Dear Warden Barlow,
You don´t know me, but I have to warn you about something. Beware of Forsyth Llwellyn. He is not who you think he is.
A friend
God that sounded lame. But what else could she do without giving herself away? It had as much teeth as a beware of dog sign on an unguarded lawn, but Bliss had no idea what else to do. She couldn’t risk the Visitor being aware of her actions, and if anyone from the Conclave came around asking for her, Forsyth would know what had happened.
It was better than doing nothing.
Maybe it would even help. She hoped so.
After posting the note, she walked aimlessly up Fifth Avenue past the Guggenheim Museum. The weather was sticky and hot, one of those fry an-egg-on-the-sidewalk New York days, but Bliss didn’t care. She was just glad to be home. Back in the city she had grown to love so much. Then she wandered back down to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She walked up the grand steps, dodging picnicking crowds of tourists sitting out under the bright sun. As she entered the grand marble foyer and passed the security bag check, waiting patiently as a bored security guard poked at the contents of her handbag with a baton, she felt a pain in her heart.
This was where Dylan had taken her on their first date.
It was too keen to be anything but grief, as she remembered how Dylan had paid the entrance fee for the two of them with a dime. But as she walked up to the ticket counter, she found she did not have his audacity, and surrendered the entire “suggested” fee.
It had been almost two years ago when he had brought her to the museum. He had been so excited to take her to the Egyptian wing, and unconsciously Bliss began to walk toward it, passing by glass display cases of scarabs and cartouche jewelry. She passed the display of sarcophagi. She remembered how Dylan had asked her to close her eyes and led her through the passageways, and when she had opened them she was standing in front of it. The Temple of Dendur. A real Egyptian temple rebuilt in a room at the Metropolitan. It was like having a piece of history come alive.
So ancient and beautiful.
And so romantic. She remembered how Dylan had stood in front of it, his eyes shining like bright stars. Bliss walked softly in front of it, remembering. . . . The light slanted into the room, making shadows on the memorial. She was struck by a sadness so overwhelming she had to steady herself or she would have fallen.
“Are you all right?” a girl asked.
“I’m okay.” Bliss nodded. She sat down on the steps across from the ruin and took a deep breath. “I’m okay.” The girl gave her another curious look, but left her alone.
Bliss was still rooted to the same spot four hours later, when the lights started to blink and an announcement came over the speakers. “The Metropolitan Museum is closing in thirty minutes. Please make your way to the exit.” This announcement was repeated every few minutes in many different languages.
Bliss didn’t move from her seat. Everyone else in the room, art students, a handful of tourists, a docent-led group, utifully walked toward the exit. What am I doing? Bliss wondered. I should go home.
But the minutes passed and the overhead lights continued to blink in warning, and when Bliss heard the footsteps of the museum guard, she hid in the temple’s crevice and made herself invisible to human sight. After what seemed like an incredibly long time, the lights finally went out, it was completely silent, and a ghostly moonlight streamed into the museum.
She was alone.
She walked right up to the temple, touching the rough stone, putting her fingers in the grooves of the etched hieroglyphics. Dylan had kissed her right here, for the first time.
She missed him so much.
“ I miss you too.”
What was that?
She looked around the empty room. The light made weird crazy shadows on everything, reminding her of how she used to fear the willow tree outside her bedroom when she was a kid.
She walked up to the fountain on the perimeter of the room and threw a quarter into the water, watching it fall. For a moment she had thought she’d heard his voice, but now she was really going crazy, wasn’t she?
“You’re not crazy.”
She was annoyed, agitated. Whoever was talking to her had to stop it.
“Is anyone there? Hello?”
Her voice echoed throughout the still chamber. All that answered was an echo of her question:
HelloHelloHello . . .
But if the voice wasn’t out there . . . then maybe . . . maybe . . . it was coming from somewhere . . . inside. . . . But that wasn’t the Visitor’s voice, she was sure of it. She closed her eyes. What was the harm? It wasn’t as if stranger things hadn’t already happened. She looked inward. There was a void where the Visitor usually was, an emptiness. The Visitor was definitely still away.
But for the first time she sensed another presence, and another and another’so very many others, hundreds of others. . . . Oh god, what was it that the Silver Bloods did? They took the blood, the undying consciousness, so that their victims lived on inside their captors. Many souls trapped in one body. Abomination.
There were hundreds of souls just below her conscious-ness, just like her, they had been trapped in the backseat (maybe even the trunk?). It was like looking down into one of those mass graves . . . but instead of corpses, they were all still alive. . . .
She wanted to scream. . . . This was so much worse than having the Visitor. This was . . . She almost lost it, but then . . . that voice again. . . . Low, husky, and raspy, as if it had smoked too many cigarettes and had spent too many nights shouting in a packed downtown bar. It was the voice of a boy who had seen it all and had lived to tell a funny tale about it, deep and rough but with a sweet edge that went straight to your heart. Could it be?
How could it?
“Dylan?” she whispered. “Is that you?”
There was silence.
Then, out of the darkness, she saw him materialize in front of her, saw his shape, saw his face, his beautiful sad eyes, his crooked grin, his dark disheveled hair. He stepped out of the void and into the light.
“I don’t have much time,” Dylan said. “that Visitor of yours is coming back soon.”
CHAPTER 29
Mimi
Mimi felt someone come up behind her, but when she turned around, it was not the handsome Venator she saw, but a wraith. A blackened, burned figure. A walking corpse with sockets for eyes and a slash for a mouth, and a bandaged torso. Burned, disfigured, but somehow stomachchurningly . . . alive.
“You . . .” The wraith pointed a bony finger at Mimi, and spoke in a whistling, raspy whisper reminiscent of rustling dead leaves. “You dare . . .”
That voice. Even in its present, eerie iteration, Mimi recognized that voice. It had once made speeches in front of podiums, had once welcomed elite groups of guests to a particularly spectacular Park Avenue co-op.
“Warden Cutler?” Mimi whispered. “But I . . . I killed you.”
It sounded absurd even as she said it. But she had cut Nan Cutler in two, had left her to burn in the black fire in the Almeida villa. How could the warden have survived? It was ridiculous. And it was equally absurd of Mimi to parry or banter with a walking and talking death wraith.
“One more step and I’ll have your blood,” the faceless horror croaked. What was not charred or blistered on her body was bone, a sickening sight.
Mimi’s hand twitched a little. She should not have put her blade away. Did she have time? Where the hell was the rest of the team? Had Kingsley heard her? Where were the boys when she needed them? Why had she strayed from the group; Venator training taught that you always stayed in twos. How stupid of her to have followed those footprints. . . . It had trap written all over it.
Would she have enough time to arm up before Nan made a move on her? No time to think’she unsheathed it?but even as she did, in that same moment, Mimi found herself locked in a death grip with the half-dead Silver Blood.
The monster who had once been the most sought-after hostess in New York was ferociously strong, and as much as Mimi kicked and clawed, the demon would not release her hold. Mimi could feel its foul breath on her neck, knew it would not be long before its fangs would puncture skin and draw her blood. . . .