Blue Bloods (19 page)

“Why?”

“Who knows?” Oliver shrugged. “Most Blue Bloods can take care of themselves anyway. They don’t need us any more. They don’t trust the Red Bloods to help; they want to control them instead.”

There was a commotion at another desk, and they turned to see a cowering, hunchbacked librarian being berated by an angry older woman with a distinctly recogniz able blond bob.

“What’s happening?”

“Anders is getting it again. Mrs. DuPont is not happy with the way his research is going.”

Schuyler recognized the graceful figure of The Committee chair. “And Anders is?”

“A librarian.All the library staff is Red Blood. Conduits who don’t work for any single family anymore.”

Schuyler noticed that the Blue Bloods at the library ordered the librarians around with a grand, authoritative fashion, and for a moment she was embarrassed to be a vam pire. What happened to common courtesy?

“Why do they talk to you guys like that?”

“Your family never did,” Oliver said, blushing. “But like I told you, most Blue Bloods resent us.

They don’t even think we should be here, or know about them. But no one from your side wants to take over the Repository. No one’s inter ested in caretaking some old books.”

“What’s she doing here anyway?” Schuyler wondered, watching Mrs. DuPont look through some paperwork her Conduit had brought.

“This is the headquarters of the Conclave of Elders. The Wardens—you know. They meet over there, in the board room behind the stacks.”

“How long have you known? About me, I mean.” Schuyler asked. She looked back at his desk, at the photo graph of the two of them that had been taken the past summer inNantucket . Oliver, his face red from the sun, was squinting at the camera. He had a dark, deep caramel tan and his hair had lightened to a rich golden brown, while Schuyler looked pale and uncomfortable, underneath a huge floppy beach hat, a white smudge of sunscreen on her nose. They had looked so young then, even if it was only a few months ago. Last summer they had been just kids ,just a bunch of kids who were dreading going back to high school. They had spent the two weeks sailing and making bonfires on the beach. To Schuyler it felt like a lifetime ago.

“I’ve known since I was born. I was assigned to you,” he said simply.

“You were assigned to me?”

“As I understand it, every member of a vampire family is assigned a human conduit at birth. I’m two months younger than you. You could even say you’re the reason why I was born. I sought you out. Remember?”

Schuyler looked back on all her memories. She remem bered now how he kept making friendly overtures, and how she’d resisted at first. He was always sitting next to her in class, or asking her questions, and finally, in the second grade, when they’d shared that dismal lettuce sandwich, they’d become friends.

“And what exactly do you do?”

“I help you. I nudge you in a certain direction, suggest how to use your powers so you can discover them on your own. Remember that night at The Bank, when I kept telling yoùthink positive and we’ll get in’?”

She nodded. It was as she suspected, and she told him how she had used it this evening to get past the drag queen at the door.

He guffawed. “Priceless. Wish I’d seen that one.”

She smiled wryly. “Well, they did tell us at Committee meetings that mind-control was possible.”

“But only very few vampires can do it,” he pointed out.

“I don’t get it, though. If this Repository is down here— why were you so worried about us not getting into The Bank? Surely there’s another entrance to this place.”

Oliver nodded. “There is. Through Block 122. That’s why they have àmembers-only’ policy. As in, Blue Bloods and their guests only. I could have gone in through there, I’m one of the few with a key—even though I’m only a lowly Red Blood—but I hate that place.”

She nodded for him to continue.

“The Bank is a fluke. For the longest time it was empty. But then a couple of neighbors and homeless people reported seeing people go in and never coming out, and to alleviate suspicion, they figured they’d rent out the top floors to anyone interested. This club promoter came along first, and they liked the idea of a nightclub so much they decided to open another club next door—but a private one of course.”

Schuyler processed all the information. The private night club, The Committee, it certainly fit in with everything she knew about the Blue Bloods so far. They liked to keep to themselves.

She was still bothered by Oliver’s admission, however, and his explanation for their friendship.

She couldn’t help but remember how Oliver was always loaning her money, and she never had enough to repay him, but he never seemed to worry about it, or ask for it back. Was that part of it? Where did the Conduit end and her friend begin?

“So anyway, you’re not really my best friend? You’re like, my babysitter?”

Oliver laughed and raked a hand through his thick hair. “You can call me whatever you want.

You’re just not going to get rid of me that easily.”

“Then why did you get so mad at me when I told you about The Committee?”

He sighed in frustration. “I don’t know—I guess a part of me didn’t want it to be true, even though I knew it was. I mean, I knew it would happen, but I just wanted us to be the same, you know? And we’re not. I’m a Red Blood. You’re immortal. I guess it just bummed me out. So sue me, I’m human.” He smiled at his pun.

“You’re wrong. Apparently I’m not so immortal, actually,” Schuyler said.

“What do you mean?”

“Jack told me that something is killing vampires.”

“That’s impossible.” Oliver shook his head. “I told you, there’s something wrong with that dude.”

He cracked a smile.

“No, there’s not. I’m serious. It’s a secret. Aggie was a vampire. And she’s not recycling. She’s gone. She’s dead. Like, really dead this time. Her blood is gone.”

“Oh, God,” Oliver said, his face draining of color. “I didn’t know. That’s why I told you I wasn’t in mourning at her funeral. I thought, what’s the big deal? She’ll just come back.”

“She’s never coming back. And she’s not the only one. There have been more—other kids are getting killed. Blue Bloods. We’re not supposed to die, but we are.”

“So what does Jack want to do about it? What does he know?” Oliver asked.

“He wants to find out what’s hunting us.” She told him about Jack’s memory about Plymouth .

The message nailed to a tree in a lonely field. Croatan .

“How is he going to do that?” Oliver asked.

“I don’t know, but I think we can help him.”

“How?”

Schuyler looked around the old room.

“This library holds the entire history of the Blue Bloods, right? Maybe there’s something in here we can find.”

THIRTY

They had invaded the sanctuary. Ever since Mimi could remember, her father retreated into his book-lined den after work and hardly ever came out for dinner. It was a locked door, a special place, where children weren’t allowed. Mimi recalled scratching at the door when she was a child, desperate for his attention and love, only to have her nanny cart her away, with admonishments and threats. “Leave your father alone, he’s a busy, busy man with no time for you.”

Her mother had been the same way—a distant satel lite—always on vacation somewhere children were not allowed or welcomed. It had been a lonely, quiet childhood, but she and Jack had made the most of it. They were each other’s sole company; they depended on each other to the point where Mimi didn’t know where she ended and her brother began. Which made what she was about to do even more necessary. He had to know the truth.

She strode into the great marble hallway and walked right up to the locked door to their father’s study. With a wave of her hand, the lock disintegrated and the door blew open with a bang.

Charles Force was sitting at his desk, nursing a crystal goblet of dark red liquid. “Impressive,” he congratulated his daughter. “It took me years to learn that one.”

“Thank you.” Mimi smiled.

Jack followed behind, slouching forward, his hands in his pockets. He looked at his sister with a newfound respect.

“Father!Tell him!” Mimi demanded, walking up to the desk.

“Tell me what?” Jack asked.

Charles Force took a sip from his glass and watched his children with hooded eyes. His so-called children. Madeleine Force and Benjamin Force. Two of the most powerful Blue Bloods of all time. They had been there in Rome , during the crisis. They had founded Plymouth , they had settled theNew World . He had been the one to call them up again and again, whenever they were needed.

“About the Van Alen mongrel,” Mimi said. “Tell him.”

“What about Schuyler? What do you know?” Jack asked. “More than you, my brother.” Mimi said. She took a seat in one of the leather club chairs across from her father’s desk. She turned to her brother, flashing her green eyes at his identical ones. “Unlike you, I’ve accessed my memories. She’s not in them. I’ve checked. Again and again. She’s not there. She’s not anywhere.

She isn’t supposed to exist!” Mimi’s voice took on a high screech. Her fangs were bared.

Jack took a step backward. “That can’t be. I have her in mine. You couldn’t be more wrong.

Father, what the hell is she talking about?”

Charles took another sip from his glass and cleared his throat. Finally, he said, “Your sister’s right.”

“But I don’t understand …” Jack said, slumping down into the other club chair.

“Technically, Schuyler Van Alen is not a Blue Blood.” Charles sighed.

“That’s impossible,” Jack declared.

“She is and she’s not,” Charles explained. “She is a prod uct of Caerimonia Osculor , of a union between a vampire and a human familiar.”

“But we can’t reproduce—we don’t have the capacity….” Jack argued.

“We cannot reproduce among ourselves, that is true. We cannot create new life; we merely carry the spirits of those who have passed in a new embryonic form through in vitro fertilization. I believe it is even common among the Red Bloods these days. Our women are implanted with the seed of an immortal consciousness so that it can take on a new physical shell in the Cycle of Expression.

“But since the Red Bloods have the ability to create new life, new spirits, miscegenation between the two is apparently not impossible. Improbable, but not impossible. However, in all our years, it has never happened before. To conceive a baby of mixed blood is against the strictest laws of our kind. Her mother was a troubled and foolish woman.”

Mimi poured some of the liquid in the decanter into a new Baccarat glass. She took a sip.

Rothschild Cabernet. “She should have been destroyed,” she hissed.

“No!” Jack cried.

“Do not be so alarmed. Nothing is going to happen to her,” Charles said soothingly. “The Committee has not come to a definitive conclusion concerning her fate. She appears to have inherited some of her mother’s traits, so we have kept close watch on her.”

“You’re going to kill her aren’t you?” Jack said, his head in his hands. “I won’t let you.”

“That is not for you to decide. Look deep into your mem ories, Benjamin. Tell me what you see.

Look for the truth inside yourself.”

Jack closed his eyes. When they had danced at the Informals , he had felt Schuyler’s presence in his own memo ries as if he had known her from out of time. He went back to that night, to the room where they were dancing at the American Society mansion, and to the memory of the night of the Patrician Ball—the night they had waltzed to Chopin. One of his most vivid and treasured memories—it was … her … it couldn’t be anyone else! There! He felt triumphant! He looked closely at the face behind the fan. There was the fair, porcelain skin, the delicate features, that upturned nose, and he recoiled—those weren’t Schuyler’s eyes—those eyes were green, not blue—those eyes were…

“Her mother’s,” Jack said, opening his own eyes and looking at his father and sister.

Charles nodded. His voice was uncharacteristically harsh. “Yes. You saw Allegra Van Alen . It’s a powerful resemblance. Allegra was one of our best.”

Jack lowered his head. He had projected that image onto Schuyler when they were dancing, had used his vampire powers to fill her own senses, so that she thought she had sensed the past as well. But Schuyler was a new soul. Her mother, it was her mother whom Jack had pursued across the centuries. That’s why he’d been drawn to Schuyler, ever since that night in front of Block 122—because her face was so like the one that haunted his dreams.

Then he looked up at Mimi. His sister. His partner, his better half, his best friend and worst enemy. It was she who had been with him since the beginning. It was her hand that he reached for now in the darkness. She was strong, she was a survivor. It was from her that he drew his strength. She had always been there for him. Agrippina to his Valerius . Elisabeth de Lorraine-Lillebonnewhen he was Louis d’Orleans . Susannah Fuller to his William White.

Mimi reached over and took his hand in hers. They were so alike; they had come from the same dark fall, from the same expulsion that had cursed them to live their immortal lives on earth, and yet, here they were, thriving after a millennia. She patted his hand, the tears in her eyes mirror ing his own.

“So what do we do now?” Jack asked. “What’s going to happen to her?”

“For now, nothing.We watch and wait. It’s probably best if you stay clear of her. And your sister has informed me about your concerns about Augusta ‘s death. I’m pleased to say we are very close to finding the perpetrator. I am sorry to have kept you both in the dark for so long. Let me explain….”

Jack nodded and gripped his sister’s hand even more tightly.

THIRTY-ONE

The next week went by swiftly. Every day after school, Schuyler and Oliver hit the stacks at the Repository, trying to find any record or mention of ” Croatan.” They combed through the computer database, trying every conceivable spelling of the word. But since the library files were only automated in the late 1980s, they also had to reference the ancient card catalog.