He brushed away her tears. His hands were warm and soft.
TWENTY-FIVE
Temple Maidens
For a week, the team combed Cairo for any trace the Nephilim, hunting down every lead they could find, but it was as if the demon-born had vanished into the air. As each avenue proved fruitless, and the days went by with no resolution or progress, Schuyler decided it meant they were going about it the wrong way. She still felt sick to her stomach and nauseated in the mornings, and the smell of meat could make her vomit.
But her head was clear. She had a feeling she knew what her sickness was, but she kept her hopes to herself. She did not want to tell Jack until she was sure. In the meantime, they had a job to do.
If they could not find the Nephilim, they would have to find a way to make the enemy come to them. She remembered something that Sam had told them when they’d first met—that they had tracked the Nephilim to the City of the Dead because they were working on a hunch that the girls who had been disappearing from the necropolis were being taken to the underworld.
The girls who were kidnapped were followers of the temple of Anubis, the ancient Egyptian god of the dead. While modern Egypt had moved on from the old ways, the people of the cemeteries had never forgotten, and a crew of temple maidens still kept the sacred flames alive. Schuyler formulated a plan and shared it with the team, and they spent an evening hashing out all the details. When they were satisfied, everyone went home.
“I don’t like this,” Jack said, the next morning. “It’s too dangerous. You’re putting yourself at too much risk.”
“There’s no other way to find the gate unless they take me there,” she reminded him. “I’ll be fine.” There was no more time to question or wait. They had to act now, before the hidden Silver Blood broke down the barrier.
“But you’re still sick,” Jack argued. “It’s not safe.”
“It comes and goes,” she said with a smile. “I’ll be okay.
I’ll have Deming and Dehua with me. They’re a match for any demon.” She put on the white robes of the temple maidens and hid her face behind a veil. “Besides, you’re going to be right behind us. Once they bring us to the gate, you and the rest of the team will be able to take them down.”
Schuyler had asked the priest who manned the temple not to send any other girls that day, as she and the two Venators planned to perform all the duties. They’d learned that the girls were usually abducted at night, when they walked from the temple to the outskirts of the southern cemetery, where they gathered firewood for the next morning.
The temple was located in a busy part of the cemetery, next to shops and cafés. It was a simple square structure, with a forecourt where the public gathered, and an inner sanctum where only the priests and maidens were allowed. In ancient Egypt, only the pharaohs and ordained priests could offer gifts to the jackal-headed god, but in the nineteenth century, the rules had changed so that girls as young as fourteen were called into service to perform many of the rituals of cleansing and prayer, as it was believed that only the prayers of the pure and virginal would be answered by the god of the tombs.
When Schuyler and the Venators arrived, they dipped their hands and feet into the shallow pool at the base of the temple, a cleansing practice that was mostly metaphorical in nature (in the past, the pool was deep and the priests bathed in it before entering the temple). Schuyler washed as quickly as she could and followed Deming and Dehua into a massive hallway lined with great stone columns. The temple dated from the Ptolemy era, and was painstakingly preserved by the people of the cemeteries.
Since Schuyler and the girls were pretending to be dis-ciples, they had to do everything ordinary temple maidens would have done so that in the event that the Nephilim were watching, they would not suspect anything was awry. The first order of business was to light the candles and cleanse the air, and the three of them proceeded into the inner chambers with their candles lit, chanting softly as they made their way to the chapel that housed the statue of Anubis. They placed their candles in the holders and waited a few moments before beginning to clean the statue.
Anubis had the body of a man and the head of a beast, and Schuyler felt a little uneasy as they began to wipe and oil down the stone. Deming brought the folded linen from the back room and dressed the statue, while Dehua was in charge of rubbing rouge on his cheeks and applying sacred oil on his forehead.
Schuyler brought in the gifts of food and drink—baskets of bread and a few bottles of wine that that been left at the temple as offerings—and placed them in front of the statue.
“What now?” Dehua asked, inspecting their handiwork.
The statue shone in the dim light.
“The faithful are waiting,” Schuyler said. “Let’s get to work.”
They spent the whole day in the forecourt, leading prayers, keeping the fire lit, anointing worshippers with holy oil.
Schuyler had asked the priest to tell his flock not to schedule a funeral or memorial on this day, as she did not feel right about leading the incantations and prayers for true believers.
“Hot in here,” she said, when the three were alone in the inner chamber. She was sweaty underneath her layers.
But the twins only shrugged, since, as vampires, they were able to regulate their body temperature.
Schuyler began to feel a bit woozy and light-headed, and wondered if Jack was right in worrying about her on this un-dertaking. She’d convinced herself she had no choice. While Deming and Dehua were trained fighters, she was the one who had to carry out her grandfather’s legacy. She could not let them find the gate without her.
How’s it going in there? Jack sent.
Quiet, she replied. You guys see anything?
Not a thing.
The Venators were edgy, regarding each worshipper with suspicion. But the day passed uneventfully, and then it was sunset, and they had to set off to collect the firewood. Jack and the Lennox brothers would follow a few steps behind.
The girls walked slowly through the dark uninhabited streets. most people lived in the northern part of the necropolis, and it was not a good idea to walk the southern area at night, which was said to be the home of drug dealers and thieves. There were no streetlamps, and there was a hushed quiet that was unnerving. The girls did not whisper to each other, and Schuyler felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise.
But they arrived at the woodpile undisturbed, gathered what they needed for kindling, and returned to the temple unharmed.
“What now?” Dehua asked, setting her bundle of wood by the grate.
Schuyler shrugged. Were they doing something wrong?
Did the Nephilim suspect something was different?
They’re not taking the bait, Jack sent. He and the boys were back to guarding the temple from a rooftop across the way.
No, they will come for us, I can feel it, Schuyler sent. She closed her eyes and listened to the wind. She could sense something in the air, expectation maybe, like the quiet before a battle; everyone tense until the first shot was fired.
Deming exchanged a skeptical look with her sister.
“Maybe they’ve gone. They’ve destroyed the blood spirits and the Coven’s gone underground. What more do they want? We should move on. Mahrus thinks they’re out to target Jerus-alem next.”
Schuyler was about to protest when a strong wind blew out all the candles in the temple, plunging the room into darkness. This is it, she sent. Don’t fight, she reminded the girls.
Don’t move. Let them take us. Remember, for this purpose we are human and weak.
A group of men surrounded them—appearing out of the mist. Schuyler was surprised to find that their captors were human and did not have the forked tongues and glowing crimson eyes of the Hell-born. Rough hands held her on both sides. She screamed in terror, as did the Chinese twins. It was a good performance. The room rang with their panicked cries.
Schuyler did not have to try to pretend very hard, as a cold fear gripped her s
oul—but she trusted the Venators and her beloved to find them.
“The zaniyat will have her kindred!” their leader announced, and the group cheered lustily. Their laughter had a sickening, crazed quality, like that of hyenas howling at a car-cass, and Schuyler shivered.
She noticed the men had tattoos on their arms—the tri-glyph symbol she had seen on MariElena. The mark of Lucifer along with the Blue Blood symbol for humankind, to symbol-ize the unholy union of the two races.
“Let us go!” she cried. “Leave us alone!”
Deming and Dehua pretended to resist as well, struggling against their attackers.
The men ignored them, and the leader cackled as he struck his spear into the fireplace and the floor of the temple fell away. Schuyler gave out a real scream this time, as they all disappeared into a hole in the ground, and tumbled straight through the living glom into the underworld.
Jack! Can you hear me! They’re here! she sent, but she knew it was useless. They were out of sight and out of reach.
She could fight, and she would fight, she thought. maybe there was still away to use their weakness to an advantage.
The Nephilim servants believed they had kidnapped three helpless human girls. It was always good to be underestimated.
TWENTY-SIX
The Only Girl in the World
“So it’s okay to drink these?” Oliver asked, motioning to the cocktails set in front of them. One of them looked like it was made from hot lava: it was a deep scarlet hue, and it bubbled and smoked over a silver chalice. The second was a brilliant shade of green, and set off minty sparks that fizzled.
He had never seen the likes of either, and while a deep-seated fear of everything in the place was still rooted in him, he was curious to find out what they tasted like. They had not drunk nor eaten anything since their arrival, and he was still light-headed and hungry.
“I don’t know. I don’t really care,” Mimi snapped, whipping her head around the nightclub to look for Kingsley.
Oliver took a tentative sip. The lavalike concoction was warm and buttery, delicious, but almost too sweet. The green cocktail tasted like a honeydew melon, except again, there was a sense that the melons were too ripe, and almost—but not quite—rotten. It was a pattern that he was starting to notice in Tartarus, that even if something was nice, it wasn’t quite right.
The club was either too hot or too cold—one could never get comfortable. It was as if the ideal temperature, the ideal state of anything, really, didn’t exist. It was always just a hair off, one way or the other. It could drive a person insane, he thought, if everything one ate was either too tasty or too bland, too salty or too sweet, too crunchy or too mushy, and nothing was ever just right. Well, where did he think he was…
right? Oliver chided himself for making jokes, but he couldn’t help amusing himself. It was all he had, at this point.
He wasn’t sure what to make of Kingsley. He hadn’t known him all that well when they were at Duchesne together, but the cool-kid act didn’t surprise him. Oliver didn’t know if Kingsley was pretending not to care, of if he had been in the underworld so long he truly didn’t feel the same about Mimi anymore. Poor girl. She wasn’t expecting this. She looked a little lost, a little forlorn, as she looked around the club. Her face sagged; her brittle armor was cracking, and Oliver felt for her. She didn’t deserve this after all the hard work she had put in to getting here. He wished he could cheer her up, offer some sort of consolation. When the DJ played something new, something that wasn’t such an earworm or designed to annoy, a song that actually had a beat and a melody, Oliver saw an opportunity.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s dance.”
Mimi could not resist a twirl on the dance floor, and if at first she had been inclined to say no to Oliver, she swallowed her frustration and annoyance. If Kingsley wanted to play this silly game, one where he pretended not to feel what he felt for her, then there was nothing she could do about it. She had begun to doubt her memories of his so-called love. What did they have between them anyway? They’d hooked up a few times, and sure, he’d come back to New York to convince her to forsake her bond; and sure, he’d sacrificed himself to save her—to save all of them—but Kingsley never promised anything; never even told her how he felt about her. What if she’d been wrong? What was she doing here? Mimi took a few deep breaths. She didn’t want to think about what it meant, so instead she took Oliver’s hand and they stepped onto the dance floor, in the middle of the writhing bodies. She would give these demons something to remember her by.
Oliver was a good dance partner. Unlike a lot of guys, he didn’t look like he had no idea what he was doing. He had rhythm, and they moved elegantly together—Mimi shimmying up next to him while he put his hands lightly on her waist.
She twisted and turned, feeling the music in her veins, feeling the liberation that came with moving to the sound of the beat, slowly becoming one with the music. Her face flushed, her breasts heaved, she began to glow with an inner light, and for the first time during their journey to the underworld, her face relaxed and she smiled. Oliver grinned and clapped his hands.
This was fun, Mimi thought. It had been a very long time since she had done something just for the pure enjoyment of it, and for a moment she was a teenager again, without a care in the world. When she closed her eyes she could pretend she was back in the city. There had been a nightclub just like this one once. Funny how the New York landscape changed like that. While the buildings themselves remained the same, nineteenth-century synagogues turned into hot fashion-show venues. Banks and cathedrals now housed cocktail bars and discos.
The dancing grew more frenetic, and the crowd pressed tightly so that Mimi was pushed back against Oliver, jostling him. As she turned around to apologize, she caught a glimpse of him back at their banquette, sipping his devil cocktail. (She probably should have warned him about them, but it was too late now.) He shrugged his shoulders as if he had no idea how that happened.
So whose hands were on her waist, then? Who was pressing his body against hers with a possessive, familiar weight?
She turned around slowly, although she already knew the answer.
Kingsley smiled his wicked grin, and she could feel his body responding to hers as they swiveled and ground to the beat of the music. He leaned over and rested his chin on the base of her neck. She could feel his slick-warm sweat on her skin. His hands wandered, dropping from her waist to her hips, pulling her closer to him. She could feel her heart thud-ding with the music but also in rhythm with his—as if they were alone together, the heat of the dance floor and the darkness a cocoon that surrounded them.
“Nice moves, Force,” he murmured.
She pulled away, not willing to give in so easily. He twirled her expertly around, spinning and dipping her so far backward that his nose was practically in her cleavage. Damn, he was smooth. But then what did she expect? She realized that in the time they had been apart she’d constructed an ideal image of him; had only remembered the shining parts of his personality, and the way he had looked at her that last time, before he’d disappeared into the White Darkness. That was all she had set her hopes and heart upon, that one last look. She had forgotten what he was really like. Unpredictable. Cocky.
Sly. He’d never said he loved her, after all. She’d just assumed….
But now he was pulling her toward him again, and they were facing each other, her head resting on his shoulder, and his hand was on her back. The music was something she recognized. marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.” Too many of her human familiars liked to play it before the Caerimonia. The classic makeout song, almost as clichéd as Van morrison’s
“Moondance.” Kingsley sang softly in her ear, and his voice had that low, smoky quality she’d liked so much from the beginning. “‘Giving yourself to me can never be wrong if the love is true…’”
Mimi tried not to laugh. He really was a piece of work, this guy. Was he freaking serious? Did he only think of one
thing and one thing only? Was that all it was? Did he really believe she had come all the way to the underworld so they could hook up? She tried not to feel too insulted.
The music stopped, and she moved away from his embrace. Taking her cue, Kingsley slouched away as well. He was still smirking. He didn’t need to say it: she knew he was thinking that she was being silly to pretend they weren’t going to end up in bed sooner or later.
Am I wrong? His voice was loud and clear in her head, and she could hear the confidence behind it.
But Mimi ignored it for now. She didn’t want to fall back to their old ways—pretending that they didn’t care about each other; pretending it was all just Venators-with-benefits; that he hadn’t sacrificed so much for her, or that she was in the underworld for any other reason than to get him out of there. All the events of the day—Oliver’s fake wedding, mamon’s offer, the journey to Tartarus, and actually seeing Kingsley again—were suddenly overwhelming. She felt a bit dizzy and as if she were going to burst into tears. It was too much, and she felt her knees begin to buckle underneath her. She was going to faint.
“Hey,” Kingsley said, looking concerned. He slung a friendly arm around her shoulder and pulled her toward him.
“C’mon now. I was just kidding around. You all right?”
She nodded. “I just need some air. It’s hot in here.”
“No kidding.” Kingsley walked her back to her table.
“Where are you staying in town?”
Mimi shrugged. “I don’t know.” She hadn’t thought that far ahead.
“Go see my man at the Duke’s Arms. He’ll give you guys a nice room. make sure Hazard-Perry over there doesn’t get targeted by the trolls—or worse, by the Hellhounds,” Kingsley said, writing an address on the back of a calling card and handing it to her.
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