The Van Alen Legacy (15 page)

There’s an old station below
this one; they closed it off when they rebuilt the Metro,” Jack said, opening a hidden door
located at the very end of the station and leading her down a dusty staircase. The station
underneath appeared to be frozen in time, as if it had been just yesterday that travelers had
waited for steam engines to take them to their destinations.

Schuyler and Jack walked on
the old railroad tracks, until the tracks stopped and the tunnels turned into caves leading
farther and farther underground. The darkness smothered them like a blanket,
schuyler
was glad for
theilluminata
, it was the only way she could see
Jack.

The twisted narrow underground
paths reminded Schuyler of something she had seen in an old Repository book.

“Is this . . . “?
she
asked.

“
Lutetia
.”
Jack nodded.

The ancient Gallic
city.
When they had conquered Gaul, Blue Blood Romans named the place after the marshlands
that had surrounded the area. The vampires had built a massive underground network of tunnels
below the city. Red Bloods believed that all that was left of
Lutetia
were the
remains of an amphitheater in the Latin Quarter. They did not know that most of city had survived
intact, deep down in the catacombs.

Unlike the dungeon underneath
the H’tel Lambert, the catacombs of
Lutetia
were unexpectedly filled with fresh air.
They were clean. Protected by some sort of spell, Schuyler guessed. There were no rats skittering
in the walls, no smell of sewage and rot.

“Do you think he’s still
following us?” Schuyler asked, keeping up with Jack. She felt as if her entire being were a
tuning fork, vibrating with fear. As they walked deeper into the caves, she found she was unable
to pierce the total darkness, even with the vampire sight.

“Hopefully,” Jack
replied.

Hopefully?
As
they ran, Schuyler realized the tunnels created a maze, a hundred different corridors leading in
a thousand different directions.

“You could get lost in here
forever,” she said.

“That’s the point,” Jack
replied. “Only the Blue Bloods know the way out. These tunnels are enchanted against the
animadverto
. Try to remember the way we came. You will not be able to.”

He was right. She couldn’t
remember the way, which was strange and unsettling because having vampire sight was like watching
a show on a DVR: you could rewind to exactly the same place and remember everything, every detail
in the room, every nuance, every expression on anyone’s face, every word that was uttered. So
that’s why Jack said he hoped Leviathan had followed them, although Schuyler wasn’t convinced a
mere maze could stop a demon.

“What about everyone we left
behind?”

“Charles is there. He won’t
let any harm come to them,” Jack said. “He was keeping an eye on Leviathan while I fetched you
from the room. He should be more than a match for the demon.”

They ran for what felt like
miles underground. Schuyler had no way of knowing where they were, and she hoped Jack knew what
he was doing. Schuyler thought her heart might burst from exertion, and her muscles were starting
to flag. How much farther could they run?

“Not
far”
, Jack sent. “
We are almost to the intersection.
Come
.”

He led them through a narrow
tunnel, it was almost like a cut in the rock, so thin and sharp they had to walk sideways,
inching along the wall, and finally they stepped into a crossing of some sort, an open space that
pinwheeled
away to seven different corridors.

“Where are we?”

“Underneath the
EiffelTower.
This is the center of the old city and the beginning of the new. All the
tunnels eventually lead here.”

“All roads lead to Rome,”
Schuyler quoted.
“Same idea, right?”

“Sort of.”
Jack
allowed a smile.

Schuyler looked around. Carved
above each of the seven corridors were symbols that looked familiar. She wondered where she had
seen them before,
then
realized: they had been flashing on the banners of the
Chinese junks. They were the emblems of each Great House, in the sacred language.

Above the middle tunnel was a
symbol Schuyler carried on
her own
wrist.
A sword cutting through
clouds.
The archangel’s sigil.
Also next to each tunnel opening were seven
wooden torches leaning against the wall. Jack reached for one and waved his hand above it, making
a small white flame appear.

“This is called the breath of
God. Any Blue Blood can bring light to the tunnels. C’mon, it’s this way to the exit,” he said,
heading down the leftmost corridor. He lit the way, just as a dark figure came charging out from
the other side.

Schuyler almost screamed, but
her voice died in her throat when she recognized the man in black. Like Jack, he was dressed in a
Venator’s
uniform.

“Father?”
Jack
said.

Charles Force nodded curtly.
He gave Schuyler the usual distant, contemptuous look that seemed to be reserved especially for
her. She wondered why he even deigned to help her when it was so apparent in his every gesture
that he could not stand to look at her.

“Good work, Jack. They are
behind us, trapped for the moment by an
obsido
at the southern junction, but it will
not hold them forever. Hurry, up the stairs.
To the intersection where they cannot
cross.
Now.”

A small door led to a
stairway. Schuyler began to run up two, three steps at a time, until she was suddenly pulled
downward, away from her companions, by something that had a viselike grip on her legs. She fell
against the stone steps, and the shock dealt a severe blow to her head, and she blacked out for a
moment.

When she came to, she
discovered she was trapped in a dense, gray smoke, and a feeling of intense, voracious joy filled
her. It was the enemy’s joy, Schuyler realized; they were feeding off her fear: consuming it,
devouring it. The fog was impenetrable, solid to the touch, it looked amorphous but it had a
physical density, an impossible weight, as solid as the bars of a cage or a prison
cell.

Then she heard them: a sound
like the whistling of the wind through the trees, or like chalk rubbing on a blackboard the wrong
way: piercing. It was accompanied by a strange clicking noise, like the clattering of claws
against a surface.
Clickclickclack
. . . devil hooves on a rooftop. The Silver
Bloods were going to take her. She was surrounded and overwhelmed. No. She would not give in to
despair; she would fight . . . but with what? She had to stay awake, couldn’t give in to the
heavy drowsiness that was overtaking her.

Then she saw the eyes shining
in the darkness, their
otherworldy
, ominous, crimson gaze,
eyes
brimming with hellfire itself. Leviathan had come to finish what he had started. A blazing light
cut through the smoke. At first Schuyler thought it was the torch, but then she saw it was a
sword. It was completely unlike any sword she had ever seen before. Her mother’s sword had shone
with a bright white flame: as pure as ivory and as beautiful as sunlight. This blade was
different. It was almost the same color as the smoke: a dark gray edged with silver, and there
were terrifying black marks on it. It looked less like a sword than an ax, rough-hewn and
primitive, with a battered leather holster for a scabbard.

“Schuyler, run?” Jack
bellowed. “GO!” He slashed his ugly blade across the creature, or was it more than one? Was it
just Leviathan or more than that?

The monster screamed in pain,
and now Schuyler could feel its fear. Saw the reflection of what it saw in its eyes.

Because Jack had
transformed.
He was no longer there.
Only
Abbadon
.
Schuyler did
not want to turn around. Did not want to see what Jack had turned into, but she caught a glimpse
of the black fire that surrounded him, that lit up his image and made him glorious and terrible,
like a vengeful, wrathful god.
Frightful and awful to behold, a power that was not of this
world, not of this kind.

Schuyler would not want to
admit it, but
Abbadon
didn’t look all that different from Leviathan, the demon that
had sprung from the earth. But she couldn’t think about that now.

Instead, she ran.

Of course, just because Bliss
was allowed to have control once in a while did not mean that things were back to normal. She
would start taking her life for granted, but then the Visitor would return, and it was out, out,
out again till next time. She would keep track: Monday to Wednesday, then out for much of
Thursday, then the weekend blending into a blur, then back
!,
she would still be
confused by dates, think it was Thursday when it was really Saturday. As the days passed, it was
becoming more difficult to adjust to the times when the Visitor returned, to suddenly find
herself thrown out of the light and the world, and back into that cold, empty void of memory and
restlessness.

She decided that the next time
it happened, she would not allow him to shut her out. There had to be a way to stay. She had to
find out what the Visitor was planning, where this was all going. Sure, the Visitor had allowed
her to have part of her life back, but who knew if it would continue? Plus, Bliss didn’t want to
share. She wanted all of herself back. She couldn’t live like this, like a crazy person. There
were other people to think about. The Visitor was dangerous, evil. She couldn’t let what had
happened in Rio happen again.

The thought made her insides
turn to ice. If only there were more fashion shows to book, or more parties to distract her; but
things were winding down in the Hamptons, and there were fewer excuses for her to be out in the
world.

She spent the afternoon
sunbathing in the backyard. She was so
pale,
she always burned, and had lathered up
with some French sunscreen that was like, SPF 100, you might as well be wearing a blanket. She
basked in the sun, enjoying how the heat slowly warmed her body. After a year of being nowhere,
it was heaven to be outside again, to sit on a chaise lounge, bobbing gently in the middle of the
pool, her hand skimming the warm water.

Then she felt it: a darkening
. . . like a shadow passing over the sun, and then the push, the Visitor coming back. But instead
of dutifully letting him take over, Bliss forced herself to remain. Inside her mind, Bliss made
herself very, very quiet, curled up like a ball, like a shadow against the wall so that the
Visitor would not notice that she was sticking around. She knew, instinctively, that he must not
realize she was still there. She tried to become an ocean of stillness, with nary a ripple on the
surface. She forced herself to hang on. Somehow, it worked.

The Visitor was in charge, but
she was still there. This time, she could see everything he could see; she could even hear him
speaking (through her voice). They (she had to think of them as two people now) were getting up,
putting on a robe,
then
striding into the house. They took the steps two at a time
and practically charged into Forsyth’s study.

The senator was home for the
congressional summer recess. He was sitting behind his desk with a cigar, and he jumped at their
unannounced entrance.

“Didn’t I teach you to knock?”
he snarled.

“It is me, Forsyth,” the
Visitor said in Bliss’s voice.

“Oh! My lord, I am sorry. I am
so very sorry. I did not know you were returning so soon,” he said, throwing himself at Bliss’s
feet. It was discomfiting to see Forsyth through the Visitor’s perception, a lowly worm cowering
before her.

“Tell me how I can be of
service, my lord,” the senator said, still on his knees.

“News, Forsyth. Tell me of the
Conclave.”

Forsyth practically chuckled.
Bliss had never seen her “father” look so smug, which was saying a lot for a
politician.

“We have nothing to fear from
that group, my lord. Half of them are relying on Red Blood “hearing aids” to listen to reports.
It’s highly entertaining, really. Did I tell you Ambrose Barlow is now a voting member? Of course
you know him as
Britannicus
.”

“
Britannicus
. .
.” the Visitor said. “He does sound familiar.”

“He was once your foreman. He
took the children to the baths.” The Visitor found this incredibly funny.
“Very
good.
I take it everything is set in motion, then? The Venators aren’t giving you any
trouble?”

“Not at all.
Everything is proceeding as planned. Charles Force is in Paris as we speak. He is easier to
manipulate than a puppet,” Forsyth said with a sharp bark of a laugh.

A deep sense of satisfaction
settled over Bliss. The news had made the Visitor very happy. Like an overstuffed cat who had
just devoured a cage of canaries.