Chapter Six – Sofie
“Dear God.” The words slipped from my lips as we stood in a roughly erected doorway. A set of metal stairs led down to the ground of the Second Avenue subway construction site, a cavernous space three stories below street level.
And it was crawling with vampire fledglings. There had to be a thousand or more. “Kait says they’re filling up the tunnels too,” Lilly informed us. “She’s down in one right now.”
Thousands.
“Tell her to get out of here. It’s too risky if they discover her.” I scanned the sea of heads. With this many, it was relatively quiet, a low buzz permeating the space. They all seemed too preoccupied with buckets of red to hear our guarded whispers. Discarded plastic and upturned coolers littered the ground.
“I guess we know where the city’s blood supply went to,” Mage said, her black eyes drifting over the crowd, narrowing as she surveyed faces. I knew who she was looking for. Her right hand, the mutant who had betrayed her. It wouldn’t be hard to spot him if he was here. That gaunt demonic face would stand out anywhere.
A chorus of snarls erupted, pulling my attention down to a tall, dark-skinned man who walked among the fledglings, tossing bags at their feet like dogs. Several more were doing the same in other areas.
“They must’ve been the first of Jonah’s,” Mage said. “They’ve evolved. They’re his soldiers now.”
Soldiers. So Jonah has been preparing for war since day one. From the corner of my eye, I saw a fledgling leap on another one, kicking and punching and raking eyes as they fought over the delivered blood.
In the far corner, one of Jonah’s “soldiers” rallied a group of fledglings. They seemed more interested in getting back to their blood but as his lips moved, saying something I could not hear, their focus changed. The fledglings shifted excitedly on their feet, flocking toward the soldier.
He pushed open a door and waved them through. I counted as they passed, until the door closed. “He just released forty fledglings.”
“Smaller groups move fast and scatter farther,” Mage explained. “If Jonah was trying to keep us from discovering this, having us run all around the city would certainly help.”
“Why bother with all the bags, though?” Fiona whispered, her pretty face stark. “There’s a city to feed from out there.”
“He’s building their strength and their dependency on blood. When the bags stop coming, they’ll get really restless. I’m sure that’s when Jonah plans on unleashing them.” Black eyes full of warning shifted to me. “It’ll be near impossible to staunch this horde if they get out.”
“But why would he want to do this?” Fiona pressed. “He knows what will happen to our world. He lived it!”
Mage’s head shake was almost indecipherable. “Mutants tend to lose their grip on rational thought. Perhaps it’s as simple as that.”
“Or maybe someone has convinced him that it’s a good idea,” Mortimer suggested, hitting too close to my own thoughts. Viggo. A silver-tongued, revenge-riddled psychopath who probably convinced Jonah that this was his best way of distracting Mage. Viggo didn’t care about the repercussions. He wanted war.
Enough to form allegiances with a creature he despised more than anything else in the world.
“We need to get rid of them. Now.” Mage’s tone was uncompromising.
“I agree, but how? How do we do that without letting the ones in the tunnels escape?” I was powerful—some would argue the most powerful witch in existence—and yet even I knew my limitations. To ignite this entire space in one shot would sap me, allowing them a chance to run. Or attack.
As I pondered the “how,” Lilly was on her phone again. Rushed words were exchanged and she hung up. “She made it to the next station construction site.” Blue eyes flashed to me. “It’s full of fledglings too.” I closed my eyes, another wave of despair crashing over my shoulders. How had this happened so fast?
“Look! They’re already rounding up another group to release.” My eyes opened in time to see that Mortimer was right, another soldier snapping his fingers, kicking the fledglings to get them up.
“Can you close this entire station off?” Mage asked.
“That won’t kill them,” Bishop argued.
“No, but it may buy us some time,” she countered. “The next station is within a minute’s running distance. We take this one down, burn them, and then go and do the same thing there before they know what’s happening. There, there, there.” She pointed out all the access points, all the ways this plan could fail if not done correctly.
Failure was beginning to feel like the only path out, and yet Mage had such confidence in my ability, I couldn’t help but want to try. If we could win here, this could soon be over.
I plucked at the helices floating within my body, each one powerful enough to cause destruction, all of them combined capable of devastation. “All of you, be ready to run. Lilly—tell Kait to get the hell out of there. Now.” A worry hit me. “Has anyone heard from Amelie?”
Head shakes answered. I had to believe for her sake—and Julian’s—that she was nowhere near this. “Can someone get hold of Caden? Maybe he’s waiting at the rendezvous point with her and—”
“They’ve seen us,” Mortimer hissed. My gaze snapped down to catch the soldier’s eyes locked on me, a wicked grin on his face. A shout of, “She’s here!” erupted from his mouth.
Without thinking, I incinerated him where he stood.
The other soldiers were quick to zero in on me and the sight of fire broke many of the fledglings’ feeding daze, their eyes widening with the threat.
I’d run out of time. “Get behind me!” I yelled as I unleashed a powerful torrent of magic, targeting one entrance after another. They came down like dominoes, steel beams stumbling, chunks of concrete breaking off. There was nothing stopping the fledglings from tossing the boulders off to the side, but Mage was right—this could buy us some much-needed time.
I stalled as three sizeable chunks of concrete rained down, crushing several in the crowd where they sat. I watched the ceiling with trepidation, wary that my onslaught might be too much for the structure.
That momentary lapse gave the soldiers time to scale the stairs. I found myself facing off against five large men. Normally I wouldn’t care, but I couldn’t fight them and finish closing off this place.
Luckily, I didn’t have to. Five forms jetted out from behind me, having ignored my demands that they stay back. They quickly dispatched the attackers so I could return to the task at hand.
To my dismay, fledglings were running for the tunnels like rats under threat of water, an image Mage had described earlier and, now that I witnessed it, couldn’t be more accurate. We couldn’t have them warning the other station.
I unloaded several more blasts of magic into the tunnels, reaching deep within to close them off completely. Beneath my feet, a tremor vibrated the staircase we stood on, but I ignored it, focused on the remaining fledglings now trapped, intent on burning them to ashes.
But the rumbling didn’t stop.
And when the cracking sound drew my attention to the fissure overhead, up and all around the curved ceiling, my stomach tightened.
I knew what was about to happen.
Mage grabbed hold and yanked me through the only exit left intact. We made it to the street level just in time to watch the pavement open up as the construction site caved in.
“Oh my …,” Fiona gasped behind me as vehicles and pedestrians disappeared into the chasm.
Chaos exploded around us. People scrambled to get away, hugging their loved ones as they ran down the street. In the distance, the screams of sirens bounced off buildings. I couldn’t say if they were rushing here or to the crash site of the runaway train.
And, in the mix of it all, were the fledglings. And they were scattering.
“The park!” Mortimer yelled as they took off, leaving Mage and me standing still in the midst of disaster. I could’ve yelled after them, demanded that they stay, that we needed to stick together. But I didn’t.
Instead, I stepped to the edge, my insides knotting as I witnessed the worst of it unfold below. People trapped in cars—the ones not already crushed anyway—peering through the darkness, their shocked faces frozen, the few seconds of relief as their doors are ripped off or their windows smashed, when they think they’ve been saved.
The screams of horror when they realize the truth.
“Do you have any magic left in you?” Mage asked.
“Some,” I said, my voice hollow. For what good it would do us, I didn’t know.
“Then you need to finish this. Eliminate what you can.”
I turned to gape at her. Was she serious?
“They’ll be climbing out soon and when they do …” She left the words hanging like the death sentence that they were.
My teeth cracked against the weight of this decision as I took in dozens of cars, the figures still moving inside.
“Sofie, their hearts may still beat but they are already dead,” Mage said more softly.
She was right. Mage was always right.
I closed my eyes as I depleted every last trace of my magic, igniting the massive hole with witch fire. The last heartbeats faded almost instantly.
And I knew that this night would haunt me for years to come.