“We need all our strength now. We need you, Charles. Don’t turn your back on us.” Lawrence’s voice was low and gravelly. He coughed several times, and the smell of sweet tobacco from his pipe had filled the hallway outside her father’s office.
Charles was adamant. He had been humiliated and rejected. If the Conclave would not have him, he would not have the Conclave. “Why do they need me when they have you, Regis,” Charles spat, as if even saying it were distasteful.
“I will go.”
Lawrence had merely raised an eyebrow upon discovering Mimi standing in front of them. Charles hadn’t looked too surprised either. Finding a way through locked doors had always been one of Mimi’s talents, even as a young child.
“Azrael,” Lawrence murmured. “Do you remember?”
“Not everything. Not yet. But I do remember you . . . Grandfather,” Mimi said with a smirk.
“That’s enough for me.” Lawrence smiled in a way that was not too unlike Charles’s own. “Charles, it’s decided. Mimi shall have your seat on the Conclave. She will report to you, as your representative. Azrael, you are dismissed.”
Mimi had been about to protest, until she realized she had been glommed into leaving the den without her noticing. The old coot was clever. But nothing was stopping her from pressing an ear against the doors.
“She is dangerous,” Lawrence was saying softly. “I was surprised to find that you had called up the twins to this cycle. Was it really necessary?”
“Like you said, she is strong.” Charles sighed. “If there is battle ahead, as you want us all to believe, Lawrence, you will need her on your side.”
Lawrence snorted. “If she stays true.”
“She always has,” Charles said sharply. “And she was not the only one among us who once loved the Morningstar.”
“A grave mistake we all made.” Lawrence nodded.
Charles said softly, “No, not all of us.”
Mimi floated away from the door. She had heard all she needed to hear.
Azrael. He’d called her by her real name. A name that was etched deep into her consciousness, deep into her bones, her very blood. What was she except her name? When you were alive for thousands of years, taking a new moniker after another, names became like gift wrapping. Something decorative that you answered to. Take her name in this cycle, for example: Mimi. It was the name of a socialite, a flighty woman who spent her days maxing out credit cards and who cared only for spa treatments and dinner parties.
It hid her true identity.
For she was Azrael. Angel of Death. She brought darkness to the light. It was her gift and her curse.
She was a Blue Blood. As Charles had said, one of the strongest. Charles and Lawrence had been talking about the end of days. The Fall. During the war with Lucifer, it had been Azrael and her twin, Abbadon, who had turned the tide, who had changed the course of the last battle. They had betrayed their prince and joined Michael, kneeling to the golden sword. They had stayed true to the light, even though they were made of the dark.
Theirs had been a crucial desertion. If it were not for her and Jack, who could say who would have won? Would Lucifer be the king of all kings on a heavenly throne if they had not abandoned him? And what did they win anyway, but this endless life on earth. This endless cycle of reparation and absolution. For whom and for what did they make amends? Did God even know they existed anymore? Would they ever regain the paradise they had lost?
Had it been worth it? Mimi wondered as she took her seat at the Conclave, only now noticing the grumblings among her peers.
She looked to where Dorothea Rockefeller was staring. The shock almost sent her reeling. Inside the most protected, most secure haven of the Blue Bloods, and seated next to Lawrence in a place of honor, was none other than the disgraced former Venator, the Silver Blood traitor, Kingsley Martin.
He caught her eye and pointed two fingers in the shape of a gun in her direction. And Kingsley being Kingsley, he smiled as he pretended to pull the trigger.
THREE