The Van Alen Legacy

A small door led to a stairway. Schuyler began to run up two, three steps at a time, until she was suddenly pulled downward, away from her companions, by something that had a viselike grip on her legs. She fell against the stone steps, and the shock dealt a severe blow to her head, and she blacked out for a moment.

When she came to, she discovered she was trapped in a dense, gray smoke, and a feeling of intense, voracious joy filled her. It was the enemy’s joy, Schuyler realized; they were feeding off her fear: consuming it, devouring it. The fog was impenetrable, solid to the touch—it looked amorphous but it had a physical density, an impossible weight, as solid as the bars of a cage or a prison cell.

Then she heard them: a sound like the whistling of the wind through the trees, or like chalk rubbing on a blackboard the wrong way: piercing. It was accompanied by a strange clicking noise, like the clattering of claws against a surface. Clickclickclack . . . devil hooves on a rooftop.

The Silver Bloods were going to take her. She was surrounded and overwhelmed. No. She would not give in to despair; she would fight . . . but with what? She had to stay awake, couldn’t give in to the heavy drowsiness that was overtaking her. Then she saw the eyes shining in the darkness, their otherworldy, ominous, crimson gaze—eyes brimming with hellfire itself. Leviathan had come to finish what he had started.

A blazing light cut through the smoke. At first Schuyler thought it was the torch, but then she saw it was a sword. It was completely unlike any sword she had ever seen before. Her mother’s sword had shone with a bright white flame: as pure as ivory and as beautiful as sunlight. This blade was different. It was almost the same color as the smoke: a dark gray edged with silver, and there were terrifying black marks on it. It looked less like a sword than an ax, rough-hewn and primitive, with a battered leather holster for a scabbard.

“Schuyler, run!” Jack bellowed. “GO!” He slashed his ugly blade across the creature—or was it more than one? Was it just Leviathan or more than that?

The monster screamed in pain, and now Schuyler could feel its fear. Saw the reflection of what it saw in its eyes.

Because Jack had transformed. He was no longer there. Only Abbadon.

Schuyler did not want to turn around. Did not want to see what Jack had turned into, but she caught a glimpse of the black fire that surrounded him, that lit up his image and made him glorious and terrible, like a vengeful, wrathful god. Frightful and awful to behold, a power that was not of this world, not of this kind.

Schuyler would not want to admit it, but Abbadon didn’t look all that different from Leviathan, the demon that had sprung from the earth.

But she couldn’t think about that now.

Instead, she ran.





TWENTY-FIVE

Bliss


Of course, just because Bliss was allowed to have control once in a while did not mean that things were back to normal. She would start taking her life for granted, but then the Visitor would return, and it was out, out, out again till next time. She would keep track: Monday to Wednesday, then out for much of Thursday, then the weekend blending into a blur—then back!—she would still be confused by dates, think it was Thursday when it was really Saturday. As the days passed, it was becoming more difficult to adjust to the times when the Visitor returned, to suddenly find herself thrown out of the light and the world, and back into that cold, empty void of memory and restlessness.

She decided that the next time it happened, she would not allow him to shut her out. There had to be a way to stay. She had to find out what the Visitor was planning—where this was all going. Sure, the Visitor had allowed her to have part of her life back, but who knew if it would continue? Plus, Bliss didn’t want to share. She wanted all of herself back. She couldn’t live like this, like a crazy person. There were other people to think about—the Visitor was dangerous, evil. She couldn’t let what had happened in Rio happen again.

The thought made her insides turn to ice. If only there were more fashion shows to book, or more parties to distract her; but things were winding down in the Hamptons, and there were fewer excuses for her to be out in the world.

She spent the afternoon sunbathing in the backyard. She was so pale, she always burned, and had lathered up with some French sunscreen that was like, SPF 100—you might as well be wearing a blanket. She basked in the sun, enjoying how the heat slowly warmed her body. After a year of being nowhere, it was heaven to be outside again, to sit on a chaise lounge, bobbing gently in the middle of the pool, her hand skimming the warm water.