Chameleon (Supernaturals) (46 page)

Gabriel nodded and when the train pulled into its next stop I started to stand. Gabriel held me back, shaking his head. “Wait until the very last second,” he whispered so quietly against my ear that I barely made out the words.

The doors opened and I watched passengers file on and off the train. “Ready?” I asked. When Gabriel didn’t respond I turned back around to look at him. “If we wait any longer we’ll miss—”

Gabriel was not sitting next to me. The hand that had been clinging to Gabriel’s was now clutching my amulet. I hadn’t even noticed I’d let go of him.

“Gabriel?” I whispered.

Nothing.

I sprang to my feet. Gabriel was not on this train. I heard a banging coming from behind me, and whirled around to see that another train was parked on a track next to the one I was on, and somehow Gabriel had been transported onto it. He was screaming my name, but all I heard was the muffled pounding from where he was beating on the train window.

“Gabriel!” I shouted pounding my own window in frustration and fear.

I tried to run for the exit but the train doors had already closed so I could do nothing but watch in horror as our two separate trains went speeding off in opposite directions.

I ran from car to car to the back of my train, having no clue what I was going to do but I was unable to stand still. By the time I got to the end, Gabriel’s train was long gone and all that stared back at me from the window was an empty track.

I took a moment to catch my breath and then plopped down in an empty seat, stunned. I was so gone that I don’t even remember what happened next. I don’t know how long I sat there, just that I was startled out of my shock when the train plunged into darkness as it entered a tunnel beneath the Hudson River.

I sighed with relief—I knew I would be in Manhattan in minutes. As much as I hated to admit it, the Councilor would be able to help. Then, just as I had the thought, as if fate were playing some kind of cruel joke on me, the train came rumbling to a stop. The electricity went out and for a moment everything was pitch black before the dim emergency lights flicked on.

When the conductor announced our mechanical difficulties, everyone on board the train groaned collectively and a few of the more colorful individuals chose to go with a Russ-like reaction and spout profanity. I couldn’t blame them. I had a few choice words of my own I’d liked to have said, if I weren’t so busy having a heart attack.

I jumped up from my seat to look out the windows. I couldn’t see the light from where we’d entered the tunnel anymore. It couldn’t be coincidence. This train was spelled to break down. I was stranded. Intuitively I knew that Councilor Mason didn’t want me getting to the consulate in time to stop him.

I fell back into my seat just as I was coming to a very frightening realization. Gabriel was gone. I was the Chosen One, and I had just failed. The thought brought on an onslaught of emotion and I sobbed like I’d never sobbed before.

I heard someone laugh and saw a mother get up and shuffle her kids into the next train car but nothing could make me stop. I’d never felt more hopeless in my entire life. Russ was gone. Gabriel was going to die. The freaking Angel of Death was about to be set free to kill off the human race. And I’m pretty sure the Creator was getting ready to smite me for being such an epic failure.

“I am so getting tortured again when the Councilor finds me,” I muttered through my tears, and then laughed maniacally because I could almost hear Gabriel’s voice of reason in my head. He’d say something ridiculous like, “Do not despair Danielle. The Creator chose you for a reason. I know you will find a way.”

If Russ were here he’d just tell me to stop being stupid and man up. Both of them would probably be right.

That was enough to pull me out of my pity party and make myself think. I was on my way to the consulate already, and I still had the vision. Gabriel wasn’t going to be sacrificed this very second. It wasn’t over yet. I had to keep trying.

I searched the train car until I found an emergency box with a large flashlight inside. Perfect. Then I looked out into the scary black tunnel and took a breath as I forced open the door.

“What are you doing?” I heard someone call out behind me.

“Nobody tries to sacrifice my husband and gets away with it,” I grumbled and then jumped out of the train.

There was a narrow utility walkway on the side of the train that looked to run the length of the tunnel. I jogged alongside it, making my way toward the front of the train in the direction of the city. If anybody on board saw me they didn’t try to stop me. I wondered why until the tunnel swallowed up the dim lights of the train behind me. Somebody would have to be crazy to wander into this place.

“Or desperate,” I whispered aloud. My voice, even as quiet as it was, bounced off the walls in creepy echoes.

If I thought I felt alone on the train I was sorely mistaken. For a brief second the world spun around me. I was filled with an all-consuming grief just like the blackness around me. At first I mistook it to be fear of my bleak surroundings, but as I continued to walk down the tunnel my body became restless and I recognized the emptiness inside me.

The cravings were flaring to life, only they felt different this time. It was like I could literally feel Gabriel getting further and further away from me. Duncan was right. Gabriel and I were connected, but it was more than just our bond.
He
was a part of me, not just his energy. I felt his loss now, but I could still feel him. Somehow, I knew he was still out there, waiting for me to find him again. Just like I knew I would feel it if anything happened to him. The thought of such a loss was enough to make me forget my fear and tear down the tunnel as fast as my legs would carry me.

I caused quite a ruckus
when I ran through the lobby of the Woolworth building. People stared and some shouted, but among the chaos I heard one very excited squeal. “Dani!”

Just as the elevators opened a very hyper and extremely well dressed werewolf nearly tackled me.

“Don’t touch me!” I screamed and she was able to change course just before I took her form. She went tumbling into some guy in a suit who was just stepping out of the elevator.

I apologized as she helped the guy pick up the papers he’d dropped in the collision. “Sorry. I just can’t change forms right now. I have to stay a Seer.”

The man looked up sharply at me so Gina pushed him all the way out of the elevator and quickly hit the button to shut the doors. “Girl, are you crazy? This place is rumor central, and I’m pretty sure the council is going to great lengths to keep you secret considering the way they made you disappear.”

“I’m not the only one who’s going to disappear if I don’t get up to the consulate.” I was pushing the button for the fifty-sixth floor but nothing was happening.

Gina pulled out a plastic key card and swiped it through a scanner. A light flashed green and when she hit the button marked fifty-six the elevator whirred into motion.

“This ride takes a few minutes,” she said folding her arms over her chest. “So start talking. I tried to come up and visit you after my shift ended that day and I was hit by a supernatural security roadblock in a major way.”

“Well they couldn’t exactly let you visit when they were busy torturing me could they?”

Gina gasped.

I opened my mouth to tell her everything but our ride was already half over. “Okay,” I said. “There is way too much to explain it now, but I promise you I will give you every last detail—especially all the details about how the council forced me to marry the Seer—”

“GET OUT!” Gina screamed.

I held up my ring to prove it. “Every last detail,” I said again, “if you do one thing for me.”

“Anything.”

“Give me your cell phone.”

Gina handed over her phone without question. It was black and bedazzled with rhinestones. I thumbed through the phone numbers in her phone and immediately dialed Duncan. My heart sank when it went to voice mail. I slipped the phone in my pocket and looked at Gina. “Find Duncan. He’s the only one I really trust right now.”

“But they sent Duncan off on some secret council assignment. He hasn’t been here for two days.”

“I don’t care how you do it Gina. Just find him. Find him and have him call me on this phone. As quickly as you can.”

The elevator doors chimed open and I shot into the hall without waiting for Gina’s response. I breezed past the reception desk and a woman behind the counter jumped up and hurried after me screaming that I had to sign in.

“I have to find the Councilor!” I told her.

“He’s in a meeting with the Council. You can’t just see the Councilor anyway. You have to request a meeting.”

I ran straight for the conference room and the woman chasing after me began yelling for security. Four men came up behind me as I burst through the conference room doors. “Wait!” I screamed. “Don’t touch me! Councilor, tell them they can’t touch me! I need to keep the vision!”

The entire council was on their feet and the Councilor yelled, “Let the child be!” just before a big burly werewolf could grab me.

“Thanks,” I said, bending over to catch my breath.

“What is the meaning of this?” Councilor Torres asked.

I scanned the room for Robert Mason. He wasn’t there. My heart seized with panic and I prayed I wasn’t too late.

I met the Councilor’s eyes with a graveness that scared him. “I need to speak with you.”

“Danielle, where is Gabriel?”

My eyes flickered around the room again. “In private,” I said.

The Councilor debated for a moment and looked unhappy to be giving in to my request, but he stayed rational. “To your apartment then.” He looked back at the council, who was already arguing, and said, “Continue in my absence. I shall be back as soon as I can.”

His word was final and we left immediately. As soon as we were in the elevator I said, “Where’s Robert?”

“Wait, Danielle,” the Councilor said, “everywhere within the consulate is monitored by security except for the council’s private quarters. If you wish this conversation to stay between us you must wait.”

I hit the button on the elevator again like that might make it move faster, then I ran down the long hall to the stairs up to my apartment. “Ugh, would you hurry old man!” I hollered back at him down the stairs.

“That is hardly necessary.”

Once the Councilor stepped into the apartment and shut the door behind him he lost his composure. “All right child! Now tell me, where is Gabriel?”

“I don’t know! That’s what I need your help with. Where’s Robert?”

“We got a lead on the location of the resistance. Duncan is busy looking for you so I sent Robert to check on its accuracy. What do you mean you don’t know where Gabriel is? Danielle, if anything has happened to him—”

“Yeah, yeah, you’ll bring the wrath of the council down on me. I know. And you can torture me all you want and tell me ‘I told you so’ until you’re blue in the face just as soon as we save him.”

“What happened?”

“The resistance is going to sacrifice him in order to raise The Angel of Death.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“They attacked us at the Devereaux’s house in New Jersey last night. This chick Simone, some old witch girlfriend of Alex’s, found us and—”

“Simone Laroche?” the Councilor interrupted, confused. “Cosmetics chick? She’s dead.”

“Yeah, that’s the one. Only she’s very much alive and really pissed off now because I totally ruined her kidnapping attempt. She and a bunch of grumpy vampires tried to steal Gabriel and me last night for the resistance. Then she tried to convince Alex to join them. You were right about Alex being a liar, but he’s not the leader of the resistance. He told her to take a hike.”

“Don’t be so naïve, Danielle. He most likely set the whole thing up in order to regain your trust.”

“No way. They attacked us.”

“Brilliant. Then you and Gabriel would have been too scared to risk leaving him.”

“Except that one of the vampires impaled Russ through the chest with a wooden stake.”

The councilor’s face paled. “Alexander’s boy was killed in the battle?”

“He would have been if I weren’t there. Alex said not even he could have healed Russ.”