She had been wrong about her illness, she realized now. She’d led herself to believe it was something wonderful and hopeful, because she did not want to think of what it meant otherwise.
That she was dying. It had all been doomed from the beginning, just as Lawrence had warned her. There was never a happily ever after for them, that was all too clear.
She helped him into his jacket and buttoned the top button. Her fingers were shaking.
Jack clasped her hands in his and held them to his lips to kiss her fingers. “Trust me to return to you,” he said.
“I will wait forever,” she promised. “However long it takes.” But Schuyler knew that whatever the outcome of the day, even if Mimi was destroyed and Jack lived, there would be no victory. Jack would never be the same after killing his twin. Mimi was a part of Jack, and killing her would kill a part of him as well. “Catherine could not help us?” She had placed so much hope that the gatekeeper would know how to free them from their bond.
Jack shook his head. “Whatever happens, whatever you hear about me, know that there is a reason for it.”
“What are you going to do?” Schuyler asked, feeling a different kind of fear. Jack had never spoken like this before.
“I cannot say without putting you in even more danger,”
he said, and his face was so heartbreakingly sad that Schuyler threw herself upon him to embrace him even more tightly.
“You are so important in this war,” he told her. “You must survive to lead us. With the gates failing, there is no darker time in our history. But you are Gabrielle’s daughter, and I believe that you will bring the vampires to redemption. my life is immaterial.”
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for loving you, I’m so sorry,”
she said, and the tears began to flow freely, soaking his jacket.
“But it was such a wonderful dream, my love,” she whispered.
“Such a wonderful dream.”
“I am not sorry for a moment,” Jack said fiercely. “It was worth every moment, every second that we were together. I would not change it for an immortal lifetime.”
They kissed one last time.
Then Jack Force left for the Sahara to meet his fate.
FIFTY-TWO
The Battle of Abbadon and
Azrael
She squinted her eyes, shielding them from the bright sunlight that glinted off his hair and his sunglasses. Jack always did look dressed to kill, Mimi thought, finding she still admired him even after everything that had happened between them. “Abbadon,” she greeted, getting out of the Jeep.
“Azrael.” He nodded, as if they had bumped into each other at a coffee shop.
“What kept you so long?”
“I was delayed.” He shrugged.
“Well.” She tapped her foot. “Shall we get this over with?”
Jack nodded his assent.
They faced each other. Azrael, the ferocious and frightening Angel of Death, and her twin brother, Abbadon, the Angel of Destruction.
Then Mimi disappeared.
Jack gazed out at the crystalline sands, searching. The white desert was far from the crowds of Cairo, a fitting and se-cluded spot for a final confrontation. No one could hear them.
No one would come to anyone’s aid. This was a fight to the death. The blood trial.
He found Mimi crouched on top of one of the sandy rock towers. Behind her, the orange rays of the setting sun dimmed below the horizon. The warmth of the day faded as a cold wind swept across the desert floor. He watched Mimi’s shadow, the dark angel waiting for battle. She’s making me come to her.
She’s forcing me to make the first strike.
So be it. If there had been another way, he’d have taken it long ago. But there was no getting out of this. Azrael had to die in order for his love to live.
In an instant he was upon her. Striking at the rock where she stood, he shattered the pillar with his blade. A cloud of white dust filled the air; stone and sand ricocheted off his chest as the pillar collapsed in front of him.
Mimi laughed as she rode the collapsing column to the ground. “Is that all you can do, Jack?” she asked. “Or do you not have the courage to strike me directly?” She raised her gleaming sword and swung for his throat, the blade nipping his skin. First blood. A tiny stream trickled down from his neck as he fell backward.
“Strike back!” Mimi screamed with rage as she swung once more, and Jack did nothing but dodge the blow.
He lunged for her, but at the last moment his sword turned sideways and struck at the soft stone, sending a shower of jagged rocks toward Mimi. The air filled with the exploding powder of glittering seashells.
“You’ll only make this harder if you refuse to fight me,”
Mimi said, panting heavily. “Either way, this ends tonight.
Why not fight for what you want, Abbadon. If you love your little Abomination so much, then you must fight!”
“If that’s what you want,” Jack said, as he transformed in-to his true form, sprouting black feathered wings on his back and horns on his head, a true angel of the darkness. He towered above her, his black sword glinting with ebony sparks. His powerful energy whipped the sand into a tornado at his feet.
This is it, he thought. What he had dreaded for so long had finally come to be.
Mimi shrieked as she became Azrael, golden and terrifying, and Jack swung his deadly blade and made a clean swath across her chest.
She changed back into her human form and bit down hard on her lip. She would not give him the pleasure of hearing her scream. “That’s more like it,” she laughed. Then she was Azrael again, and Abbadon threw her against a tower. She slammed through the white stone and into the next so that the columns collapsed, falling like dominoes around them.
Abbadon lifted one of the tower-sized rocks to crush her for good, but Azrael flew upward into the dark sky, with Abbadon close behind. They flew up and up, and the desert swirled like a snow globe underneath them. Still they climbed higher, and Azrael attacked, flying in a wide arc. She slashed at Jack and he parried, the two of them dancing around each other in a violent ballet.
There was no more taunting. No more conversation.
There was only the pure, magnificent rage of two creatures once blood-bound, now bent on destroying each other.
From afar, the battle dance looked beautiful to those with eyes that were fast enough to follow the action. The two angels fought silently, moving with deadly speed as they cut and dodged through the cold night air.
Abbadon cut Azrael, and she fell from the sky. Her immense feathered wings stopped beating, and on the ground she was Mimi again.
She was bleeding from the head and chest, and she stared at Abbadon with so much hatred. She had forgotten how strong he was, that this was a battle she could not win. She was no match for the Angel of Destruction.
Jack reverted to his human form as well. The sight of that glorious creature falling from the sky tugged at his heart.
Could he really do this? He had to. He must. His heart hardened. Do it quickly, then, he told himself, as he launched at her one more time. With every blow, he could feel her weakening beneath him. Her sword bending to his until her wrist snapped and it fell away.
Mimi cried in pain. She could not hide it anymore. She was losing. Jack was too strong, and she knew her life was over. She steeled herself for the end. She reached for her weapon, trying to grasp for it in the sand…. She would not die this way, unarmed and helpless.
Jack raised his sword again, but this time, when it came down, the tip of the black blade only cut the edge of her shirt collar.
I can’t, Jack agonized. I cannot kill her. I never could.
FIFTY-THREE
Time in a Bottle
ItwastimetoleaveEgypt.Schuylerhadpackedherbagsand was on her way to the airport once again. She could not stop thinking of Jack, but she had to be strong—it was all on her shoulders now. The demons were at the gates. She had to do her pa
rt, carry on the Van Alen Legacy, and find the true Gate of Promise.
At the terminal she bumped into a familiar face. “Ollie?”
“Sky?”
“Ollie!” She laughed and embraced him. “We’ve got to stop meeting in airports.”
He kissed her cheek but saw that under the smile her face was drawn with the deepest sorrow. “Where’s Jack?” he asked.
She shook her head. “It’s just me now. I’ll tell you later, okay?”
He nodded, not wanting to pry and not letting his heart hope. He would be there for her as a friend.
“What are you doing in Egypt?” she asked.
“Same as you, I think. We just came from the underworld.”
“Who’s we?” Then she realized. Mimi. Of course. That’s why she was here. Jack had said he was going to meet her in the Sahara.
“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you when we get to the lounge,”
Oliver promised. “What about you?”
“Let’s grab a coffee and we’ll fill each other in,” she said.
Schuyler told him what she had learned so far of her legacy, and Catherine of Siena’s secret about the bifurcated path. “The Gate of Promise is a path to Paradise.”
“Of course.” Oliver nodded. “No wonder it was so hard to find.”
“It’s why Michael put up the gates instead of destroying the paths. Because he suspected that one of them could lead back to Heaven,” Schuyler said. Everything had clicked into place. She felt goose bumps forming on her arms as the enormity of the true task her mother had set before her sank in.
Oliver looked awed, and for a moment neither of them said anything. Finally, Schuyler broke their reverie. “Where are you headed?” she asked him.
“Back to New York,” Oliver said. “I need to make sure my family is okay.”
“What’s happened?”
“You haven’t heard? The Coven’s gone under, and even the Conduits aren’t safe. Everything and everyone associated with the vampires is being targeted.”
“Your parents?”
“Safe for now, but they want me to join them in hiding.”
FIFTY-FOUR
Abbadon’s Sacrifice
“What are you waiting for?” Mimi screamed. “DO IT!”
She was helpless on the ground, and for a moment she wanted nothing more than her own death. She wished for it with all her might. She gazed up at the dim stars and tried to imagine the end of everything—freedom from the bond and all the hatred that had sprung from it. She wished for the end, but it did not come.
Jack had hesitated.
While he was debating, Mimi saw an opening and took it.
The pain in her chest gave her newfound strength. I’ll not per-ish in this desert. She had nothing left; why give up the one thing she still had—her life? Jack may be a fool for love, but she was not.
She struck back at Jack, beating his sword with her own, regardless of the pain in her wrist, as her vampire body worked to heal quickly. She sent his blade spiraling downward to the desert floor, the gleaming steel disappearing into a cloud of sand and crushed rock.
Mimi tasted victory, but she knew it was false. It had been too easy to disarm him. “What game are you playing?” she demanded. “FIGHT!”
“I need no weapon to fight you.” Jack was resolute. He could not kill his twin, but with his death, the bond would free Schuyler, and she would heal. He would sacrifice his life for hers. It was what he had planned all along. It was his solution to an impossible choice.
Mimi flung herself upon him in one final rage, pressing the blade’s edge to his throat as she powered him downward onto the sand.
She heard a perilous snap as he hit the jagged rock, and knew his back was broken when he hit the rough stone. Still she pushed until the blade began to cut at the skin on his throat.
A moment earlier, victory had been his, but he hadn’t taken it. He couldn’t kill her, and that was his weakness. But Mimi did not share in his humanity, and she bore down on him with all her anger and strength, channeling the black heart of her rage into the blade.
Every muscle in her body tightened, and sweat poured over her brow. Anger coursed through her face. “Die!” she cried, and heaved the sword upward for the death blow. But when it fell, it struck the ground next to him.
“GODDAMNIT!” she screamed as she flung the sword backward over her shoulder. She was as weak as he was. She could not kill her brother. Mimi collapsed onto the hard stone.
The battle was finished.
FIFTY-FIVE
The Hidden Gatekeeper
“Where will you and your parents go?” Schuyler
“I’m not sure yet. Our whole life is in New York. I don’t think they can really survive out of the city.” Oliver smiled.
“How about you?”
“I don’t know either,” she said. “Is that… Kingsley martin?” she asked, seeing the dark-haired Venator making his way toward them with three huge cups of coffee.
“I forgot to tell you, I’m here with Kingsley. Mimi got him out of Hell. But she had to sort of give up something to do it. I think it was her soul or something.”
“She had one?” Schuyler asked with a small laugh. But Oliver did not join her, and she knew something had changed.
They were still friends, but their experiences had transformed them. “I’m sorry,” she told him. “I didn’t mean to make light of things.”
Kingsley sat between them and set down the drinks.
“Hey, Schuyler.”
“Hey,” she said. “We’ve already got coffee.”
“Oh, this is all for me.” Kingsley smiled. “So here we are.
Hazard-Perry keeping you up to date?”
“Sort of,” Schuyler said coldly, not sure if she trusted the smooth-talking Venator.
“It’s okay. Kingsley’s cool,” Oliver assured her. “He’s one of us now.”
“Glad I have your stamp of approval,” Kingsley said.
“Anyway, I just bumped into my old team. The Lennox boys are here with their wives—didn’t know the guys had it in them to pull that kind of tail.” He winked. “Anyway, they told me what happened down there, with the angel being killed and all.”
Schuyler frowned. “His name was Mahrus.”
“Raphael,” Kingsley said. “Never liked me. But that’s neither here nor there.” He took a long sip from his coffee.
“Look, I checked in with a few more of my Venator friends around the globe. Things are pretty bad everywhere, it seems; Covens falling and all that. But there’s something more important. Did you tell her, Oliver?”
Oliver shook his head. “No, but you can.”
Kingsley told Schuyler what he’d learned during his time in the underworld.
“That’s it, then,” Schuyler said. “I think the Nephilim—this whole business with taking the girls, as terrible as it is—I think it’s just a distraction. Even the destruction of the Covens is just a way to keep the vampires looking the other way….”
“You’re absolutely right,” Kingsley said, slamming down his cup. “It’s a trick.”
“Because, according to you, and what they tried to do in New York—find the key of the star, which is called the Key of the Twins, by the way—is the same thing that we’re doing.
They want the Gate of Promise.”
“And I think they’ve found it, which is why they were so confident,” Kingsley mused. “Now all they need is the gatekeeper.”
FIFTY-SIX
Blood Trial
Theylayonthesandforwhatfeltlikethelongesttime,letting their vampire strength heal their wounds. Finally Mimi sat up. She felt strange—different—there was something happening—her body was healing—but there was something else as well.
Her soul had returned.
She had felt it right at that moment when she’d hesitated before killing Jack. In that split second when she’d decided she couldn’t kill him; when she had staked her sword into the ground instead of
in his chest. She had won it back with that singular gesture of forgiveness. She’d won it back, the spirit that she had given up in the underworld so that Kingsley could return with her to earth, and Oliver could keep his life. It had been returned to her. This is not Helda’s doing, she thought.
Helda was not so generous. Mimi did not know to whom she owed this great gift. She was just grateful for another chance.
As an immortal she could live forever—she did not need her soul to survive—and so had given it up without knowing the consequences. But when she felt its return, she understood what she had lost. Her love. Her reason for living.
What happened? Where was Kingsley? Had he managed to escape from Hell? Had she succeeded? She couldn’t remember anything. Her heart hurt thinking of him. She wanted to see him so badly, to make sure he was safe and sound.
Mimi looked at her brother. Jack was breathing heavily, and he had an ugly cut on his face. They had faced the blood trial and still the bond lived between them.
“Are you okay?” she asked Jack, who sat up, groaning.
“A few bumps and bruises, a broken back, but nothing fatal, it’s healing quickly. Luckily we’re vampires.” He smiled.
“I’m glad you didn’t kill me.”
“Yeah, yeah. But what do we do now? Since we obviously failed at destroying each other.”
Jack stood up and helped Mimi to stand as well. “There’s only one way out of this bond.”
“You don’t mean.” Mimi blanched.
“Yes,” he said. “Our former master is the only one who can unmake what was made.”
The bond was bigger than them—bigger than their wants and desires—and they had no choice.
“Maybe it’s for the best,” Mimi said. “There’s something going on down there. maybe we can stop it from the inside.”
“Double agents, you mean?” Jack asked with a smile.
“Sounds kind of dorky when you put it that way, but yes.”
She brushed off the sand from her jeans. She wanted to see Kingsley again before she went back down into the underworld, but she knew that was not possible. Still, she could feel that he was alive—on earth—and that she had succeeded in bringing him back. As long as the bond lived, neither she nor Jack could be with those they loved. “Well, I’m ready if you are.”