36 A GOOD MAN
OLIVER WAS WAITING FOR THEM at headquarters, and together they went to the security floor. The chief was in his office, almost waiting for them, when they arrived. Ara burst open the door, her blades in her hands, and death on her face.
Sam was putting away his files. He looked up at them, disinterested, unafraid. “I wondered when you would get here,” he said.
“Why, Sam?” she asked. “Why did you do it? You fought so hard to defeat Lucifer—how could you do this?”
“I fought, and fought, and fought. All I did was fight,” he said wearily. “I was a Venator for longer than any one of you can know. Kingsley,” he said, spotting his old friend in the doorway.
“Sam,” Kingsley said, and there were tears in his eyes. “Sam… you should have told someone you needed help.”
“I told them it wasn’t you. I told them, but they wouldn’t listen.” Sam shrugged. “I told them you were a good man.”
“You were a good man.”
“I was. But the War broke me.” He brought out a frame and showed Ara. “You didn’t know her. Her name was Dehua Chen. Deming’s sister. My bondmate. She died in the War. I lost her.”
“We lost a lot of good people,” she said.
“You didn’t,” Sam said, looking at Kingsley and Mimi accusingly. “You got your happy ending. But when she died, all I got… was nothing. Just this fucking job…”
“I thought we were friends, too, Sam,” Oliver said. Everyone turned to look at the beleaguered Regis who had just arrived.
“Friends?” Sam snarled. “You had everything—the Coven—her. Your little human familiar. You were happy. I blamed you for her death. Dehua died saving your ass.”
Oliver twitched. He had been mortal in the battle; it was before his transformation. Sam was right—Dehua had saved him, had died saving him.
“She gave her life for yours. I never forgave you. Never.”
“She would hate you,” Mimi said. “Dehua fought Lucifer; she gave her life fighting him. She would hate you for what you’ve done here.”
“Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think I think of that every day of my life?” he spat. “Peace. Fuck your peace. I don’t have peace. Now you’ll never have peace. Suck on their blood, and see what monster you create.” He laughed. “See how Lucifer is in all their hearts, all their minds.”
“What did the Nephilim promise you, Sam?” Oliver asked quietly. “Did they promise that you could have Dehua back? Is that what they promised?”
Sam smiled a deathly smile. “How did you know?”
“I know the way they work. They feed into your desires, and they twist them. They give you what you want, but what they meant to do was for you to join her—in death.”
“You killed Georgina,” Kingsley said.
“Had to be done. She was asking too many questions, nosing around. She saw me do a drop-off at the corner, and she asked me point-blank if I was Darcy’s supplier. I told her I was, and that if she met me later that night I would tell her where I got it.”
“Ivy—she was the one who got the blood for you, wasn’t she? She scraped them off the paintings. You targeted her, you needed Allegra’s blood as well as Lucifer’s, and you needed an artist to get it.”
He smiled. “Then she goes and tells Finn that she’s my human familiar. Little tattletale. But that’s the best part of this story. Finn.”
“What about Finn?” asked Oliver, seething. He hated to hear her name on this traitor’s evil lips.
“I didn’t do anything to Finn,” he said with a smile. “She volunteered. Your little perfect trophy. I found her trolling for drugs on the streets.”
Oliver was shocked into silence.
“When she found out what I was doing, she wanted to be part of it. She was the one who put the pentagram in your office, and on your building, to mark you as one of our victims.”
“No,” Oliver said softly. “No. Not Finn.”
“I didn’t see it. Edon and I questioned her and I didn’t see it,” said Ara, appalled. “She was mortal—I didn’t think she had the ability to lie to me.”
“We bumped into each other, right before the raid on the Nephilim nest,” Sam said. “She asked me what I was doing there and I told her. Poisoning the kids would be the first step; if it worked, the infection would spread. I thought I’d kill her like the rest, but she said she had a better idea. She thinks big, I’ll give that to her.”
“No,” Oliver said. “No, you’re lying.”
“She begged me not to kill her; she said she would take the rest of the remains in one pill the night of the ball. I had only been using a tiny bit of it in the drugs, but she said she wanted me to make her one with every last ash in it. She would take it right before the investiture. Afterward she would offer herself up to you. She knew you wouldn’t be able to help yourself, that you would want to suck on her right there.” His eyes gleamed with a terrible madness. “So that you would take her—kill her—and then she could come back. As something else. Reborn, shall we say. She wanted another life. Eternal life. She wanted you to give it to her. To be the one to kill her; it would be her last gift to you and the Coven.” He smiled an evil, empty grin. “What did you do to her, Oliver, to make her hate you so much?”
Oliver lunged at Sam, but Kingsley held him back. “Easy, man… don’t be like him. Don’t give in to revenge.”
Sam laughed.
Edon moved to handcuff him, and Mimi was there with her sword, but before they could stop her, Ara had her blades out. The crescent blades, her moon shanks. A Venator’s deadliest weapon able to kill the most dangerous of enemies. Lucifer’s men.
She ran toward Sam and with an agonized, angry scream cut his head off his body with her weapons.
No trial, no courtrooms. Justice was meted out by the Venator’s blades.
No mercy, because she was a Venator, and she had found the monster lurking in the shadows. Just as she had vowed, she had uncovered the secrets of the darkness and brought the truth to light.
Ara dropped the blades to the ground and fell on her knees, sobbing. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.” She didn’t know to whom she was apologizing, but she knew she had to ask for forgiveness.
Edon looked askance and pulled her up to stand, held her while she cried. “Don’t blame yourself, Ara. It’s not your fault. You did what you had to,” he said. His voice was the kindest she had ever heard.
“Hey,” Edon growled. “Look at me. You’re not a killer. You’re a good person.”
She nodded and gulped her tears and sobbed some more. Because Sam Lennox was a good man, but things had been taken from him—hope, love, life—and so he had done this. He needed salvation just as much as she had.
“Ara.” Edon sighed.
“I can’t… I can’t…,” she said.
Edon embraced her. The Regis was standing there, looking lost, and Kingsley and Mimi were standing behind him; Mimi was patting his shoulder.
The door burst open again and Deming Chen entered with a group of Venators, blades and guns at the ready. She saw Sam’s body on the floor. “What the fuck is going on?”
“Go,” Kingsley said to Edon. “We’ll take care of this. But you take her out of here. Take care of her.”
37 NEVER SAY GOOD-BYE
I SUPPOSE THIS IS GOOD-BYE?” Kingsley asked, when they were alone in her apartment again. After Ara had killed Sam, he and Mimi had explained everything to the Venators and had gotten everything set to rights, or as much as they could. The angel drug, the Silver Poison, everything that Sam had done was now out in the open, and the only thing unresolved was their relationship.
“Is it?” Mimi asked. “Does it have to be?” She sighed and turned her back to him, and a few minutes later, his breath was in her ear and his hands circled her waist. “Is that what you want? Or do you want to have a little fun?” he asked.
“What do you have in mind?” she asked.
“Why don’t you put
on that dress you were wearing the other night and I’ll show you?” He grinned.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” she said, pulling him closer.
“Of course it doesn’t.” Then his mouth was on hers, and he was kissing her, and she was kissing him back, urgently, passionately, just like the first time, just like before.
“I’m still mad at you,” she said, and now his hands were all around her body, and one of them was pulling down the zipper of her dress.
“Of course you are, darling.” He hooked her leg around his knee, and he let her dress fall to the floor, while she tore at his shirt, ripping it off his body. His laughter was dark and rich and knowing. But this time, she caught his hands and chained them to the bedpost. “My turn.” She smiled.
Then she rode him, and he was helpless, watching her, loving her, his eternal, immortal love, and they cried out together, and she put her head on his chest and wept, because she hated him for what he could do to her. And because she loved him so much.
Kingsley finally told her what he had meant to say before she left. “You are my home. Wherever you are, I will be. Don’t leave me, ever. Don’t ever do that again. You almost destroyed me,” he said tenderly.
She wiped his tears and her own. “I’m sorry,” she said. “The minute I left the house, I knew I’d made a mistake, but I couldn’t stop myself.”
“I want to be where you are,” he said.
“I’ll never leave you. Never,” she promised.
“Well, even if you do,” he said, “I’ll follow you.”
“What are we going to do?” she asked. “We’re terrible at this.”
“What we always do,” he said. “What we can. We’ll stay together because that’s the only thing I know how to do. You can never get rid of me. Never.”
She smiled happily, tracing a lazy finger on his chest and downward, feeling him spark back to life for more. “Are you ever going to take these off?” he asked, pulling against the chains.
“I don’t know.” She smiled. “I sort of like you like this,” she said, leaning over his body, teasing him with her tongue, and taking all of him in her mouth.
His eyes rolled to the back of his head and he groaned happily.
There was no such thing as a happy ending, only a happy present. Mimi knew they would fight again, and they would scream at each other again, but they would never break apart. Whatever happened, they would be together, always.
After the third time they made love that night, Mimi decided she had tortured the poor boy enough and unlocked the chains.
“What about those bells?” she asked suddenly. “Hell’s Bells, you said—something had escaped from Hell.”
“Yes. Something had,” he said sheepishly, rubbing his wrists, his eyes glazed and content after their lovemaking. “Can you guess?”
“You never unlocked the gates for me, did you? You bastard,” she said. “You wanted to set off the alarm.”
“No, I didn’t. But when it first rang, I was convinced something had escaped from Hell. I only realized later that I had made a huge mistake. That I had forgotten to unlock the gates for you, and that’s why the alarm went off. But it was a wake-up call, wasn’t it? A dangerous creature had escaped from the underworld, escaped from my notice. You.” He smiled sheepishly.
She rattled the chains threateningly.
“Enough,” he laughed, taking her in his arms and kissing her once more. “I turned them off a long time ago. Don’t you notice? You can’t hear them anymore.”
“What are we going to do?” she asked. “Will you take the position?” The one the conclave had offered him after they had processed all the information.
He sighed. “I don’t think I have a choice. What about you?”
“I’ll do it if you do,” she said.
Oliver had left the Coven. He was no longer Regis, as it turned out that the purification he had performed on the poison had also washed out the blood of the Coven from his soul. He had left to find Finn. She was out there—alive, alone, lost, corrupted—and he had to find her; he had to save her.
Before they had left headquarters, Chris Jackson, who was the acting head of the Coven since Oliver relinquished the title, had asked them to return and serve, with Kingsley as Venator chief and Mimi as Regent, and while it was not something they wanted or had aspired to, they decided it was the best for now.
At the very least, it meant they could stay in New York. Together.
38 WOLF AND ANGEL
THE MISSING DEAD GIRLS had been found right inside the Coven headquarters. They had managed to stagger out of the morgue and to the basement, but that was as far as they had been able to go. Both of them were dead; they would not rise again. The angel and demon blood had resurrected them for a time, but it had not turned them into vampires. The Nephilim’s plan hadn’t worked as well as they had hoped. Vampires could not turn mortals into vampires, at least not yet. That was still a fairy story distributed by the Conspiracy.
Sometimes everything went as it was supposed to. Sometimes the bad guys didn’t get away. At least, not all of them. And not often enough, thought Ara.
But sometimes.
Sometimes the world got saved. Parts of it, at least. Partly saved.
This was one of those times, and Ara didn’t question it.
The investigation concluded swiftly. She was cleared on every count, and the death of Sam Lennox, former boss and former lover, was deemed justified. Ara was found to have delivered justice, as was her calling, and she had been reinstated on the Venator team by the following week.
One long week.
She entered her office, promptly (for once) at midnight, and found Edon at their desk. He motioned to the cup of coffee waiting on her side, next to her empty chair. “Three sugars,” he said. “And I tipped the barista this time.”
Ara smiled, sinking into her hard, wooden chair. “Miracles never cease,” she said.
“Welcome back, boss,” he said, leaning back in his chair with a grin. Edon kicked his feet up on the desk. “I knew you couldn’t keep away.”
Ara shoved them back off. “What, you missed me, Marrok? You going soft?”
He scoffed. “No. But your neighbor in 9B keeps calling me up for dates and, you know, I could use an extra set of hands around to answer the phone. Just to keep track of all my lady friends.”
“Is that all I am to you? A pair of… hands?” She smiled teasingly.
“You really want me to answer that?” He flicked a coffee stirrer across the desk, in her direction. “I’m just sayin’. I saw how you looked at me, back there in my penguin suit.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, wolf.”
“I know. You’re not all that bright. I don’t know why nobody listens to me about that.” He sighed dramatically.
She smiled. “What about you? Are you leaving? Going back to keeping time?”
Edon shrugged. “I dunno. I think I might kick back here awhile. Or go visit my brother Mac in Vienna. But who knows, I find I’m quite fond of the Big Apple.”
“You know, no one who’s from New York ever calls it that, right? It’s like calling San Francisco ‘Frisco.’ ” She shuddered.
“Aiiight,” he drawled. “Calm down now.”
She stiffened. She didn’t want to think about splitting up with another partner. Not so soon. Not even after all they’d been through together.
So she did what she always did, which was say the opposite of what she meant or even felt. “You should probably go.”
“Go?”
“See your brother. Vienna. It’s full of pastry and shit like that.”
“Yeah?” He looked her in the eye. “That’s what you think?”
She shrugged. “Why not? This city is a shithole. This department is screwed. The whole community is on edge. Why not get out while you still can? Even the Regis is gone, right? Why should anyone stay?”
He thought about it, tapping the desk. “You’re right. Everything ab
out this job blows. And you know what else?”
“What?”
He sat up. “We never even got one fucking slow dance. I mean, forget about the picture, angel. Not one dance. Can you believe that shit?”
“Seriously.”
He stood up and held out his hand.
She shook her head, laughing. “Shut the fuck up.”
“Come on.”
“Go away.”
“No.”
“I am not dancing with you in the middle of the fucking office, Marrock.”
“Why not, angel?” His eyes twinkled. “We only have one prom.” He leaned closer, and she could feel the warmth of his face as it neared hers.
“We only have one anything,” he said softly.
And that was when he kissed her, kissed her on the lips, swiftly, tenderly, and she kissed him back, and they were kissing right there in the middle of their office. And it felt good to kiss Edon after what had happened, almost as if he were reminding her of her better nature.
Something about it worked. Something about him worked.
She pulled away from him, not in a bad way, but because he had already made it better.
He nodded to let her know he understood.
Ara looked around, but no one had noticed as far as she could tell. She cleared her throat. “Turns out that kid who was distributing the pills, that guy who calls himself Scooby, is one of us. Sam recruited him. He disappeared once everything went down,” she said and tossed him the file.
He caught it. “Where do we start?”
“Don’t scare the kids this time. We need them to talk,” she warned.
“Whatever you say, boss.”
Ara followed him out of the office. Edon Marrok. Her partner, her friend. She wasn’t alone in the world anymore, and if there was this thing between them, she had no way of knowing how real it was.
But she had a feeling they had all the time in the world to find out.
39 VAMPIRE BRIDE