“Do you know for sure that Eryx is behind Jordan’s abduction?”
Phoenix said solemnly, “When I went to see if Ron Trent was Skia, I popped all over the White House, looking for him. I finally found him, with Ellis, in the Yellow Oval Room on the second floor of the residence. He was telling the president—”
“Did Trent see you?” Key stopped and took a deep breath. Under a cloak, no one could see them, even the lost souls. But Skia were different. Their immortality allowed them to see past a cloak.
“Do you seriously think I’m that stupid?”
Feeling heated glares, aware that all of them were as angry as Phoenix, Key took one more deep breath and shook his head. “No.”
“Trent was telling the president about Eryx. Why would he do that if he wasn’t planning to convince him to pledge?”
“It doesn’t matter. If a man will give away any chance of Heaven to become a drone for Eryx, if he’ll say out loud that he forsakes God, he’s without faith. He’s already lost.”
Ty’s big hand gently smoothed Greta’s fur. “He’s the leader of the free world. He has power, influence. If he belongs to Eryx, it’s as if our oldest brother is president. Imagine the fallout. He’ll appoint Skia and lost souls to judgeships, cabinet seats, committee chairs. He’ll have every agency within the federal government stacked with his followers.”
“He won’t be in office long enough to do any real damage. We’ll take him out immediately.”
Denys was staring at the screen, at Jordan in a PSA for the teen suicide hotline. “An assassination will send the United States into a tailspin.”
“Then let’s hope the president’s faith is stronger than his love for his child.”
Twirling the diamond stud in his ear, Zee spoke up from where he stood, just next to the whiteboard along the east wall. “You’re pissing me off, bro. Maybe you’re in charge, but last I checked, we’re a democracy. Majority rules. Six to one, Key.
“Unless majority wants to break Lucifer’s law, in which case it’s my call.” He looked at each of them, searching for any sign of dissent. One flinch and he’d send that brother to Kyanos for six months to live in solitary. Until the spring thaw, he’d starve unless he could find something to kill on the frozen North Atlantic island.
“If he doesn’t pledge the oath,” Denys said, “Eryx will kill Jordan.”
Key looked again at the screen. Jordan was accepting a posy of bluebells from a child in a London crowd. Her eyes matched the flowers. Her smile was captivating. Thinking of her death, he felt a twinge of regret before he said, “Everybody dies sometime.”
“Except us,” Denys said. “And the Luminas.”
“We’re not human. The Luminas are live angels. Doesn’t count.” He watched Jordan dance with her father at some formal White House dinner. “We’re not going after the president’s daughter. We’re not going to interfere. It’s Lucifer’s law, and if we break it, there’ll be hell to pay.”
Phoenix huffed out an impatient breath. “I told them you’d never go for this on its own merit, but they insisted we try.” He pushed away from the map wall and took a chair at the table. “There’s a caveat to the law. Remember?”
What did he mean, on its own merit? “Of course I remember, but the exception is only if the human is Anabo, if interfering is necessary to protect her. This isn’t—” He stopped talking, suddenly feeling as if a Toyota had been dropped on his chest.
Holy shit.
Jerking his gaze back to the screen, he saw Jordan coming out of a restaurant with a lanky brown-haired guy. They were holding hands, smiling and waving at the camera before getting into a late-model BMW, followed by Secret Service, and driving away.
“She’s Anabo,” Sasha said quietly.
The screen went to a video of Andrew Ellis taking his second oath of office, almost a year ago. His daughter stood with him, looking earnest and serious. “How do you know?”
“Jax and I saw her at the National Cathedral on Christmas Day.”
“Are you sure? Maybe it was just a trick of the light.”
Sasha and Jax exchanged another look before his brother said, “We’re sure. She had the Anabo glow.”
“Christmas was three days ago. If you found an Anabo, why am I just now hearing about it?”
Dead silence was his answer, which meant they were afraid to tell him. Good call. An Anabo, right there in plain sight—available for the taking by the Mephisto—gone, and most likely fated to die. “I’d like an answer sometime before next Christmas.”
“We wanted to see who’s her intended before we told anyone,” Jax said. “It seemed … kinder.”
Key shoved his hands into the pockets of his trench coat and told himself that strangling Ajax, while tempting, was counterproductive. They’d found another Anabo, a huge miracle, and her immediate recovery was imperative. “And?”
Sasha picked up a small plastic bag from the seat of her chair at the end of the table and pulled out a pale blue sweater. “Jax popped into her room and swiped this from her laundry hamper.”
As she walked toward him, Key caught the scent of bluebells, reminding him of Yorkshire, where they’d lived for several centuries, until they lost Jane a hundred years ago and moved to Colorado. As much as anything in England, he missed the bluebells.
Darting a look around, he knew from their expressions that Sasha had shown Jordan’s sweater to each of his brothers, and none of them caught the scent of bluebells.
All this time, he thought he’d be the last to find an Anabo, but the subtle fragrance of bluebells coming at him from that sweater proved him wrong.
He was so short of breath, he was seriously afraid he’d pass out, but he kept his face expressionless. Standing straighter, he forced a calm that came from centuries of practice. His brothers depended on him to keep it together, to be in charge. Any falter would give them reason to doubt him, lose focus, and let go of the tightly held control they kept on their dark natures. Humanity didn’t deserve unrestrained Mephisto wandering the Earth. His leadership had never been questioned because he never wavered from who he was, and he wasn’t going to do so now.
His brothers assumed he was in charge because he was oldest after Eryx, the first of them to become immortal when he turned eighteen. They didn’t know Lucifer had appeared to him while he hovered between death and resurrection and commanded him to lead his brothers, or that he threatened annihilation of their father, Mephistopheles, if Key failed. Having the dark angel of death as a parent was heavy, but there was affection there, of a kind. Not to mention, they counted on M to help in their never-ending war with Eryx. If Lucifer decided to take out their father, Key wasn’t going to be the reason. In a thousand years, he’d never lost his footing, and he wouldn’t now, even though he was scared out of his mind. “Do you think Eryx knows she’s Anabo?” he asked no one in particular.
“We don’t think so,” Jax said. “He can’t see the glow, and unless he sees her birthmark, how could he know? It’s doubtful she knows.”
“I had no clue I was Anabo until Jax found me,” Sasha said. “I’d never even heard of Anabo. Eryx had Jordan taken to use as leverage to get the president to pledge. It’s just a weird coincidence that she’s Anabo.”
She held the sweater out to him. His hand closed around the soft wool and brought it to his nose while his gaze moved once again to the screen, to the face of the girl he’d dreamed of finding his entire miserable life. If they were too late …
Turning, he gave Phoenix a look. “How fast can you make a plan?”
His brother replied evenly, “Already done.”
She was going to die. Soon. Blindfolded and gagged, wrists and ankles bound, riding in what she was certain was the trunk of a car, Jordan tried to stay focused on life after death, on Heaven. Maybe it was morbid, but thinking of her own death was better than thinking about Matthew. So much blood. Rivers of it, pooling beneath him on the floor.
Underneath the blindfold, she squeezed
her eyes more tightly shut and made herself think about God, tried to imagine what Heaven must be like.
Wiggling into her mind were images of Matthew on the first day he came to Oates Priory School, two years ago, after his dad was elected senator from Alabama and moved his family to Washington. Matthew was a new kid in a whole group of new kids, not a big deal at Oates. People moved in and out of Washington every year, all depending on how Americans chose to vote. It was a running joke that no one who started there ever graduated from Oates.
She was used to new faces, but Matthew’s stood out. He made her think of romantic dead poets, with wavy brown hair that always seemed to be across his forehead; big, brown expressive eyes; and a soft drawl that made every word sound beautiful.
She’d nearly fainted when he sat next to her in English and asked if she’d liked visiting China. “I saw you and your dad on TV, standing in front of the Imperial Palace.”
“I loved China, but it’s really smoggy. I couldn’t see much of the Great Wall because so much of it’s hidden by pollution.” Oh, wow, way to be Debbie Downer. She should have said it had been awesome to see the terra-cotta soldiers, or the Beijing opera. She should have said something positive.
While she desperately tried to think of something else to say, something witty and interesting, he said, “I thought the exact same thing. Maybe China should take a cue from your dad and try harder to control pollution.”
He diffused her anxiety and endeared her to him in the space of two seconds. With her dad always in the hot seat, she tended instantly to like anybody who said something nice about him or his job.
Within three weeks, they were going out. He was a paradox: he was crazy about football and R&B, was a total computer geek, and wrote lyrical short stories. But maybe best of all, he never, ever asked her stupid questions about what it was like to live in the White House, or have a dad who was leader of the free world. To Matthew, she was just a girl. Other than Tessa, he was her best friend.
The image of him on the floor, facedown, and all that blood, came rushing back, and she cried so hard, she choked on the gag in her mouth. Was he dead? He must be dead. No one could lose that much blood and live.
Those beautiful eyes, closed forever. Oh, God, and for what? Jordan didn’t know who these guys were, but there was no doubt they were doing this to protest something they didn’t like. She would most likely be killed, and she hoped and prayed it’d be quick, that they wouldn’t cut off her head and send the video to Dad.
A distant voice came from deep inside her memory bank. “If, God forbid, you’re ever taken hostage, there’s a chance you’ll be tortured for information. As someone who lives in close proximity with the president, you will know things, even what you’re not supposed to know. An expert interrogator can find things in your memory you may not consciously remember.” Maggie Young had been part of her Secret Service detail from the start, when Dad first ran for president.
In her heart, she knew Maggie was dead. The gunshots she heard outside the window had ended her life. And Paul never came inside after those shots were fired, so chances were good that he was also dead.
Jordan swallowed back tears and more spit, the taste of the cloth in her mouth causing bile to rise in her throat.
“Don’t try to be a hero,” Maggie had said. “If they ask you a question, answer it. If they want you to say something on a video, even if it’s a lie, do it. Your number one goal is to stay alive as long as possible. No matter what they do to you, remember, we can fix you if you’re alive. Nothing lasts forever except death. An abductor has wants and needs, same as anybody, and he’s convinced he’s doing something noble, something that makes him a hero in his own mind. Play to that, if you can. Do whatever it takes to stay alive.”
Jordan started violently when she suddenly felt someone right behind her, with incredibly high body heat. How could someone get into the trunk with her when the car was moving? The more bizarre question: Why? She felt arms slide around her and caught the scent of a burned matchstick, then had the creepiest sensation that she was weightless. Seconds later, the very hot arms set her on her feet and released the bindings around her wrists. With her ankles still tied together, she was shoved until she fell backward, landing hard in the seat that caught her.
She heard the whine of a plane engine, and her heart raced from rising hysteria. How could she be in the trunk of a car one second, then sitting on a plane the next? Was she dead? Had those guys shot her and this was like The Sixth Sense, where she was dead and didn’t know it?
A deep, resonate voice with a vaguely British accent said, “Remove the gag and blindfold.”
She could feel the plane taxiing, knew they were about to take off, just as the gag was removed and her blindfold was jerked from her eyes.
Blinking in the bright light of the cabin, she hurriedly took stock of her surroundings. It was a small plane, without ordinary seats. Instead, she sat on a wide black leather chair that faced the other side of the plane, which was lined by a long leather bench seat. Two thirtyish guys in brown shirts and jeans sat side by side, staring at her with unreadable eyes. They weren’t the ones who had taken her, she was certain. Those guys had been small and wiry, and these were tall and built. They also smelled bad, like sour BO and stale cigarette smoke.
Suddenly, her chair began to swivel, and she held tight to the armrests. A chair like hers came into view, and the instant she saw the guy sitting in it, her heart raced faster. Young, maybe nineteen or twenty, he was beautiful, with jet-black hair and the face of a god, dressed in a pinstripe suit. But his eyes. Oh, sweet Jesus, his eyes. They were the color of ink, solid black, lifeless, without a hint of humanity.
Instantly, she thought of vampires and ghouls and zombies. Dead people whose souls had left their bodies yet who still walked the Earth.
There was no such thing as vampires, ghouls, or zombies, but she knew for sure that this guy was not human. It had been him in the trunk of the car. He was the one who took her from there to this plane in less than five seconds. She couldn’t look away from those eyes, and in the middle of fear so intense, she was frozen, she knew she was going to throw up.
He came out of his chair to reach across the space between them and cup her chin in his very hot palm. “You will not be sick.”
The nausea left as quickly as it came. He leaned back and settled his arms against the chair rests, staring at her from those horrific eyes. She tried as hard as she could to look away, but couldn’t.
“I’m Eryx DeKyanos. I won’t harm you, Jordan. So please relax.”
Her fear of dying had taken a backseat to horror of something that went far beyond pain and death; a fatal threat to her spirit, what made her human, her very existence.
“You’re wondering who I am and why I’ve taken you from your father.”
She stared and made no move, no reply.
He jerked his head toward one of the men, and within a minute, she was handed a heavy crystal glass filled with amber liquid that smelled like liquor. She never drank alcohol, mostly because her father was never far from her mind. Most kids who were caught with booze got grounded. If she was caught, she’d be on CNN.
“Drink it,” Eryx said. “I realize you’re afraid, but you can’t fly all the way to Bucharest sitting stiffly like that. The whiskey will help you calm down.”
Bucharest. Romania. She had been born in Romania, abandoned at four and left on the steps of a Bucharest orphanage, where she’d lived until Andrew and Connie Ellis adopted her. Was it only coincidence this lunatic living dead guy was taking her there?
Did it matter? Whatever hope she held out for rescue went down the drain. She took a sip of the whiskey. It was awful. “Why Romania?”
“My home is in the Carpathian Mountains. You’ll be my guest until your father can give me what I want.”
“What if … if he can’t?”
“Then I’ll kill you. But I don’t believe it’ll come to that. He’s an intelligent man, creati
ve in crisis.”
“Who … what … who …” She’d never had so much trouble speaking.
“I’m the firstborn son of Mephistopheles and the Anabo Elektra.”
“Meph … Mephist … the devil?” Her voice went so high, she squeaked.
“No, not the devil. Like Lucifer, Mephistopheles fell from grace and was banished from Heaven. He became the dark angel of death, charged with collecting souls bound for Hell.”
Stiff with fright, Jordan took another sip. It was still awful, but the warmth of the alcohol began to thaw her insides.
“Do you know of the Anabo?”
Mutely, she shook her head.
“Before Eve gave in to Lucifer’s temptation, she had a daughter, Aurora, who was lost when she wandered away from Eden. Her descendants came to be known as the Anabo, which is Greek for light, because they’re born without the darkness of original sin. Over time, their numbers dwindled, but once in a great while, the spiritual line of Aurora is resurrected and another Anabo is born.”
His words came to her as if from a great distance, echoing through her head, their meaning slow to catch up.
He wasn’t finished.
“Elektra was Anabo, and when Mephistopheles found her, he tried to tempt the light from her soul, but she resisted. Instead of giving up, he fell in love with her. It was the worst of sins, a dark soul of Hell in love with a pure spirit of Heaven. If Lucifer had discovered his secret, Mephistopheles would have been extinguished—gone as if he had never existed. It’s a strict law that angels, divine or dark, aren’t to consort with humans, even if they’re Anabo. He took Elektra to a tiny island in the North Atlantic and hid her behind a cloak of secrecy that came to be known as the mists of Kyanos. My mother and I were hidden from both God and Lucifer.”
Clutching her glass in shaking hands, she took another swallow, the crystal clattering against her teeth. Her bones began to feel as if they were melting, and she slumped back against the chair.