Keys to the Repository

by Melissa de la Cruz

  Forsyth Llewellyn was never the same after her death. As for New York and Texan society, they survived.

  Current Status: Finished. Slain during the Silver Blood attack in Rio.

  JORDAN LLEWELLYN

  Pistis Sophia, Elder of Elders, the Watcher

  Birth Name: Jordan Grace Llewellyn

  Origin: January 1, 1994, Houston, Texas

  Known Former Aliases: Julia Livilla (Rome)

  Current Alias: Jane Murray

  Bondmate: None. The Pistis Sophia is a virgin incarnate and has no bondmate.

  Physical Characteristics:

  Hair: As Jordan Llewellyn, brown

  As Jane Murray, red

  Eyes: As Jordan Llewellyn, green

  As Jane Murray, blue

  Height: As Jordan Llewellyn, 4’10”

  As Jane Murray, 5’5”

  Jordan Llewellyn’s true identity—the spirit of the Pistis Sophia, the Watcher—was known to only very few members of the Conclave: Cordelia Van Alen, who called for her rebirth; Forsyth Llewellyn, who fostered her and accepted her into his family; and the Regis, Charles Force, who finally gave his permission to the House of Records to call up the Sophia after Cordelia petitioned for it once too often.

  The Watcher is an ancient soul born into full consciousness, with command of her memories and the ability to see the future. The Blue Bloods believe her wisdom will keep vigilance against Lucifer’s return, but she has slumbered for thousands of years. She came to her position during the days of Rome, when she was then called Julia Livilla and sister to the emperor Caligula. She was the first who recognized Lucifer in him and joined forces with her sister Agrippina in a failed assassination attempt.

  Michael released her spirit from the blood and freed her from having to adhere to the cycles of Expression. As the Pistis Sophia, in Rome she predicted the breaking of the bond between Michael and Gabrielle and prophesied that Gabrielle’s daughter would be the salvation of the vampires.

  As Jordan Llewellyn, the Sophia was a slightly awkward, short, and heavy girl, homely in contrast to her sister. At school she excelled in mathematics and science, and had a small group of friends. Family reports show that she followed Bliss around everywhere as a child, and, given Bliss’s extraordinary origin, it is safe to conclude that Jordan knew exactly with whom she was dealing and was simply biding her time. Yet those who knew the sisters well reported that they were very close and shared an affectionate bond, which might explain why Jordan waited several years before making the decision to strike.

  The Venators believe that on the night of her abduction in Rio, the Watcher in Jordan finally took action. She tried to kill Bliss in her sleep, but was discovered at the last moment by Forsyth and BobiAnne. From Venator Martin’s subsequent investigation, it appears that Jordan was held captive by Silver Bloods at Lucifer’s command for a year, in an attempt to extract information on the Order of the Seven. When it appeared she would never give them this information, they killed her. Or so they thought. The Watcher is capable of changing physical shells, and as Jordan died, Sophia found a new host in Jane Murray, a forty-year-old history teacher who had been hit by a bus while traveling in South America.

  As Jane Murray, Sophia is now a sturdy, apple-cheeked woman with bright red hair and a ruddy Irish complexion. In 2009, she joined the staff of Duchesne as a history teacher. School reports from Duchesne indicate she was incredibly popular; her seminar, Ancient Civilizations, was continually overenrolled.

  The Venators have pieced together this information from Jane Murray’s ransacked apartment, and we can only conclude that the Watcher is with Bliss Llewellyn, wherever she may be.

  Current Status: Missing. Believed to be in the company of Bliss Llewellyn.

  Author’s Note: I am in the process of writing the first book in the Wolf Pact series. The idea for Wolf Pact came very early to me, when I was writing the major outline for the Blue Bloods books, and once the story expanded, the wolves seemed to merit a series of their own. The following is a sneak peek at the first book. The series follows the continuing story of Bliss Llewellyn as she sets off to find the Hounds of Hell.

  WOLF PACT

  The shadows made everything look larger, and smell worse. Styrofoam platters and massive rolls of waxed paper were stacked on the counters. Hooks from empty meat racks hung from the ceiling, their crooked silhouettes looking even more ominous in the moonlight. Tacked on the brick walls were charts mapping animal parts. Shoulder. Chuck. Loin. Near the entrance were two large glass counters full of steaks and chops wrapped in cellophane.

  Bliss Llewellyn took a deep breath and held it for as long as she could, willing her tense muscles to relax. She had tracked the beast inside the butcher shop, had watched its arched, furry body slink in through the back door. This was it. She’d been in Hunting Valley for three days now, and had combed every inch of it, which wasn’t too hard, really. It was barely a town—the downtown area consisting of one honky-tonk bar and several boarded-up storefronts. It was the kind of place most people left as soon as they had the means; the kind of place for those left behind.

  Bliss crept as quietly as she could across the wet stone floor. This was the end of her chase. Everything she had done so far had led to this moment. The beast was lurking somewhere within the darkness, waiting. She would have to be quick. She had seen the carnage it had left in the woods, had followed the trail, and now she was at its end. Tame the hounds, her mother had told her. Bring them back to the fold. She would have to bring it to heel, somehow. Her eyes caught a flicker of light in the distance. In the back of the room she noticed the door to the meat locker was open, revealing a carcass swaying like an inverted pendulum. So that was why her surroundings smelled of blood.

  She closed her eyes so she could hear. Concentrate. She pinched her nose. The smell was distracting. When the Visitor had been her only contact to the outside (or was that inside?) world, she found she could listen better if she closed her eyes and withdrew from her other senses. She was human now, with human limitations. She could no longer listen to a conversation conducted fifty feet away; she could no longer lift objects five times her body weight; she could no longer do any of the things she had taken for granted when her blood was blue.

  But even if she was only human, she was used to the dark. The Visitor had taught her that. She heard a clock tick, the sound of a hook grinding against a chain, heard the soft click of claws against the concrete—the beast, stirring... and then there, barely perceptible, was the sound of breathing. There was someone else in the room, someone other than the creature. But where? And who?

  The horrible clicking grew louder, and Bliss heard a snarl, deep and primeval and vicious, and then the sound of breathing became louder, more desperate—suddenly a scream from beyond the doorway. Bliss leapt from her hiding place and ran toward it.

  Clang!

  A knife fell to the floor. She swiveled in its direction, then stopped. The knife was a ruse, a distraction. The beast was behind her now; it was trying to steer her away from the door. She could see it watching her from the shadows, its crimson eyes staring at her balefully. Did it think she was stupid? She might not have her vampire abilities anymore, but that didn’t mean she was completely useless. She was still fast. She was still coordinated. She had the speed and skill of an athlete.

  The beast snorted and raked its claws across the concrete. It was angry and getting ready to jump. Bliss figured it was now or never. She pushed her way toward the open door, clambering onto a table and spraying a dozen knives across the room. The beast leapt but she was faster, and when she reached the oversized steel door, she grabbed the handle and, using its weight as a pivot, swung around so that she pulled it closed behind her. The freezer slammed shut with a thick, wet sucking sound that made her wonder if this had been a good idea. How much air was in here? No time to worry about that now. She grabbed a knife hanging on the wall and jammed the lock closed.

  She could hear the creature throwing its
weight against the bolted door, making the archway shake. It was larger and more dangerous than she had thought. Tame the hounds? She would be lucky if she got out of here alive.

  She looked around. There were a dozen or so carcasses hanging from the ceiling. The air was rancid, metallic. She pushed her way through the animal corpses to the back of the freezer, toward the sound of ragged breathing.

  On the floor of the meat locker lay a boy, no older than she was, chained to the back wall. Next to him were a cutting board and a band saw. A meat hook swung above his head, crusted with blood and rust. The tiled walls were splattered a deep shade of scarlet. The boy’s skin was blue, his hair caked with filth... there were ugly red marks around his wrists and neck, where he was bound with heavy iron shackles. Dear God, what was going on here? Bliss wondered, her stomach churning....

  The beast couldn’t have done this alone. There was something else going on. Bliss shivered, goose bumps appearing on her skin. Now that she wasn’t a vampire, her body did not control its temperature as well as it used to. But was it fear or the cold that had caused the rows of tiny bumps? For the first time in her journey, Bliss wondered if she was in over her head.

  She bent down to touch the boy’s face. It was still warm at least. She placed a tender hand on his bony shoulder. “You are going to be okay,” she told him, and wondered if she was also consoling herself.

  “Yes, but you’re not.” His eyes came alive, and before Bliss could blink, the boy had wrapped his fist around her neck and pinned her to the floor, locking his knees against her waist and keeping her arms away from her body. His shackles, Bliss could see now, had not been locked.

  “Who are you?” she asked, spitting out the words with difficulty, recoiling from the boy’s grip around her neck. She wondered if she could reach into her jean pocket to stab him with the hidden blade she always kept there.

  “I think the correct question is, who are you? You’re in our territory.” His voice was low and musical, friendly.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “We don’t like the likes of you here. You smell like the glom,” he said, and she knew he meant that she was not quite human; that somehow, he could sense her formerly immortal stature, when she had once been an angel of fire.

  “You know about the glom?” Bliss asked.

  The boy laughed. “We hunt in the glom. We are the Abyssus Praetorium.”

  Bliss startled. She’d heard the term before. The Guards of the Abyss. Also known as the Praetorian Guard. An image flashed in her mind. She saw the Visitor—Lucifer—her father—standing inside an elaborate palace, surrounded by magnificent columns of gold. A cast of thousands was gathered around his court. Was this Rome? Or ancient Egypt? She couldn’t tell. Lucifer stood at the top of a marble staircase, looking down at a creature of exquisite beauty. It was a man, but he was taller than a human male, with a certain otherworldly magnificence, wild-eyed and ferocious.

  The image did not come from her memory but from Lucifer’s. When she had been captive to his spirit, when he had taken over her soul, fragments of his memories had drifted into her consciousness. Triggered by random events, memories she’d never had would suddenly pop into her mind. So. The Visitor knew these creatures. She closed her eyes to recall the scene once more. She could hear Lucifer speak. The language was unfamiliar, its words harsh and convoluted, but she knew she could speak them as if they were her own.

  “Release me!” she cried, just as the boy’s hand tightened on her throat. The room froze and from the other side of the door, the beast howled. Then the boy’s grip eased and he fell away, staring at her in amazement and confusion, as if he could not quite understand why he had let her go.

  She was as she shocked as he was, but she didn’t have any time to lose. In one fluid motion, Bliss rolled away and bolted from the room, catching her balance before she slipped in a puddle of blood. She wrenched the knife from the freezer door and ran through the doorway and back out into the shop.

  What just happened? She had tracked the creature for weeks, and now suddenly it seemed that she was the one who was being pursued. Had Lucifer sent the creature to lure her here? Was he somehow able to reach her once more? Was the boy working for him? How could Allegra have led her to this hellhole? Was everything she had been told and everything she believed nothing but a lie?

  Bliss pushed against the front door, surprised to find it was locked. She had purposefully left it open when she’d entered. Who had locked it? She kicked at the jamb, splitting it in two and throwing glass out onto the street. She flung the door open and skidded out onto the sidewalk. Tiny shards of glass dug into her shoes as she stumbled across the pavement toward her car. She heard the slap of running footsteps behind her, but she didn’t turn. Grabbing the keys out of her pocket, she wrestled the door open, slid into the driver’s seat, and fired the engine. She looked ahead of her, and then behind. She was parked in from both sides, the other cars mere inches away from hers. There was no way she could get out without doing damage to either vehicle, or her own. It was obviously a trap. She’d just have to smash her way out. She floored the gas pedal, and slammed into the car in front of her. It moved, but barely.

  She slammed on the gas again, this time throwing the car into reverse, and plowed directly into the car behind her, causing a sickening crunch of metal against metal as the back end of her car crunched like an accordion and her taillights exploded in a shower of plastic and dust. She threw the car back into drive and pancaked the rear bumper of the car in front of her. Her own car popped up on the curb—that was more like it— allowing her to twist her way out from between the two cars that had trapped her in front of the butcher shop.

  Sweat dripped from her forehead and into her eyes. She blinked, feeling dizzy. She was human now, and despite her strength, she would have to get used to her new limitations.

  She hit the gas again and powered forward, turning the wheel, speeding wildly down the street. The windshield had cracked, making it hard to see, and she immediately crashed into a telephone pole. The windshield caved in, and the car swung sideways as it plowed into the curb. Bliss was thrown backward against the headrest. What had she done? She had gone from escape to disaster in only a few seconds. The car was demolished. She hit the gas again, but nothing happened. She tried reverse, but the engine was dead.

  Then a loud thump hit the top of the car, and the roof caved in slightly. She saw a pair of boots descend from the top of the car to the hood, followed by four hairy paws. So that’s where the beast had gone. She could see it more clearly now—its silver fur, its crimson eyes. They settled in front of her, the boy and the wolf, both of them crouched on their haunches, nimble as acrobats as they stared at her through the broken windshield.

  Behind them, she could see others, a group of kids slowly circling the car. How many were they? Three? Four? More? She caught a glimpse of a fierce-looking girl with wild green hair and tattoos, and several boys who looked dark and menacing. Someone was trying to pry open the rear passenger-side door. The handle rattled, but all of the doors had been smashed shut. Bliss took a deep breath and waited. “What do you want from me?”

  The boy smiled. “I want you to calm down before you hurt yourself, Bliss.”

  He knows my name. How does he know my name?

  “I’m Lawson, by the way.”

  She nodded, but her attention was elsewhere. The wolf had pushed forward, its teeth inches from her face. Spit oozed from its mouth; the odor was unbearable. Lawson coaxed the creature’s head away, so it backed off from Bliss with a whimper.

  “Come on now, Scooby, lay off,” he said, giving the creature an affectionate shake.

  One of the kids standing near the car—a little girl, Bliss could now see—she couldn’t have been more than eleven— tossed over a dog biscuit. The wolf caught the treat in midair and wandered away from the car, tail wagging.

  “Scooby?” The wolf was his pet. Bliss tried not to look too incredulous. When her mother
had sent her on this quest, she had imagined the Hounds of Hell as supernatural creatures. Beasts that were half human and half animal, something from nightmares and horror movies. Hellhound, werewolf... same thing, right?

  “Is that what you thought? That we turned into them? At the sight of a full moon?” Lawson smirked. How did he know what she was thinking? It was as if he had heard every word. Venators could do that, of course, but she could tell he wasn’t a vampire. What was he then? And who was “we”? That group of kids around the car? Were they with him? They had to be.

  Lawson threw back his head and howled. He pulled at his shirt collar in an imitation of an uncontrollable dramatic transformation. “You’re not serious are you?” he asked, looking a bit insulted. “I mean, you know there’s no such thing as werewolves, right? They were invented by some desperate screenwriter in the 1940s. We noticed you’d been following Scooby for a while and thought it was high time we finally met. Sorry if what we arranged was a little crude. The boys have a sick sense of humor. Comes from living in the wild, I guess.”

  Bliss didn’t know what to say. Lawson was awfully chatty for someone who, moments ago, seemed to mean her quite a bit of harm. Her neck still pinched where he had held her.

  “Sorry about your car, by the way; although you didn’t need to overreact so much. Anyway, we’ll get you another one. Or Gorg could fix it. Whatever you’d like. But we need to talk about what happened in there. How do you know our language? Nothing like that has ever happened to us before. We thought we knew every Praetorian in the district.” He studied her face closely and then plucked a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed her cheek with it. “Best we get you inside and clean up this mess before the police arrive. We don’t like to attract attention. This town might look dead, but I assure you, the small-minded sheriff is very much alive.”

  He hopped off the car and easily lifted open the damaged driver’s side door. The metal was bent and twisted, but he hadn’t even broken a sweat. He wasn’t as frail as he had looked earlier, nor as skinny. Bliss wondered if he had been able to adjust his presence somehow. He was quite tall and muscular. Whatever he was—or any of his friends, for that matter—he was not quite human. But neither did he resemble the exquisite monsters from Lucifer’s memory. In any event, he was as much a mystery to her as she was to him.