Asylum (Causal Enchantment #2)(36)

“Well, if they hate the witches so much, why would they have been working with Ursula? Are you sure it was them? Maybe you’re mistaken.”

Leo leaned over and gestured to the meaty part of his hand. “Because they brand themselves with tattoos on their hand. The markings look like deformed crosses.”

Leo’s words jarred forth a memory. A deceptively nice old gentleman’s hand. And on it, a curved cross tattoo. “I saw it!” I confirmed.

“They all have them. Stupid, really. It marks them immediately for what they are. Vampires can spot them a mile away.”

“What happened to these people who attacked you in Central Park?” Julian asked.

“Oh, Max and the others got hold of them.” My eyes closed and I shuddered, trying to shake that gruesome bloodbath from my memory. “But these Sentinel people would have killed me otherwise.”

“Oh . . . ” Julian murmured. He looked at Max. “Good.”

Maybe he isn’t a complete nitwit after all, Max grumbled, earning an eye roll from me.

Leo continued. “The only reason Viggo and Mortimer have restrained themselves from hunting down the Sentinel up until now is because of Veronique. The moment she is out and transformed, they will go on a mission to rid the world of every last one. I guarantee you that.”

And I’ll be there with fangs on! Max chirped eagerly in my head. Not one of them will survive.

“Easy, Max. That won’t be for a while.”

“What’d he say?” Julian asked, his brown eyes shifting between me and Max.

“Oh,” I reached over to scratch behind Max’s ear, “anyone with a Sentinel tattoo pretty much has a death warrant with Max, here.”

Julian hesitated, watching the dog. “I don’t blame him.” He looked back to Leo. “So . . . do you think they can win? This Sentinel group?”

“They’re only human. What could they possibly do against an army of vampires?” I answered before Leo could.

When I glanced at the old man for confirmation, his eyebrow arched. “Oh, I don’t know,” he drawled. “How about starting a war that obliterates all of humankind? Sound familiar?”

My eyes went wide and I gasped. Ratheus. A war between humans and vampires. He was right. How could I have forgotten about that? I was so wound up with my own situation that I hadn’t connected the dots.

“They likely wouldn’t,” Leo continued, trying to mollify me. “The easier thing for the Sentinel to do is bomb the Manhattan building. That would eliminate ninety-five percent of the vampires on Earth. They’d just have to pluck off a few more . . . ”

I felt the blood drain from my face as a vivid image sprang into my mind of Viggo and Mortimer’s palace exploding—with Caden and the others trapped inside. If Caden died, if Sofie died, I’d have no one left. The very thought forced tears to my eyes.

“Oh, Evangeline, I’m sorry,” Leo exclaimed, softening at the sight of my distress. “I don’t mean to sound blithe. I highly doubt that’ll happen. As long as the Sentinel is left in the dark about what’s going on inside those walls and about the venom issue, there’s no reason they’d do something so drastic.”

“But what if they find out?”

“Who’s going to tell them? No one,” Leo assured me, adding sarcastically, “You’re here. Otherwise I’d be worried.” I answered with an irritated scowl. Now was not the time for teasing.

“Is that what happened on this Ratheus?” Julian asked me softly. Despite the detail I had gone into earlier that day, I hadn’t gotten into specifics about Ratheus with him. I wasn’t in any mood to explain those details now, with my body numb, my heart aching. So I simply nodded. “Humans against vampires. The humans lost. They can’t win,” I said, my voice hollow.

The room fell quiet as we all absorbed the full weight of the situation. Well, what we thought may be the situation. Julian shifted around on the couch as if unable to get comfortable. He likely wouldn’t be able to—most people become overly sensitive when words like “war” get thrown around.

Finally Julian did speak. “So, how do we stop this from happening?”

“We can’t do anything, up here in the mountains. Absolutely nothing.” Leo paused. “Sofie needs to keep the Sentinel calm and the witches uninvolved, for starters. We can’t let any of them know what’s going on inside those walls. Nothing about the venom issue.”

“Right,” Julian murmured, adding slowly, “because if they can kill all these Ratheus vampires in New York in one blow, no more could be created.”

“Right,” Leo confirmed. “They’d likely attack with full force, trying to eradicate the lot of them before they could create more.”

“In fact, from Earth’s standpoint, it would be best if they did do it. Because then there would be no retaliation. The general population would likely never even find out vampires exist,” Julian surmised.

No wonder he’s in med school. He’s catching on way faster than I ever did, I thought, even as despair flooded into me. They were talking about my friends and Sofie and why killing them would save the world. No . . . that couldn’t happen. There had to be another way.

“And what happens if this Sentinel and the witches don’t find out? If everyone’s all happy and quiet, no one kills anyone?” Julian asked Leo.