Keys to the Repository (blue bloods)

by Мелисса Де Ла Круз

  Gate of Time and the path have been obliterated, and Venator

  Martin has not been seen since.

  Current Status: Missing after Silver Blood attack.

  Believed to be trapped in the underworld.

  Author’s Note: This is a companion story to The Van Alen

  Legacy. It is the continuation of the conversation between

  Mimi and Kingsley in chapter 47.

  THE VENATOR’S TALE

  Kingsley’s Story

  Kingsley Martin took a long, slow sip from his glass of whiskey.

  Firewater, indeed. Not even close. But it would suffice for now.

  The waitress had mistaken his raised hand as a sign for another round. A mistake he didn’t bother to correct since it appeared they would not be vacating their table anytime soon.

  “Tell me everything,” Mimi said, with a hint of desperation this time.

  It was a while before he spoke, and when he did he directed his words toward the top of her head rather than looking her in the eyes. It was a trick he’d adopted in order to refrain from appearing nervous or insecure in her presence, making it seem as if he were distant and disinterested, when neither was the case. It was imperative that Mimi continue to have no idea how much she affected him.

  “You want to know why Charles asked me to call the Silver

  Blood,” he said finally.

  “I assume it wasn’t because he wanted to order a pizza,” she cracked.

  He let a smile play on his lips. Her brashness amused him.

  Azrael had always been blunt almost to the point of being rude, but there was a forthrightness to her that came through in every incarnation of her spirit. There was never a middle ground with her—she either loved you or loathed you; she was your best friend or your worst enemy.

  “Oh forget it, you’re not going to tell me anything,” Mimi said. She stood up from the table and began to put on her coat, glaring down at him.

  Always a game with this one, Kingsley thought. But he decided to call her bluff. She wanted to know, so why not tell her? She deserved to know. They all did. Not just Mimi but the entire Coven. She would hate him for what he did, or else find him pathetic and weak. But he was tired of keeping secrets.

  What was the point anymore, when everything was falling apart.

  Kingsley put a hand on her wrist. “Sit down. I’ll tell you everything you want to know,” he said quietly.

  Mimi slunk back down on to the banquette, looking like a spoiled child. “Begin at the beginning, when you first came to

  Duchesne. When you set me up.”

  He shook his head. “Understand, you were just another suspect who happened to be at the club the night Aggie

  Carondolet died. No one special. You were given the same treatment as the others. A Silver Blood sympathizer would be amenable to learning more about the Dark Matter. You were the only one who took the bait. I tried with Schuyler, but never got anywhere with her. Then with Bliss.” He remembered what he had said to the Southern girl: “I am the same as you.” If Bliss had been Croatan, she would have recognized the hidden meaning behind his words, that he was revealing his true nature, Silver Blood to Silver Blood. But Bliss had not responded to his confession.

  “But you, my dear . . . you were a different story. You were very receptive to learning the dark magic. I had to hide it from your father. Charles would have protected you if he had known.

  Would have told me I was jumping to conclusions again.”

  Kingsley looked apologetic. “Old allegiances and all . . .”

  “You don’t have to remind me,” Mimi said, her face turning red. “I know what they say about Jack and me. That one day we’ll be Benedict Arnold vampires.”

  He nodded. She knew as well as he did that Azrael and

  Abbadon would forever carry the stain of once being Lucifer’s proudest generals.

  “The Incantation Demonata,” Mimi said. “Why did you do it?”

  “I was ordered to by the Regis himself. It was a test, he said.” Kingsley gripped his drink so tightly his knuckles turned white. “I thought he was playing me. Testing my loyalty maybe.

  But whatever. We just take orders, Venators. That’s the way it is. If he wanted me to call up the Silver Blood, I was going to call up the Silver Blood.”

  “But why would Charles have you do such a thing. . . .” Mimi asked, horrified.

  Kingsley gripped her arm across the small table. “Do you remember anything about Rome?”

  “Some of it,” she said. “It comes in bits and piecesflashes—images—I remember the crisis, demons walking in daylight, hunting them down . . . and that last night in Lutetia . . .”

  She closed her eyes. “I remember telling Valerius that Sophia was wrong—there was no way Caligula had turned—that

  Cassius was just jealous as usual—but then . . . we saw it.”

  Kingsley nodded. Caligula and his crimson eyes with the silver pupils. The unmistakable sign of Corruption. Agrippina

  Azrael and Valerius Abbadon had led the emperor down to the path, down to the newly forged gate, where Cassius—Michael —was waiting. The battle had not been easily won. But they had done it. Sent the Devil down to Hell.

  “But what does Rome have to do with what happened in the Repository?” Mimi asked.

  “Well, for starters, since the incantation worked, it proved that Silver Bloods still existed, and that they had a way into our world. Because Charles didn’t believe it—not at first, not even with all the killings. I don’t think he truly accepts it now. And he wanted to keep it from the Committee. But he had to do something if he was wrong—so he sent me to Corcovado.

  Because if they were back, that’s the first place they would go —to free Leviathan.”

  Mimi nodded, taking it all in.

  “Do you know anything about the gates? About the Order of the Seven?” Kingsley asked.

  Mimi shrugged. “I don’t think I was privy to that meeting. I was surprised as anyone to find that Michael had chosen to father us for this cycle. He knows we weren’t huge fans of the so-called Uncorrupted. At least, I never was.”

  Kingsley filled her in on what he knew about the Gates of

  Hell and the guardians ordered to protect them, as well as his part in it. “The gates keep the paths secure and the demons in the underworld. The gates should have stopped the incantation from working. But they didn’t. That was the test. The Silver

  Blood was able to break through the barrier. Charles suspects that Lucifer has been able to find a way into our world that we did not expect, did not foresee.”

  “But how?”

  “How indeed . . . especially since the Conclave took care of the biggest threat.”

  “Oh god. I had totally forgotten about that.” Mimi said, her palms at her cheeks, as if to hide from the truth. “It was you, wasn’t it? You were the one who took Gabrielle after I wasn’t brave enough to do it myself.”

  Kingsley nodded. The twins had been given the task, but had balked at the very wrongness of it—and so he and Forsyth had kidnapped Gabrielle from her room. He remembered everything. The silent birth, the frightened midwives, then

  Charles and Lawrence taking the baby . . the burned swaddling clothes, the ghastly smell of death all around. Then

  Gabrielle waking up with no memory of her ordeal or even that she’d borne a child.

  “I don’t think any of us have ever forgiven ourselves for what we did that night. Not me, not Lawrence, not Charles, not

  Forsyth. War is a terrible thing. There is no room for mercy.”

  Kingsley’s face was drawn, hollow. He didn’t feel much like talking anymore. Poor Lawrence, his friend and mentor. And now Charles, lost as well. “Well. That’s everything.”

  “Oh, Kingsley,” Mimi said gently.

  Kingsley looked up, surprised to find Mimi with tears in her eyes. She put a soft hand to his cheek.

  She looked at him in silence, and in her eyes he found forg
iveness and understanding, the two things he hoped for the most and expected the least. In Rio, Kingsley felt he had taken advantage of the situation a little bit—they had been so tired after their trek through he jungle, she couldn’t have been in her right mind when she’d knocked on his door that night, when she had sought comfort in his kisses. That was why he had kept her at arm’s length ever since.

  But she was here now. And she was the one leaning toward him. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, baby,” Mimi was saying.

  They were words he had waited a lifetime—many lifetimes —to hear, and that they came from Azrael, she who had spurned him for centuries (Abbadon wasn’t the only one who had pined for one he could not have). She had mocked him in

  Rome—haughty, beautiful Agrippina, who had no time for

  Gemellus, no time at all for a weakling such as himself—a rare, solitary soul, never bound. Gemellus, who had loved and worshipped her from afar, she who was in his arms now. . .

  Victory was sweet. Who knew that the path to a woman’s heart was through the soul of an honest man?

  Kingsley Martin would never understand women. But that was all right. He didn’t need to understand Mimi. All he had to do was love her, and he could do that.

  THE VAN ALEN LEGACY

  AND THE PATHS OF THE DEAD

  With his dying breath, Lawrence Van Alen revealed a secret to

  Schuyler: she was the heir not just of the Van Alen name but to a very important legacy. He instructed her to find out more from

  Charles, but during the Silver Blood ambush at the Bal des

  Vampires in Paris, Charles became trapped in the subvertio, the White Darkness, and was unable to disclose what he knew.

  However, when Schuyler returned to New York, Allegra woke up from her coma, stirred from her unconscious state by a deep memory of another daughter, and within the safety of the glom, she was able to tell Schuyler the history of the Gates of

  Hell and the Paths of the Dead.

  In the days before the battle in Heaven and Lucifer’s fall, the paths between the worlds were open. Angels moved freely between Heaven, Earth, and the underworld. After the Fall, when Lucifer and his army of angels were cast out, the way to

  Paradise was shut forever. But the seven paths to the underworld remained open. These were the Paths of the Dead.

  In Rome, before Caligula was revealed as the Dark Prince, Michael, as Cassius, served as the emperor’s closest adviser.

  When Caligula found that one of the Paths of the Dead was anchored below the city of Lutetia, Cassius convinced him to let him forge a gate there to keep the demons at bay. Caligula stole the key from Cassius and, revealing his true nature as

  Lucifer, unleashed Abomination upon the world. The battle of

  Rome ensued. At the end, Agrippina and Valerius (Azrael and

  Abbadon) were able to coax Caligula to the newly forged gate, where Cassius (Michael) sent him to Hell, locking the gate behind him.

  After Rome, Michael ordered the Blue Bloods to locate the six other paths and build gates upon them to secure the divisions between the worlds and keep Earth safe from the creatures of the underworld. The guardians, keepers of the Gates of Hell, were known as the Order of the Seven, one from each of the seven original families of the Conclave. The guardians scattered across the earth, unknown to one another but passing down their knowledge through the generations.

  The guardians were to keep the gates secure, and the gates, imbued with the celestial power of the angels, were supposed to keep the world safe from the Prince of Darkness and the legions at his command. But with the growing number of Silver Blood attacks over the centuries, Lawrence suspected that somehow, the gates were failing and that Lucifer was plotting a way back from the underworld.

  Schuyler must now continue Lawrence’s search for the gates and their guardians before the Silver Bloods are able to destroy them all and bring about a second Great War. This is the Van

  Alen Legacy. Charles resented the Van Alen Legacy, displeased that Lawrence harbored deep doubts concerning the strength of the gates he forged centuries ago. The Gates of

  Hell must hold, or all the world will fall with their destruction.

  THE GATES OF HELL

  The Gates of Hell are located around the world, placed upon the seven paths to the underworld. The following are the three known gates so far:

  The Gate of Vengeance was Leviathan’s prison on

  Corcovado. Lawrence Van Alen was its gatekeeper. With his murder of an innocent (Dylan, in the guise of Lucifer), the gate was opened, but it was a solom bicallis, which can only be used once. Once Leviathan came through it, the path was closed to all.

  The Gate of Time was created during the reign of Caligula, who had discovered a path underneath the underground city of

  Lutetia (now located in present-day Paris). Lucifer and

  Leviathan assumed that Michael was its guardian. The Silver

  Bloods planned to open the gate by destroying its keeper. But when they released the subvertio, all they found was an intersection, which created a time vacuum. The true keeper of the Gate of Time is Kingsley Martin, who had moved the gate underneath the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York

  City; an unfinished church, which meant it was not fully consecrated, and was a place of worship that a Silver Blood like Kingsley could enter.

  The third gate is known as The Gate of Promise. Lawrence, who left more than fifty-five notebooks with his Conduit, Anderson, believed its guardians are still in Florence.

  There are no other gates known to the Repository at this time.

  THE FALLEN BRETHREN:

  HOUSE OF THE MORNINGSTAR

  LUCIFER

  The Morningstar, Lightbringer, Prince of Heaven, Prince of Darkness, Archangel of the Dawn

  Known Past Lives: Gaius Caligula (Rome)

  Phosphorus Lucifer, leader of the Fallen, king of the Silver

  Bloods, was the Crown Prince of Heaven, the most beautiful and powerful of all the angels until he chose to challenge the

  Almighty in the War for the Heavenly Kingdom. Upon his defeat, he awoke on Earth to find himself a vampyre, among the cursed and expelled from Paradise. He refused to make peace with

  Michael and Gabrielle, the angels who vanquished him, or with

  Abbadon and Azrael, his greatest friends, who betrayed him at the last. Not much is known about the Dark Prince ever since he and his loyal followers severed their ties to the Coven sometime during the reign of Menes, in the kingdom of Egypt, when they rose up in rebellion. His last known interaction with the Blue

  Blood community came in the battle of Rome, when he was revealed as the mad emperor Caligula.

  It is said that in his true form, his presence is so bright it hurts to look directly at him. As Caligula, he was able to hide his true identity until Julia Livilla, the Pistis Sophia, discovered the truth. As Lucifer has been banished to the underworld since his defeat at the battle of Rome, the Repository is still unclear as to how, when, and where in history he fathered a child with Allegra.

  {INFORMATION REDACTED BY ORDER OF REGIS}

  Recovered from Bliss Llewellyn’s journal (unverified) is a decription of a man she called “the Visitor,” who appears as a handsome gentleman in a white suit with molten gold hair and clear blue eyes, whose beauty is remote and chilling, a description often attributed to the image of Lucifer by those who claim to have seen him in their dreams.

  Venator reports from the attack at St. John the Divine indicate that the Dark Prince battled Abbadon and Azrael in the glom, but was unable to escape the underworld, as Venator

  Martin released the subvertio and obliterated the path back to the living world.

  Current Status: Unknown. Presumed trapped in the underworld.

  LEVIATHAN

  The Giant, the Kraken, Goliath of the Glom

  Known Past Lives: Marcus Agrippa (Rome)

  Vesperus Leviathan, brother to the Dark Prince, was known as one o
f the cruelest Silver Bloods who ever walked the earth. He is partial to wearing dark cloaks and a hood that covers his face, described by those who have had the misfortune to see it as red and black, twisted, scarred, and burned from Hell’s flames.

  He was captured in {DATE REDACTED} by Gabrielle and imprisoned into the rock under Corcovado, the only place on

  Earth that could contain his power. Metraton (Lawrence Van

  Alen) was his gatekeeper and jailer, and Corcovado was put under twenty-four hour surveillance by the Venator elite.

  A crafty plan hatched by the traitor Silver Bloods of the

  Conclave, Nan Cutler and Forsyth Llewellyn, led Metraton to unknowingly destroy Leviathan’s prison bonds when he slaughtered an innocent (Dylan Ward, whose image had been manipulated to look like Lucifer’s). Reports from the European

  Coven indicate that Leviathan was in attendance at the Bal des

  Vampires, and those who survived the attack at St. John’s

  Cathedral testified that they witnessed Leviathan abduct

  Schuyler Van Alen before disappearing into the glom. Since

  Venator Martin released the subvertio, however, it is safe to assume that with the destruction of the path to the underworld, Leviathan is safely in Hell once again.

  Current Status: Missing. Believed to be trapped in the underworld.

  NAN CUTLER

  Harbonah, Angel of Annihilation

  Origin: February 12, 1917, New York, New York

  Known Past Lives: Anna Stamersly (Newport), Aemilia

  Lepida (Rome)

  The second-highest-ranking Blue Blood in the Coven, Nan

  Cutler served as Regent on the Conclave. She was notable for her loyalty, ferocity, and in this cycle, for a striking raven stripe through her white hair. As Aemilia Lepida, a trusted friend to

  Cassius (Michael) and Junia Tertia (Allegra), she was on the front lines in the battle in Rome.

  Warden Cutler was entrusted with the task of investigating young vampires for the mark of Silver Blood Corruption after the attack on the Repository. She affixed the false mark of Lucifer upon Mimi Force and cleared Bliss Llewellyn from suspicion.