“Do not worry, my love, we shall have our vengeance. I promise it. Lawrence will not have died in vain.”
Her eyes become bright. She nods curtly. “He died because of me.”
“He died to protect you. It was his duty.”
She stands so still at the doorway, as if she doesn’t know what to do or what to say. And yet I know already. She will tell me we must stop meeting because the Coven will need me now, and that she will be saving me by taking herself away. . . . She could not be more wrong. Everything in my life depends on her being part of it.
When we first met, I was struck by her resemblance to her mother. But contrary to what many thought about my relationship with Gabrielle, we had a deep and affectionate friendship, nothing more. I loved her as an ally, and because she was our queen. I love her daughter in a completely different way. I love her because she has become something more to me. She has become my life.
“Come here,” I say gently. “Sit down.”
She shakes her head. “No. I . . . I can’t stay.”
“You want us to stop meeting.” I have to say it because she will not.
“Yes.”
“Because you think it is dangerous for me. Someone has told you something—my sister, perhaps.” I cannot say Mimi’s name in her presence, and vice versa. I cannot think of Mimi without thinking of the pain I am bringing her, and therefore choose the easier path: to not think of her at all. I am a coward.
“No.”
“No?”
She walks over, closer to the fire, and addresses her words to the flames. “I can’t meet you anymore, Jack, because I would be lying to myself for the reasons I’m here.”
“And what is that reason?”
“That I love you.”
“And that reason no longer exists, is that it?” My voice is light, playful. She is not a natural flirt; she is so serious always, my love, it amuses me a little. Of course she loves me. She is doing this precisely because she loves me.
“Yes.”
“Another of my sister’s ideas, isn’t this? ‘Tell Jack you no longer love him. It is the only way to set him free.’ As if I were a caged bird or a pet lion.” I smile. Schuyler is so brave and full of courage, my darling. She will lose me to save me. She is ready to make that sacrifice, but I want her to know it is not necessary. I can fight for both of us, and I will.
“No.” She looks at me, and her face is full of anguish. “No, that’s not it.”
It has been centuries since I have felt fear. I do not know fear. I do not have this weakness, and yet something in her face, in her voice—frightens me. This is no girlish deception, no halfhearted attempt. I marvel at my fear, at the novelty of it. It is like ice in my throat. It is lodged there; I cannot breathe. I cannot swallow.
Before I can say anything, she speaks, and the bluntness of her words strikes me as nothing has struck me before.
“I don’t love you anymore because I haven’t been honest with myself. And I haven’t been honest with you. I love someone else. I always have.”
A cruel joke. I want to laugh but I don’t. I want to crumple to the ground but my pride will not let me. I have never heard these words before. I do not understand them. Someone else? There is someone else? This is a trick. Another deception. Another excuse Mimi has planted . . . Surely she cannot be . . . She is lying. . . .
Schuyler is telling the truth.
Of all the vampires in the world, I should know. I do not need the blood trial to find out. I can sense it—the truth is written all over her face. Her sadness. She is sad for me. She feels sorry—for me! I find her pity more disturbing than her words. It is ghastly and unimaginable.
How did she have time for someone else? I know our meetings were too few and far apart. But it was necessary, to keep her safe. If I’d had a choice—but I did not—we would have been together always. I lived for those moments when we were together, those few times in my life that I actually felt alive. Centuries I have slumbered until we met. And I had a plan for us. I had a future in mind. I wanted to share it with her and was waiting for the right moment. But the best-laid plans of mice and men . . .
I am not too proud to ask. “Who?”
“Oliver.”
Her familiar. The human. I want to leave the room immediately so I can seek and destroy the mortal. He has no chance. She can see it.
“Please don’t—don’t harm him. I love him. I always have. I just didn’t want to admit it.” For the first time this evening she reaches over and touches me. She puts her small hand—so tiny, really—on top of mine. I flinch, as if her fingers were engulfed in flames. So this is pain. So this is wretchedness. So this is misery. I never knew.
I have nothing to say. I can feel it—the truth. The truth of her love for him, it shines all over her face, and I can sense his presence on her very skin. Such is the way with the familiars—their blood brings us life, but they are not meant for us in this manner. I am sickened by jealousy and rage.
“Leave me.” I am ashamed of the strangled cry that flies out before I can control myself.
“Jack . . . I . . .” She is standing by the doorway. I have hunted down the Croatan, I have endured the tortures of Hell, and yet I cannot find the strength to meet her eyes. I have to force myself to do so.
Her hand is on the door handle. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I lied to you all this time,” she whispers.
“GO!” It is a roar from my throat. I cannot contain myself. I am transformed. I am Abbadon. Transformed into the demon I am. What does she see? What am I doing?
I see the fright in her eyes, taste her fear, revel in it, and with brutal effort I catch myself before I get carried away. I am dangerous and flailing. It is I who needs to leave. I am gone before she can close the door.
From the street I watch as she leaves the building. I need to go back. I want to destroy that place. I want to destroy every memory it brings. I want it obliterated from the landscape. But when I return to the apartment, I am not alone.
Mimi is here.
When Schuyler left the building that evening, she thought she would feel at peace. Instead she felt more conflicted than before. The lie she told Jack had worked because she had wrapped it around the truth of her love for Oliver. Because it was a lie. She still loved Jack. She loved him so much that seeing him sitting there alone, in the dark, waiting patiently for her, made her love him even more.
She almost hadn’t gone through with it. She didn’t know what he would say or if she would be strong enough to see it through. It hurt her so much, seeing him look at her that way. She had never seen him so lost or confused.
I take it back! she’d wanted so much to say. I take everything back. I love you. Let’s go away. Just the two of us, together.
But she’d had to do it. She had to let him go. Or give him a reason to let her go. It was the best choice for the two of them.
And it had worked.
She should feel relief—maybe even victorious.
So why did she feel so dead inside?
As if she had killed the best part of herself.
She walked slowly up to the avenue to catch a cab. She was moving back to Riverside Drive. She would not return to that town house on Fifth Avenue ever again.
FAMILY RECORDS:
LLEWELLYN
Due to the sensitive information contained in this file, most of it speculative in nature, this record is classified CONCLAVE LEVEL ONLY.
The Llewellyn family has risen to become one of the wealthiest and most powerful in the Coven. They amassed a great fortune by their monopoly of the New York and New Jersey seaports. A branch of the family moved to Houston during the oil boom during the late nineteenth century, and the majority of the family has been based there since.
BLISS LLEWELLYN
Azazel, the Darkling, Lupus Theliel, Angel of Love, Wolfsbane
Birth Name: Bliss Eugenia Llewellyn
Origin: November 9, 1991, Houston, Texas
Known Pas
t Lives: Margaret Stanford (Newport), Mary Brewster (Plymouth), Giulia de Medici (Florence)
Bondmate: Unclear. Bliss has no heavenly past, but she does adhere to the cycles and the earliest record of her existence is {DATE REDACTED}.
Assigned Human Conduit: None
List of Human Familiars: Morgan Shriver (2007)
Physical Characteristiscs:
Hair: Red
Eyes: Green
Height: 5’11”
It is the Repository’s belief that Bliss Llewellyn is Gabrielle’s first trueborn daughter, born from a union with Lucifer in {DATE REDACTED}. Bliss was believed to have been destroyed by the Regis upon her birth in {DATE REDACTED}. The Repository is still piecing together its information, which has not yet been verified, but it appears that the child survived through a betrayal by {NAME REDACTED—FL}. We are also tentatively able to conclude, given the information gleaned from various sources, that for centuries Allegra never had any knowledge of her child’s existence.
The House of Records lists Bliss Llewellyn as carrying the spirit of the angel Yura, an angel of the Light. Yet a cross-reference on the history of the angel Yura revealed that Yura also appears on the List of the Finished, for whom reincarnation is no longer possible.
It is the Venators’ belief that Forsyth Llewellyn, recently revealed to be yet another traitor Silver Blood on the conclave, has consistently used his elevated status to tamper with the birth record of Allegra’s firstborn daughter, allowing him to call up her spirit in every incarnation and foster her in his home while keeping her true identity a secret. However, commendable work by our Repository scribes have brought forward the original birth record for Bliss Llewellyn for this cycle which was signed by then-Regent Nan Cutler. In this record, it lists her spirit as Azazel, angel of the dark, which we are now assuming is Bliss’s the true name and one that was given to her by her father, the Morningstar.
Bliss grew up in Houston, Texas, and arrived at Duchesne her sophomore year. Texas Committee regional reports indicate that Bliss had a fierce and fearless personality, and was famous as the only cheerleader in the state who could execute a tumbling leap off the top of a fifty-person pyramid. She moved to New York when her father won the vacant senate seat, along with her stepmother and her younger half sister. It is the Venator’s belief that BobiAnne Llewellyn was Bliss’s birth mother in this cycle, a fact that was kept from Bliss for reasons that are still unverified.
A few months after moving to the city, Bliss was discovered during a Farnsworth scouting session at the school, and soon launched a very successful modeling career. Until recently, she was the face of several jeans campaigns, and her photographs were splashed across the billboards of Times Square and SoHo. Duchesne intern reports state that Bliss’s early friendship with Mimi Force has since cooled and that she gravitated toward a friendship with Schuyler Van Alen, Oliver Hazard-Perry, and Dylan Ward.
Her rocky and ultimately tragic romance with Dylan Ward began with a chance meeting in an alley behind several nightclubs. He was her date to the fall Informals, and our sources suggest that she had planned to make him her human familiar (not knowing he was also a Blue Blood), until he disappeared after Aggie Carondolet’s death. (See Dylan Ward file for more information.)
From the late Warden Dupont’s files, we found a note to Lawrence Van Alen that was never delivered:
Maggie Stanford was a sixteen-year-old Blue Blood who disappeared from the home of Admiral and Mrs. Thomas Vanderbilt during the 1870 Patrician Ball; foul play was suspected. Miss Stanford was the daughter of Mrs. and Mr. Tiberius Stanford of Newport, Rhode Island, the founder of Stanford Oil. Maggie was engaged at the time of her disappearance to Alfred, Lord Burlington, Earl of Devonshire.
Maggie was a patient at St. Dymphna Asylum, in Newport, for suicidal tendencies, delusions, and nightmares. The Red Blood doctors thought she was schizophrenic, but it is my belief that her symptoms were a sign of Corruption. Maggie tried to kill herself by drowning, but failed.
Lawrence: I think this is the clue. I think Maggie was Allegra’s missing girl—Please come see me as soon as you are able to come to the Repository.
The Committee notes that this document was dated the day of the Silver Blood attack that killed Warden Dupont.
From Dr. Patricia Hazard’s examination files on Bliss Llewellyn:
—Patient reports having blackouts and nightmares since Transformation.
—Patient sees a crimson-eyed beast and a man in a white suit who calls her “daughter.”
—Patient’s parents have been told of situation. Senator Llwellyn promises to look into it.
—So far, no update from Senator Llewellyn on patient’s mental health.
Reprinted from a journal found in the Llewellyn’s storage unit:
Venators report it is Bliss Llwellyn’s handwriting, but again, this is still unverified.
Oh god, oh god, oh god. What can I do? He’s in me. Father. Visitor. I’m part of him. I can’t get rid of him—he’s in my mind, he can hear everything and he takes over— during the blackouts—that’s what I’ve come to understand—I am him. He is me. I did it—I killed Dylan and so many others. I want to die. I am dead already. He’ll come back soon—I have to go—he can’t find out I can . . .
It is the Repository’s conclusion that Bliss believed her “visitor” and the “father” she speaks of was none other than Lucifer, the Dark Prince himself. If so, it would explain why every trace of her birth was extinguished/manipulated in the House of Records.
During the attack at the Cathedral (for more information see Repository Record #404: The Van Alen Legacy), an eyewitness reports that Bliss took a blade from her bouquet, a “shard of glass that shone like gold fire” and plunged it into her chest. It is our belief that this was in fact the archangel Michael’s sword, which has been missing for over a year. Bliss disappeared from view and has not been seen since; however, the Venators believe that she is still alive.
From the Venator report upon the visit to a studio apartment leased to one Jane Murray, who has since disappeared:
All signs point to a visit by Gabrielle. It is our belief that Allegra, once awakened, acknowledged Bliss as her own and gave her a new name: Lupus Theliel, Wolfsbane. The glom memory shows that while there were definitely three people in the room, only two were vampires; the other glom signature is distinctly human. We were also able to piece together a message that we believe was from Gabrielle: Find the Hounds of Hell. The demon fighters. Bring them back to the fold.
Bliss Llewellyn is a puzzle. She should never have been born, and her survival is a mystery. Lawrence Van Alen believed that Allegra’s firstborn would be the death of the Blue Bloods, which is why he called for her destruction upon her birth. It remains to be seen whether Lawrence will be proven right in this matter.
Current Status: Missing. Location unknown. Believed to be searching for the “Hounds of Hell.”
FORSYTH LLEWELLYN
Malakai, the Steward
Birth Name: Augustus Forsyth Llewellyn
Origin: November 14, 1959, New York, New York
Known Past Lives: Tiberius Stanford (Newport), William Brewster (Plymouth), Duc Patrizio de Medici (Florence), Naevius Macro (Rome)
Bondmate: BobiAnne Llewellyn
Assigned Human Conduit: Loel Salomon (recused from service, 1981)
List of Human Familiars: Tierney Scott (1973–1977), Evelyn Smith (1978–1983), Glory Cason-Thrash (1985–1987), Samantha King (1986–1992), Margot Pearson (1993–1999), Ashley Wells (1998–2002)
Physical Characteristics:
Hair: Brown, speckled with gray
Eyes: Brown
Height: 5’10”
Forsyth Llewellyn was once one of Charles Force’s most trusted allies in the Conclave, but recent events have since revealed that far from being an ally, Forsyth was most likely Charles’s greatest living adversary and a traitor to the community. Forsyth grew up in Manhattan but soon joined the family oil business
in Houston, Texas. He moved back to New York when he won a vacant senate seat, an action prohibited by the Code of the Vampires, which states that Blue Bloods should not take political office. (It must be noted that the rule against entering Red Blood politics has always been weakly enforced, if at all, and through the centuries many Blue Bloods have held positions of authority in the human world.)
Forsyth Llewellyn has been revealed as a Silver Blood traitor, entrusted with the destruction of Allegra and Lucifer’s firstborn child in {DATE REDACTED}. It is the Venators’ belief that he let the child live in order to facilitate Lucifer’s return. During his cycle as Tiberius Stanford, he supposedly died of grief shortly after his daughter Maggie went missing. However, the Repository files indicate he never showed Maggie very much affection and most likely was using grief to cover his fear at the repercussions from his true master had Maggie (Bliss) been able to destroy herself.
At the urging of Cordelia Van Alen, he also took the spirit of the Watcher, the Pistis Sophia, as his second daughter, Jordan. Cordelia suspected that Silver Blood treachery was afoot, and that one of the oldest families in the Conclave was working in league with our sworn enemies and possibly the Dark Prince himself. Little did she know that she was entrusting the traitor. . . .
The Repository now believes that, along with fellow Silver Blood traitor Nan Cutler, Forsyth arranged for Jordan to be taken by the Croatan. From his position in the Conclave he sent the Venators on a wild goose chase after her— sending those who could have unmasked him as far away as possible. After the murder of Lawrence Van Alen and the disappearance of Charles Force, Forsyth tried to instate himself as Regis. Only a lone objection from Mimi Force kept the vote from being unanimous.
Blue Bloods: Keys to the Repository Page 5
