"Well?" Helda asked, pen raised. Once she wrote Oliver's name in the Book of the Dead, there was no going back. That ink did not wash off. It was written forever.

"Hold on," Mimi said. "I need to tell Kingsley something."

She ran out of the office and banged the screen door behind her.

"Everything all right?" Kingsley asked.

Mimi held his hands. "You know that I love you, right?

more than anything in the world. I just want you to know that."

"Of course - why - what's going on?" Kingsley asked, starting to feel a sense of panic.

"And you love me, right? No matter what. You love me,"

she said.

"I love you," Kingsley said. "I love you." He stood up and looked her in the eye. "What's this all about, Force?"

"Okay." Mimi said. "I just wanted to make sure. That you remember that I love you, no matter what happens."

"What's going to happen? Mimi. Tell me what's going on."

In answer, Mimi kissed Kingsley hard on the lips. Then she flew back into Helda's office before she could change her mind, leaving Kingsley confused and a little frightened.

"Oliver, I need to speak to Helda alone," she said when she returned.

"Right," Oliver said, excusing himself. He walked out to find Kingsley looking annoyed.

"What's going on?" Kingsley demanded.

"Beats me." Oliver shrugged.

Helda rapped her fingers on the table. "Well, Azrael, what will it be?"

Mimi could not believe she was going to do what she was about to, but she'd learned something about herself in the time she'd spent in the underworld. She could not give up Oliver. She couldn't consign him to this dark fate. No one would ask that of a friend. She wouldn't be the girl Kingsley loved if she did.

"You need a soul for his, don't you? Any soul," she said casually, as if it had just occurred to her. "So that Araquiel can leave the underworld." And her friend could leave Hell unharmed. There was no other way.

"Yes."

Mimi bowed her head. "Then take mine."

The New York

Times

Weddings

Chapter Fifty

Soulless

MimiForce,Azrael,drovethrough the desert plains of the Sahara el Beyda, the white desert. The rolling dunes of white powder resembled snow-covered hills and valleys. It was a place that was as beautiful as it was desolate. Unearthly towers of chalky white earth rose on all sides, and the soft creamy stone, worn from centuries of desert wind, formed mushroom-shaped towers of white salt.

She did not want to be late for her assignation with Jack.

As Mimi put the pedal to the floor, she felt the heat and excitement rise in her veins. This was it. After all this time, she would finally have her revenge.

The underworld and all that had happened there was but a distant memory. She had woken up in her bed at the Oberoi, to find Kingsley martin, of all people, seated by her bedside.

He told her she'd fainted on the way out of the underworld, and he'd carried her back to her room.

"What the hell are you doing here?" she'd screamed. "Get out!"

The ridiculous idiot had tried to convince her that she was in love with him. What a laugh! With him? The Silver Blood traitor? Kingsley martin? Oh, he was handsome, all right, but beyond his good looks, there was nothing that she found even remotely appealing about him. What great love was he talking about? The boy was out of his mind.

Mimi Force had no love left in her body. There was only one thing on her mind when she woke up. Revenge. She would destroy her brother and slay him at the blood trial.

Kingsley had turned pale. "What did you do to yourself ?

What did you give Helda?" he demanded. "Mimi. Tell me!"

She had laughed. "I will tell you nothing, as I owe you nothing. Now, get out of here before I call security."

Then another ridiculous thing happened: that moronic human Conduit of the Van Alen mongrel - what was his name - Oliver Something-Stupid - had come in blathering about how he'd just gotten news that the New York Coven had disbanded - and that all the Covens worldwide had gone dark - and they had to return to the city immediately to see what they could salvage of their community and history. She'd thrown him out of her room as well. When did she ever take orders from a Red Blood?

No. How convenient that the moment she'd finally cleared her room of all those jokers, Jack had gotten in touch.

Mimi, let's end this, he'd sent. The white desert. Blood trial to the death.

She clapped her hands in joy. Finally. She would get what she deserved. She would dance over his blackened corpse tonight.

Azrael would finally have her revenge.

In a way, it was the best thing that could have happened.

Chapter Fifty-one

The Love of a Lifetime

Without even realizing it, the small hotel room in Cairo had become a home, a haven for her and Jack, Schuyler thought. She made coffee for them every morning with the little machine, and they shared breakfast together on the small desk. She would miss this place; just another thing that she would keep in that memory file of her life with Jack.

Their last night together they had loved each other wordlessly, letting their bodies say what they could not bear to speak out loud; and even then she had tried to pretend that it was not the last time. That it was another ordinary night, just one of many to live for. But as they fell asleep in each other's arms, neither moved away for a moment, as if they were each trying to memorize every curve and surface of the other.

The next morning there was no putting it off any longer.

Jack was determined and would not be swayed. Something had changed in him since they'd met Catherine. There was a new resolve in him, and she did not want to add to his burden.

She had been wrong about her illness, she realized now. She'd led herself to believe it was something wonderful and hopeful, because she did not want to think of what it meant otherwise.

That she was dying. It had all been doomed from the beginning, just as Lawrence had warned her. There was never a happily ever after for them, that was all too clear.

She helped him into his jacket and buttoned the top button. Her fingers were shaking.

Jack clasped her hands in his and held them to his lips to kiss her fingers. "Trust me to return to you," he said.

"I will wait forever," she promised. "However long it takes." But Schuyler knew that whatever the outcome of the day, even if Mimi was destroyed and Jack lived, there would be no victory. Jack would never be the same after killing his twin. Mimi was a part of Jack, and killing her would kill a part of him as well. "Catherine could not help us?" She had placed so much hope that the gatekeeper would know how to free them from their bond.

Jack shook his head. "Whatever happens, whatever you hear about me, know that there is a reason for it."

"What are you going to do?" Schuyler asked, feeling a different kind of fear. Jack had never spoken like this before.

"I cannot say without putting you in even more danger,"

he said, and his face was so heartbreakingly sad that Schuyler threw herself upon him to embrace him even more tightly.

"You are so important in this war," he told her. "You must survive to lead us. With the gates failing, there is no darker time in our history. But you are Gabrielle's daughter, and I believe that you will bring the vampires to redemption. my life is immaterial."

"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry for loving you, I'm so sorry,"

she said, and the tears began to flow freely, soaking his jacket.

"But it was such a wonderful dream, my love," she whispered.

"Such a wonderful dream."

"I am not sorry for a moment," Jack said fiercely. "It was worth every moment, every second that we were together. I would not change it for an immortal lifetime."

They kissed one last time.

Then Jack Force left for the Sahara to meet his fate.

Chapter Fifty-two

The Battle of Abbadon andAzrael

She squinted her eyes, shielding them from the bright sunlight that glinted off his hair and his sunglasses. Jack always did look dressed to kill, Mimi thought, finding she still admired him even after everything that had happened between them. "Abbadon," she greeted, getting out of the Jeep.

"Azrael." He nodded, as if they had bumped into each other at a coffee shop.

"What kept you so long?"

"I was delayed." He shrugged.

"Well." She tapped her foot. "Shall we get this over with?"

Jack nodded his assent.

They faced each other. Azrael, the ferocious and frightening Angel of Death, and her twin brother, Abbadon, the Angel of Destruction.

Then Mimi disappeared.

Jack gazed out at the crystalline sands, searching. The white desert was far from the crowds of Cairo, a fitting and se-cluded spot for a final confrontation. No one could hear them.

No one would come to anyone's aid. This was a fight to the death. The blood trial.

He found Mimi crouched on top of one of the sandy rock towers. Behind her, the orange rays of the setting sun dimmed below the horizon. The warmth of the day faded as a cold wind swept across the desert floor. He watched Mimi's shadow, the dark angel waiting for battle. She's making me come to her.

She's forcing me to make the first strike.

So be it. If there had been another way, he'd have taken it long ago. But there was no getting out of this. Azrael had to die in order for his love to live.

In an instant he was upon her. Striking at the rock where she stood, he shattered the pillar with his blade. A cloud of white dust filled the air; stone and sand ricocheted off his chest as the pillar collapsed in front of him.

Mimi laughed as she rode the collapsing column to the ground. "Is that all you can do, Jack?" she asked. "Or do you not have the courage to strike me directly?" She raised her gleaming sword and swung for his throat, the blade nipping his skin. First blood. A tiny stream trickled down from his neck as he fell backward.

"Strike back!" Mimi screamed with rage as she swung once more, and Jack did nothing but dodge the blow.

He lunged for her, but at the last moment his sword turned sideways and struck at the soft stone, sending a shower of jagged rocks toward Mimi. The air filled with the exploding powder of glittering seashells.

"You'll only make this harder if you refuse to fight me,"

Mimi said, panting heavily. "Either way, this ends tonight.

Why not fight for what you want, Abbadon. If you love your little Abomination so much, then you must fight!"

"If that's what you want," Jack said, as he transformed in-to his true form, sprouting black feathered wings on his back and horns on his head, a true angel of the darkness. He towered above her, his black sword glinting with ebony sparks. His powerful energy whipped the sand into a tornado at his feet.

This is it, he thought. What he had dreaded for so long had finally come to be.

Mimi shrieked as she became Azrael, golden and terrifying, and Jack swung his deadly blade and made a clean swath across her chest.

She changed back into her human form and bit down hard on her lip. She would not give him the pleasure of hearing her scream. "That's more like it," she laughed. Then she was Azrael again, and Abbadon threw her against a tower. She slammed through the white stone and into the next so that the columns collapsed, falling like dominoes around them.

Abbadon lifted one of the tower-sized rocks to crush her for good, but Azrael flew upward into the dark sky, with Abbadon close behind. They flew up and up, and the desert swirled like a snow globe underneath them. Still they climbed higher, and Azrael attacked, flying in a wide arc. She slashed at Jack and he parried, the two of them dancing around each other in a violent ballet.

There was no more taunting. No more conversation.

There was only the pure, magnificent rage of two creatures once blood-bound, now bent on destroying each other.

From afar, the battle dance looked beautiful to those with eyes that were fast enough to follow the action. The two angels fought silently, moving with deadly speed as they cut and dodged through the cold night air.

Abbadon cut Azrael, and she fell from the sky. Her immense feathered wings stopped beating, and on the ground she was Mimi again.

She was bleeding from the head and chest, and she stared at Abbadon with so much hatred. She had forgotten how strong he was, that this was a battle she could not win. She was no match for the Angel of Destruction.

Jack reverted to his human form as well. The sight of that glorious creature falling from the sky tugged at his heart.

Could he really do this? He had to. He must. His heart hardened. Do it quickly, then, he told himself, as he launched at her one more time. With every blow, he could feel her weakening beneath him. Her sword bending to his until her wrist snapped and it fell away.