The Van Alen Legacy (30 page)

New York Presbyterian visiting
hours were over when Bliss arrived, not that it even mattered. Allegra Van Alen had checked out
by the time she got there.

“But what do you mean she’s
gone? I just got a call that she was awake. . . . I’m her daughter!” Bliss cried.

“Schuyler was here an hour
ago,” the nurse said, looking confused. ‘
she
walked out with Allegra.”

“I mean, I’m her other
daughter. Oh, never mind,” Bliss said, stomping off and shaking raindrops all over the
floor.

“She’s
gone. Allegra was gone. She didn’t even stick around long enough to talk to me. She doesn’t care
about me. She doesn’t even know I’m alive. Do you hear that, Father?”
she screamed inside
her head.
“Where are you, anyway?”

But it was as if the Visitor
knew they would not find Allegra at the hospital. Sometime during the traffic-clogged drive
uptown, he had retreated again.

Bliss went back home to an
empty apartment as usual. She nuked a potato for dinner. Even if she didn’t feel really hungry
anymore, try ever, it was hard to break the habit of having three meals a day.

After taking a few bites she
tossed the potato in the trash and went to her room to try on her new dress. Schuyler was right.
She shouldn’t have bought it. It was too tight in the chest and too short in the hem. And the
color wasn’t right; the deep purple shade made her look paler than usual, and clashed with her
red hair. She’d had sale goggles. She took off the dress and crumpled it into a bag so that she
could take it to a consignment shop. Hopefully she would get some of her money back. Ever since
the bankruptcy, Forsyth had been stingy with her allowance.

Allegra was her mother. . . .
The truth of it hurt, like when you overhear what your friends really think about you. She called
Schuyler again, but there was no answer.

Bliss closed her eyes and went
to the top of the Cloisters, looking for her friend. She had to tell somebody. But instead of
seeing Dylan, she saw someone else.

The man in the white
suit.
The Visitor.
Lucifer.
Her father.

“Hello,
daughter.”

“Where have you been? I
went up to the hospital, but she wasn’t there anymore.”

“Oh, I know,” he said.
‘
she
was too fast for us. She always was.
But no matter.
We shall catch
up to her soon enough. It’s nice up here. What do you call this place?”

“The
Cloisters,”
Bliss said.

“Ah, so this is where
you and your young man meet. But don’t worry; he won’t be bothering us anymore.”

Bliss felt her stomach clench.
“What do you mean?”

“I know what you have
been doing. I know everything you know. You cannot hide from me, Bliss. I hear your every
thought. I hear your every word. I know that you have seen what is in my mind, and I am glad. For
you must be ready.”

“Ready?
For
what?”

“Hearing about Allegra
reminded me we have unfinished business to attend to.
Her half-blood mongrel
daughter’schuyler
Van Alen.
A very good friend of yours, from what I can
tell.”

“What
about Schuyler?”
Bliss asked nervously.

“Forsyth has been
unable to bring her to me. Leviathan has failed as well. It is amazing how blind I have been to
the advantage that is just within my reach.
Because you shall not fail me, my
daughter.
No. You will bring her to me.”

Bliss shook her head and
stepped away, almost to the edge of the rooftop
.
“No way!
You’re crazy if you think I’d ever do such a thing.”

Lucifer’s face was
calm
. “Why? Is it because you mistakenly believe Schuyler Van Alen is a
friend? What kind of friend leaves you behind? She never called, not even once, did she? Never
wanted to know how you were. What kind of friend is that? How could she leave you alone, knowing
how much you were suffering?”

Bliss continued to shake her
head so vigorously that she thought she would make herself dizzy.
“She had
no choice . . . she was running . . . Forsyth made her a fugitive!”

“Still,
each of us has a choice. Each of us has the freedom to choose how we act, and she chose to leave
you alone.
Alone with me.”
Lucifer smiled again, and this time Bliss could
see his fangs.

“No. I won’t. You’ll
have to do it yourself if you want it done.”

“I have
tried, my dear,”
Lucifer sighed.
“
do
not forget: we
have, as you young people say, ‘been there, done that.’ ”

Bliss realized Lucifer meant
he had already tried to harm Schuyler during the times he had been in charge, when Bliss was
having all those blackouts.

“And so far I have not
been able to truly harm the girl. Gabrielle’s protection is rooted in her blood and must have
deflected my presence. But you, my dear, you have your mother’s blood in you as well.
Same
as Schuyler.
You will be able to push through where I was unable.”

“I’ll
never do it.”
Bliss pushed her fists into the pockets of her coat. Her father was insane
if he thought she would ever harm her friend.

“Well, now you have a
choice: you can do as I ask, or you shall never see your young man again.”

“What do
I care? He’s not real,”
Bliss insisted.

“He’s as real as I am.
You think yours is the only world that is true? There are an infinite number of worlds in the
universe. The world in your mind is as real as the world outside of it.”

Bliss looked down from the
roof of the museum. If she jumped, if she fell into the glom, in her mind, could she hurt
herself?

“What are you going to
do? What do you want me to do . . . with Schuyler?” she whispered.

“My
dear?
Isn’t it obvious? You’re going to kill her.”

He was right, I look better
naked, Mimi thought as she checked out her figure in the spa mirrors. Standing at five-feet-nine,
with long shapely legs, broad shoulders, and high, not-so-big, not-so-small breasts that needed
neither reduction nor augmentation, she had the kind of body seen on Sports Illustrated cover
girls, athletic and toned, but still womanly and sexy, with that tiny Barbie-doll waist and
graceful, slim hips. The bonding was set for the next day, and she tried not to think of Kingsley
anymore. But sometimes he came to mind at unexpected moments. A bad habit she was trying to
shake.

“Ready?” her mother asked,
closing her locker door and folding a thick white towel around her torso. Trinity looked a bit
disapproving to see Mimi so unabashedly nude in the middle of the locker room. Tradition called
for the bride to be fully undressed for the ceremony, although it was no longer necessary. But
Mimi preferred the old ways and fondly remembered the past baths she’d taken for this purpose, in
the NileRiver, in a marble tub at Versailles, in a newly installed sauna in Newport.

The female wardens, a handful
of Blue Blood girls from Duchesne, and a few cousins were already waiting for them in the fire
pool.

“Let’s do this.” Mimi nodded
and led the way to the underground cavern. It had been a week since Kingsley had asked her to
leave with him for Paris. Sometimes she wondered what he was doing, if he was thinking about her,
but mostly she had spent her time preparing herself for tomorrow’s bonding.

The spa was a Blue
Bloods
, only establishment, patterned after the Roman baths of antiquity. Mimi had
booked it for the requisite
prebonding
ceremony: the bathing of the bride by her
womenfolk.

Ritual cleansing was a
tradition that the Blue Bloods had passed down through the centuries, manifesting in other
cultures under different names: in the Jewish religion it was the
mikva
, in
Hinduism, the bath was recommended at four a.m., during the
brahma
muhoratham
, or the most auspicious time of day. In the sacred language it was called
the
sanctus
balineum
.

There were four different
pools in the vast underground complex, an ice bath kept at
a shocking fifty-seven
degrees
Fahrenheit; a steamy “vaporous” pool, which was good for the pores; a “harmony”
pool, which was the essence of relaxation; and a fire pool, in which the water was kept at a
degree of heat that only vampires could tolerate. A human would burn in the fire pool, but for
vampires it was a restorative and refreshing treatment.

Mimi walked down the stone
slab steps and felt the warm water cover her skin as she joined the group of women and girls
arranged in a circle. Shimmering and moving like water nymphs, they began to hum as she came
closer.

She stood in the middle of the
group and crossed her arms against her chest, bowing to let them know she respected and
appreciated their presence at this important stage of her life.

Trinity followed her into the
circle, holding aloft a gold chalice. She dipped it into the pool and filled it with the living
holy waters. The
sanctus
balineum
required water that did not come from
a pipe. It was collected spring water, brought in by the truckload from a secret spring in a
hidden reservoir.

She poured it slowly over
Mimi’s head as she said the words: “This is the daughter of the Heavens,” she intoned in a sweet,
melodious voice that echoed around the stone chamber. Slowly, the light in the room began to
fade, until they were surrounded by total darkness, their vampire bodies glowing in the
glom.

“Amen,” the group
murmured.

Trinity nodded and continued
to chant. “We come today to cleanse her of her earthly sins.”

“Amen.” The women began to
walk slowly around Mimi, singing a soft “Hallelujah.”

“We prepare her for the bond
that must not be broken. To say the words that must never be unmade.”

Each member of the circle came
forward and used the gold cup to pour water over Mimi’s head, blessing her with their
prayers.

When everyone had finished,
Trinity placed her hands on Mimi’s head. “This is the daughter of the Heavens. Today she is
cleansed of her earthly sins.” She led Mimi deeper into the water, and Mimi submerged herself
fully into the pool.

Mimi felt the warm water
tingle and soothe her skin, felt a light-headed cleansing of the mind as well as the body. She
emerged from the waters peaceful and energized.

She felt cleansed of all her
doubts, all her confusion. She had no more thoughts of
Kingsley,
or of what he had
asked her to do. She was one with the
spirit,
she was one with life, with light,
with her destiny. She was ready to be bound.

It had been a fortnight since
Schuyler had met Bliss at the sample sale. After their joyful reunion, Schuyler thought she would
be seeing Bliss more often, but the exact opposite had happened. Bliss always had an excuse not
to see her. Schuyler tried not to be too upset by her friend’s reluctance to hang out. In any
case, her mother had set an awesome task before her.

The Repository of History was
the first place to look for family records, but since it wasn’t safe for Schuyler to go there,
Oliver had lugged all the books to her studio apartment. The separation had been good for their
relationship. They no longer experienced the daily small irritations with each other brought on
by living in the same space twenty-four/seven. Of course, they still saw each other way too
often. It didn’t even matter that Schuyler was no longer at Duchesne, she saw Oliver as much as
if she were. He had a key to her studio.

“That’s a lot of books,”
Schuyler said, opening the door to let him in.

“Conduits are transferring
everything to a computer data base, but they’re only up to the eighteenth century,” Oliver said
cheerfully.

He placed the dusty stack on
the kitchen table. “How are you, by the way?” he asked, giving her a peck on the cheek. The two
of them were back in an easy groove. After it had become clear that Schuyler had no intention of
reviving her friendship with Jack, Oliver seemed to relax. The threat had passed.

“Okay.”

She had told him everything
that happened with Allegra, had told him how odd it had been to finally speak to her mother, only
to have her leave so soon. She hadn’t even been able to ask Allegra about her so called sister.
Nope. It was just,
Here’s
the Van Alen Legacy. Save the world while you’re at it,
and I’ll see you on the other side of somewhere, sometime.

Well. Schuyler had to get to
work, and she was glad she had Oliver with her. With his help, they’d already made a lot of
progress, considering they were looking for a family tree that went back to antiquity. It helped
that the Blue Bloods kept meticulous expression and expulsion records. Schuyler put the teakettle
on to boil and took a seat across from where Oliver had laid all the books open in front of
him.