Мелисса де ла Круз - Keys to the Repository

“Do not worry, my love, we shall have our vengeance. I promise it. Lawrence will not have died in vain.”

Her eyes become bright. She nods curtly. “He died because of me.”

“He died to protect you. It was his duty.”

She stands so still at the doorway, as if she doesn’t know what to do or what to say. And yet I know already. She will tell me we must stop meeting because the Coven will need me now, and that she will be saving me by taking herself away. . .

She could not be more wrong. Everything in my life depends on her being part of it.

When we first met, I was struck by her resemblance to her mother. But contrary to what many thought about my relationship with Gabrielle, we had a deep and affectionate friendship, nothing more. I loved her as an ally, and because she was our queen. I love her daughter in a completely different way. I love her because she has become something more to me. She has become my life.

“Come here,” I say gently. “Sit down.”

She shakes her head. “No. I . . . I can’t stay.”

“You want us to stop meeting.” I have to say it because she will not.

“Yes.”

“Because you think it is dangerous for me. Someone has told you something—my sister, perhaps.” I cannot say Mimi’s name in her presence, and vice versa. I cannot think of Mimi without thinking of the pain I am bringing her, and therefore choose the easier path: to not think of her at all. I am a coward.

“No.”

“No?”

She walks over, closer to the fire, and addresses her words to the flames. “I can’t meet you anymore, Jack, because I would be lying to myself for the reasons I’m here.”

“And what is that reason?”

“That I love you.”

“And that reason no longer exists, is that it?” My voice is light, playful. She is not a natural flirt; she is so serious always, my love, it amuses me a little. Of course she loves me. She is doing this precisely because she loves me.

“Yes.”

“Another of my sister’s ideas, isn’t this? ‘Tell Jack you no longer love him. It is the only way to set him free.’ As if I were a caged bird or a pet lion.” I smile. Schuyler is so brave and full of courage, my darling. She will lose me to save me. She is ready to make that sacrifice, but I want her to know it is not necessary.

I can fight for both of us, and I will.

“No.” She looks at me, and her face is full of anguish. “No, that’s not it.”

It has been centuries since I have felt fear. I do not know fear. I do not have this weakness, and yet something in her face, in her voice—frightens me. This is no girlish deception, no halfhearted attempt. I marvel at my fear, at the novelty of it. It is like ice in my throat. It is lodged there; I cannot breathe. I cannot swallow.

Before I can say anything, she speaks, and the bluntness of her words strikes me as nothing has struck me before.

“I don’t love you anymore because I haven’t been honest with myself. And I haven’t been honest with you. I love someone else. I always have.”

A cruel joke. I want to laugh but I don’t. I want to crumple to the ground but my pride will not let me. I have never heard these words before. I do not understand them. Someone else? There is someone else? This is a trick. Another deception. Another excuse Mimi has planted . . . Surely she cannot be . . . She is lying. . .

Schuyler is telling the truth.

Of all the vampires in the world, I should know. I do not need the blood trial to find out. I can sense it—the truth is written all over her face. Her sadness. She is sad for me. She feels sorry—for me! I find her pity more disturbing than her words. It is ghastly and unimaginable.

How did she have time for someone else? I know our meetings were too few and far apart. But it was necessary, to keep her safe. If I’d had a choice—but I did not—we would have been together always. I lived for those moments when we were together, those few times in my life that I actually felt alive.

Centuries I have slumbered until we met. And I had a plan for us.

I had a future in mind. I wanted to share it with her and was waiting for the right moment. But the best-laid plans of mice and men . . .

I am not too proud to ask. “Who?”

“Oliver.”

Her familiar. The human. I want to leave the room immediately so I can seek and destroy the mortal. He has no chance. She can see it.

“Please don’t—don’t harm him. I love him. I always have. I just didn’t want to admit it.” For the first time this evening she reaches over and touches me. She puts her small hand—so tiny, really—on top of mine. I flinch, as if her fingers were engulfed in flames. So this is pain. So this is wretchedness. So this is misery. I never knew.

I have nothing to say. I can feel it—the truth. The truth of her love for him, it shines all over her face, and I can sense his presence on her very skin. Such is the way with the familiars —their blood brings us life, but they are not meant for us in this manner. I am sickened by jealousy and rage.

“Leave me.” I am ashamed of the strangled cry that flies out before I can control myself.

“Jack . . . I . . .” She is standing by the doorway. I have hunted down the Croatan, I have endured the tortures of Hell, and yet I cannot find the strength to meet her eyes. I have to force myself to do so.

Her hand is on the door handle. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I lied to you all this time,” she whispers.

“GO!” It is a roar from my throat. I cannot contain myself. I am transformed. I am Abbadon. Transformed into the demon I am. What does she see? What am I doing?

I see the fright in her eyes, taste her fear, revel in it, and with brutal effort I catch myself before I get carried away. I am dangerous and flailing. It is I who needs to leave. I am gone before she can close the door.

From the street I watch as she leaves the building. I need to go back. I want to destroy that place. I want to destroy every memory it brings. I want it obliterated from the landscape. But when I return to the apartment, I am not alone.

Mimi is here.

When Schuyler left the building that evening, she thought she would feel at peace. Instead she felt more conflicted than before. The lie she told Jack had worked because she had wrapped it around the truth of her love for Oliver. Because it was a lie. She still loved Jack. She loved him so much that seeing him sitting there alone, in the dark, waiting patiently for her, made her love him even more.

She almost hadn’t gone through with it. She didn’t know what he would say or if she would be strong enough to see it through. It hurt her so much, seeing him look at her that way.

She had never seen him so lost or confused.

I take it back! she’d wanted so much to say. I take everything back. I love you. Let’s go away. Just the two of us, together.

But she’d had to do it. She had to let him go. Or give him a reason to let her go. It was the best choice for the two of them.

And it had worked.

She should feel relief—maybe even victorious.

So why did she feel so dead inside?

As if she had killed the best part of herself.

She walked slowly up to the avenue to catch a cab. She was moving back to Riverside Drive. She would not return to that town house on Fifth Avenue ever again.

FAMILY RECORDS:

LLEWELLYN

Due to the sensitive information contained in this file, most of it speculative in nature, this record is classified CONCLAVE

LEVEL ONLY.

The Llewellyn family has risen to become one of the wealthiest and most powerful in the Coven. They amassed a great fortune by their monopoly of the New York and New

Jersey seaports. A branch of the family moved to Houston during the oil boom during the late nineteenth century, and the majority of the family has been based there since.