But that Azrael and that Mimi were long gone. Mimi had changed. Maybe it was due to centuries upon centuries
of being cursed as a vampire—the many years living away from Paradise and the beauty of the eternal kingdom—but she was no longer the Dark Angel she once was. There was no longer any love in her immortal soul for the bright beautiful prince before her. She saw through his beauty, through his lies. He had brought the angels nothing but ruin and sorrow, she saw now. Evil was seductive and easy, and virtue was difficult and unappreciated.
If he desired her, she would fight him. She would never let him take her like a cheap whore to his bed. She would die before she gave up her body to his lust. But perhaps if he allowed her to be close enough to him, she could do what Michael had failed to do—she could destroy him.
“Yes, my lord?” she asked with her sweetest smile. “How can I please my lord and master?”
It appeared she was wrong about his intentions. Lucifer barely acknowledged the hidden invitation in her words. She studied his face more closely and realized his look of triumph was gone; she wondered if it had been a front for Jack and the other angels. Perhaps Schuyler was not the last barrier to their victory, after all.
“Is there a problem, my lord?” she asked. “Something you didn’t tell Abbadon and Danel?”
Lucifer frowned. “If they perform their task quickly and efficiently, then all should go as planned. But yes, there have been some…developments. Complications. Involving Araquiel, as a matter of fact. He remains a thorn in my side.”
Mimi didn’t like where this was going.
“His theft of the grail that you were supposed to steal would not present major problems for us were it not for the fact that he took something from me when he left the underworld.”
He couldn’t mean…there was no way…
“Araquiel has the godsfire in his possession,” Lucifer said. “And now he also has a grail, which means he has a weapon to counter ours. He can defend the Gate of Promise.”
Yes! Mimi had succeeded, then, in arming the Blue Bloods. Kingsley would defend the gate. She felt her love for him expand beyond her consciousness. They had hope yet.
“I am sending you aboveground to deal with him.”
“Deal with him? Has he expressed a willingness to negotiate?”
The Dark Prince laughed, a hollow, angry sound. “Negotiate? No, I mean you’re going to have to take care of him. Remove him from the equation. The vampires must not be allowed to use the godsfire. Do you understand me?”
She understood.
She had been given the same orders that Jack had received.
To kill her love.
Mimi wanted to laugh. She’d been so worried that by sending Danel to Jack, she’d made herself responsible for Lucifer’s having access to a chalice; now it turned out that by forcing Kingsley to steal the chalice from her, she’d set him up to die. At her hand, nonetheless.
“You will take this with you,” he said, gifting her with an emerald stone. Lucifer’s Bane. “It will allow me to see what you see, to hear what you hear. You will report to me directly on this mission. I cannot send any of the Dark Angels or demons with you, as Araquiel will recognize them for what they are. But you—as you must be aware—Araquiel always harbored an unrequited affection for you.”
Unrequited? Ha.
Lucifer smiled. “Perhaps you can use this infatuation to win his trust.”
Mimi returned the smile. Perhaps she could.
“If you fail me, Azrael, this stone you wear will destroy you and Abbadon both, as well as the lives of everyone around you.”
She was wearing a ticking time bomb around her neck.
“Azrael? Can I count on you?”
“Of course, my lord. Your will is my oath.” What else was there to say?
TWENTY-SIX
Bliss
awson and his pack were waiting for Bliss outside the airport in Rome when she arrived. It felt like forever since she’d seen them, but it had only been a couple of days. She supposed her sense of time was all screwed up because of losing a year. It felt strange to see them all here, in this city, where they’d been so recently and yet such a long time ago. The Rome they had left was the city at its first breath, but the Rome they were in now was a sprawling and crowded metropolis, ancient ruins among medieval and Renaissance structures, a hodgepodge of architecture and industry, the Eternal City and a thoroughly modern one.