FIFTY-SIX

Blood Trial

Theylayonthesandforwhatfeltlikethelongesttime,letting their vampire strength heal their wounds. Finally Mimi sat up. She felt strange—different—there was something happening—her body was healing—but there was something else as well.

Her soul had returned.

She had felt it right at that moment when she’d hesitated before killing Jack. In that split second when she’d decided she couldn’t kill him; when she had staked her sword into the ground instead of in his chest. She had won it back with that singular gesture of forgiveness. She’d won it back, the spirit that she had given up in the underworld so that Kingsley could return with her to earth, and Oliver could keep his life. It had been returned to her. This is not Helda’s doing, she thought.

Helda was not so generous. Mimi did not know to whom she owed this great gift. She was just grateful for another chance.

As an immortal she could live forever—she did not need her soul to survive—and so had given it up without knowing the consequences. But when she felt its return, she understood what she had lost. Her love. Her reason for living.

What happened? Where was Kingsley? Had he managed to escape from Hell? Had she succeeded? She couldn’t remember anything. Her heart hurt thinking of him. She wanted to see him so badly, to make sure he was safe and sound.

Mimi looked at her brother. Jack was breathing heavily, and he had an ugly cut on his face. They had faced the blood trial and still the bond lived between them.

“Are you okay?” she asked Jack, who sat up, groaning.

“A few bumps and bruises, a broken back, but nothing fatal, it’s healing quickly. Luckily we’re vampires.” He smiled.

“I’m glad you didn’t kill me.”

“Yeah, yeah. But what do we do now? Since we obviously failed at destroying each other.”

Jack stood up and helped Mimi to stand as well. “There’s only one way out of this bond.”

“You don’t mean.” Mimi blanched.

“Yes,” he said. “Our former master is the only one who can unmake what was made.”

The bond was bigger than them—bigger than their wants and desires—and they had no choice.

“Maybe it’s for the best,” Mimi said. “There’s something going on down there. maybe we can stop it from the inside.”

“Double agents, you mean?” Jack asked with a smile.

“Sounds kind of dorky when you put it that way, but yes.”

She brushed off the sand from her jeans. She wanted to see Kingsley again before she went back down into the underworld, but she knew that was not possible. Still, she could feel that he was alive—on earth—and that she had succeeded in bringing him back. As long as the bond lived, neither she nor Jack could be with those they loved. “Well, I’m ready if you are.”

“No time like the present,” Jack agreed.

They disappeared into the glom, and just like that, the Twin Angels of the Apocalypse went back down to Hell.