THIRTY-TWO
Mimi
Mimi wanted to scream. Riddles and clues and a dead body and now yet another mystery. She wanted explanations and she wanted them now. “What do you mean she’s not dead?” she cried. But Kingsley and the team were more interested in examining the bodies of the Silver Bloods right then.
A man and a woman. Mimi recognized them from the Committee. The couple had lived next door to the Forces on Fifth Avenue. My god, Mimi thought, her heart racing. The hidden Silver Bloods were like terrorist sleeper cells; who knew how many more of them were in the Coven?
Ted examined the wound on the woman’s chest. There was a mark in the middle of it that had been obscured by all the blood. It was a tattoo of a sword piercing clouds, right where the heart would be.
“Is that what I think it is?” Mimi asked.
“The archangel’s sigul.” Kingsley nodded. “You see that gold crust around the wound? There’s only one sword in the world that can do that. Michael’s.”
“I don’t understand,” Mimi said. “I don’t understand any of this.”
Kingsley closed his eyes in fierce concentration. “They took her from the hotel a year ago. For some reason, they must have wanted her alive. Nan Cutler survived and posed as Jordan’s grandmother, hiding her in the favela, where Jordan must have been able to befriend those children. But Sophia knew we were coming—she left us the note—told the children who to give it to. And she knew the Silver Bloods would take her here, but I think we were supposed to save her. That’s what she saw. That’s why she sent us here—to prevent this from happening. But somehow her timing was off . They decided to kill her sooner than she expected.”
“But she succeeded in fighting them off. She found Michael’s sword—that must have been what she was looking for. It had been stolen from my father’s study, you know. The Silver Bloods must have had it,” Mimi said, thinking of the burglary. “So we know what killed these two,” she said. “But then something else happened. . . .”
“Yes. Nan came back, and that was a surprise. Jordan didn’t see that one coming,” Kingsley said.
“So Nan killed her, or at least she thought she did.”
“Yes.”
“But the irises—you said she isn’t dead,” Mimi said. “But Jordan is dead.”
“Yes. But Jordan was just a physical shell for the Watcher.” Kingsley looked at Mimi. “You really don’t remember any of this? You should be ashamed.”
“I don’t have to apologize for anything!” But she felt as if she should.
“The Watcher is not exactly one of us. While her spirit can be called up in the blood to be born in a new cycle, there’s something that the Silver Bloods don’t know. In Rome, when Sophia was the first of us to recognize Lucifer in the Emperor Caligula, when her cycle was completed, the Coven decided she was too valuable to be bound by blood alone. So Michael set her spirit free. She is more than vampire. She is like a ghost. She inhabits a body, a machine, but she can leave it—and exchange it—at any time.”
“So, Nan Cutler killed her body, but Jordan had time to release her spirit into something else? What?”
Kingsley looked out the window, at the colorful birds hanging in the trees. “My guess is she went into one of those macaws out there. An intelligent bird. But that would just be a temporary shelter. She would look for a Red Blood as soon as she could.”
“So you mean to tell me . . . she’s out there? Living in another body?” Mimi asked skeptically.
“Yes.”
Mimi crossed her arms. “A human. A Red Blood.”
“Yes.” Kingsley’s patience was wearing thin. “They are made from the same physical shell as we are. A human host.”
“And you know all this—that she’s still alive—just by looking into her eyes?”
“If the Watcher had truly been destroyed, Jordan’s eyes would have pupils. You know what they say . . . eyes . . . windows . . . soul. Do I have to put it together for you, Force?”
They buried Jordan near the waterfalls. Kingsley fashioned a cross from two branches and stuck it in the mound. The four of them clustered around the grave while he said a few words.
“We give to the earth the body of Jordan Llewellyn, who carried the spirit of the Pistis Sophia. We ask the earth to take what is hers, and send it back with gratitude and love and sorrow. Rest in peace.”
Mimi and the Lennox brothers murmured soft Amens.
The Van Alen Legacy
Melissa de la Cruz's books
- Alanna The First Adventure
- Alone The Girl in the Box
- Asgoleth the Warrior
- Awakening the Fire
- Between the Lives
- Black Feathers
- Bless The Beauty
- By the Sword
- In the Arms of Stone Angels
- Knights The Eye of Divinity
- Knights The Hand of Tharnin
- Knights The Heart of Shadows
- Mind the Gap
- Omega The Girl in the Box
- On the Edge of Humanity
- The Alchemist in the Shadows
- Possessing the Grimstone
- The Steel Remains
- The 13th Horseman
- The Age Atomic
- The Alchemaster's Apprentice
- The Alchemy of Stone
- The Ambassador's Mission
- The Anvil of the World
- The Apothecary
- The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf
- The Bible Repairman and Other Stories
- The Black Lung Captain
- The Black Prism
- The Blue Door
- The Bone House
- The Book of Doom
- The Breaking
- The Cadet of Tildor
- The Cavalier
- The Circle (Hammer)
- The Claws of Evil
- The Concrete Grove
- The Conduit The Gryphon Series
- The Cry of the Icemark
- The Dark
- The Dark Rider
- The Dark Thorn
- The Dead of Winter
- The Devil's Kiss
- The Devil's Looking-Glass
- The Devil's Pay (Dogs of War)
- The Door to Lost Pages
- The Dress
- The Emperor of All Things
- The Emperors Knife
- The End of the World
- The Eternal War
- The Executioness
- The Exiled Blade (The Assassini)
- The Fate of the Dwarves
- The Fate of the Muse
- The Frozen Moon
- The Garden of Stones
- The Gate Thief
- The Gates
- The Ghoul Next Door
- The Gilded Age
- The Godling Chronicles The Shadow of God
- The Guest & The Change
- The Guidance
- The High-Wizard's Hunt
- The Holders
- The Honey Witch
- The House of Yeel
- The Lies of Locke Lamora
- The Living Curse
- The Living End
- The Magic Shop
- The Magicians of Night
- The Magnolia League
- The Marenon Chronicles Collection
- The Marquis (The 13th Floor)
- The Mermaid's Mirror
- The Merman and the Moon Forgotten
- The Original Sin
- The Pearl of the Soul of the World
- The People's Will
- The Prophecy (The Guardians)
- The Reaping
- The Rebel Prince
- The Reunited
- The Rithmatist
- The_River_Kings_Road
- The Rush (The Siren Series)
- The Savage Blue
- The Scar-Crow Men
- The Science of Discworld IV Judgement Da
- The Scourge (A.G. Henley)
- The Sentinel Mage
- The Serpent in the Stone
- The Serpent Sea
- The Shadow Cats
- The Slither Sisters
- The Song of Andiene