A waiter slid by to refill Allegra’s champagne glass, and she was glad for the distraction. She did not know what to say to Ben. She still didn’t know what she was doing here. Only that the opportunity had arisen to see him again, and she had grabbed it, like a drowning man reaching for a life preserver. “Your mom is cool. You never said she was cool.” She remembered that he’d said his parents didn’t have much time for him growing up. Perhaps they were making up for it now, with this splashy party.
“I forgot to mention it.” Ben grinned. “Oh, right. I did give you the Poor Little Rich Boy act, didn’t I?”
Allegra laughed. He could always make her laugh, and she had missed their easy camaraderie. “Nice house,” she said, raising her eyebrows at the Picasso above the dining table.
Ben rolled his eyes. “My parents,” he said. “The worst thing about having money is that I don’t get to be a starving artist.”
“Is it that bad?” Allegra said, with a slightly mocking tone.
“Oh, it’s the worst,” Ben said cheerfully. “I get to eat well, and my mom uses her connections to get everyone to write about me or buy my work. It’s rough, I’m telling you.”
Allegra smiled. Ben’s background was just part of him. He was not responsible for who his parents were—he was just lucky to be their son.
Ben looked at her closely. “You cut your hair,” he said, his brow furrowing.
“Thought it was time for a change,” she said, trying to feel brave. God, he hated it, she could tell. Why had she ever cut her hair? What was she thinking?
“I like it,” he said with a nod of approval. “By the way, the gallery told me you bought a painting.”
“I did.” She nodded, noticing that there was a group of people hanging around them, waiting for Ben to release her so they could pounce on him.
“Good, I need the money.”
“Liar.” She motioned to his adoring crowd. “I think I’m keeping you from your fans.”
“Ah, screw them.” Ben grinned. “It’s really good to see you, Legs,” he said warmly. “You want to come by the studio tomorrow? See a couple of other things? I promise I won’t try to sell them to you. Well, maybe not all.”
He wanted to see her again. Allegra’s heart skipped a beat. “Sure. Why not.” She shrugged nonchalantly, as if she would only stop by if she had nothing better to do.
His face lit up and he looked downright jolly. “Great! I’ll have the gallery give you the address.”
Finally, one of the hovering guests, an older gentleman with a trimmed beard, grew tired of waiting. “Stephen, excuse my interruption, but you must meet one of our best clients—he’s thrilled with your work and is insistent on buying the entire collection.”
“One sec,” Ben told his dealer. “Sorry about this,” he said to Allegra. “Work calls. But stay. Enjoy the party. Some of the old crowd is here—a bunch of Peithologians, at least. You’ll find them at the bar doing shots. Old habits die hard.”
Then he was gone, taken away by his guests who had come to celebrate his success.
Ben was happy, friendly, fine. He was fine. Allegra resolved to feel happy for him, and glad that she had done the right thing in nipping their little affair—whatever it was—right in the bud. As she wandered in the direction of the bar to find her old friends, she couldn’t help but smile to herself. She was glad he’d liked her hair.
SEVEN
Mirror Images
Their abductors led them away from the souk, and Schuyler was shoved inside a vehicle that quickly sped away over bumpy roads. She thought she could feel Jack’s presence next to her, but she wasn’t sure. The hood they had thrown over her head was disorienting—not a normal dark cloth, but one that was made to subdue vampire sight; yet another weapon in the Venator arsenal. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but finally she was pulled out of the car and led indoors. Schuyler began to feel frightened, but she wanted to be strong.
Are you all right? asked Jack’s calm voice inside her head. If they harmed you I will tear them apart limb by limb.
So Jack was here. Relief flooded over her as she answered him. I am fine. Where are we? Who has taken us? Her mind raced—Venators from New York? Or had the Countess’s forces regrouped?
Before Jack could answer, the hood was removed from her face, but it was quickly replaced by a knife underneath her chin, and her assailant was pulling her hair so that her neck was vulnerable. Jack was sitting across from her, similarly subdued, his hands bound. His glass-green eyes glinted in anger, but he kept his fearsome power in check. He could have killed them with a word, but once again, he had been restrained by his weakness—his love for her. With Schuyler in danger, Jack was effectively powerless, and she hated that most about herself, that she could be used to control him.
The girl who held a knife at Schuyler’s throat was a beautiful Chinese Venator, dressed in a uniform denoting a high command, with three silver crosses embroidered on the collar.
“Hold. This is one of ours.” Her companion, a stocky boy with an open face, gestured toward Jack. “General Abbadon. This is a surprise. Deming, did you not recognize him?”
“Rujiel,” Jack said, using the Venator’s angel name as he carefully and expertly removed the bindings around his hands as if they were made of string. “I did not realize the West Winds had cast their lot with traitors. I am disappointed to find you and your brother answering to Drusilla’s command.”
“We are no traitors,” Sam Lennox replied sharply. “The Countess might have turned the European Coven, but we do not do her bidding. And neither do we work for your sister anymore.”
“Good thing, too, or you’d be on the next plane back to the city,” Ted said with a growl.
“Well then, would you kindly ask your friend to let my wife go?” Jack asked. “If it is true that we are not in opposition, there is no need for this animosity.”
The Chinese girl looked questioningly at Sam, who nodded, and she withdrew her knife.
Schuyler exhaled. “My mother’s sword. Where is it?”
Another girl—with the exact same face as the Venator who’d accosted her, tossed her the blade, and Schuyler caught it deftly and let it shrink down to size, then put it in her pocket. The Chinese Venators and the Lennox twins were an interesting match. mirror images of each other, they moved with complementary grace and dexterity, like a well-oiled machine fueled by centuries-old expertise. They looked battle-hardened and weary.
Jack took charge of the situation—naturally assuming that the mantle of leadership fell on his shoulders—and introduced everyone. “Schuyler, these are Sam and Ted Lennox, also known as the brothers Rujiel and Ruhuel, the Angels of the West Wind. Good soldiers. They were part of my legion a long time ago. I believe they were last on Kingsley martin’s team in Rio. And if I’m not mistaken, these charming ladies are Deming and Dehua Chen. I remember you two from the Four Hundred Ball.” He motioned to Schuyler. “This is Schuyler Van Alen. my bondmate.”
“The famous Jack Force,” Deming said, her voice dripping with contempt. While the Lennox twins might have deferred to Jack as their old commander, it was obvious she did not feel a similar respect. She was stronger and fiercer-looking than her twin, Dehua, who had a gentler demeanor. Schuyler had no doubt that Deming would have slashed her throat without hesitation. “I remember you as well,” Deming told Jack. “They said in New York that you had run away with Gabrielle’s Abomination and broken your bond with Azrael. I did not believe it was true.” She looked at him with such distaste that Schuyler fully understood for the first time the enormity of what Jack had given up for her—his lofty, honored place in the vampire community, his pride, and his word. In the Venator’s eyes he was nothing more than a lowly coward, someone who had broken a heavenly promise.
“Careful. I do not care for that word or that accusation. I will not have my wife insulted in such a manner.” Jack spoke softly, but his words carried the weight of a threat.
“It is the t
ruth,” Deming said. “Gabrielle’s mistake was bad enough, but you have made it worse by breaking your oath and taking up with her spawn.”
“You will apologize for your rudeness!” Jack ordered, leaping to his feet.
Deming stuck out her chin, looking as haughty as a Chinese empress. “You forget we no longer answer to your bidding. Azrael kept her honor. Where is yours?”
“Let me show you.” Jack smiled and reached for his sword.
In a flash, the two had crossed blades, and sparks flew from the heavenly steel.
“Do not threaten my sister,” Dehua warned, unleashing her weapon as well, while Sam and Ted Lennox did the same.
“Careful, Abbadon,” Sam said. “We are not your enemies, but we will protect our own.”
This had gone far enough. Schuyler jumped between the warring angels, her hands outstretched so that all were forced to lower their swords.
“Jack, it’s all right. Deming, you don’t know me, but I’m hoping that we can all make peace somehow. There’s something more important at stake here than any of us,” Schuyler said. “Please. If we fight between ourselves, we lose everything.”
Deming glowered, but Jack backed down. “You are right as usual,” he said to Schuyler, with a soft look on his face. He turned back to his adversary. “I warn you, Kuan Yin, that I will insist on my wife receiving your utmost respect. But I apologize for threatening you.”
Weapons were quickly holstered, and the couples reunited—Sam and Deming and Ted and Dehua instinctively going to each other’s sides. They looked at the newcomers warily, unsure what to do with them.
“Well then,” Jack said, as if nothing had happened. “If you four are not here to drag me into the Countess’s service, or bring me back to my sister for the blood trial, why did you ambush us?”
“We hunt Nephilim,” Deming said. She pointed her sword at Schuyler, and for a moment it looked as if another fight would break out. But the Venator said simply, “Her glom signature was muddied, a mixture of divine and human, like theirs. We thought she was one of them.”
EIGHT
Checkpoint Charlie
Oliver remembered the trip to the mojave. It had been one of those last-minute excursions. His parents had friends who lived in Palm Springs, and their kids—a couple of spoiled California teenagers, Brentwood bohos with shaggy hair and expensive toys—had asked if he wanted to see Death Valley with them. There had been talk of looking for an abandoned ghost town, and Oliver had jumped at the chance to go, since anything was better than sitting around while the adults got drunk on Pimm’s Cup and talked about tennis tournaments.
At first he had worried he’d made a mistake. The dirt roads through the canyons were flooded from a rainstorm, and what was supposed to have been a two-hour trip became an eight-hour odyssey and a bit of a nightmare. But thankfully, his hosts had turned out to be good-humored and up for the adventure, instead of sulking and annoyed, and they’d had fun driving through the vast empty desert landscape that looked a bit like pictures he’d seen of the surface of the moon, lonely and vacant and odd.
“Was it like this the first time you were here?” Oliver asked Mimi as he peered out the dusty window.
“No. It’s always different. I think it looks like this because you’re with me. It uses things from your mind that you can process.”
Oliver fiddled with the radio tuner on the dashboard, but the only music was Wagner.
“Figures,” Mimi said. “Helda’s a fan. You might as well rest a bit. We won’t get there for a while.”
“How long have we been down here?”
“Time isn’t the same,” Mimi explained. “Not like it is up there. In the underworld, there isn’t a past or a future; there’s only now. We get there when we get there. It’s a test of endurance. We could drive in circles forever as a punishment.”
“Good lord.”
“Wrong guy.” Mimi smirked. “But you’re not dead, and I’m not human, so I think Helda’s just playing with us.”
“Who’s this Helda you keep talking about?”
“She sort of runs the place. Named it after herself.”
“Right.”
Oliver took a series of naps, but since time was no longer a factor, it was difficult to tell how he was supposed to feel. Was he hungry? He’d had an enormous breakfast, but the transition from the glom had taken a lot out of him. Did they serve lunch in Hell? Should he have packed a snack? Why was he suddenly thinking about food? He felt tired and mixed up; it felt a little like jet lag, which he was still fighting. He hoped Mimi knew where she was going.
He had agreed to come with her. After graduation, when Mimi heard he had deferred his Harvard acceptance, she had offered him the position as her Conduit, and he had accepted. His parents had tried to talk him out of it, had wanted him to keep his position at the Repository, where he would be safe. But the clerks were only interested in storing and archiving, preparing for the eventual dissolution of the Coven. It was disheartening. He wasn’t sure what would happen if the vampires went underground, and his parents didn’t seem to know either. Joining Mimi seemed the more adventuresome task, and he wanted to be of service. He didn’t want to spend hours doing inventory.
It was also becoming clear to Oliver that Mimi could not handle the Regency alone, and she would need Kingsley’s firm hand alongside hers to guide the flailing Coven. Oliver took his duty as a vampire’s Conduit seriously. He would not let the Coven fail, and he was determined to fulfill his duty to the Blue Bloods by ensuring that Mimi had what she needed to keep the Coven safe and whole, no matter what kind of sacrifice it would entail on his part.
Besides, he considered Mimi a friend. They had come to an understanding, and Oliver was surprised at how well they got along. He’d realized that underneath the princess act was an old and practical creature, and he respected her. When she’d invited him to come down to the underworld with her, he’d jumped at the chance, out of duty, curiosity, and a desire to make sure she was safe. She might be the fearsome Angel of Death, but even Mimi had a heart that could be broken, and Oliver didn’t want her to be alone if she failed in rescuing Kingsley. She would need a friend. What did he have to lose? He’d already lost Schuyler.
Still, they drove for what seemed like hours. For miles and miles there was nothing on the radio but the “Ride of the Valkyries,” which definitely got old after the nth go-round. Oliver could sense Mimi’s growing frustration, and it was with relief that at last they reached a primitive-looking checkpoint—just a wooden sawhorse against the road—and beyond it a small gas station.
Two men—Oliver thought they looked like men, but on closer look they were not men at all—spoke to Mimi in a language he could not understand. They were almost nine feet tall, and their large bulky bodies were covered in matted brown fur, while their facial features were gnarled and twisted, with bulbous noses and beady yellow eyes. They wore painful-looking collars made of silver barbed wire.
Mimi made some strange noises that sounded like grunts. After a moment the men moved away to confer with their supervisor.
“What are they?” Oliver whispered.
“Trolls. They work here… for the demons.”
“Ugly things.” Oliver shuddered. “Those collars.”
“The only thing keeping them from attacking us,” Mimi said in a matter-of-fact tone.
The collars were wound tightly around the trolls’ necks, and drew blood every time they moved. Oliver could not help but feel repulsion and pity for the creatures.
He looked around. “So this Helda you’re meeting—she’s a demon?”
“No.” Mimi shook her head. “She’s more like their… grandmother.”
Oliver blanched, and Mimi continued to explain. “She’s one of the goddesses. The old ones, before we came along, like the witch we visited in North Hampton.”
“There’s so much I don’t know about the world,” Oliver murmured.
The trolls returned and motioned to a gas statio
n beyond the checkpoint. Mimi parked the car. “Wait here,” she said.
“With them?” Oliver balked. He wished he’d thought to put the roof up, but now it was too late. The trolls sniffed him, one leaning forward so closely, Oliver could feel its hot breath on his cheek. “Human,” it said to the other, in perfect English.
“Living.” His friend nodded with a sly smile.
“He’s mine, beastia! Touch him and you’ll know the taste of Azrael’s steel,” Mimi snapped. The trolls backed away, but Oliver wasn’t sure if he felt safer. They were still looking at him as if he were dinner.
“They’re only teasing you. They don’t eat meat,” she assured him. Mimi neglected to add “only souls,” but Oliver didn’t have to know that, and he looked terrified enough already. “Stop being such a wuss. Trolls, leave him alone.”
Mimi walked toward the small office located in the back of the gas station. She didn’t want to tell Oliver, but the endless driving had bothered her. She’d worried that it was a sign that Helda would not allow her past the lower levels, and she would have to reach the seventh if she was going to find Kingsley. Another troll, a fierce female with a bronze mane, guarded the door to Helda’s office. The she-troll was wearing a heavy iron sash loaded with bullets, and carrying what looked like an AK-47. She gave Mimi a pat-down to check for weapons. “What’s this?” she asked, her hand on Mimi’s back.
Amazing that the troll had found the needle Mimi kept pinned to her bra. “It’s my sword.”
“You’ll have to leave it here. You can have it back when you finish with Helda.”
Mimi complied and handed over her needle, pulling it out from underneath her shirt. “Can I go in now?”
The troll nodded and kicked the door open.
Helda did not look pleased to see her. The Queen of the Dead was an older woman dressed in severe black, her hair in a tight gray bun. Her face was wrinkled and drawn, and she had the thin, puckered lips of a lifelong smoker, as well as the hard beady eyes of a gambler who had spent her last dollar on a losing horse. She looked nothing like her niece in North Hampton. There was something cruel and ancient about her, as if she had seen the world at its worst and had merely shrugged. She sat behind a desk that was messy with ledgers, receipts, crumpled notes, and torn envelopes. It looked like the desk of a harried accountant, which, when Mimi thought about it, was what Helda was, since the Kingdom of the Dead was a little like a bureaucracy that collected souls instead of taxes. “You’re back,” she said flatly.
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