If Kingsley wanted her dead, he sure wasn't acting like it.
"Thanks," she said, tucking her sword - again the size of a needle - back into her bag, which she miraculously found she was still holding.
Kingsley didn't reply, his face hardening as he looked above her shoulder. Meanwhile, Forsyth Llewellyn looked utterly lost, sitting in the middle of the street with his head in his hands.
Mimi turned to where Kingsley was looking. The grand eighteenth-century villa was now a giant black fireball. It was a crematorium. The Silver Bloods were back. And they had struck deep into the heart of the Coven.
The Second Great War had begun.
Chapter Forty-two
From far away, Schuyler heard the sound of grunts and screams, the clanging of metal against metal.
Wake up.
Wake up, child.
There was a voice inside her head. A sending.
A voice she had heard before.
She opened her eyes. Her mother stood before her. Allegra Van Alen was clad in white raiments, and she held a golden sword in her hands. For me ?
What was once mine is rightfully yours.
Stunned, Schuyler took the sword. Once she did, the image of her mother disappeared. Allegra...Come back...Schuyler thought, suddenly afraid. But a desperate yell from Oliver brought her back to the present.
She looked up and saw Lawrence locked in a fierce struggle with his adversary. His sword fell to the ground. Above him loomed the white, shining presence. It was so bright it was blinding, like looking into the sun. It was the Lightbringer. The Morningstar.
Her blood froze.
Lucifer.
"Schuyler!" Oliver's voice was hoarse. "Kill it!"
Schuyler raised her mother's sword, saw it glinting in the moonlight, a long, pale, deadly shaft. Raised it in the direction of the enemy. Ran with all her might and thrust her weapon toward its heart.
And missed.
But she had given Lawrence time to regain his weapon, and it was his blade that found its mark, slicing into the enemy's chest and spilling blood everywhere.
They had won.
Schuyler sank to the ground in relief.
But then came a great crack in the sky, the sound of the heavens splitting open, the roaring, deafening sound of thunder. Then the statue was broken in two. Its very foundations shattered. There was a deep rumble, and the ground underneath them began to shake and split into two.
"What's happening?" Schuyler screamed.
A dark flame burst from the earth, and a mighty demon with crimson eyes and silver pupils leaped into the sky. It laughed a deep booming laugh, and with its blazing spear, pinned Lawrence to the ground, where he lay.
Chapter Forty-three
The demon disappeared. The mist lifted, and Schuyler staggered over to where her grandfather had fallen. To where he lay so still, his eyes wide open. "Grandfather..." Schuyler cried. "Oliver, do something!" she said as she tried to staunch the flow of dark sapphire blood that spilled from the open wound, the gaping, corrugated hole in the middle of Lawrence's chest.
"It's too late," Oliver whispered, kneeling by Lawrence's side.
"What do you mean? No...let's get a vial ... for the next cycle. Take it to the clinic."