I said, taking control like I should have before now. It was only a few extra bodies since the twins and Jakob were already fighting for both teams, but every extra knife-wielding hand was the difference between survival and death for us all. “It’s time Cabot stood on his own two feet.”
“Morgan—”
“No. I’m sorry, Samuel, but I’m the leader of this clan, and I’m making the decision. Talk to Edinburg and see how many fighters they can spare. In the meantime, I’ll call a meeting.”
The members of the Circle and the Order gathered in council chambers, waiting for Cabot to grace us with his presence. It was eight minutes after nine when he finally decided to join us. The entire time, Rebecca sat at the far end of the table, tapping her nails against the surface while she took pleasure in watching me wait for her husband.
I refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing his tardiness irritated me. “Good morning,” I said with a cheerful smile, knowing he was about to find out his brother had been leading a superior team of hunters right under his nose. I almost felt guilty for taking pleasure in that.
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