“Why should I? What do you promise me?”
“Nothing. And everything. A life of danger and adventure. A chance to be yourself. Leave him. Come with me.”
He really had some nerve. She had already made her decision! She couldn’t leave her twin in the middle of the bonding, in front of the entire Coven! They would laugh about it for centuries, she knew. Who did he think she was? Was he smirking? He totally was. He knew he was making her squirm. Well, she would show him. She would throw this in his face, make him wish that . . . he had never . . .
What was she thinking? Kingsley was here. No matter what he said, his actions spoke louder than his glibness. He was supposed to be in Paris, but instead he was here, in the church, at the bonding, because maybe, just maybe, he felt something for her, something real and true and wonderful and something he could not deny, no matter how many jokes he made about it.
Maybe he was here because he loved her.
Let’s get this over with, Jack had sent. Jack would love her once they were bonded. But only as his duty. Only because the bond would force him. Mimi held Kingsley’s gaze.
“I can’t . . .”
CHAPTER 60
Bliss
What was Mimi doing? Why had she stopped in the middle of the aisle? Who was she looking at? Kingsley Martin? Bliss hadn’t seen Kingsley since the trial. . . . How strange that he was here for the bonding. Wasn’t he a Venator of some sort?
Martin!
An image appeared. A thin boy, sickly and frail, following on the heels of his older, stronger, smarter cousin. A boy who admired and adored his childhood hero, his Gaius, his protector and his best friend.
Gemullus.
Bliss saw it: The lord Emperor Caligula taking the throne, his younger, frailer cousin by his side. Tiberius Gemellus. The true heir. But there was no envy in Gemellus’s heart. Only adoration. He loved him so. He would do anything his emperor commanded him to do. Even agree to the Corruption.
She saw them: Caligula taking the blood of Gemellus, and Gemellus transforming from a sickly boy to a strong one. Stronger than he had ever dreamed; faster, and more powerful, the entire being transformed. And then the despair . . . the agony of the soul unbound . . . the cries of the many in the undead blood, and then penance before Michael . . . and forgiveness . . . and a mission.
And suddenly everything fell into place. The Visitor’s voice spoke so fast, Bliss didn’t understand what he was saying.
“Of course. Gemellus. Ofcourse! Michael was a crafty one.Trust in him to trust a tra itor. We must strike now. Now. Now. Now.”
The unfinished church. In the sacred laws, a church must be completed to be fully consecrated. Of course. Where best to hide the gate than in a sacred spot that was not at all sacred? A church that even a Silver Blood could enter?
Without knowing what she was doing, Bliss cried in a voice darker than the deepest echelons of hell.
“Croatan! To me! This is our destiny! The Gate of Time is here! Arise, dark demons of the deep! Arise and awake, your time has come!”
And suddenly all was mist as the Silver Bloods entered the church, the only church they could enter in the known universe, and they surrounded Kingsley, enveloping him in the silver mist, thick and impenetrable. They blanketed the church in darkness, their laughter crazed and agonized.
“The girl! Don’t forget the girl!” rasped a voice.
Bliss looked. Schuyler was running down the length of the aisle, running to help Kingsley while the Coven stood in shock. It was as if Schuyler were moving in slow motion through a still crowd.
“No! Schuyler! Stay back!” Bliss yelled, running to save her friend from the demon’s reach.
But Leviathan got there first.
CHAPTER 61
Schuyler
She was in the glom and she was falling, falling, falling. The demon held her in his grasp and he was taking her down to the deep. Down to the deepest dark center of the twilight world. When Schuyler could finally open her eyes, she saw that she was chained to some sort of gate, and there were two men standing on either side of it. On one side was a beautiful man in a white suit.
She recognized him immediately. Lucifer, the former Prince of Heaven, the Morningstar. She never thought a man could be so handsome; his beauty was so dazzling it was almost too painful to see. Like a knife that cut deep beneath the skin, his beauty exacted a price from the beholder. She understood the difference between him and the false image on Corcovado. The true Morningstar glowed with a pure inescapable light. He stood upon a path of molten lava, the rocks hissing with steam, and Schuyler knew: this was a Path of the Dead. They were standing before the Gate of Time, and Lucifer was held behind it.
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.