Was the Visitor speaking of Jordan? And if so, did that mean Jordan was still alive? Where? How? Bliss could feel herself starting to get agitated. She had to calm down. She wanted to hear more . . . She had to . . . She had to find out . . .
But it was too late. She was tossed out of the light and back into the cold, alone and helpless to do anything about what she had heard. What was going to happen in Paris? Why had they wanted Charles Force to go there? And Sophia?, was that Jordan’s real name? What did the Visitor have planned for her? And who was the girl Leviathan was after?
Was there anything she could do to prevent any of it? Or was she going to be doomed to know that the end of the world was coming, and yet be completely helpless to do anything about it but watch from a front-row seat?
CHAPTER 26
Mimi
She’d kicked the door so hard it had clattered to the floor, making a tremendous noise. But afterward, all was silent. There was no reply to her challenge. Mimi crept up against the doorway, feeling along the edge of the wall for a light switch. When she turned it on, she saw that she was standing in a filthy mess; everything in the place was ransacked and disorderly.
“Um, like, ew?” Mimi said, making a face at Kingsley, who in turn was surveying the squalor with a flinty stare. Mimi held her nose and tried not to breathe. “What is that?” she asked, almost choking. It smelled sweet and rancid. Like something left to rot.
Kingsley shook his head. Mimi decided she didn’t really want to know. She could hear the Lennox brothers breaking down the other door. They edged around the explosion of clutter.
There was something pathological about the scope of the disaster, from the upturned sofa, where someone had hacked at the cushions, leaving a mess of feathers everywhere, to every drawer in every table and bureau being wrenched open, contents spilling out onto the fl oor. There were empty bottles and newspapers scattered all around, remnants of food, plastic wrappers, dirty paper plates, a half-empty bag of M&M’s, unopened cans of Red Bull.
Something about the disarray looked familiar. Mimi realized she had seen it before; the Force’s town house had been burglarized a few years ago, and her parents rooms had been ransacked in just this manner: everything turned over, upside down, everything picked through. She remembered how odd it had been to see Trinity’s jewelry box in the middle of the bed, broken and empty, among the jumble of clothing and old family photographs that the thieves had unearthed from the closet. This was the same: the methodical way every item in the room had been assessed and discarded. Someone had been looking for something. Kingsley signaled to Mimi to keep moving, and they continued to inch along the hallway. They found two bedrooms, both just as messy and overturned as the rest of the house. Sam and Ted came in from the kitchen.
“Anything?” Kingsley asked, still holding his weapon at the ready. “Nothing, Cap.”
“This isn’t that old,” Kingsley said, picking up a paper bag with the McDonald’s logo. “It’s still warm. Eyes up,” he said, ordering them to stay sharp.
Mimi continued to look around. During their burglary in New York, the thieves had made off with four million dollars worth of her mother’s diamonds. But the robbery hadn’t been the worst of it. She remembered how violated she had felt, to think that strangers had been in their house. One of them had left a coffee cup on the dining room table, leaving an ugly ring on the wood.
It wasn’t so much the loss of the stones, although Mimi had been upset not to inherit the jewels, it was the principle of the thing: to know that someone had been in your space. An uninvited, unwelcome someone who had used your house as their own personal playground. There had been a muddy footprint on her headboard, cookie crumbs on the white rug, a smear of chocolate (Mimi hoped it had been chocolate) on her silk bedspread.
The police had come, taken fingerprints, and filed a re-port, not that anything ever came of it, of course. Charles had said most of the jewel thieves dealt with the black market, where pieces were broken down, the stones disguised and laundered through the system, sold to shady dealers on Fifth Avenue. Luckily, insurance had covered most of the damage, as well as the stones, so there was no real financial loss, just sentimental value and a nagging feeling of injustice.
Mimi’s parents had had the whole apartment repainted that night and over the weekend. The housekeepers put every thing to rights. Once the insurance check came in, Trinity had kept Harry Winston and several auction houses on their toes. After a few months, Mimi had completely forgotten about it: life went on.
But seeing the momentous mess the Silver Bloods had made took her back to that awful night. Charles looking ashen, Trinity tearing up a bit, and Jack punching his fist into a couch pillow. Mimi had taken one look at the rape and pillage of their beautiful home and declared, “I’m getting us a suite at the St. Regis.”
What could they have possibly been looking for here? Mimi wondered. This was a shack in the middle of the jungle. What on earth could it possibly have that was of any value to anyone? And where was Jordan? If they had taken her here, why were they looking for something? Mimi knelt down and rummaged through the disorder, trying to make sense of things. She pushed away a pile of rotten cardboard and unearthed a strange pattern on the carpet.
Footprints.
Small ones.
Leading toward or coming from the bathroom. Mimi entered the small space. This room had also been turned upside down, the cheap plastic shower curtain pulled off the rings, a mountain of towels in the bathtub, the mirror over the sink smashed to bits’there was blood on the glass. There were signs of struggle, the remnants of a fight. . . .
Mimi pushed the towels around. There was something here. . . .
Hidden underneath the fallen shower curtain . . .
Mimi pushed the crumpled plastic off with her foot, her heart beating. . . . Could it be . . . With trembling hands she picked away the piles of broken glass and removed the pile of dirty towels.
There was a small, dead body in the bathtub, wearing dirty flannel pajamas. No. No. No. No. No. NO! They were too late; she´d felt it. They´d been walking in a fog, too slow . . . They were too slow. . . . But still, she didn´t want to believe it. NO!
“Kingsley?” she cried. She didn´t want to be by herself when she turned the body over.
CHAPTER 27
Schuyler
She was used to being alone. She had been alone for much of her life. Her grandmother had not advocated the current hovering, anxious practice of modern helicopter parenting. There had been no one from home to watch the few school plays she was in, no one to cheer her on from the sidelines at the Saturday soccer games. It had been sink or swim with Cordelia: no risk of drowning from too much attention. Schuyler´s childhood looked lonely from the outside: no siblings, no parents, and until Oliver came into her life, no friends.
But here was a secret: Schuyler hadn´t been lonely. She´d had her painting, her drawing, her art, and her books. She liked being alone. It was company that flagged her; she had no idea how to make casual chitchat, or how to interpret and emulate the fluid social gestures that drew people together. She was forever the Little Match Girl at the window, shivering out in the cold. But while people scared her, she had never been afraid of the dark.
At least, not until now. The darkness that surrounded her was absolute: so complete, even vampire sight was useless. She hid in a tunnel until the screams and sounds of the skirmish subsided, fading into blackness. She should have stayed; what had she been thinking? Why had she left him there alone? She had left Oliver and now Jack. But she had had no weapon; she had nothing. Jack had wanted her to run, and so she had. “Jack? Jack?” she called, her voice echoing down the length of the tunnel. “Are you all right? Jack?”
There was no answer.
The silence was even more unsettling. It was so quiet she could hear the sound of rain falling somewhere above the catacombs, could hear the drip-drop-drip of every trickle that fell through the cracks in the walls and hit the floor. She hugged herself tightly, unsure of what to do. Her shoulders ached, and it felt as if her muscles were frozen. So this was what it was to be afraid of the dark. To be afraid and alone in the dark. Schuyler called Jack´s name for what seemed like hours, but there was no answer. There was no sign of the Silver Bloods either, but that didn´t mean anything. Maybe they had withdrawn, only to return later. She didn´t want to think about what might have happened to Jack. . . . Could they have taken him? Was he destroyed? Lost? Broken?
Jack was gone. No. Schuyler shook her head even though she was only arguing with herself. There was no way he could have fallen. Not him. Not that dazzling fearsome light that he was. No. She had seen his true form and it was awesome to behold. A pillar of fire. A thousand magnificent suns burning with flames the color of the deepest night. Terrible and wonderful and more frightening than anything she had ever seen. No!
He will return for me.
She believed it. She looked around at the maze of tunnels. She had no idea where she was, or where she had come from. You could get lost in here for centuries, Schuyler had told Jack.
That’s the idea.
What am I doing? I’m such an idiot. The intersection! It was the only natural place. What had Charles said? The intersection. The place where they cannot cross. All the tunnels led there. Where was it? She couldn’t see, so she felt along the wall. There was an opening. She felt another. Two tunnels. A fork in the road. She would have to choose. But which? She felt along the grain, trying to sense something. If she could not see, maybe she could smell. . . .
It had smelled clean in here, she remembered thinking. She had expected the underground cavern to smell moldy, like a damp towel that had been left too long on the floor. But when she and Jack had first disappeared into the catacombs, she had been surprised to breathe fresh air. This one, she thought. This one smells just a bit fresher, as if maybe it would lead to more fresh air, maybe to the stairs that led upward and out. She made a decision. She walked into the dark tunnel, with only her fingertips as her guide.
It felt as if she had been walking in the dark for miles, but her nose had not failed her, the air had cleared, and from far away she could see it . . . a light shining in the darkness. Jack. It had to be Jack.
Finally she reached the intersection.
But the light was from the torch Jack had been carrying before they were attacked.
And there was no one there.
CHAPTER 28
Bliss
It was the last week of August, and Cotswold had finally sold after the price was reduced another hundred thousand, give or take. A Russian oligarch bought the Hamptons house and everything in it, down to the last nautical cushion and including the car collection. The new family wanted possession right away, so there was a very short escrow period. And ever since the day Bliss had overheard the conversation in Forsyth’s study, the Visitor had retreated for his longest absence yet. Saturday, their first day back in New York, made it the fifth straight day that he had been gone. Almost an entire week.
It was a relief to be back in the city again. She had gotten tired of the Hamptons, as everyone ultimately does. And while she had her freedom, Bliss tried to find out what was going on. She had called the Force household, not sure of what she could say exactly, not that it mattered anyway since their maid told her that no one was around.
Charles was gone, Trinity was in D.C., and the twins were away as well. Then she called Schuyler’s cell, but her service had been disconnected. She called the house on Riverside Drive, and Hattie told her Schuyler was . . . away. The housekeeper sounded too frightened to tell Bliss anything else. The Hazard-Perrys were spending the summer in Maine, but when Bliss called that number, no one picked up. There wasn’t even an answering machine. It was all very strange and not promising.
She had raided Forsyth’s study before it had been packed up and had tried to call Ambrose Barlow. She had decided that if Forsyth and the Visitor had mocked him, then maybe Warden Barlow was one of the good guys. But when she called the Barlow residence, the warden wasn’t there. And she didn’t know what kind of message to leave that wouldn’t find its way back to the Visitor. She had to make sure he was kept in the dark about what she was planning as well.