The Gates of Paradise Read online

  Schuyler punched him in the arm. “Don’t make fun! No, there weren’t any cookies.” She rolled her eyes. As far as she knew, neither of Oliver’s grandmothers were the cookie-baking type either. Doro Samuels had worked to preserve Grand Central Terminal and Central Park, while Eleanor Hazard-Perry was a children’s programming pioneer who taught kids how to read using tactics gleaned from vampire skills of instant memorization.

  “She was cool, a grande dame, sort of like Cordelia but, you know…warmer,” Schuyler said.

  “Warm-blooded.” Oliver smiled. “And did you find your dad?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Come on.”

  The grass at the graveyard was lush and green, almost too alive, Schuyler thought. It was like a constant reminder of everything that was gone, everything lost. She’d brought a small bouquet of calla lilies, and when they found the headstone, she set them down.

  “Sky, I’m so sorry,” Oliver said. “I know this wasn’t how you hoped it would turn out.” He put an arm around her shoulder, and she leaned against him as she read the headstone.

  STEPHEN BENDIX CHASE

  BELOVED SON AND HUSBAND

  The headstone didn’t tell the whole story of his life, Schuyler thought, thinking not only of herself but of the sister she had yet to meet. Beloved son, husband, and father.

  He had returned to his family in a box.

  “Cancer,” Schuyler told Oliver. “Stupid old cancer. He wasn’t killed by a vampire. He wasn’t killed by Charles out of revenge, as I’d feared for a while. He was just another young person taken too early.”

  Decca had told her the whole story: how Ben and Allegra had gone back to New York and how, in the end, Allegra had called them so they could say good-bye to their son. The disease had been swift and brutal. When they returned from the funeral, they discovered that they had a grandchild, as his ex-girlfriend had showed up at their doorstep with a baby. Renny had told Ben she was pregnant to get him to marry her, but when she admitted it was a fake pregnancy, he’d left to be with Allegra. Only it wasn’t fake: Renny had figured out that he would never love her like he loved Allegra, and she’d freed him to be with her.

  “Noble of her, I suppose,” Decca had said, though Schuyler could tell that until she’d learned about Schuyler, she’d have preferred that Ben had stayed with the ex, Renny.

  “Allegra was so distraught. She kept saying it was all her fault, that she had tried to get him to see a doctor for months, that he’d been coughing up blood but had insisted nothing was wrong. Then Cordelia wrote us this letter not long after, and we always assumed Allegra had died of a broken heart.”

  It was true in a way, Schuyler thought, remembering her mother lying motionless in a hospital bed.

  “What was he like?” Schuyler asked.

  “Ben?” Decca sighed. “I know mothers are biased, but Ben was one of the good ones, you know? He had it—whatever it was. He was so handsome, and everyone loved him, and he was always so kind—I think that’s what mattered more—not his good looks—but that he was a good soul. I don’t mean nice or polite, but someone who had a strong moral compass, someone with character. He was privileged, of course, but he wasn’t spoiled. He was such a generous person. Like I said, he loved your mother so much. She was everything to him. It was a shame that he never knew his daughters. He would have been such a good father. He adored children.”

  Schuyler knelt down at the grave and ran her hand over the headstone. The granite was cool under her fingers and sparkled in the sunlight, glinting gray and pink. I wish I’d had a chance to know you. I wish that so much.

  You’d have loved him, said a voice in her head. Allegra, inside her, grieving as well. She had not felt her mother’s spirit in a while; it was different from the watchful presence that came and went. Schuyler could feel the warm love she always felt when Allegra was with her. Your grandmother spoke true. He was a wonderful man. He was the most unselfish, generous person I knew. He was such a happy person, he made me so happy. We were happy together until the end. I thought he would get a chance to know you. When I first met him, I saw a vision of the three of us together, of him at my bedside at your birth. But it was not to be. He was taken away too early. A few weeks after he passed, I discovered I was pregnant with you. Cordelia did what she did to protect you. I hope you find it in your heart to forgive her one day.

  That’s why she changed my name, Schuyler realized. To hide me from my father’s family. Because I was not supposed to exist. I am half human and half vampire. An Abomination. My father never even knew me, and my mother only cared for the survival of the vampires.

  Schuyler realized she had been holding on to a dream—that her father might still be alive and her mother would return.

  It would never happen, not now, not ever.

  Not in this lifetime, maybe, Allegra said. But the best that is in you is from him. He was the most unselfish person I ever knew. When he learned who and what I was, he told me to forgive Charles, that it was important I return to him. He wanted that for me, for us. Sometimes love means letting go, he said. Remember that when you arrive at the crossroads. When time stands still. When the path is open to you. Remember who your father was.

  Oliver knelt down beside her. “You okay?”

  Schuyler wiped a few errant tears off her cheeks and nodded, then stood up.

  “This means we were wrong about the whole Blood of the Father thing,” she said. “But there’s still one more thing I’d like to do before we go back. Will you help me?”

  “Of course I will. What is it?”

  “I know this isn’t really related to what we’re doing, and I understand that we don’t have a lot of time, but it turns out that before my father got back together with my mother, he had another girlfriend. And she had a baby. That means…”

  “That you have a sister,” Oliver said. “How many secret sisters can one girl have?” he joked.

  “Funny,” Schuyler said. “But I don’t know if you can imagine what it means to me to know that I have more family out there. I need to find her.”

  They went back to the hotel and got on Oliver’s computer. “Tell me her name,” he said.

  “Finn Chase, I think. Actually, I don’t know—I’m not sure if she was using her mother’s name, and I don’t know what that is.”

  But Oliver was typing away. “Just Googled her. Got a Seraphina Chase on Facebook, goes by Finn.” He pulled up her profile page. “Could this be her?”

  Schuyler peered at the picture and recognized the girl from the photographs. “That’s her.”

  “Let’s see what she’s like. Binge-drinking photos? Embarrassing status updates?”

  Finn must have been a trusting soul, because she didn’t have any privacy settings that would prevent them from looking at everything. There were lots of pictures—with her mom, her grandmother, her friends. In all of them she was smiling, happy. Unlike Oliver’s predictions, there weren’t any incriminating photographs, although there were a few obligatory shots of Finn holding a red Solo cup at parties.

  “Hmm. Hopelessly wholesome, but that’s U of Chicago for you. Supposedly everyone studies too much there,” Oliver said. “A bunch of grinds.”

  “You’d fit right in,” Schuyler teased.

  “She looks a little bit like you,” he said.

  Schuyler couldn’t see it at first—Finn was blond, to start. But then she looked closer and saw that they both shared the same blue eyes.

  “She’s pretty,” Oliver said.

  There was a time, Schuyler knew, when that statement would have elicited a pang of jealousy. She waited for it, but it never came.

  “I want to meet her,” she said, staring at the photo stream. It was like looking at what her life might have been, a gallery of everything that she had lost. Finn had a mom who loved her, grandparents who doted on her, and friends who clearly adored her, from the numerous “likes” on her page to the messages they scrawled on her wall. It was hard not to feel a little envi
ous of the sister she never knew.

  Allegra’s legacy had been one of grief, pain, suffering, and war.

  But Finn Chase was Ben’s daughter. A normal human girl, with a normal life, a normal heart.

  “Will you come with me to Chicago?” she asked Oliver.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Mimi

  week had passed since Mimi and Jack had parted ways at the burning house. She had no idea what had gotten into him—he had to be lying, he had to be up to something—there was no way—no way he meant what he said. Or did he? They had spent a long time in the underworld, after all. She had to admit everything he had said was something she had wrestled with herself. Why be good? Why do the right thing when being bad was their true nature, when it was so much easier to give in?

  What’s happened to you? she sent him. What are you doing? Tell me. I can help. But once again, there was no answer.

  Well then, she would have to figure out how to get out of her predicament on her own, as usual. If she was going to warn Kingsley, she would have to find him first. Where was he now that the safe house was no more? Where would he have gone? she wondered. What resources were left to him, with the Coven bankrupt and the vampires underground? It was too distressing to think that Lucifer might actually win this fight. There was only one thing left to do.

  Have a cup of tea.

  She was in London, after all.

  The Ritz was a little too flashy, and all those shops at Harrods had too much tourist riffraff. Only Fortnum & Mason would do. The St. James restaurant, tucked away on the fourth floor, was sufficiently removed from the bustle of London to give her the feeling she was getting away from it all for a bit.

  No sooner had she settled in with a pot of Assam tea and spooned a heap of clotted cream on her scone than a girl sat down in the empty chair across from her. “Excuse me,” Mimi said shortly. “Can’t you see this table is taken?”

  “You really don’t recognize me, do you?” the girl asked. She had an American accent—curious. “It’s only been a few years. Forgotten the little people from high school already, Mimi?”

  High school…It seemed like centuries ago. But she’d know the sound of that gossipy voice anywhere. “Piper Crandall?” she asked, incredulous.

  “The one and only.” Piper smiled. “How the hell are you?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “The same thing you are, duh. To answer the call?”

  “What call?”

  “You know, when the Venators summoned everyone here. Or hadn’t you heard?”

  She hadn’t, at least not officially. But Mimi suspected it wouldn’t be in her best interest to admit that. “Right, I thought you meant something else,” she said. She realized that if Piper was acting so friendly, it meant, at a minimum, Kingsley hadn’t told the Coven that she’d cast her lot with the Dark Angels. Good to know.

  “I know,” Piper said. “We’re a bit late to the party, but I had to convince Max it was the right thing to do. Besides, going underground was cramping our style. I’m so glad we came. Everyone’s here! It’s like a big reunion.”

  Mimi nodded. Piper always did like to be in the center of the action.

  Piper leaned in. “So—what’s going on? No one will tell us, but we know something big is happening.” For a moment, Mimi felt like she was back in high school again, with Piper waiting for the good dirt so she could go tell everyone. “Come on, spill. I know you know.”

  Boy, did she ever, Mimi thought.

  “I don’t know anything. I’m waiting—just like you,” she said.

  “But you’re our Regent,” Piper pointed out. “Someone spotted you on the tube the other day, and sent me to check it out.”

  “So this isn’t just a random encounter,” Mimi said. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

  “Not in the slightest. I volunteered for the job—thought we could catch up. Besides, I didn’t believe what everyone is saying.”

  “What are they saying?” Mimi asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Rumor has it you’d gone back to the underworld, back to the Dark Prince.” She sounded a little smug about it.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, it’s all anyone can talk about.” Piper leaned in breathlessly. “So—tell me, is it true?”

  Mimi didn’t answer.

  “So are you…?” Piper asked.

  “Of course not! That’s ridiculous!” Mimi scoffed. “We pledged our swords to Michael during the battle!”

  Piper laughed. “Oh I know, I was just having a bit of fun.”

  “Right,” Mimi said.

  “So what’s up?” Piper asked again. “Everyone’s pretty anxious to feel useful. Hiding is terribly boring. Although, I think the Venators are up to something big. They’re supposed to have some sort of conclave in a few days, but they won’t tell the rest of the Coven what’s going on. Ever since their safe house burned down they’re being extra careful.”

  “They’ve called for a conclave? Only a Regent or a Regis can do that.”

  “You want to tell them that?” Piper smirked.

  “When is this conclave? And where?”

  “I told you, they’re not telling anyone anything. You have to be a Venator to know. They’re keeping us all in the dark.” Piper sighed.

  “Is Kingsley Martin part of this?” Mimi asked.

  “The Venator who worked the Duchesne case when Aggie died?”

  “The very same.”

  “Yeah. Of course. Kingsley is head spook now.”

  “Do you know where I can find him?”

  Piper shrugged. “Not right now. He’s supposedly back in town for the conclave.” She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “But he hasn’t been out much, which is too bad. Kingsley was a lot of fun before.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Yeah, although to be honest, he seemed like kind of a mess. Drinking all the time, lots of girls. But then he was always that way. I heard you guys—?”

  Mimi shook her head. “People make up so much stuff these days. Anyway, you were saying…?”

  “I heard he woke up one morning with some sense of purpose that he refused to explain, and then he disappeared. Some of us were worried he’d turned, but so far there’s no evidence of it.”

  “So far,” Mimi said. “That’s why I need to find him.”

  “He always was a traitor. You can’t trust the Silver Bloods,” Piper said, loving the gossip. “Like I keep telling Deming Lennox…”

  “Deming Lennox?”

  “Where have you been? Deming and Ted got bonded. It was a twin elopement: her sister married his brother. Cute, right? But sort of icky too, if you know what I mean. Think they ever swap?” she asked naughtily.

  Sam and Ted Lennox. Kingsley’s old team. Of course. They had to know where he was. “Where are they?”

  “Who knows? Like I told you, the Venators keep their own counsel these days. They don’t tell us anything.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  Bliss

  he next morning, Bliss told the pack about her nightmare, about the sense she’d had of being underground but still in Rome. “Is there anything under any of these ancient places? Like tunnels or a part of the city? Maybe under the Colosseum or the Forum or the Pantheon, even? The place we’re looking for doesn’t necessarily have to have been built during Caligula’s time; maybe it just had to exist when he was emperor.”

  “So full of ideas this morning! So energetic,” Ahramin said. “And I thought you surely had to be tired from not getting any sleep last night.”

  “Who said I didn’t get any sleep?” Bliss asked. Had they woken Ahramin up? Had she heard them hooking up? And if so, what was it to her?

  “Please,” Ahramin said, looking annoyed.

  “What’s with you?” Edon asked.

  Ahramin shrugged and ignored him.

  “Don’t act like you didn’t hear me,” Edon said, finally sounding truly angry.

  “Stop bickering
,” Lawson said, ignoring Ahramin’s glare. “Bliss, tell us more.”

  “This dream I had last night, I’m pretty sure it’s connected to what we’re looking for. I felt like it happened underground.”

  “Well, there are the catacombs, of course,” Malcolm said.

  “Breakfast first,” Edon said. “We have a long day ahead of us.” He went downstairs to the kitchen, pointedly ignoring Ahramin, and the boys followed.

  Ahramin lingered behind. “The whole place could hear you,” she sneered.

  “So what?” Bliss shot back. “What do you care?”

  “Ask Lawson.”

  “I’m asking you,” Bliss said, but Ahri had already stormed out of the room.

  Great. As if things weren’t hard enough.

  Bliss pulled Lawson aside as they walked toward the Colosseum, Malcolm’s choice for their outing. “What’s going on between you and Ahri?” she asked. “She’s making me nuts, and I can tell Edon’s starting to freak out too.”

  “There’s nothing going on,” Lawson said.

  “Yeah, right,” Bliss said. “Clearly you guys have some sort of history, and one that Edon doesn’t know about. Or didn’t, anyway. I think he’s on to you, and he’s getting pretty pissed off.”

  “It’s not important,” Lawson said, but he didn’t deny it, and Bliss felt her stomach sink at that. Her suspicions were right, then…maybe?

  “I’m not sure you’re in the best position to decide that right now,” said Bliss.

  “Well, that’s all I have to say about it,” Lawson said. “Let it go.”

  “Not so fast,” Bliss yelled as he walked away.

  The rest of the pack turned around to look at her.

  “Give us a minute,” she said, catching up to Lawson and pulling him aside.

  “We don’t have time for this.” He brushed her arm away.

  “You’re going to have to make time. I don’t understand why Ahramin is behaving this way, and I can tell Edon doesn’t either. If we’re going to work together, we’re all going to have to find a way to get along, and I can’t have Ahri making nasty comments every time you and I…” Her voice trailed off and she blushed.