The Van Alen Legacy (9 page)

“Jack,” she breathed. Even
saying his name was difficult. Was it so terrible that she had wanted so much to see him again?
God knows she had tried to stop thinking about him, had banished all thought of him to the
darkest corner of her mind.

Yet he was always there: in
her dreams, she always went back to the apartment above the city, to that spot by the fire. You
couldn’t stop yourself from dreaming, could you? It wasn’t her fault. That was the annoying part.
However much she wanted to, her unconscious always pulled her back to him.

To see him, living, breathing,
right here in front of her was like a direct assault on everything she had tried to hold on to
during her year-plus in exile. She had convinced herself that her love for him was dead and
buried, locked in a treasure chest below the sea, never to be reopened. She had made her choice.
She loved Oliver. They were happy, or as happy as two people could be with a bounty over their
heads. Jack was not hers to love, and never had been. Whatever they had once meant to each other
was no longer. He was a stranger.

Besides, he was bonded now to
his vampire twin, to Mimi, his sister. It didn’t make a difference how Schuyler still –
regrettably, felt about him. It just didn’t matter. He was already bound to another. She was
nothing to him, and he to her.

“What are you doing here?” she
asked, because he was just looking at her in silence, even after she had said his
name.

“I’m here for you,” he said,
his mouth set in a grim line.

Then Schuyler knew. Jack was
here on behalf of the Conclave. He was here to take her back to New York.

Back into
custody.
He was here to take her back to face the Inquisitor for sentencing. Innocent or
guilty, it did not matter, she knew what the verdict would be,
they
had turned
against her. Jack was one of them now.
Part of the Conclave.
The
enemy.

Schuyler backed into the
opposite wall, toward the other door, knowing it was useless. The wards, the protections in place
meant there was no way to go but up and out. She would have to try it. Take a running start on
the wall and jump high enough so that she would crash through the glass. Jack noticed her eyes
flick toward the ceiling.

“You will destroy this room if
you attempt it.”

“What do I care?”

“I think you do. I think you
love the H’tel Lambert as much as I do. You are not the only one who used to play in its
gardens.”

Of course Jack had been here
before. His father had been the former Regis. The Forces had probably stayed in the same guest
wing as she and Cordelia. But so what?

“I’ll do it if it’s the only
way. Watch me.”

Jack took a step toward her.
“I’m not your enemy, Schuyler. No matter what you think. You’re wrong. That way is lost. There is
a protection you don’t feel, one that Lawrence did not teach you about. You will shatter against
the glass. And I will not have any harm come to you.”

“No?”

“You don’t have a choice. Come
with me, Schuyler, please.” Jack held out his hand. His flashing glass-green eyes were suddenly
gentle, pleading. The foreboding look on his face had all but disappeared. He looked vulnerable
and lost. It was the same way he had looked at her that night.
When he had asked her to
stay.

She gave him the same answer
she had back then.

“No.”

Before she could take a breath
she was already running sideways and up, so fast that she was a pink blur against the gold wall,
and then she had thrown herself upward so that she broke through the ceiling, sending a rain of
crystal shards crashing down on the marble floor. It was all over in an instant.

He was wrong. She knew the
spell that held it in place, and she knew the
counterspell
that had destroyed it.
Contineo
and
Frango
.
Lawrence had been thorough in his
tutorials. In this at least, she would not fail her grandfather.

I’m sorry, Jack. But I can’t
go back there.

Never.

Then she disappeared into the
night.

“Listen! I am not going away
until I see Bliss! I insist! You will have to call the police if you want me to
leave?”

The voice was so strong, so
aggressive and braying, so full of itself, brimming with the complete and total assumption that
it was one hundred percent in the right, filled with the kind of New York arrogance that only a
jaded city dweller could muster. It was the kind of voice that yelled at bike messengers and
barked orders at scurrying underlings for half-
caf
no-foam
ventis
, so
loud and insistent that it pierced through the muffled gauze that kept Bliss from seeing and
hearing the outside world.

The Visitor stirred. It was
like watching a coiled snake get ready to spring. Bliss held her breath.

The voice continued its
tirade. “Can you at least tell her who’s here?” What is the meaning of this nonsense?

Bliss jumped. It was the first
time the Visitor had spoken directly to her in a year.

With a start, the lights came
on, and she found she could see and was looking out the window. There was a short bald man
standing at the front door, looking furious and harassing the maid.

“It’s
Henri”
, she said.

“Who is he?”

“My modeling
agent.”

“Explain.”

Bliss sent images and memories
to the Visitor: waiting outside the office at the Farnsworth Agency, her portfolio balanced on
her knees, breakfast meetings with Henri over cappuccinos at Balthazar before school, walking the
runway during New York fashion week, the photo shoots in the
Starret
-Lehigh lofts,
her ad campaigns for Stitched for Civilization, jetting off for shoots in the Caribbean, her
photographs on billboards, magazine spreads, plastered on the sides of buses and on top of taxis.
 

“Um, I’m
a model?”
she reminded him.

The cobra relaxed, coils
unfurling, forked tongue withdrawn. But a tense wariness remained. The Visitor was not
amused.

A model.
A
living mannequin.

Quickly he reached a decision.
“Get rid of him. I have been remiss to let this happen. We shall keep up
appearances. No one must suspect you are not you. Do not fail me.”

“What do
you mean
?,
what do you want me to do?”
, Bliss asked, but before she could
finish, she was SMACK, back in her body, completely in control. This was nothing like last week’s
pathetic attempt to brush her bangs away from her forehead. She had realized how much of herself
he was keeping from her, a thought she tried to shelter from him.

It was like coming back to
life after being trapped in a coffin. She wobbled like a newborn colt. It was as if the world was
coming into focus after years of watching a grainy, fuzzy movie version. She could smell the
hollyhocks outside her
window,
she could taste the salt in the sea air.

Her hands, her hands were her
own. They felt light and strong, not weighed down and heavy. Her legs were moving; she was
walking! She tripped over the rug. Ouch! She pushed herself up and walked more carefully. But her
freedom came at a price, for she sensed him, a presence, in the space just behind (that rear
passenger seat), waiting, watching. This is a test, she thought. He wants to see what I’m going
to do. I need to pass. . . . Get rid of Henri. But Henri must not suspect anything odd has
happened to me.

She opened her bedroom door,
savoring the feel of the cold bronze doorknob in her hand, and ran down the stairs.

“Wait! Manuela! Let him in?”
she called, running to the foyer. It was a joy to hear her voice out in the world again
,
 
her
wonderful throaty voice carrying in the air. It sounded different
inside her head. She felt like singing.

“Bliss!
Bliss?”
the bald man cried. Henri looked exactly the same: the same rimless eyeglasses, the same
monochromatic wardrobe. He was dressed all in white, in his summer uniform: a linen shirt and
matching pants.

“Henri?”

Henri engulfed her in a
flutter of air-kisses. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for months! Everyone feels
terrible about what happened! Oh My God! I still can’t believe it! I’m so glad to see you’re
okay! Can I come in?”

“Of course.”
She
led him into the sun-drenched sitting room where the family received guests. Bobi Anne had gone a
little overboard with the nautical theme. Scull oars were hung on the walls, the blue-and-white
pillows were trimmed with rope, and there were miniature lighthouses everywhere.

Bliss asked the maid to bring
refreshments, and settled into the cushions. Playing the grand hostess came easily; it helped
that she had been raised to do this all her life. It stopped her from rubbing her bare feet
against the throw rug and from bouncing up and down on the cushions.

She was alive! In her own
body! Talking to a friend! But she composed her face as carefully as her thoughts. It would not
do to look delirious and ecstatic when half her family was dead or missing. That would certainly
arouse suspicion.

“First of all, I’m so sorry
about Bobi Anne,” Henri said, taking off his fancy eyeglasses and cleaning the lenses with the
edge of his shirt. “You did get our flowers, right? Not that we were expecting a thank-you card
or anything. Don’t even worry about it.”

Flowers?
What
flowers? Henri looked concerned when Bliss didn’t answer, and she immediately covered up for her
confusion, reaching for his hand.

“Of course!
Of course?
they
were beautiful and so thoughtful.”

Of course the agency had sent
flowers for Bobi Anne’s memorial. Through their conversation, Bliss gathered that the papers had
explained the deaths of the Conclave by way of a fire at the Almeida villa. Arson was suspected,
but with the slow-moving ways of the
Policia
, there was little hope that justice
would ever be served.

The maid returned bearing a
pitcher of Bobi Anne’s favorite: Arnold Palmers half iced tea, half lemonade (made from lemons
picked fresh from their orchard).

“I can’t believe it’s been a
year since I’ve seen you?” Henri said, accepting a frosty glass filled with the amber
drink.

A year!

That was a shock. Bliss almost
dropped her
glass,
her hands were shaking so badly. She had had no idea so much time
had passed since she was last in control of her body, of her life. No wonder she had so much
trouble trying to remember things.

That meant she had missed her
last birthday. The year she turned fifteen, her family had celebrated at the Rainbow Room. But
there had been no one around to mark her Sweet Sixteen. Not even herself, she thought dryly. I
wasn’t even there for my own birthday. A whole year had gone by while she fought to hold on to a
semblance of consciousness. She would never get it back, and time was more and more precious
now.

A burning anger rose within
her, she had been robbed of an entire year, but again, she suppressed it. She couldn’t allow the
passenger in the backseat to know how she felt. It was too dangerous. She would have to remain
serene.

She turned to her agent, her
friend, and tried to pretend she didn’t feel like he had just punched her in the
stomach.

Dawn was breaking over the
hillsides.
Another fruitless night in the slums.
They had scanned every man, woman,
and child in the designated area. Tomorrow they would do the same, starting in the northern slums
in
Jacarezinho
. The team’s spirits were starting to flag.

Mimi didn’t think they were
ever going to find Jordan.
At least not in Rio.
Kingsley put on a good show, but
Mimi could tell he was frustrated.

“My instinct tells me I’m
right, that she’s here,” he said as they walked quickly down through the maze of makeshift
stairways cut into the hillside.

The narrow streets were empty,
save for junkyard dogs and the occasional random rooster.

“The glom says you’re wrong,
boss,” Mimi said. She knew he hated it when she called him that.

He spit out a wad of tobacco,
a brown
spittle that arched out of his mouth. Impressive, if it weren’t so
disgusting.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,”
Mimi said.

“Why not tell me what you wish
I would do?” Kingsley smiled.

Mimi did not dignify his
teasing with an answer. She wondered what it was like to be a reformed Silver Blood, whatever
that meant. Did he still have a soul mate? Did the same rules apply? What did Silver Bloods do,
anyway? Did they still need the Red Blood to survive? Or did they just live on caffeine and
sugar
?,
which is what Kingsley seemed to subsist on. The guy was skinny, but he
could eat a dozen doughnuts in one sitting.