Masquerade (18 page)

L
awrence was poring over archives from the Repository, and noticed that one clipping had been completely burned—except for the date on the top. November 23, 1872. He was still puzzling over it when Schuyler returned from school. She told her grandfather about Jack Force being able to read her mind that afternoon. “I thought I was safe from telepathy, and yet he was still able to read my thoughts. Why?” she asked. “Abbadon has always been one of our most gifted seers,” Lawrence said. “It will take more than a simple
occludo
exercise to close one’s mind from him. But it sometimes happens that those who are drawn to each other can share a kinship of some kind.” “Drawn to each other?” Schuyler asked. “You must have noticed he is drawn to you,” Lawrence said.

Schuyler blushed. She had hoped but she had never thought of it as a reality. And yet, even with his bond with Mimi, he had sought her friendship and hinted that maybe he would be interested in something more. . . . He had kissed her once, so long ago. And the boy behind the mask . . . Could it have been him?

“But he is bonded,” Schuyler said. “It cannot be.”

“No. Not among our kind. Abbadon has always been this way. You were not the first to tempt his fidelity,” Lawrence said. “But it will pass. Thank goodness you are not drawn to him. Otherwise it will spell disaster for both of you.”

She looked down at the carpet, wondering if her grandfather was testing her, or if he merely assumed that Schuyler would choose the right path simply because she was his granddaughter.

“Yes,” she said. “Thank God for that.”

She felt a sudden light-headedness, and her vision became pixilated and blurry; her knees buckled, but before she could collapse, Lawrence leaped to his feet and steadied her. “You have not done as you were told,” he said grimly. “You have not taken a human familiar. You are weakening.”

She shook her head.

“This is not a trivial matter, Schuyler. If you do not take a familiar, there is a very real danger you will succumb to a coma like your mother.”

“But I . . .”

Lawrence cut her off with a curt directive. “You must hunt, then—use the seduction. The call. That is the only way now.”

The
Caerimonia Osculor
was a ritual between vampire and human that was usually a development within an existing relationship. That was why human familiars were traditionally lovers and friends of Blue Bloods. But the Code also allowed for the use of the powers of Seduction if the vampire was desperate. The vampire would use The Call to draw the human to him, hypnotizing the human and drawing its blood.

“I have taught you the words from the sacred language that would induce it,” Lawrence said. “I will be going to the club tonight. When I return, I will trust that you have performed what is necessary.”

Her grandfather departed soon after that, leaving Schuyler upstairs in her room. I don’t want to, she thought stubbornly. I don’t want to do it with a stranger. I don’t want to do it with someone I don’t know. I’m not desperate! Or am I?

Then, almost as if drawn by the call, someone knocked on Schuyler’s bedroom door.

“What is it, Hattie?” Schuyler asked.

The door opened. “It’s not Hattie, it’s me,” Oliver said, slouching in the doorway.

“I didn’t hear the front door open. What are you doing here?” Schuyler asked defensively.

“Your grandfather told me you wanted me to come over,” Oliver explained.

Ah. So Lawrence had performed a call of his own. Only, this one merely involved the use of a telephone. Very clever, grandfather, Schuyler thought.

Oliver walked over to sit on the footlocker across from Schuyler’s bed. He looked at her pensively. “I was thinking . . . if you still want to do it, we can.”

“You mean?”

“Yeah.”

“Here?” Schuyler asked, looking around at her room, at her Evanescence posters, the pink Barbie dream house, the row of
Playbill
covers—
Rent
,
Avenue Q
,
The Boy from Oz
—taped on her wall during the time when Cordelia regularly took her to Broadway musicals. It was still a childish bedroom and painted Mountain Dew yellow. It didn’t look like the lair of a vampire.

“As good a place as any,” Oliver shrugged. “Besides, it’ll save me the cost of a hotel room.”

“You’re sure about this?” Schuyler asked, reaching for his hand.

“Yes.” Oliver exhaled. “I know what’s going to happen to you if you don’t, and between you and me, I’d prefer it if you weren’t a vegetable. I hate vegetables,” he joked. “Especially broccoli . . . So how do we . . .” Oliver said. “Should I stand? Or . . .” He stood up and looked around. He was so much taller than she was.

“No, sit down,” Schuyler said, pushing him gently by the shoulders onto her bed. “This way I can reach down.” She stood between his legs. He looked up at her. She thought he had never looked so handsome, or so vulnerable.

Oliver closed his eyes. “Be gentle.”

Schuyler leaned down, kissed the hollow at the base of his neck, and then, ever so gently, she elongated her fangs and stuck them in.

Oliver whistled between his teeth, as if in pain.

“Should I stop?”

“No . . . go on . . .” he said, waving a hand.

“I’m not hurting you, am I?”

“No . . . It feels . . . good, actually,” he whispered. He put a hand on her head and guided her to his neck again.

Schuyler closed her eyes and sank her fangs back into his neck. As she did so, her senses heightened, and his mind became open to her. The blood memory came flashing out. It was just as Bliss had said: she was devouring his soul, his very being . . . and, what was this? His mind was an open book to her now, his blood mixing with hers, reviving hers . . . and she could read every thought he’d ever had in his life . . . could access every memory.

Oliver was in love with her.

He had been in love with her all along. Ever since they’d met. For years and years and years.

She had long suspected this but had repressed it. But now it was confirmed. She couldn’t deny it.

Oh, Ollie. I shouldn’t have done this.
Schuyler despaired. The Sacred Kiss would only increase his love, not dispel it.

Now they were bound to each other in a new and more complicated way.

This was more than she’d bargained for. Their friendship would be jeopardized, she knew that now. There was no going back from here. They would only be able to go forward. As vampire and familiar. Entwined by an ancient ritual of blood.

She finished. She was satiated. She withdrew her fangs and felt the life-giving energy flow through her body. It was as if she had ingested twenty-four gallons of high-octane coffee. Her cheeks flushed with color, and her eyes sparkled.

Oliver’s head flopped down. He was already asleep. Schuyler gently laid him on her bed, where he would have to rest for the next several hours, and covered him with her blanket.

What have I done? she wondered, even as she felt her vision clear and her senses heighten. Would they be able to keep this a secret from The Committee? What if Oliver were banished because they found out a Conduit had become a human familiar? She remembered Cordelia telling her that Allegra had married Schuyler’s father, her human familiar, against the Code of the Vampires. Her mother had exchanged one bond for another.

And what about Jack?

*** When Oliver woke, Schuyler was sitting at her desk, watching him.

“Well,” he said, scratching his neck where the bite marks were still raw, “I guess that’s what you call friends with benefits.”

They both cracked up.

Schuyler threw a pillow at him. She walked Oliver to the door and thanked him again. He kissed her on the lips as he left. A quick kiss, but still, a kiss on the lips.

She closed the door behind him, her heart anxious and troubled.

This was a mistake.

A
llegra Van Alen’s hospital suite was on the top floor of Columbia Presbyterian, in a private wing where the rich and famous convalesced. The room was decorated in a style suited to the city’s best hotels, with white Italian linens on the bed, sumptuous carpeting, and crystal vases filled with fresh flowers. Every day, a team of nurses massaged and manipulated Allegra’s limbs to keep her muscles from the dangers of entropy. Not that Allegra would ever notice. Once the city’s most celebrated beauty, she slumbered, oblivious to the world around her: a woman with a glorious and tragic past, but no future. The heart monitor next to the bed showed a steady pulse, and for a long time, there was no sound in the room but the steady beeping from the machine. Lawrence Van Alen sat in a chair opposite Allegra’s bed. He had come to visit his daughter for the first time since he had returned. It was a visit he had been postponing due to the emotional weight of seeing his child reduced to such diminished capacity.

“Oh, Gabrielle,” he said finally. “How did it come to this?”

“She can’t hear you,” Charles Force said as he entered the room, bearing another vase of flowers. He placed it on the sideboard next to her bed. He didn’t seem surprised to find Lawrence there.

“She chooses not to hear,” Lawrence said. “You have done this.”

“I have done nothing. This is her own doing.”

“Be that as it may, it was still your fault. If you had not—”

“If I had not saved her, you mean, in Florence? If I had let the beast have her? Then she would not be in a coma? But what was the alternative? To let her die? What was I to do? Tell me, Father.”

“What you did was against the laws of the universe. It was her time, Michael. It was her time to go.”

“Do not speak to me of time. You have no idea what happened. You were not there,” Charles said bitterly.

He put a hand on Allegra’s cheek and stroked it gently. “One day she will awake. She will awake out of love for me.”

“It is sad that you still do not understand, Michael. She will never love you the way she did before. She herself did not understand the choice you made. You should have let her die. She will never forgive you.”

Charles Force’s shoulders shook. “Why do you talk to me as if I were still a boy? She only left Heaven out of love for you and Cordelia when you were banished.”

“Yes. We had been doomed, we who were loyal to Lucifer. But your sister brought us hope. It was her choice to become one of the undead.”

“Just as it was my choice to follow her.”

Lawrence ruminated on their ancient history. How long ago it seemed now: Lucifer’s ascent to the throne, the Prince of Heaven in all his glory, his bright shining star rising as beautiful as the sun, as powerful as God, or so they had thought, to their own detriment. How they had suffered. The cruel exile from Paradise, and Gabrielle, the Virtuous, who had volunteered to join the ranks of Lucifer’s minions to bring hope and salvation to her kind. She had turned her back on Heaven for love of them, and Michael had followed her out of Paradise because he could not bear to be separated from her. The two of them were called the Uncorrupted because they did not bear the sin of banishment. They had left on their own accord. Out of love and duty.

“So you have won, Lawrence. After all these years, you finally have what you want. The coven.”

The White Vote had been called that morning, and Lawrence had been installed as Regis in an almost unanimous election. Charles had been stripped of his title and responsibilities immediately. His reputation had been badly tainted by Mimi’s conviction. He had tendered his resignation from the Conclave as soon as the news had been announced.

“I never wanted to displace you, Charles. I only wanted us to be safe.”

“Safe? No one is safe. All you will do is sow fear and weakness. You will have us retreat once again. Back to the shadows. Back to the darkness, where we will hide like animals.”

“Not a retreat, a tactical exercise in which we will be able to prepare. Because war is coming, and there is nothing you can do to stop it this time. The Silver Bloods are ascendant and the future of this world will be decided once and for all.”

Charles Force remained silent. He walked toward the window and looked out at the Hudson river. A slow barge moved across the surface, and a seagull honked its lonely cry.

“But I have hope. It is said that Allegra’s daughter will defeat the Silver Bloods. I believe Schuyler will bring us the salvation we seek,” Lawrence said. “She is almost as powerful as her mother.” He told Charles of Schuyler’s astonishing abilities. “And one day she will be even more powerful.”

“Schuyler Van Alen . . . the half-blood?” Charles mused. “Are you certain that she is the one?”

Lawrence nodded.

“Because Allegra had two daughters,” Charles said in a light, almost playful tone. “Surely, even you have not forgotten that.”

M
imi’s condemnation, the formal process for her execution, was coincidentally scheduled during Duchesne’s Ski Week in March, so she allowed herself to pretend the family was just going on vacation to Venice. The whole prospect of what was to come—her blood burned, her imminent destruction—seemed absolutely ludicrous. She believed her father would find some way to rescue her from her fate, and she spent the flight from New York paging through fashion magazines, marking off the clothes she would buy when she returned to the city. But once they arrived in Venice, Mimi’s bravado cracked a little. Especially when members of the Conclave escorted them to their hotel. They had traveled to the ancient prison as well, to witness the final rites. It was hard to believe in death and burning in her comfortable bedroom, where she could still watch TiVo’d
My
Super Sweet Sixteen
and
Tiara Girls
. But stepping foot on the waterlogged sidewalks of Venice seemed to bring the past to life, and her memories screeched with images of the hunt: bringing death to Blue Blood foes, the black robes of the condemnation worn by the corrupted traitors, the screams of the guilty.

Mimi shuddered.

Tradition called for the accused to voluntarily surrender to the jailor, and on the evening of their arrival, Mimi left their hotel and made the historical walk across the Bridge of Sighs, where thousands of Blue Blood prisoners had walked before.

The bridge was so named because it was the last vantage point from which the condemned could view the city. She walked on it lightly. Jack was at her side, silent and grim. A few paces behind them, Elders and Wardens from the Conclave followed in a procession. Mimi could hear the heavy footsteps from the mens’ boots, and the softer stiletto clack from the ladies’ shoes.

“Don’t,” she said to her brother.

“What?”

Don’t act like I’m dead already. I, for one, am not giving up.

She stuck out her chin, defiant and unbowed. “I’m not worried! They’ll see I’ve been set up!”

“Nothing gets you down, huh?” Jack asked with a ghost of a smile. He was amused to find his sister as bratty and confident as ever. Her bravery was admirable.

“I laugh in the face of death. But then again, I am Death.”

They stood in the middle of the bridge, the two of them remembering another walk, another time, in their shared past. A happier memory.

An idea occurred to Mimi.

She turned toward her brother. They stood in front of each other, forehead to forehead, as they had all those centuries ago.

“I give myself to you,” she whispered, linking her fingers into his. Those were the sacred words that began the ceremony. That was all the bond entailed. All he would have to do was repeat them back to her, and the bond would be resealed in a new lifetime. In this lifetime.

Jack held her delicate hands in his. He brought them up to his lips and kissed them passionately, deeply. He closed his eyes and held her trembling fingers, feeling with his mind her love, her desire, her whole soul, waiting on a precipice for his response.

“No. Not yet,” he sighed, keeping their hands linked tightly and opening his eyes so he could look deep into her eyes.

“If not now, when?” she asked, the threat of tears in her voice. She loved him so much. He was hers. She was his. It was the way of their kind. This was their immortal story. “Time might be running out for me. For us.”

“No,” Jack promised. “I would never let that happen.” He looked away and released his hands from her.

Mimi crossed her arms, furious, and glanced to see what had distracted him.

Schuyler Van Alen was walking with her grandfather a few steps behind them. Seriously! Couldn’t the wretched girl leave her in peace? She had won, hadn’t she?

“Wait,” Jack said. “It’s not what you think. I need to talk to Schuyler.”

Mimi watched as Jack walked over to her rival. On the night of her condemnation, couldn’t she even catch a break?

Schuyler was startled when Jack Force appeared by her side. She had traveled to Venice with Lawrence at her grandfather’s request. The thought of being witness to Mimi Force’s demise wasn’t an experience she was looking forward to, although, like Mimi, she couldn’t quite believe it was truly happening.

“You know about the blood trial,” Jack said.

She nodded. “Yes. My grandfather told me it’s the only way to prove what really happened that night. The only way to overturn a ruling by the Conclave in session.”

What Schuyler didn’t say was that Lawrence had told her something else about the blood trial. Her grandfather had briefed her on her mother’s history during their vampire lessons and confided that Gabrielle was the only vampire who was able to do it: as one of the highest-ranking
Venators
, she could tell blood memory from false.

“As Allegra’s daughter, you may have inherited this ability,” Lawrence had said. “You may be able to clear Mimi Force.”

“Grandfather,” Schuyler pleaded, “I’m not . . . I can’t . . .”

“Listen to me closely, the blood trial will mean you will have to drink Mimi’s blood to discover the truth of what happened that night. Only the Uncorrupted have the power to ascertain real memory from false in the blood memory. But it is a great risk: drinking the blood of another vampire means there is a chance you may give in to the temptation that afflicts the Silver Blood, kill Mimi, and become doomed in the process by becoming Abomination yourself. It is a risk only you can decide to take.”

“And if I choose not to?” Schuyler asked.

“Then punishment will be rendered.”

The thought that she held Mimi’s life in her hands oppressed Schuyler. To risk her own life to save her enemy’s! How could she volunteer for such a task? She had visited her mother in the hospital for guidance.

Allegra slumbered peacefully in her bed.

“I don’t know what to do. If I don’t do it, Mimi will die. But If I do, then I could become a monster. . . . Tell me what to do, Mother. Help me.”

Yet, as usual, there had been no sign from Allegra.

And now Jack was studying Schuyler carefully. What did Jack mean by bringing this up now? Shouldn’t he stay by Mimi’s side and help her to accept the inevitable?

Jack looked over at Lawrence, who was watching the two of them keenly. He returned his gaze to Schuyler. “You are your mother’s daughter. Only you can perform the blood trial.”

She took a step back.

Lawrence cleared his throat, but held his tongue.

“Lawrence, you said so yourself, that Schuyler has powers none of us have. Schuyler, please. I’m begging you.” Jack said, with tears in his eyes. “You’re her only chance. They
will
destroy her.”

Suddenly, Schuyler understood what was at stake. This wasn’t a game the Conclave was playing. This wasn’t make-believe or a play put on for their amusement. They had conducted an investigation and pronounced judgment. Punishment had been recorded in the
Book of Laws
. They had traveled across the ocean to Venice, to the ancient prison, to fulfill the sentence.

Mimi was going to burn.

Schuyler looked askance at Jack. Your sister tried to destroy me! She wanted me dead—taken by a Silver Blood! How can I . . .

But she knew what she had to do. This was the sign she had been seeking all along. She looked deep into Jack’s anxious green eyes.

“Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath. “I’ll do it.”