She did not put down the flame. Was it Jack? She remembered the baron's crimson eyes. She had not seen the Silver Blood underneath the human disguise at first. Was this Jack Force or was it something else? Another shape-shifting enemy?
«How do I know you're you?» she asked, holding her torch as if it would save her from whatever creature stood before her.
«Schuyler, I've just narrowly escaped with my life. You've got to be joking,» Jack said.
«Stay away from me?»
A thought occurred to her: What if this was all part of the Silver Blood scheme? A deadly ploy? A masquerade? What if they had planned for Jack to 'rescue' her so he could gain her trust? A year had gone by, loyalties changed. How did she know he had not been turned? They had been so far away from all the news in the coven, what if . . . what if . . .
«Schuyler, I am not a Silver Blood?» Jack looked angry now, and a vein on his forehead was throbbing. His voice was hoarse from shouting. «Stop this. You need to trust me! We don't have much time, my father can only hold them back for so long. We've got to get out of here!»
«Prove it!» she hissed. «Prove you are who you say!»
«We don't have time for this! You really want me to prove who I am?» he asked.
«Yes!» she challenged.
In answer, he took her in his arms, lifting her up and against the wall. He pressed his lips against hers, and with each kiss she could see into his mind, into his soul. She saw a year of hate . . . saw him alone, alienated, hurt. She had lied to him and had left him. With every kiss he made her see, made her feel . . . every emotion, every dream he had of her . . . every ounce of his wanting and his need . . . and his love . . . his all-consuming, life-affirming love for her.
In the darkness they found each other again . . . and she kissed him back, so greedily and hungrily, she never wanted to stop kissing him . . . to feel his heart against hers, the two of them intertwined together, his hands in her hair, then down the small of her back. She wanted to cry from the overwhelming emotion that engulfed the two of them. . . .
«Now do you believe me?» Jack asked huskily, pulling away for a moment so they could look into each other's eyes.
Schuyler nodded, breathless. Jack. Every fiber of her being tingled with love and desire and remorse and forgiveness. Oh, Jack . . . the love of her life, her sweet, her soul . . .
But how?
How could he still feel this way about her? He was already bonded to his vampire twin, wasn't he? Wasn't he? She had seen the invitations. Mimi in her white bonding dress.
«The bonding . . .» she croaked.
«It never happened. I am not bonded to my twin.»
He was still free. He was still himself, still the boy she had fallen so deeply and irrevocably in love with that even a year apart could not quench her love for him. And he loved her still, she knew that now. They looked at each other, suddenly understanding everything between them that had gone unsaid.
Jack let go first. He looked at the rubble with a frown. The Silver Bloods had destroyed the stone steps that led to the exit ten stories up. Schuyler could see a small pinpoint of light from the hole above.
«That's the intersection. If we get past it, they cannot follow. Hold on,» he said, unspooling a coil of rope that was attached to his Venator pack. He swung the hook over the edge and took her by the waist. «Don't look down,» he said as he zoomed them up through the air like a couple of superheros.
«Wait! Someone's down there! I think, I think it might be your father, Yes! It's Charles! Wait, Jack!»
The rope slipped, caught; there was a struggle as they were suddenly pulled downward again, back down to the depths . . . and Schuyler could see, far in the distance, Charles Force battling Leviathan himself, the demon taking the form of a basilisk, a dragon, and a chimera, changing shape and taunting its attacker with mirthless glee.
«GET OUT OF HERE!» Charles Force bellowed when he saw them dangling on the wire above him. «SAVE YOURSELVES!» And she felt it, felt his ferocious might push them out of the hole, send them flying through the air and sprawling out onto the sidewalk. They made it to the surface just in time.
Just behind or underneath, she wasn't sure, she felt a huge wave, as if a lightning bolt had just missed her by a centimeter. Then the universe wobbled.
A ripple.
A tear.
A wound.
For a moment the world was not in focus. Schuyler could see into the vastness of space and infinity. Alternate universes. Alternate endings. Alternate outcomes.
She felt a trembling deep inside herself as well as out, as if every atom in the known universe were shaking, as if time itself were being unhinged, as if the very earth, the very world they lived in, were in danger of being destroyed.
But then, just as suddenly, everything snapped back into place. Time fixed itself. The universe stopped trembling. The world was the same as it ever was.
Schuyler was sprawled on the sidewalk. She couldn't feel anything: her legs, her arms, everything was numb. Jack lay on the ground beside her. With the last of her remaining strength, she reached for him, brushing her fingertips against his cold ones, and then she felt his hand grasp hers in his strong, firm grip. He was alive. Her heart rejoiced. He was alive. They had survived.
But there was no sign of Charles Force anywhere.
CHAPTER 31
Bliss
«Is it really you? How is this possible?» Bliss asked, marveling at how well he looked. The Dylan she remembered had been skin and bones, but this Dylan looked healthy. His cheeks were pink, and his dimples were back.
«It's really me,» Dylan assured. «You know, the Corruption, the thing that turns vampires into demons, works by drawing out the soul through the blood, and so the times that, uh . . . you know . . .»
Bliss nodded. The times that the Visitor had been in control, and had sucked Dylan's blood, she had taken enough of his spirit into her own, so that a shell image, or a faded version, a piece of his consciousness, lived inside of hers.
«So . . . you're alive?» Bliss asked.
«In a way,» he said. «In that I can think, and I can still feel.»
«But you're not real, are you?» she asked.
He shook his head sadly. «No. I'm not. Not in the way that you are. I mean, no one else can see me but you.»
«Is that bad? Does it feel weird?» she asked.
For a while, Dylan merely smiled, and it was his same crooked sad little smile. «I don't know how to explain it, but part of me is here, with you, and another part is . . . somewhere else. I don't know, but I know I am not complete. I'm like . . . like a . . . template . . . you know, like a virtual personality trapped in a computer,» he explained.
He confirmed what she already knew: that there were dozens, possibly hundreds of other souls living within her.
«The Croatan are insane because none of the spirits have the body for enough time to make it work. They become imbalanced and unpredictable, schizo, as the humans call it. Usually because the original host spirit loses control to a strong and forceful personality.»
She shuddered. «Like I have.»
«The Visitor. Yes. But you are aware of the transgression, which means you've been able to resist it. And there's something else that's different about you. Do you know what it is?»
«Not really.»
«Your human familiar, Morgan. Remember him?»
Bliss remembered the cute young photo assistant from the Montserrat shoot.
«The Red Blood is poison to Croatan, and yet it did not harm you. Which means, part of you is still uncorrupted. And also, you have me,» he said.
«What do you mean?»
«I keep them from you. I guard the wall,» he said. «that's the best way I can put it. Imagine there's a curtain that stands between your consciousness and the others. I'm that curtain.»
«So basically all that stands between me and the crazies is . . . you?» she asked.
«Yeah.» He shrugged. «Me.»
Bliss cracked a smile. Suddenly she didn't feel so alone anymore. She had someone to talk to, and someone who understood exactly what was happening to her. «I like those odds,» she said.
She was about to say something else when she was suddenly overcome with rage, a debilitating, inchoate rage, she felt as if she were frothing at the mouth, choking on her own bile; she gasped for air, doubled up and clutched her stomach, what was this? What was going on? Why was she so angry? Then she realized. It was not her anger, this was not her fury. She could feel it, but it wasn't coming from her.
«What's going on?» Bliss whispered. «It's him, isn't it? The Visitor? He's upset.»
«Yes,» Dylan said, looking worried. 'try not to feel it so much. Push back. Do not let his emotions control yours.»
She nodded, gritting her teeth, trying to fight back as a garbled mangle of violent emotions washed over her.
ANGER! HATRED! HOW COULD THIS HAVE HAPPENED? WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? I SHALL SLIT THEIR THROATS AND DRINK THE BLOOD OF THEIR CHILDREN, THE GATE WAS THERE! WE HAD THE GATEKEEPER IN OUR HANDS! THE PATH WAS WITHIN OUR REACH! FOOLS! FOOLS!
She pushed back, No. No. Not me. Not me. Him. Shut him out. Shut him out. Shut him out. Get away from me, from my thoughts, from my life. I am not you. I am not you. I am not you.
«He's gone,» Bliss said, exhaling. She opened her eyes. She was still in the museum, and Dylan was sitting on the steps across from her.