What did it mean that a human carried the mark of the Prince of Darkness? Had their old foe found a way back to Earth? It could not be. They had sent the devil down to hell, had locked Caligula behind an impenetrable gate. Together they had sent the Order of the Seven out to the world, to secure the paths of the Dead. The man wearing the Citadel robes had been an impostor. No one had ever seen him before. He was a stranger to their town. Andreas believed that the human had lied and that the creature was no demon, but Tomi was more given to anxiety.
She was sixteen years old; already she knew who she was and what she was meant for in this world. After the crisis in Rome, in every consequent lifetime, the Venators had made it their mission to track down the remaining Silver Bloods who were trapped on the other side of the Gate and still walked the Earth. No one else in the Coven knew about the errant surviving Silver Bloods. It was a secret the Venators kept in order to keep peace in the community. The Blue Bloods had nothing to fear from the Croatan; Andreas had kept their people safe for hundreds of years. Hunting down the Croatan was as routine as a cat chasing field mice. Necessary and efficient.
But now this. Tomi saw the triglyph again, the blood etching on the man’s arm, and dropped her knife, making an ugly smear on the bas-relief. The Master would not be pleased.
“You are troubled, my friend,” Gio said, picking up the knife and handing it back to her. “Do not be. We will take care of this.”
She nodded. “I only wish Dre was here.” Andreas del Pollaiuolo was the youngest adviser to the court of Lorenzo de Medici, working to solidify the family’s grasp on power in Florence over the other ruling families of the city. The Medicis’ banking interests spanned all of Europe with a network of branches in all the major cities. It was a cover that made it easy for Dre to travel the continent without arousing suspicion.
But Tomi knew there was another reason Dre worked so hard to ensure the Medicis’ influence would reach far beyond their beautiful city. The crisis in Rome was forever utmost in his mind. While he had succeeded in banishing Lucifer from the world, he had been unable to halt the decline of the glorious Republic that the Morningstar, as Caligula, had corrupted. Rome was lost.
Dre was intent on rebuilding its glory. He was determined to finish what he started, pledging to resurrect the glory of Rome and the culture of antiquity, and vaulting it to a new level. Already he had rewritten the Code of the Vampires to shape human history and imbue mankind with Blue Blood sensibility and values—the celebration of art, life, beauty and truth. He would bring about mankind’s rebirth, he told her, in their numerous conversations about what they hoped to achieve in this cycle. He had already given it a name: The Renaissance.
But all this work took her beloved away from her, and since the night of the chase, they hardly had a moment together.
He was always like this, her Michael. Andreas. Cassius. Menes. Whatever his name was, he was always hers. Her strength, her love, her reason for being. They would fight this new threat together. She would await his return and then impress upon him the urgency to unmask their hidden enemies and discover the truth behind the Red Blood’s mark.
PART THE SECOND
MIMI FORCE, REGENT OF THE COVEN
New York
The Present
FOURTEEN
Vipers’ Nest
Self-pity was not a word in Mimi Force’s vocabulary. Instead of cursing the loneliness and isolation she felt from losing both her twin and the man she loved—two separate people for the first time in her long and immortal life—she busied herself with Conclave business, burying her grief and rage in her work and finding solace in presiding over the bureaucratic administration of a large and flailing organization.
That old hag Cordelia Van Alen used to describe the current era as “the twilight of the vampires”—as if a heavy velvet curtain were falling across the stage, and it was time for the Blue Bloods to exeunt left. (Mimi always liked those old English words. Exeunt was a vastly more interesting way to shuffle off this mortal coil—as if the vampires were ready to take their bows in front of a standing ovation rather than simply limping away into the sunset.)
If this was their end, her end, then it was an intolerable one. Mimi hadn’t lived a multitude of lifetimes to end up so alone, without the security blanket of Jack to steady her, without Kingsley’s endearing arrogance to keep her on her toes. She wasn’t going to give up so easily.