Blood Magic by S.A. Beck

Author:S.A. Beck [Beck, S.A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Beck Books

14

So Many Minds

Ines did not know if karma was a real thing. That was one more question to add to the long list she would be asking her parents when this was done. But whether it was karma, fate, or just coincidence, the journey back into London provided an ugly balance to the ease with which they’d left the city.

The Tube was snarled up, trains running erratically, stopping in tunnels while drivers argued on their radios or fights broke out among the passengers. After the first few stops, they got off and tried to take a bus, only to get caught up in a traffic jam.

At the head of it, a group of police officers were breaking up a fight between two lorry drivers. A third driver lay on a stretcher at the back of an ambulance, and while dark shapes hovered over the fight and the stalled traffic, an angelic glow was emerging above the emergency medics.

After that, things just got crazier. There were police on most corners and a line of them in riot gear quelling a mass brawl at the entrance to a shopping center. Angels and demons were everywhere, many not fully formed but emerging over arguments or acts of kindness. Those that had managed to find their way entirely into the world were leaning in close to the humans around them, whispering taunts or words of encouragement, unseen and yet transforming the lives they touched.

On the edge of Camden, they gave up on the bus, stuck as it was in an ever-growing knot of traffic. If the Internet was to be believed, then the streets gridlocked for miles in every direction. Once again, Ines was glad for the phone her parents had provided, and which had been given its fill of electricity while they ate, drank, and planned at her house. That tiny device was a lifeline to something like the order that had existed before, proving that some parts of the world had not descended into madness, even if London was dominating the headlines.

The phone also had a map app, letting them find their way from a random road junction back into the city.

Though they knew where they were going, the streets were far from safe. A pair of policemen turned angry glares on them as they approached a corner, forcing them to double back and run from the heavy boots rushing along behind. It didn’t matter whether the policemen were working for the Ministry or responding to the hate unleashed by dark shapes around their heads—they were still to be avoided. But running from them only led to further trouble.

“Stop!” Damon exclaimed as they emerged from an alley into a crowded shopping street.

Looking up to where he pointed, Ines saw two all-too-familiar shapes standing on top of a bus stop, their hundreds of eyes peering out from amid clusters of spikes. One turned its body toward them, and Ines and her friends took off again, ducking between shoppers, travelers, and people just standing around, eyes vacant with delight or shining with anger.

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