The Van Alen Legacy(41)
On her side of the gate stood Leviathan, her grandfather's murderer. A cloaked demon, hooded, so that Schuyler could only catch a glimpse of his charred skin and glowing ember coals for eyes. She should be afraid, but instead of fear she only felt murderous rage. She didn't know how, but she was going to get out of this and she was going to make them pay. It sounded absurd and weak, but Schuyler knew that as long as she was alive, as long as she had breath in her body, she would do everything she could to fight the white shining presence that stood before her, as beautiful as the sun on the surface, but as ugly as a pile of festering maggots inside his immortal soul.
Then Schuyler saw that there was someone else whom they had brought with them to this dark shadowy place: a third man who lay sprawled underneath Leviathan's foot.
Kingsley Martin groaned.
«Gemullus. Of course. I should have known,» Lucifer said.
His voice rumbled gently, hypnotic and commanding. He sounded like a movie star. Kingsley blinked his eyes open and coughed.
«But you didn't. Not for a long time. Good to see you again, cousin. Do you mind asking your dimwit brother to get off of me? It's rather uncomfortable down here.»
In answer, Leviathan kicked him viciously in the ribs. Kingsley gasped and choked, and Schuyler winced.
«Tell me, Gemellus. Do the uncorrupted still have you on that choke chain? Still answering to Michael's bidding, are we? Even when it was I who made you what you are today. I who showed you how much more we could be when we took the undying blood for our own.»
Lucifer leaned against the gate, looking through the bars. An animal in a cage. «I had no idea . . . I didn't know what you were offering,» Kingsley whispered. «I was only a boy. The others I took, they're still in me. I hear them. I live with their suffering. It is . . . unbearable.»
«You were the weakest of us! A disgrace to the vampires. You were nothing!» hissed Lucifer.
«And now I am worse than nothing,» Kingsley replied.
«A pity you think so. You never did understand the scale of my ambitions,» Lucifer sighed. «Although I will grant that moving the gate from Lutetia was a wise move. Leaving only the intersection as a trap.»
«Nice, right? That was my idea.» Kingsley smirked.
«I thought so.» Lucifer nodded, as if satisfied. «Michael needed a liar of his own to come up with the right deception. A devil to think like the devil.»
Kingsley chuckled. «You always did have a way with words.»
Lucifer acknowledged the compliment with a bow. «As you are well aware, I have been waiting quite a long time for this. And here is a gate at last. Shall we open it?»
Schuyler realized what was happening. As Allegra had said, the gate was imbued with celestial power. The power of the Angels. Carved by the Uncorrupted.
It kept Lucifer and his malice away from the earth. With it, the Morningstar was imprisoned underground. But once it was opened . . . Kingsley laughed.
«You know each gate demands an innocent life. And I am far from innocent.»
«Ah. Of course. And we have brought one,» Lucifer said, and Schuyler saw Kingsley look up and notice her chained to the gate. His face dropped, and all the fight went out of him.
Then Schuyler understood why she was here.
She was a sacrifice.
CHAPTER 62
Mimi
Mimi stood stock-still in the middle of the aisle, while all around her was panic and chaos. She could hear someone screaming from somewhere far away. What happened? Where was Kingsley?
Then Jack was at her side, a hand on her elbow. «Croatan! Into the glom! Now! Follow me!»
Thank God she wasn't wearing her stupid bonding dress in the glom. It made it so much easier to run. Her twin brother was streaking through the darkness like a missile, and Mimi ran to follow him. «Where are they?» she asked.
«They've taken Schuyler down to the borderlands, to the gate,» he said as they ran farther and faster down to the deep, down to the dark, down to the place where memory and time are no longer, and there is only the path of fire.
Schuyler had been at her bonding! What had she been doing there! This whole thing was probably her fault! Wait!
«You know about the gates?» she asked. «About the order?» «Yes,» Jack said. «Charles told me. He suspected that after Leviathan was freed, the Silver Bloods would go after the one in Lutetia.»
«And he led them to the intersection instead,» Mimi said, putting everything Kingsley had told her together with what Jack was telling her now.
«Right.»
«But that didn't work too well, did it?» asked Mimi. No one had gotten what they wanted in Paris.
«Not for them and not for us,» replied Jack, looking grim. The Silver Bloods had been unable to open the gate, and Charles had been unable to trap the Silver Bloods, and now he was most likely trapped in the intersection himself.
They reached the gate. It was just as Kingsley described: six feet tall, welded deep into the crust of the earth. Mimi knew this was just its physical manifestation in the glom, something only they could see. The true barrier was Michael's spirit and protection that kept the Silver Bloods from crossing. But where was Kingsley? Mimi couldn't see him, there was only Lucifer standing behind the iron bars. That stupid Van Alen girl was chained next to him.
When he saw them arrive, their former commandant smiled. «Azrael, Abbadon. How good of you to join us.»
Mimi had to fight the urge to kneel.
This was the Morningstar before her. Their one true prince. How magnificent he looked, how lovely. Mimi remembered how she had followed his every command, how together the three of them had conquered Heaven and Earth for the Almighty.
How glorious their triumphs had been! How beautiful they all were, resplendent and soaring to the sun. How could anyone fault them for basking in their own beauty and glory? How could anyone fault them for thinking the glory was their own?
But no!, it was his fault they were stuck here; his fault they were cursed to live out their lives on Earth. Paradise was just a dim memory, almost a myth, even to them, shut out from warmth and love of the Almighty forever. If only . . .
They had tried. . . . They had switched sides at the last moment, choosing that clodhorse Michael over their general. But it had been too late. . . . It had been too late, even then, back in the early dawn of the world, when she was still young. . . .
«Release her!» Jack cried. «Now, serpent.»
Mimi looked at her brother, at her twin. She had never seen him so angry, so hell-bent on destruction. They had fought side by side in Lucifer's army once, and had fought against him ever since. Jack leaped over the gate, his sword aflame. To vanquish his foe and rescue his love.
Without hesitation, Mimi followed him into battle.
CHAPTER 63
Mimi
In the darkness of the glom, Mimi unleashed the full powers of her transformation. She could feel her wings sprout, could feel her horns grow, curling above her forehead. This was her true form as the dark and terrible Azrael, the Angel of Death. These were the wings of the Apocalypse, the harbinger of Hades, of sorrow and ruin. All this she encompassed in her soul and her being.
With all of her strength, she threw herself against the Morningstar, pinning him against the black rock, but her claws found no leverage, and soon she was simply holding a pile of dust. Lucifer would not be taken so easily. But Schuyler was free. I owed you one, Schuyler Van Alen. Now we are even, Mimi thought.
«Not bad, Force.»
She turned.
Behind the gate, Kingsley and Leviathan were caught in a stalemate. The demon had his spear at Kingsley's neck, and Kingsley had his sword poised at the demon's heart. Neither would give an inch, Mimi saw. But maybe if . . .
«Stay right where you are, Force,» Kingsley said slowly. His handsome face turned to her behind the iron bars. «Don't come any closer.»
«Why? What are you going to do?» Mimi cried, although she already knew. She could see the white aura that began to surround him. He was calling up a subvertio, fashioning a white hole of death.
«I am going to destroy the path,» Kingsley said. «It's the only way.»
«Don't.» Mimi shook her head, her eyes glistening.
Kingsley looked at her with the utmost gentleness. «Do not cry for me, Azrael. Do not waste your tears. You made your decision. And this is mine. Sacrifice seems to be my destiny. A funny thing for a selfish man, isn't it? They always called me weak back then . . . but maybe weakness is a strength of a kind.»
Mimi pressed her face against the bars, as close as she could get to him. She couldn't bear for him to go without knowing what she had been about to do, she had been planning to leave Jack to be with him. She had meant to forsake her bond and throw her destiny to the wind. I can't, she was going to say. I can't do this. I'm coming with you.
«Kingsley, I . . .»
Kingsley smiled his Cheshire smile. And without another word, he called up the white darkness, thesubvertio, a spell that unlocked what could not be unlocked, that destroyed what could not be destroyed.
There was a deep rumbling, a shaking, like the strongest earthquake, and the iron gate crumbled, and the path began to melt. The demon shrieked, but Kingsley just looked at Mimi the entire time.
Azrael . . .
In a flash, they disappeared. The path, the gate, the demon, and the Silver Blood.