Anomaly (Causal Enchantment #4)(12)
It was only yesterday that I’d used up every last ounce of my magic to incinerate Viggo and Mortimer’s building, intent on burning all evidence that would give witnesses watching in horror from the gates credence to their stories. They would probably still find remains, though. Human and witch. Perhaps some of the Ratheus vampires. The place was too big to engulf completely and I doubted that the underground levels had been fully destroyed. That’s where they’d find the blood vault and, if that hadn’t been destroyed, many more questions would be raised.
“I don’t know if this is the right plan, Mage,” I admitted, softly enough that the words would not carry over to the others.
“You already know what my thoughts are, Sofie. But you made your call and there can be no waffling, especially in front of others. You asked them to believe in you, to give you their loyalty. They need to see you as a leader or this will never work.”
“Why can’t we make the decision together? Why must there be one leader?” I muttered, more to myself.
Of course, Mage provided an answer. She always had an answer. “Because you can’t. It never works.” I’ve learned not to question Mage. The vampiress had lived for five thousand years—the original vampire in her world. She’d already survived one human apocalypse in her own world of Ratheus. And she’d been right about everything so far.
If the call needed to be made, it would need to be made by me. I could not dither, I could not doubt.
New York City would need to burn.
It seemed so … drastic.
“We could still turn around. We could head back to the mines. You could make the call. This entire mess would be gone within two hours, if all proceeds as planned with Isaac.”
My head shook as I watched the hundreds of innocent people below, doing their jobs, trying to make sense of what had happened at this Fifth Avenue address. I could not so simply extinguish their lives, along with eight million other innocents. All because of what … a few hundred fledglings, maybe?
If we could find them, my witch fire could consume them quickly, as long as they were contained. After that, we’d have the media footage to deal with, but we’d somehow figure that out. We always have. “No, let’s fix this now.”
“And Viggo?” Mage’s black eyes flashed with fire. “You know he’s out there, somewhere, waiting for us.”
My eyes skittered over to the others, looking for signs that the name was caught on one of their ears. When satisfied that it had not, I murmured, “Yes. I’m sure he is.” Perhaps it was my own paranoia but I could feel his presence even now. I’d always been able to, like a strange sixth sense, the hairs on the back of my neck spiking whenever the psychopath was near.
I knew that the chaos Viggo was creating was not just his retaliation against Veronique’s choice. It was a marker, letting me know where he was. That I shouldn’t forget about him. He assumed that Evangeline was dead and I was crushed. He assumed I would come looking for him, ready to incinerate him. In fact, if we were to go visit the scene of the city mayor’s death, he would probably be there, waiting. Expecting me.
It was best to stay away from Viggo, though, and keep Caden out of sight as well. As long as Viggo believed Evangeline to be dead, then he’d keep us alive to suffer. I would bet my existence on that.
“If anyone were to catch wind of Viggo, they’d be running back to the mines faster than the fledglings will flee upon attack,” Mage pressed. “I wish you would’ve let me kill him back in France.”
I snorted. “So do I.” I would have had to lie to Veronique, tell her that the witches had killed him. Looking at the situation now, I would have swallowed the guilt of that lie happily. Six of us standing on this roof had someone back in that mine—protected by wolves and werebeasts, none of them a match for a vengeful Viggo—who he would gladly take from us. Part of me was desperate to run. Grab Evangeline and run to the most remote rainforest in the world, where we would be sheltered from him.
But that wasn’t an option, and I could read between the lines with Mage’s warning—keep everyone in the dark about Viggo, at all costs.
Her brow pinched together for a second before smoothing to that placid mask of indifference. “What do you make of Evangeline’s transformation? Something is not quite … right, wouldn’t you agree?”
I exhaled heavily. “I don’t know what to think of that. I couldn’t find a thing within her that was off. She felt exactly like any of us do.” That I hadn’t left her hovering over a bag of human blood like a mongrel was more than surprising. A relief, to be honest. To not be consumed so completely, to not lose all humanity … that would be a gift from the Fates. But I had never known the Fates to be generous with their grants and so I could not focus on anything but my concern. “We’ll have to figure it out after we’ve done what we came here to do.”
Mage’s head bobbed. “Good. That’s best, not to be distracted right now.”
“I appreciate your counsel, Mage. As always,” I said truthfully, “but we’d better get going.” We made our way back to the others, who were deep in conversation.
“Bloody media, all over the place.” Kait sneered at the CNN crew below.
“It doesn’t help that the ground outside was littered with evidence,” Mortimer answered. Countless markers sat on the snow-covered ground, indicating where the dozens of bodies with snapped necks had been discovered after the blast.