Anomaly (Causal Enchantment #4)(14)

Like drones, the five began moving past us in single file, in the direction we’d just come. Caden edged past the last person to step into the very familiar cellar. He and his friends had spent many hours in here, trying to curb the uncontrollable urge that came with tasting human blood again.

That’s when the tall, dark-haired man bringing up the rear raised a gun and shot Caden three times in quick succession. The sound of the blasts ricocheted through the hall, no doubt reaching the ears of those above.

With the handgun a mere foot away, the bullets exploded into Caden’s back. Two of them exited his chest. The third did not.

The shuffle of feet behind me stalled, the loud bang interfering with my compulsion. “Exit, now!” I commanded, my eyes wide as Caden dropped to his knees with a growl, his face grimaced with pain.

Then the man turned the gun on me.

Luckily I was ready.

And I was faster.

Flying forward, I shoved the gun upward as his finger tugged the trigger, sending the bullet through his chin and into his skull. His body dropped to the ground in a heap, and his heart stopped beating a few seconds later. Yanking his limp hand, I immediately spotted the telltale tattoo of the People’s Sentinel—an angled cross—on the meaty part of his thumb.

Lilly was right. They truly had infiltrated everything. And this one had clearly been spelled by the witches to resist compulsion. Dammit! I knew it was possible because I’d already faced it several times, but this time there were no signs, no warnings. The witches had somehow advanced their spell! As if we didn’t have enough to deal with already.

Caden’s growl stole all other concerns from me. “I won’t heal!” He pushed out through clenched teeth, on his knees, his hand pressed against his chest.

“Shit,” I cursed, dropping down to meet him eye to eye. Viggo had been kind enough to ram a wooden stake through my heart more than once so I knew how painful this was. One of the bullets must’ve lodged itself in Caden’s heart. The Fates had designed our kind so strangely. Our hearts no longer beat, no longer sustained our lives, and yet we needed them wholly intact to function.

Footsteps pounded down the stairs in the distance. We’d have countless witnesses to deal with soon, which would lead to countless bodies. I’d hoped to avoid that. We needed to get out of here and I didn’t have time for finesse. “Okay, hold still. This may hurt.” Caden fought with gritted teeth to hold his scream in as my magical coils penetrated his chest, coiling around the bullet. Sure enough, it was lodged in his ventricle. I gave it a sharp tug, tearing through walls of muscles and bones and lungs and skin until the bullet clanked onto the dusty concrete.

I lost myself staring at it for a split second. What if that had been a “special gun,” like the one that Mage had described, the kind that used explosive bullets specially designed to kill our kind? Caden would be dead! We hadn’t been in the city for an hour and I’d have to go back to the mines and tell Evangeline that, after all that she’d been through, I’d gotten him killed. And for what? A bag of merth?

But he wasn’t dead, I reminded myself, pushing the nausea away.

He would be fine in seconds. Knowing that, I left him to heal and ran into the vault, to the corner where the ventilation system hid a small canvas knapsack. I knew it was there without seeing it. I could feel the tingle deep within my core, the warning of danger. Tearing off the grate, I reached in. The bag tumbled down through the small space. I sighed with relief.

And followed the sigh with a slack-jawed stare.

A necklace—a chain with a smooth black heart-shaped stone—hung knotted around the strap.

The prickles on my neck spiked. My sixth sense for a special kind of evil.

Viggo had been here. And he’d been here since the attack.

He must’ve known where the merth was and he obviously knew that I would come for it. How, I was afraid to guess. But, he knew. And he wanted me to know that he was a step ahead of me, that he was near.

And that he was still a real threat.

“We have to go!” Caden called out urgently, his voice strong once again.

Remembering Mage’s warning, I yanked the chain until it broke and covertly tucked the necklace into my pocket, then turned around.

“Drop the bag. Hands above your head!” a soldier yelled. I heard the safety kick off his gun, followed by a chorus of four more as several soldiers slid cautiously through the doorway to position themselves along the wall, all pointing heavy-duty weapons at our chests. My stomach tightened. These had to be the guns Mage was referring to. I instinctively scanned their hands. Two more Sentinel tattoos stared back at me.

There was no point compelling them, and we were in danger if we didn’t get out of here.

“We have what we need,” I said quietly, directed at Caden, hoping he’d understand.

His almost imperceptible nod told me that he did, thankfully.

We vanished up and out of what was once our asylum, a chain of explosions into an empty blood vault chasing us the entire way.

*

“All that for merth? Why the hell would you want that toxic weed, anyway?” Kait screeched, cowering away from Caden as he looped his arms through the canvas knapsack. His wince told me that he could feel the sting, though it wasn’t enough to overtake him.

“Because it’s the last of it in this world and we may have use for it in the future,” I said, shaking my head at the garish vampiress, her bright orange painted lips glowing in the darkness. So typical of our kind. We were at the top of the food chain and would rid the world of anything that might threaten that position. Ignoring her further mutters of discord, I focused my attention on Caden. “Are you okay with that? I’d carry it but it can leach my magic, and we need that right now.”