Asylum (Causal Enchantment #2)(49)
So much for a covert operation. But it needed to be done. All of this evidence needed to disappear without delay. Pushing Caden and Amelie back, I pulled forward a few dozen helixes and wove a fire spell, one hot enough to incinerate bones. I blasted the pile of bodies—both mutant and zombie. In seconds, nothing but ash remained.
A vast, empty basement now surrounded us, the music and lights still playing but no humans left. Caden and Bishop had their arms wrapped around the girls, who had calmed considerably. Everyone observed the bonfire with faces filled with quiet worry.
The music suddenly cut off, and I turned to see Mage stepping away from the speakers, still gripping torn power cords. “Jonah wasn’t here,” she announced. One mutant was still loose. Better than four, but still. He was free to roam New York City, to be noticed. “Did you see the witch?” Mage asked me. “I couldn’t find her anywhere.”
I shook my head. I had assumed it was Ursula before, but something about this told me it was bigger than a jealous witch out to get me. Whoever it was, they were clearly intent on revealing vampires to the world. “It’s time we got back home,” I said. Home. What a strange term for our Fifth Avenue vampire asylum. But it was the safest place for us to be right now. We needed to strategize. We needed an escape plan. And it was time everyone learned the truth about Ratheus.
6. Werewolves and the Possessed
“Are you trying to melt the snow with your super-powered stare?” Julian asked in a bored tone, his chin resting on his palm while he studied the game board on the small table between us. His other hand rolled a chess piece back and forth between its fingers.
“If I am, I suck at it,” I grumbled. The snow may actually have gotten deeper in the five hours since I’d sat down in this chair, even with the hot sun beaming down on it. It felt sauna-hot when it streamed in through the bay window of the great room, but out in the midst of the mountains in the dead of winter, it was still probably deathly cold. I didn’t know for sure, though. I hadn’t stepped outside in . . . forever, it seemed. “It’s Monday, right? Oh, wait—no. It’s . . . Tuesday?” I could feel my brows pulling together in frustration as I realized I didn’t even know what day it was anymore.
“Tuesday, I think,” Julian murmured absently, his focus on his next move.
Saturday, Max called from his resting place in a sun spot beside the table.
“Saturday?” I echoed, feeling my eyes bug out as I did the math. That meant a month had passed since Sofie exiled us here. A month with no communication with the outer world, whether through normal human means or otherwise. A month of wondering if my vampires still lived. I assumed they did, but I couldn’t shake that ominous feeling in the back of my mind that they were doomed, a belief that made me want to curl up in a cocoon and hibernate for the next several years.
That belief had also turned me into a wretched cabin mate. I didn’t realize it until I hit rock bottom two weeks ago. Each night, Julian and I took turns picking out the movies to watch and it had been my night to pick. When I rhymed off Old Yeller, The Perfect Storm, and Steel Magnolias, Julian finally lost it. He grabbed the hard drive and flung it across the room, then threatened to provoke Max into killing him because he couldn’t stand being trapped in this wooden hut with “Sulky Evie” for one more day.
Of course Max was on his feet and ready to oblige Julian just for the fact that he had raised his voice to me, but I quickly stopped the beast, realizing that I had become that whiny, miserable girl that I loathed. The girl whom I somehow had avoided becoming after my mother’s death, when I barely existed because everyone had been compelled to ignore me. Even after I found out about the curse, my optimism held. But here, exiled in the mountains and worrying about Caden and my friends, I had finally broken. Now someone would rather die than be near me.
After that night, I tucked the pictures I had so desperately clung to into my nightstand, only to be pulled out for emergencies. I made a conscious effort to force all thoughts of Ratheus and vampires out of my head—I tried, anyway. It was impossible. Jade eyes and springy blonde curls crept into my thoughts with every silent moment, and there were a lot of those, in exile.
“I’m going to go nuts,” I murmured, more to myself than anyone else. Rubbing my eyes, I turned away from the blinding glare of the sun reflecting off the snow to look at Julian.
Brown eyes glanced up at me before dropping back to the game board. “You and me both,” he mumbled as he moved a piece—I wasn’t paying attention to which one. “Your turn.”
In the month since Leo brought the disagreeable Forero son back from death, he and I had become what some might call best friends, whether we liked it or not. We ate our meals together, we watched movies together, we swapped books when the other was finished. We did everything together that didn’t require privacy. Sometimes we didn’t even bother “retiring” to our rooms, as Leo called it, but instead slept buried under blankets on either end of the sectional couch, finding comfort in each other’s presence. Those were the nights when the feelings of isolation were especially strong. I guess I didn’t feel quite as alone with Julian around. Sure, I was never really alone with a three hundred pound werebeast glued to my heels, ready to protect and serve, but having Julian around was different. There was a soothing aspect to it. That was the word to describe being around Julian: soothing.