That was when the darkness seemed to become heavier and thicker. “Kanesha.”

“I think I feel it,” she murmured.
This wasn’t something she could fight. I wasn’t sure it was something I could fight. I had this odd feeling that this time I wasn’t the target, that this wasn’t aimed at me.

That this was aimed at causing fear. Maybe what I sensed was human evil so deep it was starting to become demonic. Maybe it was…I don’t know. “We need to get everyone out.”

“How?”

“I could try and impersonate a Metro employee. Tell everyone to evacuate to the next car.” Except that I knew the next car wouldn’t be any better. “No, out of the train altogether.”

“Neither of us would convince anyone.”

I glanced at the woman behind us.

“What’s going on?”

“I smell smoke,” I said, finally. “I have a kind of sensitive nose.”

“Crap. And if we just yell fire or something…”

“People will panic, and then I’ll feel horrible if it’s nothing.” And even if it was something, people would get hurt. I took a deep breath. “So…”

“So…” Her voice moved, and I was sure I heard her standing up. “Ladies and gentlemen. We need to evacuate.”

“We’re supposed to wait for instructions from the driver. And there’s no light out there.”

That was what we needed the most. Light. I wasn’t even sure which side of the tunnel the walkway was on. “Anyone got a flashlight?” I rummaged for my phone, but an actual flashlight would be better.

Somebody turned on one of the little pen lights. It just made a white spot, and then that spot seemed to shrink in on itself as if something was consuming the light.

What we really needed, I thought, was a witch.

“I’ve been trying to raise the operator,” somebody called. “They aren’t responding.”

More likely the intercom wasn’t working. A shiver of fear ran through me – what if this wasn’t local to the train.

The person with the penlight was staring at it. “Battery’s gone.”

But there was a murmur now. The start of panic. People were going to hurt, possibly even die, and the darkness thickened.

Screw this. My cover wasn’t as important as their lives. I brushed past Kanesha and stood in the center of the car, closing my eyes to heighten other senses.

It wasn’t Tyz’vel. But I’d already known this. This wasn’t his style.

This was something that fed off of light and life that somebody had unleashed. Light, life and electricity.

Well. Maybe it was time to let it know what it had caught in its trap.