ELEVEN
Hellsmouth
Ghedi gave them precise directions, and Jack and Schuyler set off immediately, their Velox speed taking them to their destination in a flash of butterfly wings.
If they were taking her to the gate, then they weren’t smugglers, Schuyler thought. And if they weren’t smugglers, then what were they? What did they want with the girl? Was this what the priest was worried about? What Ghedi had not wanted to tell them until they were “safe”?
They found the dried riverbed, a scarlet, sandy ribbon of patched, scorched earth that led to a dark underground cavern. Just as Schuyler had described, the cavern was covered in moss and half sunken into the earth.
Jack kicked away at the shrubbery blocking the entrance and led the way down. He picked up a stick and lit it with the blue flame.
“Show yourselves!” he called, his voice echoing against the stone walls.
The cave was dark and smelled of mold. Was this the entrance to the Gate of Promise? Schuyler could feel a foul, putrid menace in the air as they inched their way down, taking careful steps into the murky blackness.
“Hellsmouth. Interesting name, isn’t it? The Red Bloods seem to have a knack for naming things without knowing their true significance. But obviously they sensed something here,” she said.
“No one is immune to the feeling of power,” he replied, his torch sending long rays of light down a seemingly endless tunnel.
Schuyler slipped a little on the wet moss, grabbing on to Jack’s arm for balance. She looked around the dark enclosure. Down there, she was surprised to find that the heavy feeling of doom had abated somewhat, replaced by a lonesome melancholy. She walked forward in the darkness, and the feeling grew stronger.
They stopped and looked around the shadowy space, Jack’s torch illuminating a rather standard-looking cavern, with moss green rocks and a sandy floor. The cave was littered with the usual teenage detritus: crushed cigarette butts and empty beer bottles.
Something isn’t right, Jack sent.
You feel it too? Schuyler asked. What is it?
Then she knew. It’s not here, is it? This isn’t the Gate of Promise.
No, this is a mere vapor, a distraction. A cunning illusion.
Hellsmouth was nothing but a haunted house, something to scare away the local populace, a distraction from the real menace.
“What do we know about Blue Bloods?” Jack mused.
“That they don’t like to make anything easy?” Schuyler said. “That they keep their secrets. They brought peace and art and light to the world. They are a highly civilized people. They built temples and monuments, cities of gold that rise to the heavens,” she said, thinking of Paris and how beautiful it was.
“Exactly. Think of the gates we’ve already found—the Gate of Vengeance under a statue—a sculpture, an icon. The second underneath one of the most beautiful Gothic cathedrals in North America. A vampire would not build a gate in a hole in the ground, a crude cavern in the sand.” Jack shook his head.
“No. You’re absolutely right. Whoever put this here did so to conceal the gate’s true location.” Schuyler said. “But if this isn’t the gate—then why are the Petruvians guarding it?”
TWELVE
The Symbol
Schuyler paced the rocky floor. How much did they know about the Petruvian Order after all? That first night, Ghedi had asked them to trust him—he had named Lawrence Van Alen as a friend, yet he had never met the man. How much of his story was true? After their month of imprisonment as guests of the Countess, Schuyler chided herself for not being more careful.
“Do you think we might’ve been wrong about Ghedi?” she asked Jack.
He shook his head. “It is better to trust and face betrayal than to remain skeptical of everything and everybody. Your open heart is a gift. It led you to me, for instance.
“But in this case I don’t believe Ghedi played us. The Croatan have no use for Red Bloods. I doubt he has ever set foot in here. If, as I’m guessing, the Petruvian Order was founded by the original gatekeeper, Halcyon would have followed a certain standard for dealing with humans. It’s common practice, the Conspiracy has done it for hundreds of years. They tell the Red Bloods only as much as they need to know.”
They took one more sweep around the dark cavern, and Schuyler noticed something they hadn’t seen before, a symbol etched on one of the walls. It was a triglyph, a symbol in three parts. The first consisted of two interlocking circles, the Blue Bloods’ symbol for union; the second was of an animal they couldn’t identify. The third symbol was one Schuyler had never seen before: a sword piercing a star.
“It’s the archangel’s sigil,” Jack explained. “The star connotes the angel who bore it. Lucifer. The Morningstar.” The Fallen Angel.
Schuyler traced the outline of the triglyph with her fingertips. “Have you ever seen this before?”