The Van Alen Legacy (32 page)

“Let’s just get this
over with.”

His words were like an ice
pick to the heart. He doesn’t love me. He has never loved me. Not the way he loves Schuyler. Not
the way he loved Allegra. He has come to every bonding with this darkness.
With this regret
and hesitation, doubt and despair.
She couldn’t deny it. She knew her twin, and she knew
what he was feeling, and it wasn’t joy or even relief. What am I doing?

“Ready?” Forsyth Llewellyn
suddenly appeared by her side. Oh, right, she remembered, she had said yes when Forsyth had
offered to walk her down the aisle.

Here goes nothing. As if in a
daze, Mimi took his arm, Jack’s words still echoing in her head. She walked, zombie-like, down
the aisle, not even noticing the flashing cameras or the murmurs of approval from the hard
to-impress crowd.

Almost halfway down the aisle,
she saw someone she wasn’t expecting, and she almost stumbled on her satin heels.

Kingsley Martin stood at the
end of a pew, his arms crossed. He was wearing a tuxedo as well. Just like any other guest. What
was he doing here? He was supposed to be in Paris! He was supposed to be gone! He looked directly
at Mimi.

She heard his voice loud and
clear in her head.
“Leave him.”

“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 . .
.”

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.

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.

Then Schuyler understood why
she was here.

She was a
sacrifice.

Mimi stood stock-still in the
middle of the aisle, while all around her was panic and chaos. She could hear someone screaming
from somewhere far away. What happened? Where was Kingsley?

Then Jack was at her side, a
hand on her elbow.
“
Croatan
!
Into the glom! Now! Follow me!”

Thank God she wasn’t wearing
her stupid bonding dress in the glom. It made it so much easier to run. Her twin brother was
streaking through the darkness like a missile, and Mimi ran to follow him. “Where are they?” she
asked.

“They’ve taken Schuyler down
to the borderlands, to the gate,” he said as they ran farther and faster down to the deep, down
to the dark, down to the place where memory and time are no
longer,
and there is
only the path of fire.

Schuyler had been at her
bonding! What had she been doing there! This whole thing was probably her fault! Wait!

“You know about the gates?”
she asked.
“About the order?”
“Yes,” Jack said. “Charles told me. He suspected that
after Leviathan was freed, the Silver Bloods would go after the one in
Lutetia
.”

“And he led them to the
intersection instead,” Mimi said, putting everything Kingsley had told her together with what
Jack was telling her now.

“Right.”

“But that didn’t work too
well, did it?” asked Mimi. No one had gotten what they wanted in Paris.

“Not for them and not for us,”
replied Jack, looking grim. The Silver Bloods had been unable to open the gate, and Charles had
been unable to trap the Silver Bloods, and now he was most likely trapped in the intersection
himself.

They reached the gate. It was
just as Kingsley described: six feet tall, welded deep into the crust of the earth. Mimi knew
this was just its physical manifestation in the glom, something only they could see. The true
barrier was Michael’s spirit and protection that kept the Silver Bloods from crossing. But where
was Kingsley? Mimi couldn’t see him, there was only Lucifer standing behind the iron bars. That
stupid Van Alen girl was chained next to him.

When he saw them arrive, their
former commandant smiled. “
Azrael
,
Abbadon
.
How good of you to
join us.”

Mimi had to fight the urge to
kneel.

This was the Morningstar
before her.
Their one true prince.
How magnificent he looked, how
lovely.
Mimi remembered how she had followed his every command, how together the three of
them had conquered Heaven and Earth for the Almighty.