Anomaly (Causal Enchantment #4)(22)

And then I clenched my jaw at the horrific reality in front of me.

This had been a busy station with a lot of people waiting. Left behind was a platform of corpses. So many corpses, a person would have to pick a path to get out. And not a single fledgling, which seemed improbable.

“Amelie!” Caden’s deep voice echoed through the station as he hopped up onto the platform. He stood frozen. No raspy answer came. “Amelie!” Turning to me, he yelled, “Where the hell is she?” Not waiting for my answer, he darted between the bodies, inspecting their faces.

He stopped dead in his tracks, his mouth opening wide.

My insides roiled. Leaping onto the platform, I ran to join him. Maybe I could save her, maybe there was something I could do. Maybe …

I gasped with relief when I saw that it wasn’t Amelie. It wasn’t even a female.

The relief was only short-lived. As I took in Galen’s lifeless face, a gaping hole in his chest, dread slammed into me.

“Lilly!” I called out, my voice cracking.

She appeared next to me almost instantly. I turned in time to watch her childlike face crumble. “This doesn’t …,” her head shaking back and forth, “… make sense.” Kneeling beside his body, she lifted his hand and then let it go, watching it drop to the speckled tile. “A fledgling can’t kill a thousand-year-old vampire. This just …” Standing, she peered first at me and then at Mage. “This doesn’t make sense.”

A prickle of worry ignited inside me—she was right. Fledglings couldn’t do this, especially not while on the run. I didn’t care what Mage said about their evolution. They weren’t strong or smart or controlled enough to take down someone as skilled as Galen.

There was, however, one person who was.

But the only way he could claim responsibility would be by being one step ahead of us, lying in wait. I hoped I was wrong.

Because Amelie was missing.

“You need to come take a look at this,” Bishop called, his foot nudging the body of a young Asian man. I stepped around the bodies, closing the distance just as vomit shot out of the man’s mouth.

“He’s changing,” I stated, my gaze rolling over the other bodies. “Check the others.” Mortimer, Bishop, Fiona, and I inspected the litter of bodies and found five more already wearing their stomach contents; another six were convulsing. “Twelve of them are changing.”

In their killing spree, the fledglings had managed to create twelve new vampires.

“They are evolving,” Mage whispered without even a hint of “I told you so.” There was nothing to gloat about here. If those fledglings could go from mass murder to using their venom while on the run, we were in real trouble.

With a thought and flicker of my fingers, twelve individual pyres erupted on the platform floor, the smell of burning flesh curling my nostrils. I stopped on Galen, waiting until Lilly gave her silent nod. When she stepped away, I ignited him too.

He’d been a pain in the ass but he didn’t deserve this.

“Caden, have you tried calling her? Maybe she went after a stray.” I prayed that everyone else was too distracted to connect the dots.

With a shake, Caden pulled out his cell. And frowned.

“What’s wrong?”

“Evangeline. She called me. Five times.” He punched in a button and held the phone to his ear, muttering, “I was too distracted to answer.”

“She’s probably just worried.” I watched as he paced, scowling. The faint ringing on the other end went on and on and … no answer.

Sliding the phone into his pocket, he settled a hard-jawed look on me.

“Go find out,” I commanded. “Call me when you know.”

He vanished.

“And then there were six,” Mage said under her breath. I couldn’t tell if that was a warning to me, but I didn’t care. My weakness had always been and always would be Evangeline. I wouldn’t think straight until I knew she was okay.

The flashing tracking bracelets around my arm reminded me that we had to move. But to where? I was being pulled in every direction! I headed for the stairs, hoping to get a better feel when we reached street level. This place would be crawling with emergency crews soon enough anyway.

My boot hit the first step when Lilly yelled out, “Sofie!” I turned to find her staring at me, her own phone to her ears. “Forget the trackers. We need to go that way.” Her little black bob shifted smoothly as she nodded toward the tunnels.

“Why?”

Her lips pressed together. “Kait thinks she found Jonah’s horde.” By her grim expression, I knew that it wasn’t coming as good news.

Chapter Five – Evangeline

“Julian!” I screamed, pushing past the snarling wolves, balancing two containers of blood against my chest.

It did nothing to distract Julian, his hands gripping Brian’s neck as he bashed the man’s head against the hard ground. Over and over again, relentlessly. I could see the back of his mangled skull—matted with blood—and, though I knew it would heal on its own if it had time, it didn’t appear that Julian would be letting up.

To my left, Veronique faced off against Cecile, the two vampiresses baring their teeth and snarling at each other as Cecile hovered over the cooler of blood.

A quick glance at Julian’s and Veronique’s empty cartons identified the catalyst of this brutality.