Chapter 18 #2
Elise pulled Jamie back into the building and toward the courtyard in the middle.
The sun was already sinking below the horizon, and Mayor Arendale looked eager to introduce a new guest to the rally stage.
Surprisingly, Elise caught no sign of her father.
An event like this had his name written all over it, though he was nowhere to be found.
She wanted to breathe easier because of it; it should have meant less to deal with on a personal level.
But knowing Tobias, there was probably something sinister at the root of his absence.
Mayor Arendale grinned at the various crowd members waving posters of his face and political cartoons that depicted him in defiant exaggerated styles, lifting the state of New York on his back.
He waved his hand to silence them as he began to speak.
“We have lived for ages in New York because of the freedoms it offers us. But not all of us are truly free here. While the country has made mighty strides to keep its citizens safe and happy, there are many things still keeping us down. To name one thing, reapers are a significant blight on us here. We have tried for years to keep them in check. The Saint empire created methods to eliminate them, but after the tragedies that have occurred the past few months, we decided a new approach is needed.”
Curious murmurs moved through the crowd as he continued.
“I am introducing a new initiative that will hopefully settle the strife between humans and reapers. I specifically visited this complex because of several families here who have been impacted by reapers. When a human being turns into a reaper, they do not simply forget their human past. These families have lost sons, daughters, mothers, fathers; stigma has prevented them from seeing one another. In an ideal world, reapers and humans will be separate but equal. No more prejudices keeping families apart. To help me, I have partnered with a wise woman who sees a better world once all of us can get along. Please join me in welcoming Karine Dupont to our community.”
Karine walked onto the stage, her smile wide enough to reveal her fangs. A few people in the crowd cried out, while others ran away, and even more still stayed to feed their morbid curiosity.
“Karine was turned in the early 1700s and was taken to France during the early 1800s to serve masters there. She knows how cruel humans can be to reapers and how that has only increased violence between the communities. She believes that together, we can make Harlem safe again. Reapers can have a leader in her as you all have a leader in me. This is the dawn of a new America.”
Elise tried to listen, but she found Karine’s eyes boring into her.
The reaper held hundreds of lifetimes in her gaze, and Elise felt all of them ripping into her, passing more judgment than a divine being could ever muster.
Elise wanted to scream at her, establish the truth that she was still alive despite this ancient reaper trying to end her life.
But the ground trembled beneath her feet.
Jamie stiffened beside her, and she reached for the gangster, tugging on his arm to get his attention. “Run—”
An explosion rocked the courtyard.
***
Layla tasted nothing but ash and blood. Even before the dust settled, she saw carnage moving through the yard, its gray body pulling itself from the ruins of the complex gardens to prey on vulnerable humans scrambling to process what had just occurred.
Through the chaos, she found Elise hauling herself to her feet and lifting her gun to the beast. She fired once, only succeeding in blowing a chunk of flesh out of the thing’s neck.
It turned for the heiress this time, shrieking as it ran.
Layla charged for the thing and rammed it into the ground.
The beast skidded across the ground, smearing through the blood and countless bodies the blast had downed.
She allowed the heat of her wrath to urge her forward until she was crouching over the beast with her hand outstretched and ready to strike.
But as the dust cleared and Layla got a closer look at the beast, she saw something else instead.
The thing had been replaced by a young boy with brown skin and fearful dark eyes who lay crumpled and whimpering, human again.
Blood leaked from his throat where Elise’s bullet had torn through.
Layla hesitated over him and bit back a gasp.
People stampeded around her, fighting their way to the nearest exit. Too caught up in the young boy’s horrific death before her, Layla did not register the swarm of new bodies approaching her until it was too late.
“Do not move!” several police officers shouted.
Layla dropped her hands and turned to face them. They pointed their guns at her and beyond where she was standing. Just a few feet away, Sterling stood, startled. He lifted his hands in defense, and Layla watched as Elise and Jamie skidded to a halt behind the officers.
Elise glanced up at the stage where Mayor Arendale descended with Karine trailing behind him. “Sir! Please, this is not—”
“What kind of monster are you?” Karine demanded. She moved closer to the officers, who held their guns steady on Layla and Sterling.
Elise blinked in surprise. “Excuse me?” She swiped at a piece of dirt that clung to her face and gasped when an officer turned his gun on her.
Karine pressed on, her expression cold and unfeeling. “You heard me. Choosing to work with this criminal reaper?” She jerked her chin toward Layla, whose own body had gone rigid with anger. “Attacking innocent humans together? Was this whole thing your plan?”
Elise was shocked. “What? No. This is you. You’re the one who—”
“We found your letters to the esteemed Doctor Gray, by the way. Did you know she was arrested in Switzerland for medical malpractice? And you want to work with her for what reason? To continue such treatments here in the States?” Karine gestured to where a crack in the ground had opened up and where countless bodies lay just beneath the surface of the dirt.
A few appeared less human than the rest, like beasts among the dead.
“Are these monsters your creation as well?”
The scent of death had become particularly overbearing now. Layla wrinkled her nose more and more with each shift of the wind. Whatever the explosion had unearthed had been dead for a long time. And now they stood at the center of it all.
“You all need to leave immediately, or we will use force.” The police officers’ voices rang out around the street, closing in on the nervous crowd gathered before them.
“The premises are not safe at the moment. Frankly, I’m starting to get a little frustrated with how you are treating former colleagues,” Sterling said strongly.
While Layla knew he had grown used to managing authority as a Saint member, she did not understand how he still stood so defiantly in the face of a man who had pulled his gun on him.
Sure, the Saints had worked with police officers—or rather worked to fill in the gaps police officers left—but that clearly did not make these officers of the law any softer toward them.
The closest officer scowled at Sterling. “Because you are a former colleague. We no longer work with the Saints. You mean nothing to me now. None of you do,” he snarled. The man reached for his gun, but before he could fully draw it, another explosion shook the ground and everything around them.
Layla ducked with the rest of the crowd.
Several moments of weighted panic passed as smoke filled the air and ash rained down.
Layla looked back up and saw that the building’s windows had been blown out and fires raged on every floor.
In the courtyard, people cried out as they watched their homes burn.
Layla straightened, her eyes darting around the holes that continued to open in the courtyard. Bones surfaced in the dirt. Rotting caskets and burial decorations littered the ground, revealing a mass grave of long-dead humans.
The police officers looked on in horror. They lowered their guns and fell silent while the crowd began to scream again.
Jamie touched Layla’s arm and signaled to Sterling and Elise. While the rest of the audience grappled with the atrocities exposed before them, she followed her companions out of the destruction.