Blue Bloods

CHAPTER 30

They had invaded the sanctuary. Ever since Mimi could remember, her father retreated into his book-lined den after work and hardly ever came out for dinner. It was a locked door, a special place, where children weren't allowed. Mimi recalled scratching at the door when she was a child, desperate for his attention and love, only to have her nanny cart her away, with admonishments and threats. "Leave your father alone, he's a busy, busy man with no time for you."

Her mother had been the same way—a distant satellite—always on vacation somewhere children were not allowed or welcomed. It had been a lonely, quiet childhood, but she and Jack had made the most of it. They were each other's sole company; they depended on each other to the point where Mimi didn't know where she ended and her brother began. Which made what she was about to do even more necessary. He had to know the truth.

She strode into the great marble hallway and walked right up to the locked door to their father's study. With a wave of her hand, the lock disintegrated and the door blew open with a bang.

Charles Force was sitting at his desk, nursing a crystal goblet of dark red liquid. "Impressive," he congratulated his daughter. "It took me years to learn that one."

"Thank you." Mimi smiled.

Jack followed behind, slouching forward, his hands in his pockets. He looked at his sister with a newfound respect.

"Father! Tell him!" Mimi demanded, walking up to the desk.

"Tell me what?" Jack asked.

Charles Force took a sip from his glass and watched his children with hooded eyes. His so-called children. Madeleine Force and Benjamin Force. Two of the most powerful Blue Bloods of all time. They had been there in Rome, during the crisis. They had founded Plymouth, they had settled the New World. He had been the one to call them up again and again, whenever they were needed.

"About the Van Alen mongrel," Mimi said. "Tell him."

“What about Schuyler? What do you know?" Jack asked. "More than you, my brother." Mimi said. She took a seat in one of the leather club chairs across from her father's desk. She turned to her brother, flashing her green eyes at his identical ones. "Unlike you, I've accessed my memories. She's not in them. I've checked. Again and again. She's not there. She's not anywhere. She isn't supposed to exist!" Mimi's voice took on a high screech. Her fangs were bared.

Jack took a step backward. "That can't be. I have her in mine. You couldn't be more wrong. Father, what the hell is she talking about?"

Charles took another sip from his glass and cleared his throat. Finally, he said, "Your sister's right."

"But I don't understand…" Jack said, slumping down into the other club chair.

"Technically, Schuyler Van Alen is not a Blue Blood." Charles sighed.

"That's impossible," Jack declared.

"She is and she's not," Charles explained. "She is a product of Caerimonia Osculor, of a union between a vampire and a human familiar."

"But we can't reproduce—we don't have the capacity…" Jack argued.

"We cannot reproduce among ourselves, that is true. We cannot create new life; we merely carry the spirits of those who have passed in a new embryonic form through in vitro fertilization. I believe it is even common among the Red Bloods these days. Our women are implanted with the seed of an immortal consciousness so that it can take on a new physical shell in the Cycle of Expression.

"But since the Red Bloods have the ability to create new life, new spirits, miscegenation between the two is apparently not impossible. Improbable, but not impossible. However, in all our years, it has never happened before. To conceive a baby of mixed blood is against the strictest laws of our kind. Her mother was a troubled and foolish woman."

Mimi poured some of the liquid in the decanter into a new Baccarat glass. She took a sip. Rothschild Cabernet. "She should have been destroyed," she hissed.

"No!" Jack cried.

"Do not be so alarmed. Nothing is going to happen to her," Charles said soothingly. "The Committee has not come to a definitive conclusion concerning her fate. She appears to have inherited some of her mother's traits, so we have kept close watch on her."

"You're going to kill her aren't you?" Jack said, his head in his hands. "I won't let you."

"That is not for you to decide. Look deep into your memories, Benjamin. Tell me what you see. Look for the truth inside yourself."

Jack closed his eyes. When they had danced at the Informals, he had felt Schuyler's presence in his own memories as if he had known her from out of time. He went back to that night, to the room where they were dancing at the American Society mansion, and to the memory of the night of the Patrician Ball—the night they had waltzed to Chopin. One of his most vivid and treasured memories—it was… her… it couldn't be anyone else! There! He felt triumphant! He looked closely at the face behind the fan. There was the fair, porcelain skin, the delicate features, that upturned nose, and he recoiled—those weren't Schuyler's eyes—those eyes were green, not blue—those eyes were…

"Her mother's," Jack said, opening his own eyes and looking at his father and sister.

Charles nodded. His voice was uncharacteristically harsh. "Yes. You saw Allegra Van Alen. It's a powerful resemblance. Allegra was one of our best."

Jack lowered his head. He had projected that image onto Schuyler when they were dancing, had used his vampire powers to fill her own senses, so that she thought she had sensed the past as well. But Schuyler was a new soul. Her mother, it was her mother whom Jack had pursued across the centuries. That's why he'd been drawn to Schuyler, ever since that night in front of Block 122—because her face was so like the one that haunted his dreams.

Then he looked up at Mimi. His sister. His partner, his better half, his best friend and worst enemy. It was she who had been with him since the beginning. It was her hand that he reached for now in the darkness. She was strong, she was a survivor. It was from her that he drew his strength. She had always been there for him. Agrippina to his Valerius. Elisabeth de Lorraine-Lillebonne when he was Louis d'Orleans. Susannah Fuller to his William White.

Mimi reached over and took his hand in hers. They were so alike; they had come from the same dark fall, from the same expulsion that had cursed them to live their immortal lives on earth, and yet, here they were, thriving after a millennia. She patted his hand, the tears in her eyes mirroring his own.

"So what do we do now?" Jack asked. "What's going to happen to her?"

"For now, nothing. We watch and wait. It's probably best if you stay clear of her. And your sister has informed me about your concerns about Augusta's death. I'm pleased to say we are very close to finding the perpetrator. I am sorry to have kept you both in the dark for so long. Let me explain…"

Jack nodded and gripped his sister's hand even more tightly.