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The Man From the Citadel
Florence, 1452
The Silver Blood chanced a glance in their direction, and immediately the cloaked stranger disappeared.
“We’ve been spotted. Now!” Dre urged, running toward their prey. Gio and Tomi burst out of the shadows, golden swords at the ready, and the chase resumed.
They followed the Silver Blood through the crooked streets, all the way into the cathedral, to the very top of Brunelleschi’s unfinished dome, the highest point in Florence.
The Silver Blood dodged their blows with an agility and strength equal to their own. It was unlike any other they had ever encountered, but in the end, it was still no match for the three armed Venators. Backed into a corner, it snarled and hissed, knowing it had already lost.
Dre drew his sword to its throat and prepared to deliver the final stroke, when a voice rang out from the stairway. Someone else had followed them up to the spire.
“Heel, Venator.”
They turned to see a hooded stranger approach. Under the moonlight, they saw that he was wearing the colored robes and gold chains of the Citadel. His features were still hidden by the hood of his cloak, but it was the same human the Silver Blood had spoken to earlier.
“This creature is not yours to send to Hell, for he is already there,” the dark man declared, and with a wave of his hand the Silver Blood disappeared into the black flames.
Tomi gasped, shocked and dismayed as she realized that the creature they were chasing was no Silver Blood, no fallen angel from Heaven, but a demon from Hell itself.
The hooded stranger teetered on the edge of the rim. He lifted a single foot outward into nothingness and plunged through the chasm of the unfinished dome. His robes blown wide in the wind revealed three black symbols engraved in the flesh of his arm. One was of a sword piercing a star. The last time she’d seen that symbol was on Lucifer’s wrist in Rome, when the Dark Prince of the Silver Bloods was calling himself Caligula.
The three Venators ran down to the bottom of the church, where they found the body of the hooded stranger carrying Lucifer’s mark.
The Red Blood was dead.
EIGHT
Wildflowers
Even though the sunlight, lovely and warm, was streaming into the tent, when Schuyler woke up, she felt a fearsome cold. She had gotten so used to sleeping next to Jack’s warm body, she was at a bit of a loss to find that he was not by her side. She groped at the emptiness next to her. His sleeping bag was still warm. He had not been gone long.
Love? she sent.
I am near, do not worry. Go back to sleep.
She laid her head back against the blankets and fell asleep, dreaming of fields strewn with wildflowers.
An hour later she rose and walked down to the nearby creek they had found the night before. All her life she had lived in relative comfort, and it was strange to be out in the wild, to feel unencumbered and liberated from the routine of modern life.
She took off her shirt and her waterlogged shoes, stripped down to her underwear. She would wash her clothes in the stream. In the absence of soap, she hit the fabric with a rock to shake out the dirt. This much she knew from watching Hattie wash the clothes at home. Cordelia had not thought much of modern appliances.
She was in the middle of her chore when she felt a presence behind her. She turned to see Jack watching her. He smiled, the first real smile she’d seen on his face since they had left New York. It had been difficult to fully enjoy each other’s company under the watchful gaze of the Countess’s Venators.
“Good morning.” She smiled. Jack had washed as well, and his hair was shiny in the sun. He was as handsome as a god, she thought. Was it just her imagination, or had their exile and journey added to his visage? Every day he looked less like the pretty-boy lacrosse player he had been, and more like the ancient heavenly warrior he really was.
“I brought you something,” he said, holding out a bouquet of tiny violet sprays.
She put one in her hair. Even in the midst of everything they were doing, he was always thinking of her. “Thank you.”
He put his arms around her, and soon they were lying in the grass together. She slipped her hands under his shirt, loving how warm and strong his body felt against hers, loving how closely he held her. Yet even though they were together, she could not stop worrying about how much time they would have—
We have all the time in the world.
You don’t know that. What if . . . She hated how worried she sounded, but she couldn’t help it.
Don’t. Whatever happens, happens.
