AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"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.
ER 23
Mimi
The directions on the map led them to the Tijuca Forest, located smackdab in the heart of the city, not too far from the smart beach districts along the coast. Rio was a wonder, Mimi thought. Where else in the world could you go so quickly from the glass towers of a modern financial district to a lush tropical rain forest?
In the cab up to Barra da Tijuca, Kingsley studied the carefully drawn map again. "It looks like there's some sort of cabin in the woods next to a waterfall. That must be where they've brought her."
Do you think she's still alive?" Mimi asked.
Kingsley didn't answer at first. He just folded the note back into his pocket. 'They kept her alive for over a year, that much we know. If they were going to kill her, why would they wait so long?"
"I have a bad feeling about this," Mimi said. "Like We've come too late." The note had been dated four days ago. The little girl's words echoed in her mind. Bad people. They took her away.
The cab driver took them to the parking lot by the entrance near the Cascatinha de Taunay waterfalls, which was as far as he could take them. The parking lot was a small plateau ringed by the tallest trees Mimi had ever seen. They had a panoramic grandeur, the kind of natural beauty you only saw in movies, so tall and green and wide they looked unreal. She stepped out of the cab and took a deep breath of the clear mountain air. It almost had a taste'like dew and sunshine mixed with an earthy green smell. Mimi looked around, there were several decent-looking trails, but they disappeared sharply up the mountain, twisting away to what looked like some sharp rocks. It looked like it would be a pretty arduous trek, no matter what, and she cursed her vanity once more. If only she had worn the regulation shoes. She was never going to make it up that trail in her high-heeled boots.
There were several battered-looking Jeeps whose drivers were trying to entice the small groups of day-trippers and hikers to hire them for the day. But Kingsley had read Mimi's mind and nixed the idea before she could even suggest it. "No, let's not put anyone else at risk," he said. "Silver Bloods think of humans as sport. A guide would only make our mission more vulnerable."
Fine, she thought. It's been forty-eight hours since we left the hotel. Forgive me if I want to ride instead of hike. Even vampires got exhausted if you pushed them too hard. Meanwhile, the Lennox brothers had found a naturalist guide.
"Fastest way to the hidden falls?" The guide was so deeply sunburned his skin was mahogany. He had a British accent, and explained that he was part of the Natural Geographic Society.
"Best way is probably up the Pico trail; there's an unmarked path through the woods that you can follow through the jungle. But it's a pretty strenuous climb. Sure you don't want to hire one of the Jeeps? The Taunay falls are right here. They're just as spectacular.... No? All right, then, good luck. Park closes at sunset, so make sure you're back here by then."
Mimi looked down at her feet. She knew what she had to do. She sat on a fallen log, took off her boots, and chopped off the spike heels with her blade, wincing a bit at the destruction. Then she put them back on. Much better. She took a big gulp of water from her plastic bottle, wishing not for the first time that she was on that beach in Capri.
"Catch?" Kingsley said, throwing her something.
It was a small bottle of coconut water. "What's this for?" she asked, pressing down on the tab. She took a sip. Surprisingly refreshing.
