The Van Alen Legacy (Blue Bloods 4)

The ancient Gallic city. When they had conquered Gaul, Blue Blood Romans named the place after the marshlands that had surrounded the area. The vampires had built a massive underground network of tunnels below the city. Red Bloods believed that all that was left of Lutetia were the remains of an amphitheater in the Latin Quarter. They did not know that most of city had survived intact, deep down in the catacombs.

Unlike the dungeon underneath the H'tel Lambert, the catacombs of Lutetia were unexpectedly filled with fresh air. They were clean. Protected by some sort of spell, Schuyler guessed. There were no rats skittering in the walls, no smell of sewage and rot.

"Do you think he's still following us?" Schuyler asked, keeping up with Jack. She felt as if her entire being were a tuning fork, vibrating with fear. As they walked deeper into the caves, she found she was unable to pierce the total darkness, even with the vampire sight.

"Hopefully," Jack replied.

Hopefully? As they ran, Schuyler realized the tunnels created a maze, a hundred different corridors leading in a thousand different directions.

"You could get lost in here forever," she said.

"That's the point," Jack replied. "Only the Blue Bloods know the way out. These tunnels are enchanted against the animadverto. Try to remember the way we came. You will not be able to."

He was right. She couldn't remember the way, which was strange and unsettling because having vampire sight was like watching a show on a DVR: you could rewind to exactly the same place and remember everything, every detail in the room, every nuance, every expression on anyone's face, every word that was uttered. So that's why Jack said he hoped Leviathan had followed them, although Schuyler wasn't convinced a mere maze could stop a demon.

"What about everyone we left behind?"

"Charles is there. He won't let any harm come to them," Jack said. "He was keeping an eye on Leviathan while I fetched you from the room. He should be more than a match for the demon."

They ran for what felt like miles underground. Schuyler had no way of knowing where they were, and she hoped Jack knew what he was doing. Schuyler thought her heart might burst from exertion, and her muscles were starting to flag. How much farther could they run?

"Not far", Jack sent. "We are almost to the intersection. Come."

He led them through a narrow tunnel, it was almost like a cut in the rock, so thin and sharp they had to walk sideways, inching along the wall, and finally they stepped into a crossing of some sort, an open space that pinwheeled away to seven different corridors.

"Where are we?"

"Underneath the Eiffel Tower. This is the center of the old city and the beginning of the new. All the tunnels eventually lead here."

"All roads lead to Rome," Schuyler quoted. "Same idea, right?"

"Sort of." Jack allowed a smile.

Schuyler looked around. Carved above each of the seven corridors were symbols that looked familiar. She wondered where she had seen them before, then realized: they had been flashing on the banners of the Chinese junks. They were the emblems of each Great House, in the sacred language.

Above the middle tunnel was a symbol Schuyler carried on her own wrist. A sword cutting through clouds. The archangel's sigil. Also next to each tunnel opening were seven wooden torches leaning against the wall. Jack reached for one and waved his hand above it, making a small white flame appear.

"This is called the breath of God. Any Blue Blood can bring light to the tunnels. C'mon, it's this way to the exit," he said, heading down the leftmost corridor. He lit the way, just as a dark figure came charging out from the other side.

Schuyler almost screamed, but her voice died in her throat when she recognized the man in black. Like Jack, he was dressed in a Venator's uniform.

"Father?" Jack said.

Charles Force nodded curtly. He gave Schuyler the usual distant, contemptuous look that seemed to be reserved especially for her. She wondered why he even deigned to help her when it was so apparent in his every gesture that he could not stand to look at her.

"Good work, Jack. They are behind us, trapped for the moment by an obsido at the southern junction, but it will not hold them forever. Hurry, up the stairs. To the intersection where they cannot cross. Now."

A small door led to a stairway. Schuyler began to run up two, three steps at a time, until she was suddenly pulled downward, away from her companions, by something that had a viselike grip on her legs. She fell against the stone steps, and the shock dealt a severe blow to her head, and she blacked out for a moment.

When she came to, she discovered she was trapped in a dense, gray smoke, and a feeling of intense, voracious joy filled her. It was the enemy's joy, Schuyler realized; they were feeding off her fear: consuming it, devouring it. The fog was impenetrable, solid to the touch, it looked amorphous but it had a physical density, an impossible weight, as solid as the bars of a cage or a prison cell.

Then she heard them: a sound like the whistling of the wind through the trees, or like chalk rubbing on a blackboard the wrong way: piercing. It was accompanied by a strange clicking noise, like the clattering of claws against a surface. Clickclickclack... devil hooves on a rooftop. The Silver Bloods were going to take her. She was surrounded and overwhelmed. No. She would not give in to despair; she would fight... but with what? She had to stay awake, couldn't give in to the heavy drowsiness that was overtaking her.

Then she saw the eyes shining in the darkness, their otherworldy, ominous, crimson gaze, eyes brimming with hellfire itself. Leviathan had come to finish what he had started. A blazing light cut through the smoke. At first Schuyler thought it was the torch, but then she saw it was a sword. It was completely unlike any sword she had ever seen before. Her mother's sword had shone with a bright white flame: as pure as ivory and as beautiful as sunlight. This blade was different. It was almost the same color as the smoke: a dark gray edged with silver, and there were terrifying black marks on it. It looked less like a sword than an ax, rough-hewn and primitive, with a battered leather holster for a scabbard.

"Schuyler, run?" Jack bellowed. "GO!" He slashed his ugly blade across the creature, or was it more than one? Was it just Leviathan or more than that?

The monster screamed in pain, and now Schuyler could feel its fear. Saw the reflection of what it saw in its eyes.