Masquerade bb-2

by Мелисса Де Ла Круз

  "Shame about your grandfather," he said as a greeting.

  Schuyler tried not to show her shock. But then, Kingsley was a Blue Blood. His parents were probably high-ranking members of the coven.

  "He'll be all right," she said tersely, waiting for the water in the beaker to boil.

  "Oh, I'm sure. I just wish I were there to see Lawrence and Charles battle it out. Just like the old days.”

  "Uh-huh." Schuyler nodded, not wanting to get into the conversation. She hadn't even told Oliver about Lawrence's return. She felt superstitious about it. What if The Committee just sent him back to Italy posthaste? Then there wouldn't even be anything to tell.

  "Tell me, are you still hung up on that boy?”

  "Excuse me?" Schuyler asked, holding a test tube.

  "Nothing." Kingsley shrugged innocently. "If that's how you want to play it," he said teasingly.

  When Kingsley wasn't looking, Schuyler studied his profile. He had been at the Four Hundred Ball, she'd heard.

  Could he could he have been the boy behind the mask she had kissed at the after-party?

  Schuyler subconsciously put a hand over her lips. If he was the boy she had kissed, did that mean that even though she found him repulsive, there was actually something about him that she found attractive? Oliver was always quoting from Foucault, saying that desire stemmed from revulsion.

  A random thought flew into her head: what if the boy behind the mask had been Oliver?

  There had been Red Bloods at the party…and Oliver hated being left out of anything fun. He would have been able to find out about it, she was sure. Had she felt drawn to the boy in the mask because he was her best friend? Had they kissed? Was that why he was so nice to her lately? Treating her with so much tenderness?

  She peeked across the room at him, watching him grimace as Mimi Force, his lab partner, burned the fructose so that it melted into a sickeningly sweet—smelling disaster.

  If she had kissed Oliver, did that mean they were more than friends now? Would they have to start dating? Was she even attracted to him? She looked at his chestnut hair flopping over his eyes, and thought of how, in Venice, she had wanted nothing more than to taste his blood. Did that equal attraction? And who knew how he felt about her?

  Schuyler placed the perfectly molded candy squares on the table, and caught the eye of another boy across the room.

  Jack Force. Her stomach immediately tied up in knots.

  Suddenly Schuyler knew she was just kidding herself She might toy with the idea of liking Kingsley or Oliver. But really she knew she nursed a not-so-secret hope about the identity of the boy she had kissed: she wished for one name and one name only.

  Jack.

  TWENTY-THREE

  When Schuyler arrived home from school, Lawrence still had not returned. She asked Julius to bring her grandfather's luggage up to Cordelia's room. It looked forlorn and lonesome in the entryway. Hattie had prepared supper, and Schuyler took a tray up to her room, eating her meat loaf and mashed potatoes in front of her computer. Cordelia would never have allowed such a thing. Her grandmother had been vigilant that Schuyler eat dinner properly at the table every night. But then, Cordelia wasn't around to enforce her rules anymore.

  Schuyler fed Beauty scraps from her plate as she checked her e-mail and made a halfhearted attempt to finish her homework.

  Afterward, she brought her tray down to the kitchen and helped Hattie load the dishwasher. It was after nine o'clock. Her grandfather had been gone for more than twelve hours already. How long could the meeting have lasted?

  Finally, at a little past midnight, Lawrence's key turned in the lock. He looked exhausted.

  The lines on his face were haggard. Schuyler thought he looked as if he had aged several decades.

  "What happened?" she asked, alarmed at his condition. She flew up from the window seat where she had been dozing. The living room, removed of its heavy drapes and covers, was a surprisingly comfortable place. Hattie had lit a fire in the hearth, and Schuyler couldn't get enough of the river view. Lawrence set his crushed fedora on the rack and sank into one of the antique couches across from the fire. Dust flew as he shifted in his seat. "I do think Cordelia could have put some money into keeping this place a little cleaner," he grumbled. "I left her with quite a nest egg.”

  Cordelia had always given Schuyler the impression that they had run out of money, and what little they had went to financing the bare necessities: Duchesne tuition, food, shelter, the skeletal staff. Anything aside from that—new clothes, money for movies or restaurants was grudgingly parceled out dollar by dollar.

  "Grandmother always said we were broke," Schuyler said.

  "In contrast to how we lived once, surely. But we Van Alens are far from bankrupt. I checked the accounts today. Cordelia invested wisely. The interest has been collecting interest.

  We should be able to bring this house back to where it should be.”

  "You went to the bank?" Schuyler asked, a little startled.

  "I had to run a number of errands, yes. It's been a long time since I was in the city. Marvelous how the world has changed. One forgets that in Venice. Ran into several friends. Cushing Carondolet insisted I dine with him at the old club. I'm sorry, I would have come back earlier, but I had to find out what Charles has been up to in my absence.”

  "But what happened with The Committee?”

  Lawrence took a cigar out of his pocket and carefully lit it. "Oh, at the hearing?”

  "Yes," Schuyler said impatiently, mystified by Lawrence's casual attitude.

  "Well, they brought me into the Repository," Lawrence said. "I had to speak in front of the Conclave—the coven's highest leadership. Wardens, Elders. Enmortals like me." Enmortals were vampires who kept the same physical shell over the centuries, who had been given permission to be exempt from the cycle of sleeping and waking, otherwise known as reincarnation.

  "Never seen such a sorry bunch," Lawrence said, pursing his lips in distaste. "Forsyth Llewellyn is a senator—did you know that? Back in Plymouth he was just Michael's lackey. It's a disgrace. And completely against the Code. It wasn't always so, you know. We have ruled before.

  But after the disaster in Rome, we agreed that taking positions of power in the human sphere was forever out of the question.”

  Schuyler nodded. Cordelia had told her as much.

  "And they've kicked out the Carondolets from the Conclave, Cushing told me all about it.

  Because he had proposed a Candidus Suffragium.”

  "What is that?”

  "The White Vote. For the leadership of the coven," Lawrence said, kicking off his banker's cap-toes and waving his stockinged feet in front of the fire.

  "But I thought Michael—Charles—was Regis. Forever."

  "Not quite," Lawrence said, flicking his ashes into an ashtray he had removed from his jacket pocket.

  "No?”

  "No. The coven is not a democracy. But it is not a monarchy either. We had agreed that leadership can be questioned if the coven feels the Regis has not led us properly. So the White Vote is called.”

  "Has there ever been a White Vote?”

  "Yes." Lawrence sunk so low into the chair that only the smoke from his cigar was visible. "Once, in Plymouth."

  "What happened?”

  "I lost." Lawrence shrugged. "They banished Cordelia and me from the Conclave. Since then, we have held no power on the council. We bowed to their rule, and later on, around the time of the Gilded Age, we decided we had to separate.”

  "Why?" Schuyler asked.

  "Cordelia told you we suspected that a high-ranking member of the Conclave was harboring the Silver Blood. I thought it would be safer for her if I disappeared for a while, so I could continue our investigation without The Committee knowing about it. We thought it was clever of us. But alas, it meant that I was not here when Allegra succumbed to her heartsickness. Or when you were born. And my work so far has been fruitless. I am no closer to confirming my suspicions than I
was before.”

  "But what happened—why did they let you go free? I thought you were exiled.”

  Lawrence chuckled. "So did they. They had forgotten I went into exile voluntarily. I don't think any of them ever expected me to come back. They didn't really have much of a choice. I haven’t broken any rules of the Code. There was no reason to prohibit my return. Still, because I have been gone for so long they demanded that I testify.”

  "Testify to what?”

  "Oh, to promise not to question the Coven's leadership as I had once done. You know, call for another White Vote. They even reinstated my position on the Conclave, as long as I promised not to bring up the Silver Blood menace again. According to Charles, the Croatan threat has been contained, if it ever existed at all.”

  “Just because no one's died in the last three months," Schuyler said.

  "Yes. They are blind as usual. The Silver Bloods are back. It was just as Cordelia and I had warned, so many years ago.”

  "But everything else is all right, then," Schuyler said happily, not caring about the Croatan threat for the moment. "You're back, and they can't do anything about it.”

  He studied the fireplace sorrowfully. "Not quite. I have some bad news.”

  Schuyler's smile faded.

  "Charles has informed me he is making plans to adopt you.”

  "What? Why?" Charles Force—adopt her? What gave him the right? What kind of sick joke was this?

  "Unfortunate as it is, he is, nonetheless, your uncle. When Allegra, his sister, revoked their bond and refused to take him as her partner in this cycle, he turned his back on the Van Alen family. Actually, he did everything he could to destroy this family. To destroy your mother. He could never forgive her for marrying your father and giving birth to you. He hardened his heart against her. He even changed his name.”

  Schuyler thought of the many times she had found Charles Force kneeling by her mother's bedside. He had been her mother's constant visitor, and she had overheard him begging Allegra for her forgiveness.

  "Hence, he is your last living blood relative, aside from me, of course. But there is no record of my existence in this cycle in fact, according to the papers, I'm legally dead. I died in

  1872. Thank goodness for Swiss banks. Our accounts are merely numerical codes, otherwise I would not have been able to touch them. Charles has decided that I am not fit to raise you. He wants to raise you himself.”

  Her uncle. Cordelia had intimated as much, and yet Schuyler had refused to acknowledge this fact of her twisted family tree. "But they can't…I mean, he's not…I don't even know him.”

  "Do not worry, I won't let that happen. Allegra would want nothing more than to keep you away from him," Lawrence said.

  "Why does he hate you so much?" Schuyler asked, a glimmer of tears in her bright blue eyes. Lawrence had finally returned, and again the forces or make that, the Forces were conspiring to take him away from her.

  Schuyler thought of what adoption might be like: having to live with Mimi and Jack, her cousins. Mimi would love that, she was sure.…And Jack, what would he think?

  " `They will be divided, father against son, son against father,' Lawrence said, quoting from Scripture. “Alas, I have always been a disappointment to my son.”

  New York Herald Archives SEPTEMBER 30, 1872 DISAPPEARANCE STILL A MYSTERY Maggie Stanford has given no sign in two years. Father dead of grief, mother demented.

  THE MYSTERY SURROUNDING the disappearance of Maggie Stanford, now eighteen years old, who disappeared on the night of the annual Patrician Ball two years ago, has yet to be solved. The police never found a ransom note or any indication of kidnapping or foul play in relation to the case, and have suggested the girl ran away of her own volition. Mrs. Dorothea Stanford, of Newport, has reportedly become mentally unbalanced from the shock of her daughter's disappearance. Mr. Stanford died from grief shortly after Maggie went missing.

  Strange hallucinations continue to afflict the mother, who claims that her neighbors and friends are concealing the truth about her daughter's whereabouts and keeping her from coming home. The Herald visited Mrs. Stanford in her home, and from what could be made of Mrs. Stanford's speech, she is still laboring under the impression that someone has her girl in custody and refuses to release her.

  The Herald has discovered that Maggie Stanford had been living at the St. Dymphna Asylum in Newport for a year before she went missing, receiving treatment for an unknown condition. Anyone having any information on her disappearance is urged to come forward.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Chic magazine was located in a snazzy new steel-and-glass building in the middle of Times Square. It was just one of the high-profile media properties owned by the Christie-Best organization, a conglomerate that also counted Flash, Kiss, Splendid, and Mine among its many other one-word-only glossy titles. Its lobby was a serene, marbled space with a dribbling Zen fountain and an army of blue jacketed security guards who manned the onyx reception desks.

  One afternoon after school, Bliss stood patiently in the lobby while waiting for the guard to call up to Chic's model booker for entrance. Farnsworth Models had sent her for a go-see, an appointment to see if the magazine would like to hire Bliss for their next photo shoot.

  Bliss was wearing her standard go-see outfit: tight, tight dark-wash Stitched for Civilization jeans, Lanvin flats, a loose white blouse. Her face was freshly scrubbed and free of makeup, as advised by her agency. Bliss had been much in demand since she had booked the Stitched campaign, and the photos of her in the dazzling Dior dress had been reprinted all over the globe—crowning her the new young socialite (and displacing Mimi in the international bestdressed list). She had shot a shoe ad, a Gap ad, and had already done a five-page editorial spread in Kiss. Chic was the mother lode, the top of the glossy heap, and while Bliss thought modeling was a bit of a lark, she also wanted the gig very much.

  "Schuyler Van Alen," she heard the girl at the next station tell the guard.

  "Schuyler! Are you here for the Chic go-see?" Bliss asked, pleasantly surprised to find Schuyler there as well.

  "I am." Schuyler smiled back. Ever since her grandmother's passing, she had turned down the modeling opportunities that had come fast and furious after her Times Square Stitched for Civilization billboard. But Linda Farnsworth had convinced her to keep the Chic appointment, and Schuyler had agreed, if only to keep her mind off the distressing news that Charles Force wanted to adopt her.

  As usual, Schuyler looked like a ragamuffin in her tattered sweater, empire-waist tunic, footless tights, and Jack Purcell sneakers, with several layers of plastic beads draped around her neck. Although, it should be noted that several fashion editors who had spotted her in the lobby had quickly noticed her unique style, and three months later, the pages of Kiss, Splendid, and Flash would all feature an outfit eerily similar to the one Schuyler was wearing.

  "You girls can go up," the guard told them, beeping them through the automatic turnstiles.

  The Chic office was on the tenth floor, and Schuyler and Bliss felt a little intimidated by the immaculate surroundings. The interior waiting area was lined with poster-size blowups of the most famous Chic magazine covers a virtual tour of the most celebrated beauties of the twentieth and twenty-first century.

  A grandmotherly receptionist advised them to take a seat on one of the white Barcelona chairs.

  The girls chatted quietly about neutral topics: school gossip, tests, why the cafeteria was suddenly serving hot dogs. They both studiously avoided the topic of Dylan's death—Schuyler, because she feared it would hurt Bliss too much, and Bliss, because she felt there was nothing more to say, since the boy in the lake had turned out to be Kingsley.

  "You've been hanging out with Kingsley a lot," Schuyler said, when Bliss mentioned he had taken her to a party at the hot new club, Disaster.

  "Yeah." Bliss bit her thumb. She was sitting forward on the edge of the chair, not quite comfortable enough to take up too much space. She held he
r black, modeling portfolio on her lap. "He's cool.”

  Bliss still hadn't figured out who or what Kingsley had been in her past, although she had to admit he made the present pretty fun. He seemed to have it in his mind that Bliss was his girlfriend, and the two of them spent most of their free time together. Kingsley always seemed to have the latest invitations to the best parties, and with him at her side, Bliss no longer felt like a wallflower, but more like a social butterfly. Besides, her own growing fame was making her increasingly confident among the glittering denizens of New York nightlife. Even Mimi had sourly mentioned how sick she was of seeing Bliss's name in boldface in the newspaper columns.

  "How's Oliver?" Bliss asked.

  "Fine," Schuyler said abruptly. In truth, Oliver had been a tad distant lately, after being so commiserative before. Maybe it was a reaction to her pulling away from him, or his own reservations about the changing nature of their relationship. The transition from best friend to human Conduit was not an easy one to maneuver.

  They stopped talking when a willowy brunette walked through the glass doors. She was wearing a loose peasant blouse belted at the hips, skinny denim shorts, patterned tights, and wedge heels. The effect was quirky and offbeat, as if she'd thrown the outfit together at the last minute, when in reality it had probably taken hours of studying runway shots and careful calculation of each element's relationship to the outfit as a whole weighing the options as meticulously as a an artist mixing paints.

  "Bliss? Schuyler?" she called.

  "Chantal?" Schuyler asked.

  "No, I'm Keaton, Chantal's assistant.”

  "As in Diane or Buster?" Schuyler joked.

  Keaton ignored her. "Chantal's late at an accessories meeting, but she told me to bring you in," she said condescendingly.

  Keaton led them through the white carpeted hallway, where girls dressed in similar fashionable eccentricity glided through the maze of cubicles in four-inch heels. Rolling racks of clothing were parked against the wall, with cards and notations on hangers that read "JAN FRONT OF BOOK," "REJECTS," "GO," "BRANNON MTG," "RETURNS," and "INDEX.”