The Van Alen Legacy(14)
Right, Mimi remembered. Lucifer was the Prince of Heaven. The Morningstar. It made sense that to the Silver Bloods, his doom was akin to the setting sun.
«Well, what are we waiting for?» Mimi asked. «We've got a missing Watcher to find, and I don't know about you guys, but I need a drink.»
CHAPTER 18
Schuyler
«There's nothing to fear. Please don't run from me again.» Jack's breath was hot in her ear, and Schuyler felt each word as a caress. But his hands did not release their hold, his fingers gripped tightly around her arms.
«Let me go!» she said. «You're hurting me.»
She gasped, even though, to her surprise, her tremors had lessened the moment he'd touched her. She felt his grip loosen, and part of her sagged a little that he had given in so quickly. That damnable, hateful part of her that missed his touch the moment it was withdrawn. She hugged herself, trying not to feel so abandoned. Why did she feel this way? She was the one who had spurned him. She was the one who had left. Jack was nothing to her now. Nothing.
«I'm sorry,» he whispered. «What's wrong? Are you okay?» He looked at her carefully. «You're trembling.»
«It's just this thing . . . I get shaky sometimes . . . it's nothing,» she said. She turned to face him directly. «Anyway, I'm not going back. I'm not going back to New York.»
To her surprise, Jack suddenly looked relieved, as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
«Is that why you've been running? Because you thought I was taking you back to New York? That's not why I'm here at all.»
Now it was her turn to be confused. 'Then why?»
«You really don't know?» Jack asked.
She shook her head.
«You're in danger here, Schuyler,» he said, looking around warily. 'there are Silver Bloods all around. Can't you feel them? Their hunger?» The minute he said it, she could feel exactly what he was talking about, that deep and consuming voraciousness, an unabated wanting.
So that's what she'd felt at the party, a bottomless appetite of greed and sex and desire, that spellbinding siren call to depravity. It hummed in the background, like a noise you couldn't make out but knew was there. Croatan. So she did have reason to be afraid. She had felt it.
Jack had backed her into a corner of the prison cell, and Schuyler was starting to feel claustrophobic in the small space. She knew instinctively that many souls had suffered and died in the same place she was standing now. She could feel the primal pain, an unmistakable sense of injustice. Back then prisoners were sent to the dungeons to die, rotting underground, never to see the sun.
How funny that the Conspiracy made humans believe vampires feared the sun, when the opposite was true. They had loved it so much they had been exiled from heaven because of their love of Lucifer's light. Schuyler shivered as Jack continued to explain.
'The party has been compromised. They're here for you.»
«But why do the Silver Bloods even care about me? What's so important about me?» Schuyler asked, trying not to sound petulant and self-pitying. Why her? She hadn't chosen this. All she'd ever wanted was to be left in peace, but it was as if she had been born already a target.
When Jack answered, it was with the assurance and gravity of a much older presence, revealing a small glimpse into the very ancient creature behind the young vampire mask. What had Lawrence called him? Abbadon. The Angel of Destruction. The Angel of the Apocalypse. One of the most fearsome of Lucifer's former generals.
«The cycles are the key to our existence; they guarantee our continued invisibility in the human world. According to the Code, the expression of each spirit is closely monitored and recorded. There are lists and rules that govern who is called up, and by whom and when. There was no record of Allegra being allowed to bear a daughter in this cycle. So the mere fact that you were born was already a violation.»
From birth she had been a mistake, Schuyler thought. Her mother . . . that still, silent figure in the hospital bed . . . why did she choose to have me? Schuyler wondered.
«But so what? That still doesn't explain it. Why would they even care about that? What's it to them? It doesn't make sense.»
«I know,» Jack sighed.
«You're not telling me everything,» Schuyler realized. He was protecting her. 'tell me the truth. There has to be a reason why they've been trying to kill me.»
Jack hung his head. Finally he spoke. «A long time ago, during the crisis in Rome, the Pistis Sophia saw the future. She said that one day, the irrevocable bond among the Uncorrupted would break. That Gabrielle would spurn Michael and bear a daughter with a Red Blood. And that daughter would be the death of the Silver Bloods. Sophia has never been wrong.»
«So I'm their death?» Schuyler found it absurdly funny. «Me? They're scared . . . of me?» A half-hysterical yelp escaped before she could stop herself. It was so absolutely ridiculous. What could she do to harm them? As the Inquisitor had pointed out, she had used her mother's sword and missed. She might be fast and strong and light, but she was not a fighter, not a warrior, not a soldier.
Jack crossed his arms. «It's nothing to laugh about. Leviathan would have killed you right there that night in Rio if he had known who you were. And now that he knows he was so close and failed to kill you, he's tracked you down here to finish the job.»
«But how do you know Leviathan has tracked me?»
«Because I have been tracking Leviathan,» Jack said grimly. «My father and I have been tracking him for months.»
«Charles is here?» she asked. She wondered why the news did not make her feel safer. Charles Force was the greatest of them all. He was Michael, Pure of Heart, the Valiant, Prince of the Angels, Supreme Commander of the Lord's Army. She had been looking for Charles herself, and to know that he was here in Paris, and as her protector, or one of them, anyway, should have gladdened her heart. But it did not.
Charles Force was not a friend. He was not an enemy, but he was not a friend either. But maybe now she would be able to find out what Lawrence had asked her to do. Charles would have to tell her about the Van Alen Legacy. Schuyler had to know. She owed her grandfather that much. Jack nodded.
«Yes. He decided to come himself when the Conclave would not send the Venators after Leviathan following your testimony. We have been one step and two cities behind him for months. When Leviathan led us here, to this party, we thought he was after the countess, as she was instrumental in bringing about his imprisonment on Corcovado. But when we saw you in the ballroom, we suddenly knew what his real intentions were. Charles sent me to make sure you were safe while he took care of Leviathan himself.»
So basically she was in danger from the baddest demon around. Wonderful. She was running from the Venators when she probably should have been running toward them, now that she knew what was truly after her.
«So you believe me? You believe that I didn't kill Lawrence like the Conclave thinks?» Schuyler asked.
He looked down. «I can't speak for the Conclave. But I have always believed you. I've always believed in you,» he said softly.
«Right.» She nodded, trying to appear businesslike, to hide the fact that she had been moved by his faith. Jack believed her. He was on her side. He didn't hate her, at least. He didn't hate her for breaking his heart. «So what now?»
«First things first,» he said briskly. «Let's get out of this dungeon. I was worried you would choose this place to hide. And I think you've noticed it smells pretty awful down here.»
CHAPTER 19
Bliss
Muffie Astor Carter (real name Muriel) was a Blue Blood in every sense of the word. She was educated at Miss Porter's and Vassar, and had worked in the publicity department of Harry Winston before marrying Dr. Sheldon Carter, who had found fame as the plastic surgeon to the Park Avenue set. Their bonding was one of the more controversial ones in recent memory, as it had taken each quite a few attempts to find the other. He was her second husband and she his third wife.
She was also one of New York's most popular socialites. Jealous rivals sniped that the public just took a liking to her name. It was so outrageously preppie it sounded like a joke. But it was not; it was the real thing, like Muffie herself, who embodied a horsey, Bedford, WASP authenticity in an age of brash nouveau-riche hordes adding «von? or 'de? to their names and who didn't know a Verdura from a Van Cleef.
Every year Muffie opened up her sprawling Hamptons estate, «Ocean's End», for a fashion show to benefit the New York Blood Bank. It was the highlight of the August social calendar. Located at the end of Gin Lane, the property sprawled over six acres and included a manor house with a separate and equally lavish guesthouse, a twelve-car garage, and staff quarters.
The sweeping grounds featured two pools (saline and freshwater), tennis courts, a lily pond, and professionally maintained gardens. The Bermuda grass was cut by hand, with scissors, every other day, to keep it at just the right length.
Balthazar shook Bliss's hand with a limp handshake and passed her on to Muffie with a wan smile.
«I'm so glad to see you looking so well, my dear,» Muffie said, giving Bliss the most insubstantial of embraces. Muffie had a broad, recessed forehead with nary a wrinkle (her plastic-surgeon husband's most effective advertising) and the perfect blond coif pervasive on the Upper East Side. She was the epitome of the breed: tanned, slender, graceful, and appropriate. She was everything Bobi Anne had wanted to be but could never match.