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“When the order was founded by Father Linardi, we were given two directives by the Blessed Ones, and one was the continued purge of the Mistress’s children.”
“The Mistress?” Jack asked.
The priest nodded. “Lucifer’s first human bride. It is said he gave her the gift of eternal life but she was destroyed by the first Petruvians.”
“Who are the Blessed Ones?” Schuyler asked.
“The vampires, like yourselves. Our founders.”
“You’re telling me that Blue Bloods sanctioned the killing of humans? Of innocent women?” Schuyler demanded.
“They have been marked with the triglyph,” the priest said, bowing his head. “They carry the Nephilim. For hundreds of years we have held fast to our mission. We guard the gate. We hunt down the contaminated.”
“The gate is a lie. Hellsmouth is nothing but a smoke screen. There is no gate there,” Schuyler declared.
The priests balked. “It is a sacred space. . . . That cannot be.”
“It is,” Schuyler said. “We were there.”
“You entered the gate.” Father Arnoldi looked sharply at Ghedi. “That is not allowed.” As Jack had guessed, the human gatekeepers had been ordered to stay away from the site.
Ghedi bowed his head. “It was necessary. The girl was there.”
“We were led there. Whoever took MariElena, they wanted us to know it was false,” Jack explained. “They are taunting us.”
“Ghedi said Father Baldessarre was worried about certain things?” Schuyler asked.
The priests shifted in their seats and looked uncomfortable. “Lately, there have been too many taken. Each year only one, or two at the most. But now we hear too many reports, and each is the same. The girls are taken, and when we find them, they carry the mark.”
“You will not kill MariElena,” Schuyler warned.
The old priest looked at her balefully. “She carries a dangerous enemy. It is better for her to die.”
Schuyler realized something. When they had first asked Ghedi to explain his connection to his grandfather, Ghedi had told them a story of his mother’s death. “Ghedi, your mother, she had been taken. . . .”
“Yes.” Ghedi nodded. “She carried the mark. It burned in her skin. And her belly grew. She began to have visions and shakes. She spoke of Hell.”
“You told us she died in childbirth, and that the priests took you as an orphan. But the Petruvians killed her, didn’t they? And took you in afterward.”
He did not deny it.
“And yet you do not hate them,” she marveled.
“My mother was damned, Schuyler. And the child could not live. Not in this world.”
“We will not allow you to harm MariElena,” Schuyler said. “There has to be a way to heal her.”
The conversation came to a stalemate, and the meeting adjourned. Back in their room, Schuyler rummaged through Lawrence’s notes. “I think I found something that links Father Linardi, the first Petruvian, to Catherine of Siena.” She held up a sheaf of letters. “I didn’t think they were important, but now I do. Jack, these are love letters. Benedictus was Catherine’s human familiar. She ordered him to guard this false gate. Which means that the real gate is still somewhere here.”
Schuyler tied the sheets excitedly. “Catherine was guarding the real gate, and used the Petruvians as a decoy.”
“But the Croatan know the gate is false, and if they are taking women, it means that the real gate, wherever it is, has been compromised somehow,” Jack said.
“But if that’s the case, wouldn’t this whole countryside be overrun with demons already?”
“Not exactly. What did Ghedi say? The raiders who took his mother—the flesh traders who took MariElena—they were human. Michael’s strength still keeps the demons in the underworld.”
“But it doesn’t keep humans out.” Schuyler nodded. “They’re taking the girls to Hell. That was why I couldn’t locate MariElena in the glom.
