Schuyler was about to pulverize the lock, when she noticed something. The door was ajar. She pushed it open. She glanced over her shoulder to find Bliss and Oliver giving her puzzled looks. They had come prepared for battle, and yet there was no obstacle to their progress.
Schuyler entered the room, Bliss immediately behind her.
"Dylan?" Bliss called.
They entered the plush, carpeted room, where the television was still blaring. There was a room service tray with remnants of a steak dinner on its plate, the silver covers haphazardly stacked to the side. An unmade bed and towels on the floor.
"Are you sure they said 1001?" Schuyler asked. "Completely." Bliss nodded.
"What do you think happened?" Oliver asked, looking around and taking the remote control. He switched off the television.
"Dylan's gone," Bliss said flatly. She remembered what Charles Force had told her. He was being taken care of - whatever that meant. She felt a chill. Had they arrived too late to save him?
"He's escaped." Oliver nodded.
"Or someone, or something, let him go." Schuyler said. Bliss was silent, her face inscrutable as she looked at the half-eaten meal.
Schuyler placed a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. "I'm sure wherever he is, he's all right. Dylan's tough," she told her friend. "Now, come on, let's get out of here before someone thinks we let him out."
CHAPTER 39
It came upon her without warning. Schuyler cursed her pride. It was all her fault. Oliver had offered to put her in a cab, but since she already owed him so much money, she had declined. Conduit or not, she didn't want to keep taking advantage of his generosity. He and Bliss lived a few blocks away from the Carlyle and she told them she was fine with taking the crosstown bus. The M72 dropped her off at 72nd and Broadway, and she decided to walk the rest of the way home. It was more than twenty blocks, but she looked forward to the exercise.
At the corner of Ninety-fifth Street, she turned from the well-lit avenue to a dark street, hoping to walk up Riverside, and that's when she felt it.
Within seconds, it had her in her grasp. She felt the sharp fangs puncture her skin and begin to slowly draw her life's blood from her. She swooned, gasping. She was going to die.
She was fifteen years old and had hardly even lived, and already she was going to die. She struggled against its iron grip. Worse, knowing what her grandmother had told her, she would live. She would live in this foul beast's memory, a trapped prisoner to its insane consciousness forever.
Beauty. Where was Beauty? The bloodhound would be too late to save her now.
The pain was deep; she was feeling dizzy from the blood loss. But just before she succumbed, there was a shout.
A struggle.
Someone was fighting the beast. The Silver Blood was releasing her. She turned, holding her neck to stop the blood flow, to see who had saved her.
Jack Force was trapped in a power struggle with the fell creature, locked in a tremendous fight. It was hulking and large, with shining silver hair and a man's form. But Jack was fighting it.
He matched the Silver Blood blow for blow, but at last, the Silver Blood threw him off, slamming Jack's body against the concrete.
"Jack!" Schuyler screamed. She looked up, and as the monster lunged for her throat, Schuyler remembered her grandmother's words. The laws of heaven meant that any creature was a slave to the Sacred Language.
She held it back with a powerful command: "Aperio Oris!" Reveal yourself!
The Silver Blood cackled in laughter, and hissed in a terrible voice that rasped with the agony of a thousand screaming souls, "You cannot command me, earthspawn!"
The creature continued its menacing march toward her.
"Aperio Oris!" Schuyler shouted again, more forcefully this time.
Jack staggered backward, for in the moment that Schuyler had summoned the incantation, the sacred words that she had learned, the monster had shown them his real face.
It was a face that Jack would never forget.
The beast howled in dismay, screeching a wretched, terrible scream, then disappeared into the night.