34	DEVIL’S OWN

ARA JUMPED DOWN from the table in excitement. “We need to stop it—Find out who’s gotten it—Get every human familiar tested before their vampires bite them…”

“We will,” Kingsley said. “So far, it looks as if it’s just a few club kids. It can’t have gotten far.”

“But where were they getting it? The blood, I mean?” Edon asked. “Allegra has left the building, so to speak.”

“The paintings,” Kingsley said. “They have to be from the paintings. Stephen’s paintings of Allegra. He used his blood in the paint.”

“His blood—but not hers.”

“But when a vampire takes a human familiar their blood mixes—so even if it was his blood, it was hers as well. They are one and the same. That is the essence of the blood bond,” Kingsley said. “When Mimi reminded me of that last night, I knew where it came from.” He should have confided in her earlier, he thought. His wife had always been so clever.

“The paintings had been in storage until a few months ago. We can check the records, see who had access to it,” Ara said.

“But here’s the thing,” Kingsley said. “This is the same pill from a few weeks ago. The one Darcy gave me. Look.” He removed an envelope from his pocket.

He showed them the pill—it was coal black now, shiny, like a black diamond. “This isn’t just angel blood. If it was, it would remain white. Allegra was pure-blooded. And if what we think is true, if those dead girls are walking around, alive, it’s not just her blood that made them so. An angel’s blood is not enough to wake the dead. You need a demon for that.”

“Demon’s blood?”

“Or a demon’s remains,” Kingsley said. “The chimes of Helheim signal the beginning of the eternal darkness brought by the Morningstar’s White Worm to poison the gift of the Heavens.” He quoted from the Book of Hell. “White Worm… like a snake… A snake sheds its skin… its skin remains… Lucifer’s remains. His ashes,” Kingsley said. He turned to Ara. “Do you know where they are?”

“Blood-locked in the Repository, in the safest safe in the world. Guarded by Venators.” Ara looked at them. “Oh my God, the missing time stamps… this is what was stolen that night.”

“Lucifer’s remains are in these pills,” Kingsley said, his voice hoarse. “It’s the only explanation. An angel and a demon together. Lucifer stole the gift of procreation from the mortal world to create the Nephilim, but his blood would be too potent; it would be enough to raise the dead, but not turn them into—”

“—vampires,” Edon said. “At least the popular conception of such. Whoever did this needed Allegra’s blood for that. Together they turn mortals into monsters.”

“The Nephilim mean to infect the populace but let the Blue Bloods do the dirty work for them,” said Ara.

“We need to find those dead girls before they bite anyone else. Limit the contagion. Shut it down before it gets too far,” Kingsley said.

“But first—we need to stop the distribution at the source. Darcy said she got it from the Committee, right?” Ara asked.

“That’s all she would tell me. I kept trying to get her to tell me more. I even used the mind lock on her, but someone had tampered with her memories,” Kingsley said.

“You broke the rules.”

“I decided it was time. Georgina was dead. There were no more rules. But the supplier had gotten to her first. Someone knew I was looking around and started covering their tracks.”

Ara told them of the suspicion she’d had earlier, that they had assumed because the blood signature on file wasn’t in the records that the vampire who had killed Georgina and Ivy was a renegade. But what if the records had been scrubbed? What if they were able to find it that way?

“So whoever did this had access to the Committee, access to the Repository, access to the blood records… someone who can manipulate the time stamps… Other than Oliver… who has this kind of access?” Kingsley asked.

“There’s only one other person in the Coven,” Edon said. “You know who it is.”

Kingsley nodded.

“No,” Ara said. “No, you’re wrong.”

“Ara,” Edon said. “He sent for me to muzzle you. He thought I would be a fuckup and that I would distract you from your work. You and Rowena were getting too close to the truth.”

She closed her eyes and felt ill. She had been close to solving the mystery of the pentagrams, and after she had killed that Nephilim downtown, he had taken her home, had made love to her, so she couldn’t see what he really was.

Sam Lennox.

Venator chief.

Murderer.