She stayed silent.
“Trent,” Isaac warned again, but I lifted my hand to stop him.
“Tell me the truth,” I demanded. “How do you know me? Who am I?”
“Allow me to take Stryge’s power back from you, and I will give you all the answers you seek,” she said.
“Stryge’s body is ruined,” I said. “His power is useless to you now.”
“I can still read his memories,” she said. “These wounds and broken bones mean nothing. Once Stryge’s power is returned to his body, they won’t matter.”
“Trent!” Isaac shouted. His palms began to glow. “End this, or I will!”
“It still burns inside you,” Reve Azrael said. “But it is not made for mortal bodies. In time, the power will consume you from within. It will destroy you. Give it to me, save yourself, and I will tell you everything.”
I watched her lips curl into a smile, and felt cold inside. She was using me again, manipulating me to get what she wanted, and she would keep on doing it as long as she had something she could hold over me. I’d been down that road before, and I didn’t like it the first time. Isaac was right, it was time to put an end to this.
Willem Van Lente’s sword lay on the ground nearby. I walked over to it and picked it up.
“Listen to what I am offering you,” Reve Azrael insisted.
I carried the sword back over to her.
“Fool, this is the body of an Ancient,” she sneered. “A sword forged by man will do nothing.”
“It’s no ordinary sword,” I said. “Search Stryge’s memories. I’m sure you’ll recognize it.”
Her eyes went wide as it came to her. “No,” she shrieked. “I have worked too hard and waited too long to be cheated like this! It’s not fair!”
“Lady, if you’ve got a problem with the way life treats you, get in line.” I lifted the sword up over my head, its blade pointing down between her eyes.
“Wait! Do this and I will never tell you what you want to know! You will live out the rest of your days knowing how close you came to the truth before you threw it all away.”
“I’ll live,” I said, and drove the sword deep into Stryge’s forehead, into his brain, severing Reve Azrael’s link to his body. The red glow faded from Stryge’s eyes as her consciousness fled. I pulled the sword free, the barbs on the back of the blade caked with thick grue.
God, I thought, we did it. I couldn’t believe it. Somehow, against all odds, we’d actually saved New York City. I laughed with relief, and nearly dropped to my knees in exhaustion.
A sudden, pained cry startled me. I turned around to see Melanthius standing behind Philip, holding a small silver dagger to the vampire’s neck. Loops of severed rope dangled from Melanthius’s wrists. He inched backward toward the ruins of the Cloisters, keeping a firm grip on his hostage. Bethany lifted the gun again, drawing a bead on Melanthius’s gold skull mask over Philip’s shoulder, but she didn’t fire.
“Shoot him,” I said.
She shook her head. “I can’t. It could hit Philip.”
“He’ll be fine, he’s a vampire.”
“Silver saps a vampire’s powers. The bullet could kill him.” But she didn’t lower the gun. She kept it trained on Melanthius, waiting for him to slip up and give her a clean shot.
“Let him go,” Isaac warned.
“Stay where you are, mage,” Melanthius said. “Make a move, any of you, and the vampire dies.”
“Drop the knife,” I said. “It’s over. Reve Azrael is gone.”
Melanthius laughed. “My mistress is never far.” He pulled Philip up onto the rubble.
We followed, keeping a cautious distance. “You’re outnumbered, Melanthius,” Isaac said. “There are only two ways out of this. You stop, or we stop you.”
“No, there is another way.” Melanthius plunged the silver dagger into Philip’s chest, then shoved the wounded vampire toward us. Isaac caught Philip before he fell.
Melanthius ran into the ruins of the Cloisters. I sprinted after him, Gabrielle right behind me. We chased him into a crumbling, dark corridor of stone. Each step I took brought a cloud of dust raining down on my head, making me wonder if the whole structure was going to come down on top of us at any moment. In the distance, Melanthius produced something small from a pocket inside his cloak. I was too far away to see what it was before he threw it down on the ground in front of him. It broke open, and a hole appeared above it, an opening in the air itself that swirled like a vortex and flickered a bright blue. I’d seen that flickering light before, I realized, the first time I saw Melanthius outside the safe house. The same light had been coming from the alley he disappeared into.
Melanthius leapt into the flickering hole. At the same time, Gabrielle threw something at him, though I didn’t see what it was. A weapon of some kind, I supposed, but she must have missed because Melanthius didn’t cry out or slow down for a second. Then the vortex swallowed him, and the hole in the air closed. He was gone.
I stopped, putting my hands on my knees and catching my breath. Gabrielle did the same. The front of her shirt was red with blood from the reopened wound in her shoulder.
“What the hell was that … that hole?” I asked.
“He had a charm that opened a portal,” Gabrielle said. She winced and touched her bleeding shoulder. “Damn it. I should have guessed he would have an escape plan.”
We walked back to where Isaac and Bethany were tending to Philip. Bethany was cradling his head against her knees while Isaac rubbed dirt on the knife wound. The vampire’s face was twisted with pain and glistened with sweat.
Gabrielle told them about the portal. “But a portal to where?” I asked.
Isaac shrugged and shook his head. “Who knows? Another dimension. Some other part of the city. Timbuktu. It could be anywhere.” He turned to Gabrielle. “Did you get him?”
Gabrielle nodded. “I think so.”
“Get him with what?” I asked.
Isaac looked at the ruins where Melanthius had disappeared. “Plan B.”
Forty-one
We made our way back through Fort Tryon Park toward the parking lot. The northern half of the park was in ruins, the Cloisters destroyed, the grass littered with body parts from revenants, gargoyles, and the three festivalgoers. I wondered how they were going to explain it to the press, or the authorities for that matter, but I was so exhausted I didn’t really care.
Philip wasn’t in good shape, not even after Isaac rubbed dirt into his wounds. Between the burns he’d suffered from the hit of direct sunlight and Melanthius stabbing him with the silver dagger, the vampire was weak and barely conscious. That he could walk at all was a miracle, even with Isaac propping him up as we talked.
“You’re saying Willem Van Lente remembered who he was?” Isaac asked.
I nodded. “I think so, right at the end.”
“If that’s true, it means the infection can be broken,” he said. “It can be reversed. At least the hold it has over people’s minds can be. I wonder if, given time, the physical changes could be reversed, too. Trent, you have no idea what a breakthrough this is.”
“Let’s not start celebrating yet,” I said. “Van Lente was a powerful mage. It may not work with everyone.”
“But it’s
Because it meant something else, too. It meant that forgotten memories, even those wiped away by something as strong as the infection, could come back. If Willem Van Lente could remember who he was after forgetting for four centuries, it meant there was a chance I could remember, too. It meant nothing was truly lost.
I walked farther ahead and came up beside Bethany. She looked over at me and asked, “Are you okay? It’s been a hell of a morning.”
I nodded. “I’m fine. I know I freaked out a little back there…”
