Lost in Time (Blue Bloods 6)

“You like the ninja thing? It’s very in now, or so my over-priced designer tells me.” His face broke into a broad grin. “So how’s life been? I hear things aren’t so great up there lately.

Michael and Gabrielle are gone, Covens are heading underground, etcetera, etcetera.”

“I didn’t know you cared. I thought gossip was beneath you.”

“I like to keep my ear to the ground, or in this case, the ceiling.” He smiled. “So how’s the trip so far?”

“Inconvenient.”

“Good enough, good enough,” he said, shuffling papers on his desk. “Well, you know you can’t expect the red carpet.”

Mimi fumed. “What do you want, demon? Why am I here? I need to get through to the seventh circle, and you’re keeping me from what I want. I hate that.”

“All right. Hold your horses. I called you here because Helda wants to make you an offer. And before you say no, hear me out.”

Mimi raised an eyebrow. “Unless it’s Kingsley back and safe, I’m not interested.”

The Demon of Avarice wagged his finger. “Well, you know it can’t be that. But we’ve got something better for you. Regis of the Coven.”

“I’m already Regent,” she said. “And they offered me the top job last year and I didn’t take it.” She crossed her legs in annoyance.

“Ah, but they haven’t tapped you again, have they? Right now you’ve taken them hostage by spiriting away the key. But if we make you Regis, your word alone will bind them together and you won’t even need the Repository. The soul of the Coven will be in your hands.”

Mimi shrugged.

“I know how you’ve felt over the years, Azrael. They’ve never trusted you, not since the Fall, not since you betrayed them. All those centuries toiling for the Uncorrupted, and for what? They still see you as one of us. But with Michael lost and Gabrielle who knows where—and you as Regis—you could have the respect and the power you’ve wanted all these years.

You could lead the Fallen. You could be their queen. With you at the helm, no one will even remember Gabrielle. Gabrielle—who’s that? Some slut who got pregnant too many times, that’s who.”

She did not want to show that she agreed with him, even if she did. She had to focus on what she had come down here for. This was merely a distraction. “What else have you got?”

mamon frowned. “That’s not enough?”

“Not by a mile.”

The handsome devil looked at her shrewdly. “All right, then. How about this? Your brother dead at your hands.”

“You can get me Jack?” Mimi asked, unable to hide the excitement creeping into her words.

“Abbadon? Sure. Piece of cake. Just say the word, sweet-heart. You know we can. Send our best Hellhounds after him.

They fetch.” When he smiled, his teeth were dagger-sharp, like little knives in his mouth, glinting in the light. He jumped from his seat.

Mimi shuddered. The hounds’ power and capacity for evil were mythical in dimension.

“Come, take a trip with me,” he said, and reached for her hand.

When Mimi opened her eyes, she was standing by the altar alone. It was the day after what would have been their bonding, the day Jack had left her to go to Florence with Schuyler.

Mimi was there to fulfill her duty, but he had left her. The old anger and hate bubbled to the surface. Jack was with his half-blood, his little Abomination, while she waited at the church alone. How funny that Schuyler did not hate her. But Mimi was not so generous. She hated Schuyler with every ounce of her immortal soul. She hated Schuyler for what she had done—she had made Abbadon forsake his bond and allowed him to forget the Code. Without either, then the vampires were nothing. No one was worth that. No love was worth that much. The blood of the angels was on Schuyler’s hands. Allegra’s daughter was said to be the Savior of the Fallen. Yeah, right.

“They laughed at you, you know,” mamon said into her ear. “When they heard that Abbadon ditched you at the altar.

That you were jilted. They said to each other, of course he would leave her. Azrael—who could love her—didn’t he always love Gabrielle—wasn’t that Abbadon’s weakness for the Light?

They still laugh at you behind your back. They call you Azrael the Unwanted.”

Mimi closed her eyes and could feel the tears and the rage behind them. She knew that every word the demon said was true. Of course, she was not the first to have been humiliated in such a manner—even the greatest angel of them all had been jilted at his bonding—but Mimi had not been in cycle then and did not see it. All she knew was what she had experienced. The cold nausea of shame and rejection.