“What about them?” Oliver asked.
“Those guys work for Helda. They don’t answer to Leviathan,” Kingsley said. “Hey,” he said mildly to the trolls.
The trolls let them pass without comment. They looked a bit bored.
Mimi let Kingsley walk on ahead, staying with Oliver, in the guise of helping him with his sprain. “Lean on me,” she said.
“Thanks,” Oliver said. “I’m glad you got what you wanted.”
“Not quite yet,” Mimi said. She felt her hands go a little numb at what she was about to do. She hadn’t really given it much thought until now, since it was so distasteful, even for her. Oliver had been a good friend throughout their entire adventure. But she had no choice. It was time to pay the porter. A soul for a soul. Mimi prepared to do her worst. “Listen, before we can go, there’s something I need you to do for me,” she said, without looking at him directly. “I hope you understand it’s not personal.”
Oliver sighed. He’d had a feeling something like this was going to happen. He liked Mimi, but he trusted her as far as he could throw her, and during his time in the underworld he had carefully weighed his options. He knew he didn’t have very many, but he had been hoping that somehow Mimi would change her mind, that she would find another way to get them out of Helda’s kingdom. But it was apparent from the determined set of Mimi’s jaw that this would not be the case.
“You’re going to leave me here,” he said.
Mimi did not flinch. “Yes.”
“Does Kingsley know?” Oliver asked, watching the erstwhile Duke of Hell banter with a few trolls hanging at the gas station. It was all so much fun for everyone else, wasn’t it, Oliver thought, trying not to feel angry. He knew what he had gotten himself into. Mimi had given him a choice in the beginning and he had chosen to descend into the Kingdom of the Dead with her.
“No. He doesn’t know that part of it. I didn’t tell him,” Mimi said. “I don’t think he’d let me do it if he knew.”
“Probably not,” Oliver agreed. Kingsley was a chivalrous kind of guy, and Oliver bet that his pride would never allow him to accept his release at the life of another, and a human at that.
“So… is this going to be a problem?” Mimi asked.
Oliver tried not to laugh. Mimi was such a piece of work. What a selfish little bitch. She didn’t care what she did or whom she hurt, as long as she got what she wanted. “You’re serious about this, aren’t you?”
“I told you not to come with me,” she said, sounding like a child who’d been told they weren’t going to celebrate her birthday after all. “It’s your fault for trusting me.”
He brushed her arm away from his shoulder. His ankle still hurt. If he had to stay down here, what was all that jumping for, then? All that sneaking out of Hell? Oliver looked around. The underworld, when you thought about it, wasn’t so bad, really. maybe he could get used to living in slight discomfort; hook up with one of the sirens; get used to living with the smell of the trolls.
“Maybe I should let you. It’s not as if I have anything to live for up there anyway,” he mused. Wasn’t that why he had come down with Mimi in the first place? Because he had no more purpose? Because he wanted to do his part to save the Blue Bloods? The Covens were crumbling, the vampires were retreating, Schuyler was gone. What did he have left?
He was resigned but felt his temper begin to rise. He’d thought he and Mimi were friends. He’d believed she would not throw his life away like a crumpled piece of paper. Didn’t he mean more to her than that? “How can you do this to me?” he asked, point-blank.
“I really wish I didn’t have to,” Mimi said.
“There’s no other way, is there?” he asked.
“No.” Mimi looked down at her feet. Now that they had finally come to the end, she wished with all her heart that there was another way; that she had made it happen differently; that she had tried harder to dissuade him. She had let him come to his doom since he had come willingly enough, and it meant she’d didn’t have to go through the challenge of having to kidnap a Red Blood for this purpose. “Does it help if I say I’m sorry?” she asked.
“A little,” he said, cracking a ghost of a smile.
“I really am sorry. If I had a choice, I would bring both of you back, but I can’t.”
Oliver shook his head. “All right, then, lead the way. I might as well get used to my new home. Just make sure they don’t put one of those collars on me, all right? They look itchy.”
FORTY-EIGHT
Soldier of the Lord
The healer’s body collapsed to the floor as the Silver Blood reared to strike again, his towering form casting a long shadow over the group. The beast carried a black sword in one hand and in the other a jagged club. As he raised the weapon into the light, its true form appeared. The wooden club was studded with the skulls of his victims, a grisly weapon that warned attackers of their fate.
Abbadon, his black wings outstretched and his claws dripping with the blood of trolls, rose to the challenge. He stood unafraid as the bull-headed Croatan roared toward him, the demon’s eyes blazing a furious color of red. The creature was nearly twice his height, and Jack crouched low to get a better leverage on him. He thrust his sword sideways through the bull’s throat, splitting his neck, the blood gushing and hissing as it hit the ground. He felt the club crash against his back, its jagged face lodging into his armor. Jack pinned the black sword to the ground, leaving the beast defenseless as he made his final push upward. He sawed the head off the demon, sending the mighty horned dome tumbling to the earth. malakai’s face was a mask of disbelief. Then the body exploded as the Black Fire took another life. The creature who was Forsyth Llewellyn, the Dark Prince’s closest ally on earth, and the destroyer of the Covens, was dead.
“Everyone hold each other,” Abbadon ordered. The group linked hands, Schuyler grasping Abbadon’s claws. With her other hand she held on to Mahrus’s right wrist.
Abbadon’s strength lifted them up and out of the borderlands, through the glom, and back into the other side of the gate, back inside the pyramid.
Mahrus lay dying in Schuyler’s arms. His face was the color of ivory, like a beautiful marble statue.
“Oh my god,” she said. “Oh my god.”
The Venator’s eyes fluttered open, and he looked at her and smiled. “It is all right, my child. I am going home,” he sighed. “I am sorry I could not stay longer to help you on your journey.” Then his body was covered for a moment in a brilliant white light.
“This is not one of us,” Jack said, kneeling by the body of the fallen Venator and placing two coins to keep his eyelids closed. “This is not one of the Fallen.”
The Venators kneeled and crossed themselves before the body.
“Who was he, then?” Schuyler asked.
“I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. But none of us recognized him. This is Raphael of the muses,” Jack said. “A soldier of the Lord. A true angel of Heaven. Catherine’s brother. He must have survived the war only to find death on earth.” His name was Mahrus Abdelmassih: the One Protected by the Lord, Servant of the messiah.
“So if he’s a true angel from Heaven and not one of the Fallen,” Schuyler said, “how did he get here? The paths between heaven and earth were closed with Lucifer’s Rebellion.”
Then she remembered what Catherine had said. The Gate of Promise was on a bifurcated path. One path led to Hell. The other one…
Where did it lead…
Could it be …?
FORTY-NINE
The Exchange
“What’s going on?” Kingsley asked. He slouched against the wall of the gas station. “You guys are up to something. What is it?”
“Don’t be jealous,” Mimi said, coming to embrace him. “Oliver and I were just having a little chat.”
Oliver snorted, but he did not disagree.
Kingsley nodded. “All right. So Helda’s in there…. I guess we should say good-bye?”
�
��Wait here. I think she just wants to see the two of us,” she said, motioning to Oliver.
They walked into Helda’s office. It looked exactly the same as before, with the messy desk full of file folders, books, receipts, ledgers, and envelopes. Helda was the same stern old lady with a pen behind her ear. She studied the two of them.
“This is the soul you barter for the soul of Araquiel?” she asked, opening a ledger and beginning to make a note.
“That’s me,” Oliver said.
Mimi bit her lip. She looked at Oliver, tired and weary in his safari jacket and dusty jeans. How long had they been down here? Then she peered out the window, where Kingsley was sitting on a bench, waiting for her so they could start their new life together.
She loved them both. One as a friend, the other as her mate. She had wanted to deny her affection for Oliver, but she knew there was no way she could have gone down to Hell, found Kingsley, and been in this position without him. She owed him so much.
“Well?” Helda asked, pen raised. Once she wrote Oliver’s name in the Book of the Dead, there was no going back. That ink did not wash off. It was written forever.
“Hold on,” Mimi said. “I need to tell Kingsley something.” She ran out of the office and banged the screen door behind her.
“Everything all right?” Kingsley asked.
Mimi held his hands. “You know that I love you, right? more than anything in the world. I just want you to know that.”
“Of course—why—what’s going on?” Kingsley asked, starting to feel a sense of panic.
“And you love me, right? No matter what. You love me,” she said.
“I love you,” Kingsley said. “I love you.” He stood up and looked her in the eye. “What’s this all about, Force?”
“Okay.” Mimi said. “I just wanted to make sure. That you remember that I love you, no matter what happens.”
“What’s going to happen? Mimi. Tell me what’s going on.”
In answer, Mimi kissed Kingsley hard on the lips. Then she flew back into Helda’s office before she could change her mind, leaving Kingsley confused and a little frightened.
“Oliver, I need to speak to Helda alone,” she said when she returned.
“Right,” Oliver said, excusing himself. He walked out to find Kingsley looking annoyed.
“What’s going on?” Kingsley demanded.
“Beats me.” Oliver shrugged.
Helda rapped her fingers on the table. “Well, Azrael, what will it be?”
Mimi could not believe she was going to do what she was about to, but she’d learned something about herself in the time she’d spent in the underworld. She could not give up Oliver. She couldn’t consign him to this dark fate. No one would ask that of a friend. She wouldn’t be the girl Kingsley loved if she did.
“You need a soul for his, don’t you? Any soul,” she said casually, as if it had just occurred to her. “So that Araquiel can leave the underworld.” And her friend could leave Hell unharmed. There was no other way.
“Yes.”
Mimi bowed her head. “Then take mine.”
The New York Times
Weddings
ALLEGRA VAN ALEN and STEPHEN CHASE
Allegra Elizabeth Van Alen and Stephen Bendix Chase were married yesterday evening at a private home in San Francisco. The ceremony was performed by Judge Andrew R. Hazard, of the Ninth Circuit, a family friend.
The bride, 23, is a vintner in Napa and graduated cum laude from Harvard. She is the daughter of Cordelia and Lawrence Van Alen of manhattan. The bride’s mother is a member of the Central Park Conservancy and the Blood Bank Committee. The bride’s late father was a professor of linguistics and history at Columbia.
The groom, 25, is an artist whose work is represented by the Vespertine Gallery in San Francisco, and included in the collection at the San Francisco museum of modern Art. He is a graduate of Stanford University. He is the son of Ronald and Deborah Chase of San Francisco, Napa, and Aspen. His father is an artist. His mother, known as “Decca,” is on the Board of Trustees at the SFmOmA, the San Francisco Opera, and the San Francisco Ballet. The groom’s great-grandfather founded the Bendix Group, a multinational company with steel holdings and oil reserves that was sold to British Petroleum in 1985.
FIFTY
Soulless
Mimi Force, Azrael, drove through the desert plains of the Sahara el Beyda, the white desert. The rolling dunes of white powder resembled snow-covered hills and valleys. It was a place that was as beautiful as it was desolate. Unearthly towers of chalky white earth rose on all sides, and the soft creamy stone, worn from centuries of desert wind, formed mushroom-shaped towers of white salt.
She did not want to be late for her assignation with Jack.
As Mimi put the pedal to the floor, she felt the heat and excitement rise in her veins. This was it. After all this time, she would finally have her revenge.
The underworld and all that had happened there was but a distant memory. She had woken up in her bed at the Oberoi, to find Kingsley martin, of all people, seated by her bedside. He told her she’d fainted on the way out of the underworld, and he’d carried her back to her room.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she’d screamed. “Get out!”
The ridiculous idiot had tried to convince her that she was in love with him. What a laugh! With him? The Silver Blood traitor? Kingsley martin? Oh, he was handsome, all right, but beyond his good looks, there was nothing that she found even remotely appealing about him. What great love was he talking about? The boy was out of his mind.
Mimi Force had no love left in her body. There was only one thing on her mind when she woke up. Revenge. She would destroy her brother and slay him at the blood trial.
Kingsley had turned pale. “What did you do to yourself ? What did you give Helda?” he demanded. “Mimi. Tell me!”
She had laughed. “I will tell you nothing, as I owe you nothing. Now, get out of here before I call security.”
Then another ridiculous thing happened: that moronic human Conduit of the Van Alen mongrel—what was his name—Oliver Something-Stupid—had come in blathering about how he’d just gotten news that the New York Coven had disbanded—and that all the Covens worldwide had gone dark—and they had to return to the city immediately to see what they could salvage of their community and history. She’d thrown him out of her room as well. When did she ever take orders from a Red Blood?
No. How convenient that the moment she’d finally cleared her room of all those jokers, Jack had gotten in touch.
Mimi, let’s end this, he’d sent. The white desert. Blood trial to the death.
She clapped her hands in joy. Finally. She would get what she deserved. She would dance over his blackened corpse tonight.
Azrael would finally have her revenge.
In a way, it was the best thing that could have happened.
FIFTY-ONE
The Love of a Lifetime
Without even realizing it, the small hotel room in Cairo had become a home, a haven for her and Jack, Schuyler thought. She made coffee for them every morning with the little machine, and they shared breakfast together on the small desk. She would miss this place; just another thing that she would keep in that memory file of her life with Jack.
Their last night together they had loved each other wordlessly, letting their bodies say what they could not bear to speak out loud; and even then she had tried to pretend that it was not the last time. That it was another ordinary night, just one of many to live for. But as they fell asleep in each other’s arms, neither moved away for a moment, as if they were each trying to memorize every curve and surface of the other.
The next morning there was no putting it off any longer. Jack was determined and would not be swayed. Something had changed in him since they’d met Catherine. There was a new resolve in him, and she did not want to add to his burden. She had been wrong about her illness, she realized now. She’d led herself to believe it was something wo
nderful and hopeful, because she did not want to think of what it meant otherwise. That she was dying. It had all been doomed from the beginning, just as Lawrence had warned her. There was never a happily ever after for them, that was all too clear.
She helped him into his jacket and buttoned the top button. Her fingers were shaking.
Jack clasped her hands in his and held them to his lips to kiss her fingers. “Trust me to return to you,” he said.
“I will wait forever,” she promised. “However long it takes.” But Schuyler knew that whatever the outcome of the day, even if Mimi was destroyed and Jack lived, there would be no victory. Jack would never be the same after killing his twin. Mimi was a part of Jack, and killing her would kill a part of him as well. “Catherine could not help us?” She had placed so much hope that the gatekeeper would know how to free them from their bond.
Jack shook his head. “Whatever happens, whatever you hear about me, know that there is a reason for it.”
“What are you going to do?” Schuyler asked, feeling a different kind of fear. Jack had never spoken like this before.
“I cannot say without putting you in even more danger,” he said, and his face was so heartbreakingly sad that Schuyler threw herself upon him to embrace him even more tightly. “You are so important in this war,” he told her. “You must survive to lead us. With the gates failing, there is no darker time in our history. But you are Gabrielle’s daughter, and I believe that you will bring the vampires to redemption. my life is immaterial.”
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for loving you, I’m so sorry,” she said, and the tears began to flow freely, soaking his jacket. “But it was such a wonderful dream, my love,” she whispered. “Such a wonderful dream.”
“I am not sorry for a moment,” Jack said fiercely. “It was worth every moment, every second that we were together. I would not change it for an immortal lifetime.”
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