Please! No! We have money--we can pay you. Let me pay you for his life. Please! Schuyler sent.
Sorry, missy. But I'm pretty sure you won't be able to pay as much as Mimi Force.
The bounty hunter shuffled up toward Schuyler, and she could see his feral, drawn face hovering over hers.
"I will come freely. Let her go," Jack declared in a calm, clear voice as he surrendered. The vampire tightened the knots, drawing blood from Jack's wrists. Once Jack was secured, the vampire whispered a few words over the flame, which died down until the torch resembled nothing but a gray chunk of coal. He quickly tucked it into his back pocket.
Ghedi looked uneasily at the renegade vampire, but once he understood that the vampire had no quarrel with him, his face became set as he prepared himself for the ugly task ahead.
MariElena would die.
Jack would be taken.
There was nothing Schuyler could do but scream.
THIRTEEN
Angel Time
There was so little time to do anything out in the real world, where she had been captured and attacked. So Schuyler looked inward, into her soul and into the glom. Time did not exist in the same way in the inner universe.
She opened her eyes to the murky waters of the twilight world, and felt the heavy constriction of the dark spell that held her captive. In the glom, her bindings manifested as a coil of snakes writhing around her skin. She felt their scaly wetness wrap around her body, clutching her ever more tightly. They were all around, slithering against her waist, around her legs, slipping through her fingers. She could smell their oozy stink, and shivered to hear the rasp of their tongues.
A stasis spell worked as part of the compulsion--mind control--essentially an order to make you believe you were trapped, which was why it was one of the most difficult factors to master. You had to stop believing what was right in front of you.
Schuyler focused on the snake nearest to her head. She could feel its cold reptile body working its way around her shoulders. She turned so she could face it eye to eye. It was a fearsome king cobra, its hood spread as it reared to attack. It bared its fangs and hissed.
But before it could strike, Schuyler overcame her revulsion and reached down to grip it by its tail, and with one fluid motion, she pulled the snake away from her body and crushed its serpent head under her heel.
In a flash she was back in the real world of the cave, holding her mother's sword. "Stop!" she commanded, her voice ringing with fury.
The priest hastened to thrust the knife through the girl's neck, but before the blade could penetrate her skin, Schuyler had parried it away, and it clattered on the rocks. MariElena fell to the ground, and Ghedi with her, felled by Schuyler's compulsion to surrender.
That was all Jack needed. With a vehement roar, he broke his bonds and transformed into the fearsome Angel of Destruction, magnificent black wings sprouting from his back, his horns curled to sharp diamond points, and his eyes a bloodcurdling crimson. He picked up the now quivering bounty hunter and crushed him against his talons.
"Jack, no. Don't kill him!" Schuyler cried. Let there be no blood spilled today.
"Listen to the girl. . . ." the bounty hunter gurgled.
Schuyler put a gentle hand on Abbadon's feathered extensions, feeling the majestic power underneath their silky weight. She had been frightened once, to see him in this light, but now that she saw his terrifying true face, she found it beautiful.
He turned to her; as Abbadon he looked at once nothing at all like Jack, and yet more like him than ever.
He was going to hurt you. Please, my love.
Then he was Jack again, ruddy-cheeked and handsome. He pulled the bounty hunter to his feet. "Go. Tell my sister that her parasite has failed. Tell her that nothing and no one can bring me back." That was all the bounty hunter needed to hear. He disappeared before taking another breath.
Schuyler collapsed into Jack's arms, and they held each other.
I thought I was going to lose you, she sent.
Never. We shall never be separated. Jack bent his head against her shoulder, and she leaned on his chest so that she could hear his heart beating a steady, ordered rhythm against hers.
Never.
The Artist's Studio
Florence, 1452
In the morning, Tomi returned to her work at the studio. The Master would not return until tomorrow, and there was still so much to do. She greeted her fellow assistants and took her place at the back of the room, where she resumed carving a relief meant for the east doors of the Baptistery. The work was painstaking and exact, but Tomi reveled in it, finding glory and beauty in the fine details. She was soon lost in thought, her hands quickly running over the marble, while her mind lingered over the events of a month before.
What did it mean that a human carried the mark of the Prince of Darkness? Had their old foe found a way back to Earth? It could not be. They had sent the devil down to hell, had locked Caligula behind an impenetrable gate. Together they had sent the Order of the Seven out to the world, to secure the paths of the Dead. The man wearing the Citadel robes had been an impostor. No one had ever seen him before. He was a stranger to their town. Andreas believed that the human had lied and that the creature was no demon, but Tomi was more given to anxiety.
She was sixteen years old; already she knew who she was and what she was meant for in this world. After the crisis in Rome, in every consequent lifetime, the Venators had made it their mission to track down the remaining Silver Bloods who were trapped on the other side of the Gate and still walked the Earth. No one else in the Coven knew about the errant surviving Silver Bloods. It was a secret the Venators kept in order to keep peace in the community. The Blue Bloods had nothing to fear from the Croatan; Andreas had kept their people safe for hundreds of years. Hunting down the
Croatan was as routine as a cat chasing field mice. Necessary and efficient.
But now this. Tomi saw the triglyph again, the blood etching on the man's arm, and dropped her knife, making an ugly smear on the bas-relief.
The Master would not be pleased.
"You are troubled, my friend," Gio said, picking up the knife and handing it back to her. "Do not be. We will take care of this."
She nodded. "I only wish Dre was here." Andreas del Pollaiuolo was the youngest adviser to the court of Lorenzo de Medici, working to solidify the family's grasp on power in Florence over the other ruling families of the city. The Medicis' banking interests spanned all of Europe with a network of branches in all the major cities. It was a cover that made it easy for Dre to travel the continent without arousing suspicion.
But Tomi knew there was another reason Dre worked so hard to ensure the Medicis' influence would reach far beyond their beautiful city. The crisis in Rome was forever utmost in his mind. While he had succeeded in banishing Lucifer from the world, he had been unable to halt the decline of the glorious Republic that the Morningstar, as Caligula, had corrupted. Rome was lost.
Dre was intent on rebuilding its glory. He was determined to finish what he started, pledging to resurrect the glory of Rome and the culture of antiquity, and vaulting it to a new level. Already he had rewritten the Code of the Vampires to shape human history and imbue mankind with Blue
Blood sensibility and values--the celebration of art, life, beauty and truth. He would bring about mankind's rebirth, he told her, in their numerous conversations about what they hoped to achieve in this cycle. He had already given it a name: The Renaissance.
But all this work took her beloved away from her, and since the night of the chase, they hardly had a moment together.
He was always like this, her Michael. Andreas. Cassius. Menes. Whatever his name was, he was always hers. Her strength, her love, her reason for being. They would fight this new threat together. She would await his return and then impress upon him the urgency to unmask their hidden enemies and discover the truth behind the Red Blood's mark.
PART THE SECOND
MIMI FORCE,
REGENT OF THE COVEN
New York
The Present
FOURTEEN
Vipers' Nest
Self-pity was not a word in Mimi Force's vocabulary. Instead of cursing the loneliness and isolation she felt from losing both her twin and the man she loved--two separate people for the first time in her long and immortal life--she busied herself with Conclave business, burying her grief and rage in her work and finding solace in presiding over the bureaucratic administration of a large and flailing organization.
That old hag Cordelia Van Alen used to describe the current era as "the twilight of the vampires"--as if a heavy velvet curtain were falling across the stage, and it was time for the Blue Bloods to exeunt left. (Mimi always liked those old English words. Exeunt was a vastly more interesting way to shuffle off this mortal coil--as if the vampires were ready to take their bows in front of a standing ovation rather than simply limping away into the sunset.)
If this was their end, her end, then it was an intolerable one. Mimi hadn't lived a multitude of lifetimes to end up so alone, without the security blanket of
Jack to steady her, without Kingsley's endearing arrogance to keep her on her toes. She wasn't going to give up so easily.
Mimi opened the door to her new office. A week ago, ever since Forsyth Llewellyn had gone missing after the "bonding disaster"--as everyone called the travesty that had been her bonding day--the Conclave had agitated for a new leader. To her surprise, it was her name that had come up in the draw. A week after the disastrous bonding, Ambrose Barlow, a sprightly gentleman of a hundred and one years (cycle extensions had been granted to allow
Emeritus members of the Conclave to serve), and Minerva Morgan, the sharp-tongued Conclave Elder who had been one of Cordelia Van Alen's closest friends, had met her after school and pressed their case. Mimi had refused to put up her name for Regis--not while Charles was still alive somewhere--but had agreed to accept the title of Regent, the Coven's titular head in a leaderless time.
She settled into the cushy, ergonomic office chair she'd ordered, and called up the Committee database on her desktop. There was so much to do: identify the strongest Committee members and promote them to the flagging Conclave, oversee the Venator staff, induct new blood into the junior
Committee--the list went on and on. Forsyth had left everything a mess--it seemed the man had had no interest in anything other than the Conclave while he had been in power, and many of the subcommittees (Health of Human Services, Transformation Centers) were grossly understaffed.
Speaking of Forsyth: no one knew where Bliss was either. The two had probably absconded together, for all Mimi knew. Good riddance. After Forsyth
Llewellyn's disappearance, the Venators had found evidence that Mimi's predecessor had been harboring their deepest enemy and was instrumental in bringing the Croatan to the attack at the cathedral. Forsyth was the traitor in the Conclave, the snake in their midst.
As for Kingsley, Mimi could still see his face before it had been erased by the subvertio. Looking at her with so much love in his eyes. Where was he now? Was he still alive? Would she ever see him again? Sometimes when she thought about him, she would find she had been staring into space for hours, just staring at the same blinking cursor on a computer screen, while the hurt in her heart throbbed and ached. Nothing made her feel better, absolutely nothing. She had tried throwing a ridiculous amount of money at the problem, over-shopping on her credit cards, and had consulted an array of healers and therapists. But even after a month, nothing had helped. Without the many Conclave meetings and conference calls that allowed her to escape her sadness for a little while, she thought she might go insane with despair.
Of course, even though she was Regent now, she still had to finish out her senior year. More pressing business had to wait until AP exams were over, according to Trinity, who did not accept any excuses, even the governance of the community, for missing schoolwork. Her mother only allowed her a few hours a day to devote to her new position. It had been enough of a blow that Jack was wanted and missing; Trinity wouldn't let Mimi slack off on her studies as well.
If at first she had been reluctant to take the title, Mimi had slowly warmed to the idea, especially once she'd realized she could use it to her advantage. As the fearless leader of the Coven, she could do anything she wanted. It was the first week of November. She'd been in office for a month now, and had yet to wield her power over something she dearly wanted--taking care of the Coven had come first. But today was finally the day. Today she would have a little conversation with one Oliver Hazard-Perry. She'd had him fetched from the bowels of the Repository, and her secretary rang to inform her of his presence in the waiting room.
"Send him in, Doris," Mimi ordered, preparing herself for what was sure to be a fight. The wretched human Conduit was her only link to her traitorous brother, and she was determined to beat any information as to Jack's whereabouts out of him.
Oliver walked into her office. She barely knew the boy, and in the past had only paid attention to him because of his proximity to her rival for Jack's affections, but even she could discern that he looked different since she last saw him--something in his eyes--a hooded stillness that wasn't there before.
But then again, who hadn't changed since the bonding disaster? She herself had looked in the mirror the other day and had been horrified to see a haggard, grief-stricken spinster looking back at her. Tragedy was wreaking havoc on her sun-kissed cover-girl looks. It had to stop.
"You rang?" Oliver asked. His face was a mask of deeply felt suffering, so it surprised her that he could still made jokes.
Mimi tossed her hair over her shoulder. "That is not the way a human addresses his superiors."
"Forgive me, madam." Oliver smirked. He made himself comfortable in the guest chair. "How may I be of service?"
She got right to the point. "You know where they are." The minute her brother had left town, Mimi had sent an army of Venators and mercenaries after him, but so far none had been successful in bringing him to justice. Once Jack had left the Coven, he had disavowed its protection as well, so that his spirit was not traceable through the glom.
"They?" he asked, cocking an eyebrow.
"My brother and his . . ." Mimi could not bring herself to say it. "You know where they went; the Venators told me you were there at the airport when they disappeared."
Oliver clasped his hands together and looked firm. "I can neither agree nor disagree with that statement."
"Don't be coy. You know where they are and you have to tell me. You work for me now. You dare defy the Code? You know the punishment for Conduit insubordination is twenty years in solitary," she snarled, leaning over her desk and baring just a hint of her fangs.
"Oh, we're bringing the Code into this, are we?"
"If I have to," Mimi threatened. As a Repository scribe, Oliver was low man on the totem pole. He was collateral--nothing more than an underpaid clerk. Whereas she was Mimi Force. She was Regent now! She was the only thing keeping the Coven together at this point.
Oliver smiled a crafty smile. "Then in my defense, I must plead the Fifth Commandment."
"The Fifth?" Bells of recognition began to ring in the back of her head, but Mimi ignored them. She was all-powerful; he was the one playing games.
Crush the human cockroach! No one dared defy Azrael when she wanted something.
"Forgive me if I sound patronizing, but according to the Fifth Commandment of the Code of the Vampires, there is such a thing as Vampire-Conduit
Confidentiality. It is within my rights not to divulge any information about my former Blue Blood mistress. Look it up. You'll find it in the Repository Files. You can't touch me."
Mimi picked up a Tiffany lamp from her desk and hurled it at Oliver, who managed to dodge it at the last moment.
"Temper, my dear. Temper."
"Out of my office, worm!"
Oliver made a show of slowly straightening up and gathering his things. It was obvious he
was enjoying her frustration. Yet before he left, he turned around to address her one last time, and his voice was gentle. "You know, Mimi, like you, I am also bereft. I'm aware it doesn't mean very much coming from me, but I am sorry this happened to you. I loved Schuyler very much, and I know how much you loved Jack."
Jack! No one had dared say that name to her face. And it wasn't love she felt for her twin, but a confusing whirl of shock and sorrow. Love? Whatever love she had left had turned into a bright, glittering hate, a hate she nursed deep in her soul until it shone like an emerald.
"Love," Mimi hissed. "You familiars know nothing about love. Delusional human, you never felt love; you only felt what the Kiss required you to feel. It's not real. It never was."
Oliver looked so wounded that for a moment Mimi wanted to take it back, especially since his were the first words of sympathy she had heard since losing everyone who had ever meant anything to her. Still, it had felt good taking her hate and directing it outward. Too bad Oliver had tried to help. Fool: he'd only stood in the line of fire.
FIFTEEN
Seen Your Video
The punching bag swayed back and forth like a pendulum, and Mimi gave it another satisfying kick--right in the center. She'd come straight to the gym after leaving her office for the day. She didn't need anyone's pity, least of all that stupid Repository scribe's. Times really had to be tough if a human was feeling sorry for a vampire. Especially one of her lineage and status. What was the world coming to? She had survived the crisis in Rome and weathered the journey to Plymouth, only to be the object of a Red Blood's sympathy? Absolutely ridiculous. She punched the bag again, sending it whirling to the other side of the room. Her muscles ached from spending the last four hours kickboxing the crap out of it.
She pictured Jack's bloody face bowed in humiliation and begging for mercy. How satisfying it would be to unleash her fury at last. Every minute of every day she was consumed by revenge; she lived and breathed it; her anger fueled her will to live. Where was he? What was he doing? Was he even thinking of her at all?
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