CHAPTER 33

Schuyler

Oliver tracked Schuyler and Jack to the bottom of the Eiffel Tower, having triangulated their location from the GPS signal on Schuyler's phone, which was now working since they were outside the isle Saint-Louis. His costume was torn and singed, it seemed a year ago since he and Schuyler had stepped off of that bus. Schuyler's heart leapt when she saw him. Oliver! Safe! Whole! This was more than she dreamed possible.

They were both weeping as they hugged, and held each other close.

"I thought you were dead," she whispered. "don't you ever, ever do that again. Ever."

"I could say the same to you," Oliver said.

He told them that after they had left the party, there had been chaos. Leviathan and the Silver Bloods had begun to set fire to everything, scorching treetops and coming dangerously close to the building itself. It looked as if the massacre in Rio was happening all over again. But then Charles Force appeared and fought them off one by one, leading them out of the grounds. Then they had disappeared. It looked like they had all gone underground.

"Yes," Jack said. "Charles was leading them to the intersection. A portion of the glom that the Silver Bloods can enter but can never leave. A space between worlds."

"Limbo." Oliver nodded.

"So what happened back there?" Schuyler asked, remembering the strange phenomenon they had experienced.

Jack shook his head. "I'm not really sure. But whatever it was, I think Charles somehow managed to reverse the process, to stop the tearing and repair the wound. Otherwise none of us would be standing here."

But Jack did not say what they all knew. That while the Silver Bloods had failed, it had not been without a small victory. Charles Force was gone. He never made it to the surface, and the catacombs were empty.

"So is he dead?" Schuyler asked dully.

"I'm not certain. I think he's just lost," Jack replied.

"What will you do?"

"I don't know just yet," he sighed. "the Conclave is not what it was. I don't foresee garnering any help from that direction. But they're all we've got." Jack looked exhausted. "What about you? What will you do?"

"Run," Oliver said firmly. "We'll keep running."

"You can't run forever, Schuyler. The tremors, your sickness, you can't hide it. It's part of your transformation. You must go to the right doctor who can help you. You're only endangering yourself by keeping away. I can vouch for you with the Conclave. I will make them understand. They will call off the Venators. Trust me. You'll be safe in New York. You can't risk being alone anymore. The coven is weakened and leaderless right now, but we will regroup. Come back to New York."

Come back to me. Jack did not say it out loud, but Schuyler heard it loud and clear nevertheless.

She shuffled on her feet. The two boys stood on either side of her, both of them with their hands jammed into their pockets. Oliver's chin was almost at his chest, his head was bowed so low. He couldn't look her in the eyes. Jack was looking at her directly, with that overpowering stare. She loved them both, and she could feel her heart breaking over them. She would never be able to choose. It was impossible.

Oliver was telling her to keep running, while Jack wanted her to go home. More than anything, she wanted to go back to New York; to stop, to rest, to recover, but she could not make the decision alone. As much as she still loved Jack, and as much as it would make her miserable forever to leave him again, there was Oliver to consider. Her gentle truehearted friend.

"What do you think, Ollie? What should we do?" she asked, turning to the boy who had kept her safe for more than a year.

CHAPTER 34

Bliss

It was the night before the first day of school. It had been a week since Dylan appeared to her, and sometimes Bliss was convinced she was just dreaming about him. A good dream, but just a dream. But then he kept coming back and talking to her, telling her things she didn't know (which never happened in a dream: somehow she always knew she was just talking to her subconscious), and she finally decided that it was Dylan whom she was speaking to, or at least a version of him.

She never knew when he would come back. Sometimes she would close her eyes and wait and nothing would happen. Other times she would be in the middle of something, ordering coffee or trying on shoes, and she would have to get out as fast as possible and find someplace she could be alone. That day she was arranging her books for class. She loved the smell of new textbooks, and liked to run her fingers over the glossy pages. The start of a school year always promised so many good things. She was glad to be going back.

"I liked it too," Dylan said, looking over her shoulder. It startled her to see him standing next to her, with a hand on her desk.

"God! You scared me."

"Sorry. Tricky, getting to the front you know. I have to make you see me, although now that you know I'm here it's a little easier." He continued to look over her shoulder. "What are you taking this year?"

"The usual. A bunch of AP and honors classes. I might check out that Individual Art Study."

Dylan nodded and hoisted himself up on the edge of her desk so his long legs swung off the floor. "Wanna see something cool?"

"Sure."

And without warning, suddenly Bliss was sitting with Dylan on the roof of the Cloisters, a museum on the uppermost edge of Manhattan. Of course they were only there in her mind, or in his mind. In reality she was still sitting in her chair at her desk in the apartment. Dylan explained it was his memory that had brought them there. Bliss had never been to the Cloisters.

Dylan explained that they could be anywhere. They didn't have to be in a black void, with nothing surrounding them, or wherever Bliss happened to be at the moment. They could go anywhere as long as one of them had already been there. It was like having a passport to anywhere in their past. And Dylan loved the Cloisters. The view from the roof was pretty amazing.

"Uh-oh," Bliss said. "He's back."

Dylan looked over his shoulder, at the storm clouds that had suddenly gathered over the city. Even in their self-contained bubble they could not escape the Visitor. "You know what to do," he said.

"Do I?" Bliss asked. But Dylan was already gone, and Bliss had left their happy moment on the rooftop.

The Visitor had taken charge, and slipping into the darkness, Bliss assumed the stillness of a statue. While outside, her body was pacing the room, barking orders at Forsyth. "And the Conclave?"

"Barlow has passed a resolution offering Charles Force the leadership of the Conclave again, should he return," Forsyth said nervously. "He was quite adamant."

The cobra quivered, hood up. This was agitating. Michael! Always they turn to Michael! They forget who brought them to Paradise! Forsyth loosened his tie anxiously.

"Ah... and about Paris. Leviathan has confirmed it, there is no longer a gate in Lutetia. Only an intersection, leviathan just missed getting sucked into it. That was why the subvertio did not work, because there was no gate to destroy. We were deceived. Charles had laid a trap for us. But Leviathan's releasing of the white death into the intersection created a time vacuum. Leviathan was almost pulled inside it himself. But the good news is, he believes Charles's trap was also his undoing. The archangel has been destroyed."

"He can prove this?"

"No, my lord. But there has been no sign of Charles Force since Paris."

"So. Michael was playing games with us as well," the Visitor ruminated. "I was there, you know, the day he forged the key to the gate. The day he anointed himself keeper."

"He is tricky, my lord. Michael was never to be trusted."

"Crafty is what he is. But now we know. The gate is no longer at Lutetia. He must have found a way to move it." The Visitor brooded for a while. "This Barlow resolution must be crushed. But do it gently. You shall convince the Conclave they cannot go on without filling the position. The spirit of the Coven demands a Regis. They will come around, as the weeks and months go by and still Charles remains absent. You shall refuse at first, but they will press you to accept. You will be named Regis."

"As you wish, my lord."

"Once installed, our real work can begin. Without Charles, without Lawrence, they will be looking for a new leader. You shall step into that vacuum. They will come back to me. They will beg me to lead them once again, and through you, Forsyth, our real work can begin...."

Without warning, Bliss was suddenly thrust back into the void.

"What happened?" Dylan asked. "Why are you back here?"

"I don't know... I got upset... He must have felt something...." She told him what she'd heard.

"You have to go back there. Make yourself. Do it."

Bliss concentrated. She tried as hard as she could. She wrenched away the line that separated her from the real world, forced herself to see the world as the Visitor did.

And this time, she was right in his mind.

But he wasn't talking to Forysth anymore.

Instead she saw what he saw. Bodies. Corpses. Piled on each other. Children, really. They were lying in an auditorium. They had drunk something. A potion. A poison. Mixed by a devil. She saw a thin spectral boy holding a guitar, and a beautiful but hard-looking girl with dark hair, and another boy, handsome and clean-cut and worried. They were all that stood against this disaster. This massacre of innocents. So many kids... Red Bloods... slaughtered.

Then she saw the demon: he was in the form of another boy. A good looking kid but with an ugly sneer to his lips. He had caused it. Another of Lucifer's children.

The images continued, one after another: death, destruction, hate, war. The devil's handiwork.

Then, just as abruptly, the visions stopped. Bliss woke up. She was sitting at her desk, alone. She was shaking so much she had dropped her pen. What had happened to Charles Force? Had he been destroyed as they thought? What were they talking about? What gate did the Visitor want to destroy?

And those visions she saw, who were those children? Was that the future? And what would the Visitor do once Forsyth was named Regis? What were they planning? Horror did not even begin to describe what she was feeling. Dylan was right: she had to find a way to stop it, whatever it was, from happening.

She closed her eyes. "Dylan?" she called. "Dylan? Are you there? Where are you?"

But there was no answer, inside or out.

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