Melissa de la Cruz is the brilliant creator and mother of all things Blue Bloods.

Ok, so this is basically the second (and more interesting) half of the chapter I posted at 3:00 this morning. I would have posted this too, but I was just too tired. Oh, and I broke my toe. Yeah, it was a strange night…

"What the hell?"

"Oliver?"

"Who is that?" They all spoke at once, their words jumbled and lost as they overlapped. After they all stopped speaking, Bliss cut to the heart of the issue.

"Which one is the real Oliver?"

Schuyler darted across the blackened remains of the campfire, stopping a foot in front of the boy with the pile of wood in his hand. "Jack?" She said. "Does the boy on the ground have anything on his neck?"

Jack didn't ask for an explanation, just peered quickly at the neck of the boy who lay in front of him, smirking, for all the world looking like he was laying on a beach in the Hamptons. "No."

"This is the real Oliver." Schuyler said definitively. She could see her marks clearly on his neck, and, coupled with the admittedly cute mystified expression on his face, she was sure this was her Conduit.

"Then who's this freak?" Mimi demanded, scowling at the boy on the ground. For a moment he did nothing, looking up at them and smirking, and then he turned his gaze squarely on Mimi and winked.

She flinched back as though she'd been slapped, her eyes wide with shock and disgust. "Kingsley!" she said, and they all started in surprise.

"Argento Croatus!" Jack and Dylan both cried, less than a second apart. For just a second, the façade slipped, and they glimpsed the smirking face of Kingsley Martin, before his features settled back to resemble Oliver's.

"Oopsie," he said casually, as though they were in school and they'd just caught him cheating on a test. "Guess you got me."

"Can you stop looking like me, please?" Oliver said, looking vaguely ill. Kingsley sat up with a shrug.

"Sure," he said casually, a second before he lunged forward and head-butted Jack hard in the groin.

Jack yelped in pain and stumbled back into Bliss, half falling to his knees. Mimi, Dylan, and Schuyler all made moves to grab Kingsley, who now looked like himself once again, but he easily evaded them and darted away to stand near the fire.

"I came to make a peace offering, actually," he said casually, his steps mirroring Mimi's as she stalked him. "I didn't come to fight. I just want to talk."

"This is your idea of talking?" Jack demanded, standing upright with visible effort.

"Not really, but you just piss me off. I still owe you for ruining my fun with that Red Blood at Duchesne."

"What do you want, Kingsley?" Mimi bit out, her expression sharp. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Schuyler move up to block Kingsley from the side, and she adjusted her position accordingly.

Kingsley turned toward her with a start, almost as if he were surprised to see her there. "Why, Madeline, what at pleasant surprise that you're able to join us. I figured you'd be a pile of ash floating at the bottom of the Tigris by now."

Mimi smiled tightly, although inside she was shaking with a strange combination of rage and fear. "Sorry to disappoint."

Kingsley grinned back. "No worries. I'm sure it's a situation that can be remedied shortly."

Mimi sneered elegantly at him, and he continued to smirk at her, unperturbed. "But enough pleasantries." He said abruptly. As he talked, he kept moving, staying out of range of Jack and Schuyler on his left and Mimi and Dylan on his right. Oliver and Bliss wisely stayed back.

"As I'm sure you're aware by now, my…associates and I are attempting to bring about the return of Bright One, our esteemed Master, Lucifer."

"So we've heard," said Jack cautiously. He didn't know where this was going, but for right now he figured it was in their best interest to keep Kingsley talking.

"I'm also sure you're aware, thanks to that annoyingly polite book of Forsyth Llwellyn's, what…ingredients we need to accomplish our task."

Oliver ignored Bliss's blank look and spoke to Kingsley, making sure to keep Dylan between himself and the former venator. "A Red Blood, a Blue Blood, the Apocalyptic Angels, the Rose of Lucifer, and the blood of the Uncorrupted."

Kingsley clapped softly, as though Oliver were a particularly intelligent puppy who had performed an interesting trick. "Bingo."

"You may have noticed that the six of you are able, amongst yourselves, to supply the majority of those components. I'm here to offer you a chance. Join us, help us bring about the return of Lucifer, and you needn't die. At least…not all of you. He's toast," Kingsley said, casually jerking his head at Oliver. "And one of you needs to fulfill the second sacrifice. But you three are safe," he assured Mimi, Jack, and Schuyler earnestly, as though that made everything else okay.

"Think about it," he said, when they all opened their mouths to speak. "You're in the middle of nowhere, and no one knows where you are. What other options do you have? Why not join me?"

"This is ridiculous," said Schuyler with a snort. "Even if I approved of what you're doing—which I don't—there's no way I'd sacrifice Dylan or Oliver or Bliss."

"I wouldn't be so hasty, Sky," Kingsley replied, and Schuyler bristled at the nickname "Lucifer can give you everything your heart desires, and more. You should join him now, save your own skin. There'll be other Red Bloods. All of you," he said, turning to address the group, "you can have anything you want. Just join me and my brethren and bring about the return of the Dark Master."

"We'd die first." Jack growled. Kingsley smiled, and it was chilling to see.

"Okay." He said softly.

Fools. We're all fools. Mimi thought to herself, three seconds before she dove for the first Silver Blood, one of many who'd jumped from the trees as soon as Kingsley had finished speaking.

They were all idiots, but most of all herself and Jack. Even before Kingsley had shown up impersonating Oliver they should have suspected a trap. The perfectly set up clearing only yards from where their car had stopped. It was too easy, too convenient. How had they been so blind? It was set up perfectly—for an ambush.

I'm so so so excited! (I feel like I already said that, but what the hell.) We're finally getting into the meaty, nitty gritty parts of this story that I originally imagined when I first conceived it.

A warning: there is a reason this story is rated T, and I'm about to prove it. (If not in the very next chapter than definitely in the ones after that.) Mostly it's violence and danger, which I know is nothing new, but there's going to be a couple of very disturbing scenes coming up. Don't worry, I'll warn you in advance.

Thanks for your patience and reviews! Please let me know what you think!