Gates of Paradise (Blue Bloods 7)

Mimi was trapped. The Venators had surrounded her before she could unsheathe her sword. She looked around—at the faces that stared at her with abject hatred and fear. They would kill her. Slowly. And they would enjoy it.

Now was the moment of truth. She looked at Kingsley and waited—waited to see whether he understood, whether he’d seen their “battle” for what it was. A charade, a ruse, a desperate deception to save her love and her Coven.

But the blue of his eyes turned icy, and she knew she had lost him, finally. That he had given up hoping. Her plan had worked.

He believed she was false.

He believed in the lie.

She didn’t know whether to rejoice or despair.

“Seize her,” he said.

FORTY-ONE

Tomasia (Florence, 1452)

he was a princess, trapped in a castle. Andreas had ordered her to bed for the remainder of her pregnancy. She was alone, with only the Venators assigned to her protection—loyal Bellarmine, stoic Valentina. When Andreas visited, which was rare, Tomasia tried to talk to him, to determine whether he presented a threat to her unborn offspring, but he would not discuss it. Instead he insisted that she rest, undisturbed, in her chambers. She had asked for clay so that she might work on her art; perhaps then she would not be so lonely. He had relented, and she spent the days consumed with her work while Andreas went hunting with his new partner, Ludivivo Arosto.

Ludivivo, one of the conclave, had always been like a father to Tomasia in the past. In this cycle she had only met him once or twice before Andreas had essentially forced her into solitude. She recalled only a slim, fair-haired boy, who seemed better suited to life as a scholar than to that of a slayer of Silver Bloods. But when Andreas came to visit, he related tales of his and Ludivivo’s many successes. It almost made Tomasia envy them, until she imagined trying to chase after Silver Bloods with her present girth.

“You are making tremendous progress on your sculptures,” Andreas said, examining the tableau she’d laid out. It was the most elaborate piece she had ever attempted. Three figures surrounded a gate: one, a woman, was lying on the ground. The other two, both male, stood above her, facing one another. She had not yet begun work on any of the faces; she was sculpting from memory, and the memories were becoming harder and harder to bear.

Does Andreas not remember? she wondered. Does he not see what I have created, where my mind has gone? Or is he so fixated on keeping me from knowing his plans for my child that he chooses to ignore it? She was certain he was making plans. He had no reason to believe that her child would be any different from the one Simonetta had carried.

“What do you do with the others? The other demon-born children?” she asked one afternoon. “You must not kill the Nephilim. They deserve only our pity.”

Andreas told her not to worry, that he had trained the Petruvian priests to care for them.

“My child is innocent,” she told him. “She must not be harmed.”

“What is yours is mine,” Andreas had promised. “But perhaps you should get more rest; put away your work for now and return to it when you have recovered from the pain of childbirth,” he said, inspecting the sculpture more closely.

Tomi looked at her unfinished sculpture and thought of the many sacrifices that Andreas had made to ensure that they were reborn to this life, here in Florence. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps she needed to clear her mind.

Andreas left the room, and she heard him speaking in low tones with Ludivivo, who had been waiting outside her door.

“It is coming soon. She must never know,” Andreas was saying. “She cannot ever remember that Gio was Lucifer, in human form.”

Did they think she was not aware of what she had done? Did they think she could not hear?

“We will erase her memory,” Ludivivo said. “She will not know that there ever was a child, let alone that one has been taken from her.”

“The c

hild must die,” Andreas said. “Quickly, before Lucifer becomes aware it ever existed.”

“You need not worry,” Ludivivo said. “I will take care of everything. Patrizio will see to it.”

Tomi had been right—they planned to kill her child. She felt a furious hysteria rise in her soul—she would not permit it! She struggled to sit up in the bed, but she was too weak. She could not even move. What was this? She was bespelled, she realized: trapped, confined to the bed.

Andreas returned to the room and planted a kiss on her forehead.

“Sleep well, my love. Soon this will all be over.”

The only other visitor to her prison was her friend the warlock, the guardian of the timekeepers. “You must help me,” she said. “I fear for my baby. Andreas will not allow it to live.”

The warlock did not argue. The Norsemen were supposed to be neutral in the skirmishes of the lost children of the Almighty, but this one was fond of Tomi. He was a great admirer of her art. “I will see to it. I will help you. I will steal you away tonight. I must prepare, but I will see to it.”