The Van Alen Legacy (13 page)

These people’s problems are
not your own, she told herself. You cannot help them.

She felt very far away from
the sheltered, exclusive world of the Upper East Side as she stood on a dusty sidewalk in the
slums, her muscles still tense from the encounter. This was why she had signed up for the
mission, to shake up her life a little bit, to see a side of the world that wasn’t available from
the backseat of a limousine. She might be a spoiled princess in this incarnation, but she was a
warrior by nature.
Azrael
needed this.

But it was frustrating. They’d
set out a year ago to find the Watcher and still had nothing to show for their efforts, save for
a letter that didn’t tell them anything.

“Maybe the Watcher doesn’t
want to be found,” Mimi said, taking a chug of water and passing it to Kingsley. “Ever think of
that?”

“It’s possible,” he said after
taking a gulp and throwing the bottle to one of the
Lennoxes
. “But unlikely. She
knows how valuable her wisdom is to our community. She knew they would send me to find her.
Believe me, she wants to be found.”

“Let me see the note again,”
Mimi said. Kingsley handed her the piece of paper. She reread the note. As she held up the paper,
she noticed something she hadn’t seen before.
Something that had been hidden in the dawn,
when it had been too dark to see clearly.

“Look,” she said to Kingsley,
holding the note up so it was facing the direct rays of the sun.

Sunlight shone brightly
through the paper, revealing something that had formerly been invisible, like a watermark.
Phoebus
ostend
praeeo
, indeed. The sun shall show the way.

In the middle of the page was
a map.

“It’s this way,” Jack said.
“When I was a kid, the cooks used to chase me out of here.”

He showed Schuyler the secret
passageways that twisted through the building’s vast storerooms underneath the castle.
Historically, the home had been built to accommodate an entire court of nobles. There was a full
servants’ wing, and the kitchens and pantries went down three levels. When the count was still
alive, the royal couple had hosted lavish month long parties for guests and their
entourages.

The castle was meant to
sustain what had become an increasingly outdated, not to mention incredibly expensive, lifestyle.
No wonder the developers planned to chop it up into apartments. Living with a staff of sixty had
become untenable even to the countess, who was moving to her villa in Saint-Tropez with a much
more moderate household.

But while the property boasted
dozens of hidden rooms and mazelike passageways, in the end there was only one way out of the
H’tel Lambert. Everyone, from the highest ranking nobleman to the humblest kitchen steward, had
to go through the central courtyard and out the main gates. Jack and Schuyler found they didn’t
have a choice: they would have to walk through the vipers’ nest to freedom.

The staircase from the
servants’ quarters led straight into the main hall, where Jack and Schuyler could hear the sounds
of hysterical laughter and uncontrollable gaiety, which sounded more overwrought and frantic as
the dizzying music gained speed and volume.

“What are they doing?”
Schuyler whispered as they huddled behind one of the fluted columns. “Why do I feel . . . like .
. . like I want to . . . to hurt someone?”

“It’s what the Silver Bloods
do, they “push”,
they
use the glom like we do, except they push in the opposite
direction. They bring out the worst in people.”

“Shouldn’t we warn everyone?”
she asked.

“This isn’t Rio. There are too
many of us to overpower; the Silver Bloods will not risk anything more dangerous than compulsion.
They are only here for you,” Jack said, trying to blunt the difficulty of their situation with
another reassuring smile.

Schuyler did not want to be
swallowed up by her fear, and steadied
herself
by concentrating on fighting the
rising overwhelming sickness she felt from the Silver Bloods’ spell.

They had to find Oliver, and
then they had to get out of here as quietly as possible. She had made a huge ruckus in running
away from Jack, but the over-the-top antics of the Bollywood musical numbers had covered up most
of that. The guests had figured she was part of the show, especially given the way she was
dressed. In her sari she had blended right in.

“Here,” Jack said, handing her
a small silver crucifix on a chain. “It should help.” He pulled out a similar one from underneath
his shirt. “Part of the Venator uniform.”

They crept out to the garden
and found Oliver standing by himself under a majestic beech tree, holding a drink. If he was
surprised to see Schuyler with Jack, he didn’t show it except for a slight raise of his eyebrows,
although it pained Schuyler to notice that a little light went out in his eyes when he saw them
together.

It’s not what you think, she
wanted to tell him. I love you.

Regardless, when Oliver turned
to Jack, he was genial and gave him an overly hearty handshake.

“Good to see you, man.
Been a long time.”

For his part, Jack shook
Oliver’s hand with a firm grip. The two of them were intent on acting as if they had bumped into
each other at the Senior Fling.
Just a bunch of Upper East Side preppies catching up on
news and gossip.

“So what brings you here,
Force? Not the Committee I hope,” Oliver said, his light tone masking a wary
undercurrent.

“Not at all,” Jack said, as
Schuyler quickly brought Oliver up to speed. Once apprised, Oliver immediately understood the
danger they were in.

“So, what do you guys have in
mind?” he asked them. “I have a feeling we’re not going to be able to get out of here
quietly.”

“So far they haven’t noticed
that Schuyler is not in that room waiting for the countess anymore,” Jack said, looking around.
“I think we can make it to Lu?” But before Jack could finish his sentence, he stopped, looking up
with a startled expression on his face.

Schuyler glanced over his
shoulder. The Baron de Coubertin had reappeared on the other side of the courtyard. But there was
something different about him.
Changed.
Even from afar, Schuyler could see that his
eyes were rimmed in crimson fire.
Silver pupils.

Leviathan.

He stood immobile, scanning
the room with those dreadful silver eyes. Schuyler turned to Oliver and saw that he had noticed
him too. Oliver’s face was ashen.

“I let you go off with him, I
was so stupid,
I
knew something was wrong. . . . When I spoke to him at the boat he
was different, jolly even. I should have known something wasn’t right.”

“I didn’t see it either,
Ollie. There’s no way you would have known,” she said. Silver Bloods were agile shape shifters,
Schuyler remembered her grandfather telling her. Leviathan had locked her in that room, probably
intending to dispose of her later. She shuddered to think of what they were planning to do with
her.

“Listen, I’ll only slow you
down, but maybe I can slow them down,” Oliver said, taking off his turban and throwing it on the
ground.

“No!” Schuyler said. “We’re
getting out of this together or we’re not getting out at all! Oliver! Listen to me?” she
begged,
a dawning horror as she realized what he was planning to do.

“Too late,” Oliver said as he
picked up a nearby torch and ran toward the entrance guarded by the elephants.

“Come and get me!” he cried,
waving it back and forth in a crazed manner. The elephants reared back on their hind legs,
throwing off the King and Queen of Siam, and ran amuck through the bushes, chasing Oliver. The
mahouts yelled, and befuddled party guests ran in every direction, trying to get away from the
rampaging beasts.

“Quick?” Jack said.
“Before they close the gates.”
He held out his hand.

“But . . . Oliver?” Schuyler
lurched around.
“Oliver, no!
Oliver?”

“He’s human; they don’t want
him, Schuyler, We’ve got to get you out of here! Please!” Jack said, holding out his
hand.

“No! I can’t! I can’t leave
him!” She watched as Oliver ran farther and farther away, the elephants charging right behind
him.

But staying there wouldn’t
help Oliver. Not right now. And she was just putting them in more danger by hesitating. She
wanted to run after Oliver, but she let Jack lead her away. They ran, ducking confused
torchbearers and catering staff, dodging rampaging elephants, screaming party guests, and dazed
servers. She could feel the wrath of the demon Leviathan, could feel his eyes boring at the back
of her skull, a heavy, deliberate malevolence.

In a moment he would be upon
them.

But unlike fighting, running
was something Schuyler could do well, and together she and Jack flew across the cobbled courtyard
and through the main gates. She looked over her shoulder one last time and caught a glimpse of
Oliver’s raised arm as he disappeared into the rioting throng. He was waving good-bye.

The fashion show went well.
Bliss managed to do her two turns on the runway without incident, even though she was still
rattled by hearing the Visitor’s menacing voice in her head. What was he planning? What did he
mean ‘they will be easy enough to overcome . .
.’

But then, she knew what he’d
meant, didn’t she? Wasn’t she just in denial about everything? Because there had to be a reason
for the Visitor’s presence in her life; it wasn’t as if he was just hanging around so he could
get to know his dear daughter better, was he? There was a reason he was here.

And whatever reason that
was
,
she was involved because, for all intents and purposes, she was him. Whatever
the Visitor did or did not do, they wouldn’t see Lucifer behind it,
they
would only
see Bliss. Well, maybe she could do something about it. Maybe she should make the effort to find
out what the Visitor was doing when he was away.

Maybe it would be a good idea
not to be left in the dark so much. She massaged her temples. Thankfully, most of the other
models had left her alone. They knew her story, and no one ventured to give her more than a few
sympathetic looks. Bliss thought she might as well have the word ‘SURVIVOR’ stamped on her
forehead from the way the girls whispered about her.

Stepmother murdered. Sister
missing . . . presumed killed . . . Awful . . . These things do happen in Rio, don’t they? Bliss
thought that was terribly unfair. What had happened to her family had nothing to do with the
country they were in, but of course she couldn’t tell anyone that. She just wanted to get out
here.

She changed out of her final
outfit, a tulle ball gown that some
grande
dame would wear to the opening of the
ballet in the fall, and put her plain white sundress back on. She was walking across the green
lawn, ducking a few familiar faces and hoping she could just get back home without having to talk
to anyone, when she heard her name being called.

“Bliss?
Is that
you? Hey?” A pretty girl with long blond hair, wearing a floppy straw hat and a chic
one-shouldered dress, walked over. Bliss recognized the girl immediately. She was Allison
Ellison, or Ally Elli, as she was called, one of the Red Bloods from Duchesne.

Ally was a scholarship kid;
her parents lived in Queens or something, and she had to take some kind of two-hour bus to get to
school. Bliss had assumed that meant Ally would be terribly unpopular, but she was the complete
opposite. The Upper East Side kids dug her crazy
outerborough
stories and her funny
way of looking at things. Bliss remembered that one time she and Mimi and a large group of people
went out with Ally, and Ally made sure everyone paid exactly what they owed at the table, down to
the last cent. No one got away with the whole “I forgot my wallet; you know you can hit me up
next time?
crap
that trust-fund kids like Mimi always pulled.

It was one thing to see Ally
at school, and another to see her at Muffie Astor Carter’s annual Shopping, Champagne, and
Charity party. What was she doing here, wearing an original Balthazar
Verdugo
, sure
to have cost five figures at least, looking like she had always summered in
Southampton?

Bliss got her answer when
Jamie Kip came up to give Ally a hug.
So.
Ally was a human familiar to one of the
most popular Blue Blood boys. Now Ally’s expensive outfit and presence at the party made sense.
“Hey, Ally.” Bliss nodded. “Jamie.”

Jamie excused himself with a
cough, and the two girls were left alone. “How are you?” Allison asked. “It’s good to see you
again.” The pretty blonde put a hand on Bliss’s arm.

Bliss was touched by the
unexpected warmth in Ally’s voice. “I’m okay. . . . Thanks,” she told her.

“We missed you at Dylan’s
memorial service,” Allison said. “But don’t
worry,
no one expected you or anything.
Your dad said you needed to rest.”