Gates of Paradise (Blue Bloods 7)

How strange that after their long and twisted history, Mimi and Jack were only just friends now, with a deep and abiding affection between them. They would always share their past, but their future together was unknown. She still loved him, she would always love him, but it was the kind of love that was muted, safely seen through the rearview window, like a place you used to call home but no longer visited. There would always be a wound there, but the healing had begun.

All because of Kingsley Martin, the boy who loved her.

How could she have lost her heart to a Silver Blood?

If she was to have a future with anyone, she would have it with Kingsley. She held on to her love, to the memories of his wicked smile, to the feel of his strong arms around her, his soft tears on her cheek. She had broken him, he had broken her, there was no more posturing, no more lies. They had pledged their love to each other. It made the deception and the fear

easier to bear. What a naked fear it was. Azrael, Angel of Death, who was afraid of nothing and no one on earth, was afraid. She was afraid for her life, for her love. If the Dark Prince knew the truth…

Lucifer could unmake her. He could unmake her and Jack both…would do to them what they had failed to do to each other.

Was it worth it?

All this for love?

All this for Kingsley?

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Mimi sighed. The last time she’d seen him she had been soulless, and she had screamed at him to get away from her, had laughed in his face and mocked his love. Did this mean they would have to start all over again? She wondered what he was doing now. Having a great old time, probably. Kingsley Martin was never down for long.

At least she and Jack had done something right. They had arrived in the underworld at just the right time. The demons of Hell had discovered the secret to a weapon that would stand up to the White Fire of Heaven—they aimed to create a godsfire of their own. But there was a catch. None of their tools, which had been wrought in the underworld, could be trusted to hold and direct the blaze.

The Dark Prince needed the Holy Grail to hold his weapon. Only the sacred chalice would contain the righteous flame. And so Mimi and Jack had been dispatched to fetch it. There were many cups, many grails in the history of the world. The task was to find the right one.

Once they crossed into their world, Mimi would make her way to a chapel in Scotland, while Jack would travel to Spain. And if they were successful in finding the Holy Grail, what then? Would they turn it over to the Dark Prince? Mimi wasn’t sure what Jack was planning, although he’d assured her he would never let that happen. If they found it, they would lie and say they had not, and Jack was counting on the knights to have hidden the grails well. Mimi was certain Lucifer would not be so understanding of their failure and would suspect treason, but Jack was adamant in his belief that it would all work out, that they would figure out a way to get what they wanted without forfeiting their souls or destroying Heaven and Hell in the process.

The train reached its destination and stopped at the crossing. They disembarked, walking to the same barriers guarded by the same handful of trolls that she had encountered during her journey with Oliver. Once they got past the First Circle of Hell, then they would slip through the gates and find themselves back in mid-world.

A troll slouched over to block their way. “Papers?”

“Papers?” Mimi said, affronted. “Do you know who we work for?”

“Helda hasn’t approved your transfer,” the troll sneered. “You’ll need to go back to get the right papers if you mean to leave the kingdom of the Queen of the Dead.”

Without a word, Jack raised his hand and stunned the troll, sending him flying, crashing against the barrier. The other troll guards lifted their spears, but Jack stood his ground. “Let us pass. I shall not be so gentle next time.”

Mimi was impressed. She was sure he would have turned back and done the right thing. But that was the old Jack Force. The former Venator, the one who used to follow the rules. There were no rules now.

The trolls backed off, fear in their ugly faces.

The Force twins stepped through the Gates of Hell.

“Admit it, you enjoyed that. You like being evil again,” Mimi teased.

Jack did not reply, but the sly smile on his face said it all. “Come on. Let’s find this thing and end it once and for all.”

THREE

Bliss

merging from the Passages of Time was always a disconcerting experience, as if your entire being had been taken apart and then re-formed, the molecules and the memories haphazardly patched together. Bliss Llewellyn felt the familiar dizziness and disorientation, but it was worse now, since they were not just traveling through time but back to the underworld, back to her father’s domain, back to Hell, where the wolves were turned into Hellhounds, where Lawson and the pack had been kept in chains.

She had come upon the boys by chance—had been shown a vision of a wolf in the glom, and had tracked it to a butcher shop in a small town in Ohio. There, she had befriended Lawson and his brothers, and together they had traveled to the dawn of Rome, to the beginning of the empire, to solve a mystery of the wolves’ ancestry. Lawson was revealed to be the wolf Fenrir, the greatest wolf of the underworld, and he had bested Romulus, the Beast of Hell, the Hound of Hounds; had killed him with Michael’s sword, an archangel’s blade. With the help of his pack, he had stopped the Sabine massacre, and in doing so had saved the wolves from extinction. Now they had returned to Hell to fulfill his promise to free his people from the Silver Blood demons.

Lawson turned around, his dark eyes sparkling, and he smiled. The sigil on his cheek, the one that matched Bliss’s and marked them as part of the same pack, the blue crescent moon, shone in the dim light. “You okay back there?” he asked.

Bliss nodded, keeping pace with his long step. She was scared but determined to see it through. This was what her mother had tasked her to do—to bring the wolves back into the fold, to help the vampires in their war against their enemies—but she had her own reasons for pursuing this quest. Bliss had a dark history behind her: for centuries upon centuries she had been an unknowing party to evil. As the vehicle for the Dark Prince, she had kept his spirit alive on earth, and in doing so had brought death and grief to the vampires. Bliss wanted not only redemption, but revenge.