Anomaly

by K. A. Tucker

  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.

  I didn’t know what to do. “It seems like everything we’ve done has only made things worse. Now we’ve lost one, we’re missing two, three more are at risk …” I wrapped my arms tight around my chest.

  “There is much more at risk than three,” Mage reminded me. I knew what she’d do. She wouldn’t hesitate for a second. She was a true leader, ready to make the hard decisions. Me … All of my motives and choices were still made based on what would keep my girl happy and safe. And until I had her in my sights again, my ability to make the impossible decision was paralyzed.

  I kicked the edge of the statue. I winced through the pain, my eyes trailing the bronze mushroom as it sailed across the park.

  And landed at Evangeline’s feet.

  Chapter Eleven – Evangeline

  By the look on Sofie’s face when our eyes met, I wasn’t sure if she was going to hug me or strike me down with bolts of fire.

  An instinctual part of me cowered next to Julian as she closed the distance with lightning speed. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at the mine? Are you insane?” The questions fired out of her mouth, giving me no chance to answer before she wrapped me in a fierce hug. It lasted only a minute and then she released me. “I told you to stay away! You can’t be here!”

  I’d never seen Sofie so frantic before. Whatever was going on, and I’d now seen firsthand to know that the situation was grim, Sofie was finally unraveling.

  This probably wasn’t the right time to inform her that I could compel vampires and heal humans. Given what we’d seen and heard, what I could or couldn’t do hardly mattered.

  Mortimer, Mage, and Lilly sidled up to loom behind Sofie. No Caden, though, I was dismayed to see.

  “How are you two even here?” Mortimer’s piercing eyes shifted from me to Julian, and back to me, narrowing. “I know there’s something off about you, Evangeline, but Julian, we left him feeding like a wild animal …” His hawkish gaze swung to the left with the sound of squeaky wheels. A homeless man pushing a cart down the path approached. All eyes locked onto us.

  “How are you able to withstand that?” There was accusation in Mortimer’s tone, as if I’d done something to make this happen. In Julian’s case, that was true.

  “I don’t know,” Julian admitted. “Maybe because I’m more focused on finding Amelie. I’m glad someone is,” he added icily, “seeing as you guys are just sitting around, doing nothing to find her!”

  “Caden is out looking for Amelie right now,” Sofie muttered, her displeasure with that prospect painted across her face. “Bishop and Fiona are with him.”

  My stomach twisted. Going out there, with all those fledglings and the military, was dangerous. What if Caden went missing too?

  “When will they be back?”

  “Better be by sunrise,” Mortimer said under his breath.

  My eyes drifted to Lilly, standing quietly next to Mage. She told me the city was lost. What if they didn’t make it back by sunrise? That meant … “Sofie, you can’t give Isaac the go-ahead! Not until they’re all out!” My body trembled as I lunged forward, grabbing her hands. “Please! If I lose them all, I’ll—” I choked on the words.

  The veil over her eyes lifted for just a second to disclose sadness before dropping with a hardened gleam. “Calm down. I will not give Isaac permission to do anything yet.”

  “Promise?”

  Her jaw tensed visibly. “I promise.”

  My head dipped as I accepted her word, relieved. Sofie had never let me down. She’d never stopped trying. She’d never given up. She wouldn’t give up now.

  “Where could Amelie be? How could she just be gone?” Julian pressed, his voice desperate.

  Sofie shook her head. “I have no idea, Julian. Honestly.” Her mint-green eyes scanned the darkness, and I sensed the air of suspicion swirling around her. Another batch of sirens called out into the night; another set of blood-curdling screams made us cringe. “Let’s find a less visible place to wait.”

  Chapter Twelve – Sofie

  “This one.” I pushed through the entrance of the monstrous glass building, the small heels of my boots clicking against the lobby’s tile floor. “Mortimer, can you please get us into the penthouse with minimal disturbance. Take Evangeline and Julian with you.”

  I knew giving Mortimer a task right now was the smart thing to do. It was only a matter of time before he bolted back for the mines. From there, who knew? I might not see him or Veronique again for decades.

  Within seconds, Mortimer had the security guard compelled and oblivious to our existence. I waited until he, Julian, and Evangeline stepped into the elevator, waving them off. “We’ll grab the next one.” In truth, I needed the three of them away from me so I could talk freely.

  The second the doors shut, Mage spoke.

  “We cannot sacrifice everything for one vampire.”

  “Two,” Lilly corrected, her round blue eyes tinged with sadness.

  Mage dipped her head slightly. “We cannot sacrifice everything for two vampires. And we cannot wait any longer or it will be too late to change the course of fate.”

  I closed my eyes, listening to the doors of the next elevators slide open, pause, and slide closed, without us on board.

  What Mage was suggesting was sacrificing two of our own for a gamble. It could already be too late to change the course of fate. Worse, I knew that it was the right thing to do. But how could I make that decision now? “I just promised Evangeline …,” I muttered.

  “You made a promise that is impossible to keep,” she said. “Would you really risk this entire world for two of our kind? If I were out there instead of Amelie, I would not want you sacrificing everything just for me. I can only imagine that Amelie would feel the same.”

  For the sake of my conscience, I had to believe that.

  “We clear the surface and then can go back in and get rid of any that have survived in the tunnels. It’s a simple plan but it’s our best hope,” Mage pushed.

  After a long pause, I said, “Losing Amelie and Kait is one thing but we cannot lose all of them.”

  Mage wasted no time. “Lilly, can you reach Bishop?”

  Lilly’s black bob swayed with her nod.

  “Tell him that Evangeline is here and she needs to see the three of them immediately. She’s frantic. They’ll come.”

  Blue eyes shifted to me and caught my nod. Lilly pulled out her phone and dialed the number.

  The knots in my stomach tightened further. “She’ll never forgive me.”

  “This must be done, and now, Sofie,” Mage pushed softly. “We both saw what was there.” Her voice dropped an octave, out of Lilly’s range. “And we both know what happened to Galen, and Amelie. And I presume Kait.”

  Viggo. That’s what happened.

  “Doing this will rid us of that problem too.”

  That would certainly be a silver lining. Viggo, dead, without putting up a fight? But …

  “Leaders can’t please everyone all the time,” Mage continued. “They make the hard choices because they’re the right ones. You know it’s the right one, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” The one word felt like sandpaper against the inside of my throat. “How do you pro
pose we get everyone to vacate the city?” I knew Mortimer wouldn’t be a problem. It was the others.

  A grim smile responded. “By doing what you do best.”

  Chapter Thirteen – Evangeline

  “Caden is on his way,” Lilly told Sofie and Mage.

  My heart skipped a beat and a smile curled my lips. But then I remembered, unless they miraculously found Amelie in a city of eight million people, Caden’s springy-haired sister probably wouldn’t be with them.

  My smile dissolved.

  “All of them? How far?” Sofie asked, staring out of the floor-to-ceiling window, arms folded across her chest. Like a group of con artists, we’d slipped through security, up the elevator, and into the penthouse. It was already vacant, the owners away on Christmas vacation according to the friendly, compelled man at the front desk.

  “No more than five minutes, he promised. All three.”

  “And Isaac?”

  “It’s ready.”

  Sofie’s lips pressed together. “Okay.” Pale green eyes darted to the white sectional where Julian and I sat before shifting back to the skyline. The glass reflected her grim reflection perfectly.

  I frowned. What was going on? What was ready? What were they up to? I had the distinct impression that something had been set in motion since the three vampiresses swooped through the penthouse door, sharing hushed whispers. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what, though, and how it related to Isaac. He had one job on that submarine and until we were all out of the city, he couldn’t be delivering on it.

  Beside me, Mortimer scanned the various news broadcasts, a sullen scowl marring his handsome face. It seemed the world was watching one thing and one thing only, and it was the state of emergency in one of the greatest cities in the world.

  He cleared his throat, still focused on the screen. “How was Veronique when you left?”

  “Fine.”

  His head snapped toward me. “Just fine? How much blood was left when you abandoned her?” Dark, accusing eyes bore into me, a sure sign that Mortimer was ready to lose his temper. “What’s going to happen when they run out of blood? Who’s going to get more for her when she needs it?” He snorted. “Max? With his opposable thumbs?”