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But how?
How could he still feel this way about her? He was already bonded to his vampire twin, wasn't he? Wasn't he? She had seen the invitations. Mimi in her white bonding dress.
"The bonding..." she croaked.
"It never happened. I am not bonded to my twin."
He was still free. He was still himself, still the boy she had fallen so deeply and irrevocably in love with that even a year apart could not quench her love for him. And he loved her still, she knew that now. They looked at each other, suddenly understanding everything between them that had gone unsaid.
Jack let go first. He looked at the rubble with a frown. The Silver Bloods had destroyed the stone steps that led to the exit ten stories up. Schuyler could see a small pinpoint of light from the hole above.
"That's the intersection. If we get past it, they cannot follow. Hold on," he said, unspooling a coil of rope that was attached to his Venator pack. He swung the hook over the edge and took her by the waist. "Don't look down," he said as he zoomed them up through the air like a couple of superheros.
"Wait! Someone's down there! I think, I think it might be your father, Yes! It's Charles! Wait, Jack!"
The rope slipped, caught; there was a struggle as they were suddenly pulled downward again, back down to the depths... and Schuyler could see, far in the distance, Charles Force battling Leviathan himself, the demon taking the form of a basilisk, a dragon, and a chimera, changing shape and taunting its attacker with mirthless glee.
"GET OUT OF HERE!" Charles Force bellowed when he saw them dangling on the wire above him. "SAVE YOURSELVES!" And she felt it, felt his ferocious might push them out of the hole, send them flying through the air and sprawling out onto the sidewalk. They made it to the surface just in time.
Just behind or underneath, she wasn't sure, she felt a huge wave, as if a lightning bolt had just missed her by a centimeter. Then the universe wobbled.
A ripple.
A tear.
A wound.
For a moment the world was not in focus. Schuyler could see into the vastness of space and infinity. Alternate universes. Alternate endings. Alternate outcomes.
She felt a trembling deep inside herself as well as out, as if every atom in the known universe were shaking, as if time itself were being unhinged, as if the very earth, the very world they lived in, were in danger of being destroyed.
But then, just as suddenly, everything snapped back into place. Time fixed itself. The universe stopped trembling. The world was the same as it ever was.
Schuyler was sprawled on the sidewalk. She couldn't feel anything: her legs, her arms, everything was numb. Jack lay on the ground beside her. With the last of her remaining strength, she reached for him, brushing her fingertips against his cold ones, and then she felt his hand grasp hers in his strong, firm grip. He was alive. Her heart rejoiced. He was alive. They had survived.
But there was no sign of Charles Force anywhere.
ER 29
Mimi
Mimi felt someone come up behind her, but when she turned around, it was not the handsome Venator she saw, but a wraith. A blackened, burned figure. A walking corpse with sockets for eyes and a slash for a mouth, and a bandaged torso. Burned, disfigured, but somehow stomachchurningly... alive.
"You..." The wraith pointed a bony finger at Mimi, and spoke in a whistling, raspy whisper reminiscent of rustling dead leaves. "You dare..."
That voice. Even in its present, eerie iteration, Mimi recognized that voice. It had once made speeches in front of podiums, had once welcomed elite groups of guests to a particularly spectacular Park Avenue co-op.
"Warden Cutler?" Mimi whispered. "But I... I killed you."
It sounded absurd even as she said it. But she had cut Nan Cutler in two, had left her to burn in the black fire in the Almeida villa. How could the warden have survived? It was ridiculous. And it was equally absurd of Mimi to parry or banter with a walking and talking death wraith.
"One more step and I'll have your blood," the faceless horror croaked. What was not charred or blistered on her body was bone, a sickening sight.
Mimi's hand twitched a little. She should not have put her blade away. Did she have time? Where the hell was the rest of the team? Had Kingsley heard her? Where were the boys when she needed them? Why had she strayed from the group; Venator training taught that you always stayed in twos. How stupid of her to have followed those footprints.... It had trap written all over it.
Would she have enough time to arm up before Nan made a move on her? No time to think'she unsheathed it?but even as she did, in that same moment, Mimi found herself locked in a death grip with the half-dead Silver Blood.
The monster who had once been the most sought-after hostess in New York was ferociously strong, and as much as Mimi kicked and clawed, the demon would not release her hold. Mimi could feel its foul breath on her neck, knew it would not be long before its fangs would puncture skin and draw her blood....
