Blue Bloods: Keys to the Repository (2 page)

their interns. The Committee employs a secret underground network of Wardens, Venators, Conduits, and interns to keep their members safe

and also to keep track of their actions and whereabouts. In
Blue Bloods
(or Repository Record #101), Mimi Force said of the Committee

Wardens: “It was eerie how they knew so much about you—almost as if they were always there, watching.” She was right.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN PARADISE

The Fall and Rise of the Blue Bloods

It was the beginning of the end. Lucifer, the Prince of Heaven, the Morningstar, the most beautiful angel of al time, became so enamored with his

own beauty and power that he came to believe his light was as great as the Almighty, and that the throne should be his and his alone. And so he

gathered his loyal army of angels for the War to End Al Wars, and with swords blazing, trumpets blasting, and hel fire in his heart, he came to claim

what was not his to claim.

The battle was a day of black smoke and searing flame, clashing swords and cracking whips. Alas, with victory in Lucifer’s grasp, at the crucial

moment to deliver the crushing blow, the twin Angels of the Apocalypse—Abbadon and Azrael—his most loyal lieutenants, stayed their hand. They

betrayed the Morningstar and knelt to the golden sword of Michael instead, turning the tide of battle. But it was too late to save themselves.

Al the rogue angels were banished from Heaven. They woke to the cold of the earth as immortals, condemned to walk the world forever, and

cursed until the end of days to feed on the blood of their human brethren. Where once they were angels, they were now “vampyres.” Angels of fire and

death. Soul ess creatures bereft of light and love, with the immortal blue blood running in their veins.

But they were not without hope. Gabriel e, the Virtuous, out of love for her people, chose to descend with them, to bring a ray of light to the

damned. She was joined by her mate, the mightiest of them al , Michael, Pure of Heart, who could not bear to spend eternity apart from her. Gabriel e

and Michael were cal ed the Uncorrupted, vampires by choice instead of sin.

Together, Gabriel e and Michael established the Code of the Vampires, a foundation of rules that would govern their community through the

centuries, and help them to forge a way back to their glorious home in Paradise. The life cycles of the vampires were coordinated to match a human

lifetime, and so the vampires fol owed the rites of life (Expression), death (Expulsion), and reincarnation (Evolution).

But Lucifer and his minions remained contemptuous of their fal from Paradise. They had no desire to regain God’s grace or to live by the Code.

They preyed on their fel ow vampires, feeding on their blood and memories until they became beings of chaos, misery, and delirium. Their blood

turned silver, and they were cal ed Croatan, the Silver Bloods.

For a time they were subdued and control ed by the power of the Uncorrupted, and for centuries served as the Blue Bloods’ slaves. That is, until

the day the slaves rose up against their masters in a merciless slaughter. Thus did Michael declare war against Lucifer and his fol owers, seeking

revenge and bringing death and havoc to his enemies.

The war culminated in a final battle in ancient Rome, when Cassius (Michael) unmasked the emperor Caligula, who was revealed to be Lucifer

himself. Michael sent Lucifer into the fires of Hel by the point of his golden sword, forever locking him behind an impenetrable gate.

After Rome, for mil ennia the Blue Bloods lived in relative safety. However, every hundred years or so, rumors persisted of attacks on young

vampires in Venice, Florence, Barcelona, and Cologne, but information was inconclusive, and later suppressed. For al intents and purposes, the

community believed the Silver Bloods had been destroyed.

Distressed by the rise of religious persecution in Europe in the seventeenth century, a coven of Blue Bloods crossed to America, looking for

peace. But the ancient evil fol owed them there, with a rash of mysterious disappearances at Plymouth. A few years later, their entire settlement at

Roanoke was taken, with no clue as to their whereabouts except for a lone message—“Croatan”—nailed on a tree.

During this time of chaos in Plymouth, John Carver (the angel Metraton) cal ed for a White Vote to chal enge the leadership and gain the title of

Regis of the Coven. John and his wife, Catherine Carver (the angel Seraphiel), were convinced that the Silver Bloods had never been ful y

vanquished and that a traitor Silver Blood was hidden among their ranks; that one of their own was Corrupted. John Carver agitated for vigilance and

an investigation.

But Myles Standish (the archangel Michael) was equal y passionate in his belief that the Silver Bloods no longer walked the earth. For the first

time in Blue Blood history there was disagreement within the Conclave of Elders. But John Carver lost the White Vote, as the Conclave chose Myles

Standish, thereby confirming their faith in Michael once again. The Carvers lost their governing position in the Conclave, their lone opposing voice

silenced under the Regis’s ironfisted rule.

As the years went by, the Blue Bloods grew comfortable, satisfied, fearless, and proud. They amassed vast wealth and influence in the New

World that rivaled the grand palaces and empires they had built in the Old. The Silver Bloods had neither been seen nor heard from since Roanoke.

As far as the ruling Conclave was concerned, Croatan were a myth; their existence legislated out of Blue Blood history.

In New York City, the Conclave leadership established the Committee, under whose aegis the vampires ran the Board of Trustees of the New

York Blood Bank, among other educational institutions and charitable causes, as the Blue Bloods continued to advance their mission to bring art,

light, truth, and justice to the human world.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN NEW YORK . . .

Four hundred years after the disappearance of the Roanoke colony, the mysterious attacks on the vampires began again. In New York City, Blue

Blood victims were being taken during their most vulnerable period, their adolescence, before they are ful y in control of their powers. Aggie

Carondolet, a student at the Duchesne School, and four other teenagers, were ful y consumed to Dissipation, their life force drained from their veins.

Half-blood vampire Schuyler Van Alen, along with her human Conduit, Oliver Hazard-Perry, and fel ow Blue Blood Bliss Llewel yn, attempted to

solve the murders and the disappearance of their friend Dylan Ward, who was charged with the crime. Schuyler’s investigation brought her in contact

with her secret crush, Jack Force, and to the malicious attention of his twin sister, Mimi. The Force twins hailed from the richest and most powerful

Blue Blood family in the city. Their father, Charles Force, was the latest reincarnation of Michael, the vampires’ immortal leader.

Schuyler learned the truth about the Silver Bloods from her grandmother Cordelia Van Alen, who was fatal y injured after a Silver Blood ambush.

Fol owing Cordelia’s last wish, Schuyler left for Venice to find her exiled grandfather. Lawrence Van Alen returned to New York to tel the Coven the

same thing he had told them back in Plymouth as John Carver: he suspected that one of the oldest families of the Conclave had been Corrupted, and

was hiding a powerful Silver Blood—perhaps the most powerful Silver Blood of al .

After Aggie’s death, the Carondolets cal ed for a White Vote to replace Charles Force, who was then the Regis of the Coven, their leader. They

were unsuccessful in their attempt. Like the Carvers centuries before them, the Carondolets were promptly banished from the council. Charles Force

refused to believe that the Silver Bloods had returned. He dismissed the deaths as random anomalies, not the work of their old, mythical foes.

But he could not stop the Committee from cal ing in the Venators, the Conclave’s secret police force, to investigate the murders, sending one of

them to enrol at Duchesne, the elite private school that many of the victims had attended. Kingsley Martin, the Venator assigned to the mission, was

ordered to discover who among the young Blue Bloods had been drawn to the Dark Matter, a sign of Silver Blood Corruption. Mimi Force was the

strongest suspect.

A Silver Blood attack at the Repository of History, the very center of the Blue Bloods power, left the Chief Warden murdered. Mimi was charged

with the crime and brought to face a blood trial. Only a vampire with Gabriel e’s power would be able to clear her by reading the true memories

embedded in her blood. Schuyler, as Gabriel e’s daughter, agreed to perform this act. In the blood memory, Schuyler discovered that Kingsley Martin,

the Venator and al egedly a reformed Silver Blood, was the true culprit, and that Mimi was innocent. Schuyler also found out that Jack Force returned

her feelings for him. But this discovery was complicated by the fact that she had recently performed the Sacred Kiss with Oliver Hazard-Perry,

marking him as her human familiar, bound to her by blood and love.

Under Lawrence’s influence, and after the embarrassment of the blood trial, the Conclave cal ed for a White Vote, and for the first time since the

Blue Bloods’ banishment from the Kingdom of Heaven, Michael was no longer Regis, as Charles Force lost his position. They named Lawrence to

lead them in his place.

Kingsley Martin disappeared after the trial, but was brought back to the fold when Lawrence discovered the truth behind his actions. Charles

Force had secretly ordered the loyal Venator to cal up a Silver Blood from deep inside their most protected stronghold. Kingsley, a reformed Silver

Blood himself, had set up Mimi to perform the rite, but at the last moment she had been too weak, and he had performed the dark spel himself.

According to Charles, the cal should never have worked. It should have been impossible. It was a test that was supposed to have failed.

Now even Charles had to admit that their immortal adversaries had returned. A broken man, he turned his back on the Conclave, wasting his

days locked up in his study. In his absence, Mimi promoted herself to the family seat in the council.

The Silver Blood attacks continued, and the Venators reported trouble in Corcovado, where the demon Leviathan, Lucifer’s brother, was

imprisoned. Lawrence departed for Rio to secure Corcovado and left the Coven in the hands of the Regent, the second-highest-ranking Blue Blood,

Nan Cutler.

Alone in New York, Schuyler had problems of her own. Her lost friend Dylan Ward had returned unexpectedly, displaying signs of Silver Blood

Corruption, but her secret love affair with Jack Force took up al her attention and distracted her from the danger. But when the whole Conclave was