Eternal Night

(III) Chapter 29: The Price of Revolution

Francesca could scarcely believe what she was seeing.

Budapest – the entire city from border to border – had erupted into an all-out war.

Despite the severity of the blizzard, the wind whipping furiously as they flew over towards the heart of the city, the noise of battle could not be muted. There were shouts of fury and unholy rage, screams of terror, wails of the wounded and afraid. The discordant music of anarchy sent a decided chill down her spine and she flapped her great wings to dispel the crawling sensation from her skin.

Fires had already begun cropping up seemingly at random and were now spreading from building to building, a rising wall of flame and smoke that after a while appeared almost too calculated a move to be deigned coincidental.

"Look! The flames are running along the border of the south district! It's cutting the rest of the city off from the lycan territory," she heard her brother shout over the roar of the storm. From what she could sense, the others were of a similar mind.

The snow was doing little to deter the movement of the growing inferno. It seemed to twist and twine at will, block after block, as if it were being controlled by some unseen force. Rémy pointed with a clawed hand toward the east end, the more historic part of the city. Frankie followed the movement to find the flames almost on a decided path, as if they were chasing something. Narrowing her eyes a little, she could almost make out tiny ant-like movement down below as a number of the populace had begun to flee in the direction of the shadow district.

It didn't take a genius to assume why they were headed into that part of town.

The Oradea tunnel.

Yet those flames never once attempted to cut them from their path, instead only running alongside as if it were guiding them.

"It's like they're being herded," Louise called out, but before she could continue, there was a whizz of something slim and fast shooting through the air, barely missing Francesca's ear by inches. She dove abruptly out of the way, wings flapping thrice to help her regain what elevation she had momentarily lost, but another stray projectile came barreling toward her – and then there was a swarm of them.

Bullets.

They were being shot at.

"Take cover!" Vladislaus shouted, and as a unit, they quickly descended out of the way, heading down toward the ground and for the cover of the nearest building. Before she lost sight of the horizon, Frankie watched as more clouds of bullets shot up and into the air, aimed at anyone that tried to take to flight.

Those trying to flee really were being steered – forced to stay on the ground.

A sick feeling settled in the pit of her stomach.

"Is anyone hurt?" Bernardini quickly asked, taking stock of their companions.

"I got nicked," Tempest admitted, "but I'm fine," and she wiped the thin red line of blood from her cheek as the scratch finished healing. "I could smell the UV in the shell of the ammunition, though. If we fly, we'll need to be careful."

"We'll need to fly – there's no other way to get to the north district in time," Vlad explained, the bright blue of his irises glowing in the darkness as he visibly assessed their options.

"But what about the rest of the city?" Rémy asked. "You saw those flames. It was like someone had drawn a line of fire across a map, separating us from the lycans. I want to know why."

"You saw all those people fleeing into the east district, like they were headed toward the Oradea tunnel," Louise chimed in. "I'm telling you – Marcus must being driving anyone trying to escape in that direction."