Blue Bloods: Keys to the Repository

“Yes, but you’re not.” His eyes came alive, and before Bliss could blink, the boy had wrapped his fist around her neck and pinned her to the floor, locking his knees against her waist and keeping her arms away from her body. His shackles, Bliss could see now, had not been locked.

“Who are you?” she asked, spitting out the words with difficulty, recoiling from the boy’s grip around her neck. She wondered if she could reach into her jean pocket to stab him with the hidden blade she always kept there.

“I think the correct question is, who are you? You’re in our territory.” His voice was low and musical, friendly.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“We don’t like the likes of you here. You smell like the glom,” he said, and she knew he meant that she was not quite human; that somehow, he could sense her formerly immortal stature, when she had once been an angel of fire.

“You know about the glom?” Bliss asked.

The boy laughed. “We hunt in the glom. We are the Abyssus Praetorium.”

Bliss startled. She’d heard the term before. The Guards of the Abyss. Also known as the Praetorian Guard. An image flashed in her mind. She saw the Visitor—Lucifer—her father—standing inside an elaborate palace, surrounded by magnificent columns of gold. A cast of thousands was gathered around his court. Was this Rome? Or ancient Egypt? She couldn’t tell. Lucifer stood at the top of a marble staircase, looking down at a creature of exquisite beauty. It was a man, but he was taller than a human male, with a certain otherworldly magnificence, wild-eyed and ferocious.

The image did not come from her memory but from Lucifer’s. When she had been captive to his spirit, when he had taken over her soul, fragments of his memories had drifted into her consciousness. Triggered by random events, memories she’d never had would suddenly pop into her mind. So. The Visitor knew these creatures. She closed her eyes to recall the scene once more. She could hear Lucifer speak. The language was unfamiliar, its words harsh and convoluted, but she knew she could speak them as if they were her own.

“Release me!” she cried, just as the boy’s hand tightened on her throat. The room froze and from the other side of the door, the beast howled. Then the boy’s grip eased and he fell away, staring at her in amazement and confusion, as if he could not quite understand why he had let her go.

She was as she shocked as he was, but she didn’t have any time to lose. In one fluid motion, Bliss rolled away and bolted from the room, catching her balance before she slipped in a puddle of blood. She wrenched the knife from the freezer door and ran through the doorway and back out into the shop.

What just happened? She had tracked the creature for weeks, and now suddenly it seemed that she was the one who was being pursued. Had Lucifer sent the creature to lure her here? Was he somehow able to reach her once more? Was the boy working for him? How could Allegra have led her to this hellhole? Was everything she had been told and everything she believed nothing but a lie?

Bliss pushed against the front door, surprised to find it was locked. She had purposefully left it open when she’d entered. Who had locked it? She kicked at the jamb, splitting it in two and throwing glass out onto the street. She flung the door open and skidded out onto the sidewalk. Tiny shards of glass dug into her shoes as she stumbled across the pavement toward her car. She heard the slap of running footsteps behind her, but she didn’t turn. Grabbing the keys out of her pocket, she wrestled the door open, slid into the driver’s seat, and fired the engine. She looked ahead of her, and then behind. She was parked in from both sides, the other cars mere inches away from hers. There was no way she could get out without doing damage to either vehicle, or her own. It was obviously a trap. She’d just have to smash her way out. She floored the gas pedal, and slammed into the car in front of her. It moved, but barely.

She slammed on the gas again, this time throwing the car into reverse, and plowed directly into the car behind her, causing a sickening crunch of metal against metal as the back end of her car crunched like an accordion and her taillights exploded in a shower of plastic and dust. She threw the car back into drive and pancaked the rear bumper of the car in front of her. Her own car popped up on the curb—that was more like it— allowing her to twist her way out from between the two cars that had trapped her in front of the butcher shop.

Sweat dripped from her forehead and into her eyes. She blinked, feeling dizzy. She was human now, and despite her strength, she would have to get used to her new limitations.