SEVENTEEN

The Demon of Avarice

The rain did not stop, and they drove for hours under the dark and thunderous skies. The road was changing and they were no longer alone, as there was traffic in all directions.

Oliver wondered where they were going. They were no longer in Not-Nantucket, nor anywhere that resembled the eastern coast of the United States, and still the rain continued to pour and flood the highways. But as suddenly as it began, the rain stopped abruptly, and the two-lane highway expanded to a roaring eight-lane freeway, with overpasses that swooped in every direction.

Mimi looked up at a blinking freeway sign. It read: TAKE

THE NEXT EXIT. “I think that’s for us,” she said, accelerating in-to the right lane. The exit took her to a wide boulevard of skyscrapers, and a valet wearing a shiny red jacket waved her into the driveway of the tallest and shiniest building on the street.

The valet line was filled with a row of expensive and rare European cars.

“Right in there,” the valet directed, pointing toward the glass doors. “They’re expecting you.”

“You were wrong; they do have valets in Hell,” Oliver joked. He noticed the valet was wearing a silver collar around his neck. So the trolls did run the place. They were the invisible hands that made sure the trains ran on time and dinner was never late. The slave labor of the underworld.

Oliver scratched his face, feeling a sudden five o’clock shadow on his chin. When he passed through the doors he noticed his reflection. He was wearing a flannel shirt, a beret, aviator sunglasses, baggy blue jeans, and expensive sneakers.

“I look like a douche,” he said.

“Stop complaining,” Mimi said, puckering her lips at the glass. For this part of the journey she was dressed in a trendy outfit: tight jeans, high heels, a slouchy and comfortable black sweater. She had sunglasses on her head and an expensive handbag on her arm. She almost felt like herself again.

Through the glass doors was an expansive marble lobby.

Mimi walked to the elevator and pressed up. When the elevator doors opened to the top floor, they found themselves in yet another stark and beautiful lobby. Everything in the place had been designed to intimidate and disconcert, to make a person feel small and humble and not quite pretty enough.

Oliver followed Mimi to the reception desk, where three good-looking she-trolls in headsets fielded calls. The headsets were made of silver, and wrapped around their necks like dog collars. No blood, though. The nearest one smiled when they came closer. “Yes?”

“Mimi Force and uh… Oliver Hazard-Perry. We’re expected,” Mimi said.

“Of course. Have a seat and I’ll let him know you’re here.”

They walked toward the uncomfortable but beautiful furniture. Another impossibly gorgeous girl troll in an improb-ably chic outfit approached them. Her silver collar was a choker, and Oliver could swear it glittered with diamonds.

“Mimi? Oliver?” she asked. “Can I get you anything? Water?

Coffee? Iced tea?”

Mimi shook her head. “I’m good.”

“Nothing for me, thanks,” Oliver said. When the assistant left, he turned to Mimi. “What’s this all about? Where are we?”

“I think Helda’s going to make me an offer,” Mimi said. It was another temptation, another obstacle to keep her from what she truly wanted.

As soon as Mimi explained, it suddenly clicked, and Oliver understood why everything looked so familiar. Since Helda was making Mimi an offer, their environment had been designed to look and feel like a sleek Hollywood agency.

They waited for an hour; the assistants continued to hover and brought drinks even though they hadn’t ordered them.

Oliver felt itchy in his jeans as the fabric scratched. “How long do we have to wait?” He hoped it wasn’t as long as their drive through Limbo.

“Unpredictable,” Mimi huffed.

Finally the assistant returned, and this time she didn’t ask them what they wanted to drink. “Come on back,” she said, with the pat smile of a stewardess or restaurant hostess.

“Wait here. Don’t drink that,” Mimi warned. Oliver spat out the coffee in his mouth, and Mimi followed the assistant into a large office with a spectacular view of rolling green hills dotted with Spanish-tiled rooftops.

The demon sitting at the desk was turned away from her, with his legs on the armrest of his chair. He twirled around and winked at her. “She’s here in my office right now. Yes, I’ll tell her. Sounds good. We’ll do lunch. There’s a new place that everyone is raving about. You can’t get a reservation but I know the owner. All right. Good-bye. Talk later.” He removed his headset and turned to Mimi with a crafty smile on his face.

He had slicked-back hair and a shiny suit, and he was handsome in the way that powerful men are. He had an aura of confidence, wealth, and ruthlessness. His cuff links gleamed in the sunlight, a hard silver glow. “Azrael! Sexy! Been too long, babe,” he said, getting up and giving her a bear hug.

“Mamon,” she said. “I see you’ve redecorated.”

“You like the ninja thing? It’s very in now, or so my over-priced designer tells me.” His face broke into a broad grin. “So how’s life been? I hear things aren’t so great up there lately.

Michael and Gabrielle are gone, Covens are heading underground, etcetera, etcetera.”

“I didn’t know you cared. I thought gossip was beneath you.”

“I like to keep my ear to the ground, or in this case, the ceiling.” He smiled. “So how’s the trip so far?”

“Inconvenient.”

“Good enough, good enough,” he said, shuffling papers on his desk. “Well, you know you can’t expect the red carpet.”

Mimi fumed. “What do you want, demon? Why am I here? I need to get through to the seventh circle, and you’re keeping me from what I want. I hate that.”

“All right. Hold your horses. I called you here because Helda wants to make you an offer. And before you say no, hear me out.”

Mimi raised an eyebrow. “Unless it’s Kingsley back and safe, I’m not interested.”

The Demon of Avarice wagged his finger. “Well, you know it can’t be that. But we’ve got something better for you. Regis of the Coven.”

“I’m already Regent,” she said. “And they offered me the top job last year and I didn’t take it.” She crossed her legs in annoyance.

“Ah, but they haven’t tapped you again, have they? Right now you’ve taken them hostage by spiriting away the key. But if we make you Regis, your word alone will bind them together and you won’t even need the Repository. The soul of the Coven will be in your hands.”

Mimi shrugged.

“I know how you’ve felt over the years, Azrael. They’ve never trusted you, not since the Fall, not since you betrayed them. All those centuries toiling for the Uncorrupted, and for what? They still see you as one of us. But with Michael lost and Gabrielle who knows where—and you as Regis—you could have the respect and the power you’ve wanted all these years.

You could lead the Fallen. You could be their queen. With you at the helm, no one will even remember Gabrielle. Gabrielle—who’s that? Some slut who got pregnant too many times, that’s who.”

She did not want to show that she agreed with him, even if she did. She had to focus on what she had come down here for. This was merely a distraction. “What else have you got?”

mamon frowned. “That’s not enough?”

“Not by a mile.”

The handsome devil looked at her shrewdly. “All right, then. How about this? Your brother dead at your hands.”

“You can get me Jack?” Mimi asked, unable to hide the excitement creeping into her words.

“Abbadon? Sure. Piece of cake. Just say the word, sweet-heart. You know we can. Send our best Hellhounds after him.

They fetch.” When he smiled, his teeth were dagger-sharp, like little knives in his mouth, glinting in the light. He jumped from his seat.

Mimi shuddered. The hounds’ power and capacity for evil were mythical in dimension.

“Come, take a trip with me,” he said, and reached for her hand.

When Mimi opened her eyes, she was standing by the altar alone. It was the day after what would have been their bonding, the day Jack had left her to go to Florence with Schuyler.

Mimi was there to fulfill her duty, but he had left her. The old anger and hate bubbled to the surface. Jack was with his half-blood, his little Abomination, while she waited at the church alone. How funny that Schuyler did not hate her. But Mimi was not so generous. She hated Schuyler with every ounce of her immortal soul. She hated Schuyler for what she had done—she had made Abbadon forsake his bond and allowed him to forget the Code. Without either, then the vampires were nothing. No one was worth that. No love was worth that much. The blood of the angels was on Schuyler’s hands. Allegra’s daughter was said to be the Savior of the Fallen. Yeah, right.

“They laughed at you, you know,” mamon said into her ear. “When they heard that Abbadon ditched you at the altar.

That you were jilted. They said to each other, of course he would leave her. Azrael—who could love her—didn’t he always love Gabrielle—wasn’t that Abbadon’s weakness for the Light?

They still laugh at you behind your back. They call you Azrael the Unwanted.”

Mimi closed her eyes and could feel the tears and the rage behind them. She knew that every word the demon said was true. Of course, she was not the first to have been humiliated in such a manner—even the greatest angel of them all had been jilted at his bonding—but Mimi had not been in cycle then and did not see it. All she knew was what she had experienced. The cold nausea of shame and rejection.

“Helda could change all that.”

When she opened her eyes again, Jack was lying on the ground in front of her. His sword lay broken in two, and he looked up at her with fear in his eyes. She loomed above him, holding her sword aloft; and without warning, she bore it down upon him, right in the middle of his chest, straight into his heart, so deep that it cut him in two, killing him. The heat from her sword set his body and his blood on fire.

Mimi felt her brother’s blood on her face, felt the heat from the dark flames. Jack was no more. Her joy was dark and deep and triumphant.

“Mimi! Mimi! What are you doing?” Oliver was running toward her, his eyes wide with fright and worry. “Mimi! Stop this! Stop this at once! You don’t want to do this!”

Mimi stood over the dead, broken body of Abbadon and howled. “Yes I do! He left me! Centuries we were bonded, made of darkness and bound to our duty! HE NEEDS TO

DIE!”

She pointed her sword at Oliver. “Do not stop me!”

“You don’t want this. You want Kingsley, remember?

We’re here for Kingsley.”

“Make your choice, Azrael,” the demon thundered. “Say the word and Abbadon is yours, and all you see before you will be made real.”

Yes. Yes! Yes!

“Mimi—think of Kingsley.”

Kingsley. If she took what mamon was offering, she would never get to him. She would have her power and her revenge, but not her love. She would not have anything to live for once the blood dried from her face and her sword was wiped clean.

“Remember what we came for,” Oliver pleaded. “Remember why we’re here.”

“Say the word and he is yours. His death will bring you glory,” mamon whispered.

Glory. Revenge. Blood. The laughter would stop. The humiliation would end. She would have her pride back and her name. She would see it through, and show Abbadon what happened to those who did not follow their bond.

Kingsley…

But when she thought of Kingsley she did not feel rage and heat. When she thought of Kingsley she thought of his smile and his words, and a softness came to her, a blanket of coolness that made the rage and heat go away. She thought of his sacrifice, of what he had done for her, for them, for the Coven. Of his words on her bonding day.

Come away with me, and live a new adventure.

She had gone to Hell for him. She would not leave the underworld without him by her side.

“No deal,” she said, spitting out the words. “Get me out of here!”

As the words left her lips, the vision cleared, and it was as if heavy velvet curtains had parted on a stage, and they were through to the seventh circle.

They were standing on a hill, looking down upon a tall city.

Tartarus. The capital of Hell.

“How strange,” Oliver said. “It looks exactly like New York.”