Anomaly (Causal Enchantment #4)(36)
A spider web of cracks stretched across the passenger window but the panel remained intact. I put my fist through it and peered inside.
And almost cried out.
A toddler sat nestled in his car seat, tears mixing with the red smears across his cheeks. A chunk of flying glass jutted out of his little thigh. He was alone back there, the couple in the front snug within their seats, the dashboard pressed against their chests.
Not breathing.
I clenched my teeth against the pain of the jagged glass shards slicing into my hands as my fingers curled around the doorframe. I yanked on the door and it peeled back like a tin can before the hinges finally snapped. I tossed it aside, sending several people skittering back.
“Shhh …,” I cooed, climbing in to stroke the little boy’s cheek. The glass must have severed a major artery because there was so much blood. So much that I wasn’t sure he’d survive long enough for help, especially not with his heart beating three times faster than it should be, pumping the blood even faster. So much blood, and yet it didn’t appeal to me. Not in the least. The only thing that appealed to me was helping this little boy.
Just as I had with Dixon and his broken leg, I felt the inexplicable urge to make this little boy whole again, to close the wound so he would survive.
Even if for just a while longer, until the mess in this world caught up to him.
I didn’t fight that overwhelming energy inside me this time. I knew I wouldn’t hurt him. “You’re fine,” I lied softly, staring into his eyes as I tried to calm his overactive heart. “You’re going to be just fine.”
His hysterical cries turned to sobs and then whimpers, slowing his heart rate. I can’t believe how natural it had become to compel.
The little boy’s eyes were glued to my face as I reached forward, my hand taking hold of the glass. I could see the wound—such a clean cut. The muscles and veins and skin needed mending but the glass was in the way. I pulled the chunk out with one hand while my other held the wound together. That same energy swelled and radiated, my body feeling waves of hot and cold. In my peripherals, the flames from the Rover lashed out as if someone had poured gasoline on them.
In mere seconds, the wound was gone.
Unfastening the car seat, I pulled the pacified boy out, his clothes soaked with blood and shredded by glass. With one last look at his round, chubby face, I handed the boy off to a middle-aged woman nearby who I could sense was eager to protect him. She would keep him safe until the police came, which could be some time.
To any human there, Julian and I simply vanished.
As did an unfortunate man’s blue pickup truck, heading for the bridge into Manhattan.
Despite the pending doom, a smile stretched over my lips.
The Fates may have been kind to me, after all.
*
My smile didn’t last long.
We soon abandoned the stolen truck and instead traveled the rest of the way on foot, easily weaving around the cars. There was too much traffic for this time of night, even for New York City. Most vehicles seemed to be moving in one direction: out.
For me, the throbs of heartbeats, though still fascinating, were beginning to fade into the background, in comparison to all the other things I could do. Of course, I didn’t assume that the steady drum of human life had faded for Julian and so I kept within two feet of him at all times, my attention split between the growing chaos ahead and my friend, whose eyes seemed locked on our path.
Maybe Julian finally had beaten his irrepressible urges. Or maybe he was just that worried about Amelie.
We were maybe six blocks from the north end of Central Park when we ran into the first fledgling. He looked ordinary enough—shoulders hunched, hands tucked into his pockets as he sped down the sidewalk.
Until he suddenly reached out and yanked a passerby into him, his mouth latching onto her neck. My feet faltered and I blinked several times, making sure I wasn’t just paranoid. Her friend’s screams beside them quickly confirmed that I wasn’t. In a matter of seconds, he finished with the woman, leaving her body to tumble to the ground as he went for her friend.
“We need to do something!” I took off, charging for the fledgling. Julian’s feet pounded the pavement next to me.
The fledgling released the second body with a hiss. He took off down the street, the orange sports emblem stitched into the back of his jacket disappearing around the corner just as we reached the two women.
“Are they … dead?” Julian asked. We stood over the two victims.
“No heartbeats usually means that,” I said, glancing around, suddenly worried that someone would think we did this.
“Should we just—” Julian started when the first woman, a pretty blond in her mid-twenties, began to convulse. “What the …” Julian’s voice drifted off. We managed to jump away just as a stream of vomit shot out of her mouth.
“Oh my God,” I gasped. “He turned her!” The other woman’s body began to convulse and we moved away, knowing her stomach contents would soon be making an appearance. “Her too!”
“What do we do?” Julian whispered as approaching footsteps pulled our gaze. A man with a cigarette between his fingers walked along the street, a dog trailing beside him. The man appeared clueless while the dog held its nose in the air.
“Burn them, I guess. If we don’t, they’re going to be killing people within an hour.”