Blue Bloods (7 page)

“You know as well as I, that they should have been warned—”

“Enough. Not here,” he said, lowering his voice and pulling her toward him. Mimi strained to hear the rest of the conversation.

“Always the first to shy from the truth.You are the way you have always been, arrogant and blind… .” the old woman was saying.

“And if we had listened to you and sown the fear?Where would we be then?” he asked coldly.

“You would have us cowering in caves.”

“I would have had us ensuring our survival. Instead, we are vulnerable once more,” Cordelia replied, her raspy voice shaking with anger. “Instead, they are allowed to return, to hunt. If I had the authority, if the Conclave had listened to me, to Teddy—”

“But they did not, they chose me to lead, as I have always done,” Charles interrupted smoothly.

“But this is no time to bring up old wounds and grievances.” He frowned. “Have you—no, you haven’t—Mimi, Jack, come here.”

“Ah, the twins.” Cordeliasmiled a cryptic smile. “Together again.” Mimi didn’t like the way the senile old thing was looking at her, sizing her up as if she knew every thing about her already.

“This is Cordelia Van Alen ,” Charles Force said gruffly. ” Cordelia, the twins. Benjamin and Madeleine.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Jack Force said politely.

“Ditto,” Mimi snorted.

Cordelianodded complacently. She turned to Charles Force once more and whispered fiercely.

“You must raise the alarm! We must be vigilant! There is still time. We may still stop them, if you would only find it in your heart to forgive,” she said. “Gabrielle …”

“Do not speak to me of Gabrielle,” Charles said, cutting her off. “Never. I would never hear her name spoken to me again. Especially from you.”

Who was Gabrielle? Mimi wondered. Why did her father seem so agitated? Mimi felt angry and annoyed to see how her father reacted to the old woman’s words.

Cordelia’seyes softened. “It has been fifteen years,” she said. “Is that not long enough?”

“It is good to see you well, Cordelia . Good day,” Charles said, a finality to his tone.

The old hag frowned and walked away without another word. Mimi saw Schuyler Van Alen following her, looking back at them sheepishly, as if embarrassed by her grandmother’s actions.

As well she should be, Mimi thought.

“Dad, who was that?”Mimi asked, noticing her father looking spooked.

” CordeliaVan Alen ,” he replied heavily, then said no more. As if that explained everything.

“Who wears white to a funeral?” Mimi sneered, her lip curling.

“Black is the color of night,” Charles muttered. “White is the true color of death.” For a moment, he looked down at his black suit in dismay.

“Huh? Dad? What did you say?”

He shook his head, lost in thought.

Mimi noticed Jack run up to talk to Schuyler, and the two of them began an intense, whispered conversation. Mimi didn’t like that one bit. She had no idea who this Schuyler person thought she was, and she didn’t give a damn if it turned out she was Committee material after all. She didn’t like the way Jack was looking at Schuyler. The only other person he ever looked at like that was her.

And Mimi wanted to keep it that way.

TEN

Bliss hadn’t been able to stand it. While the service was still going on, she had decided she had to get out of there. Funerals freaked her out. The only one she’d ever been to was the one for her great-aunt, and no one had even been that sad. Bliss could have sworn she’d overheard her parents say “It’s about time” and “Took her long enough” at the funeral. Great-Aunt Gertrude had lived to a ripe old age of 110 years—she’d been featured on the Today show—and when Bliss had visited her at the ranch the day before her death, the old thing was as spry as ever. “It’s time for me to go, my dear. I know it is, but we shall meet again,” she’d said to Bliss.

At least Aggie’s wasn’t an open casket, but it still made her feel queasy to think of a dead body in there, just a few feet away from her. Soon after they’d arrived, Bliss man aged to wriggle out of sitting with her stepmother, who was too busy saying hello to all the other Duchesne moms anyway.

Bliss stealthily made her way toward the exit. She caught Mimi’s eye on the way. Mimi raised an eyebrow and Bliss mouthed “bathroom,” feeling a little silly for having to do so. Why did Mimi keep such close tabs on her? she wondered, as she continued her way toward the exit. Mimi was worse than her stepmother. It was getting irritating. She slunk out of the back door, only to run into someone else trying to sneak outside.

Dylan was wearing a narrow black suit, with a white shirt and a skinny black tie. He looked like a member of The Strokes. He smiled at her. “Going somewhere?”

“It’s, uh, hot in there,” she said lamely.

He nodded, pondering her statement. They hadn’t really spoken to each other since Friday night, in the alley between the nightclubs. She’d been meaning to seek him out, just to apologize for ignoring him yesterday. Not that she had anything to apologize for, really. After all, they’d just spent the night talking. It wasn’t like they were friends or anything. No big deal.

Except that it was. That night, he’d told her all about his family, and how he’d hated boarding school in Connecticut . She’d told him about Houston , how she used to drive her grandfather’s Cadillac convertible to school, which everyone thought was hilarious. The thing was a boat—

with proper fins. More important, she’d confessed how she didn’t feel like she fit in at Duchesne at all, and how she didn’t even like Mimi.

It was liberating to have been so honest with him, although she regretted it as soon as she got home, trauma tized by the fear that somehow he would find a way to tell Mimi what she’d confided in him, even though she knew it was impossible. Mimi was in the In-Clique. Dylan hung out with the misfits and losers. Never the twain shall meet. If he even tried to approach Mimi, she would cut him dead with a look even before he got his mouth open.

” Wannacut?” he asked. His black hair was combed straight back, and he wiggled his dark eyebrows at her invit ingly.

Cutting a funeral.Now that was an interesting idea. The whole school was supposed to be at the service. It was mandatory. The only class Bliss had ever cut was gym, one afternoon when she and her friends decided to go see some teen slasher flick. It had been a fun day—the movie was even worse than it sounded, and they’d gotten back to school without getting caught.

At Duchesne, you were actually allowed to cut class twice a semester—it was part of the

“flexible academic program.” The school understood that sometimes, the stress was just too much and students occasionally had to cut class. It was amazing how even rebellion was written into the school’s rules, everything so neatly tied into the whole rigor and logic of the place.

But as far as she knew, no one was allowed to cut a funeral. That would be seriously transgressive . Especially because she was supposed to be one of Aggie’s BFF’s since they hung out in the same crowd.

“Let’s go,” Dylan said, reaching out to hold her hand.

Bliss began to follow him, when another figure stepped out of the chapel doors. “Where are you going?” Jordan Llewellyn asked her sister, her large eyes boring into Bliss’s skull.

“Who are you?” Dylan asked.

“Beat it, buttface ,” Bliss warned.

“You shouldn’t go. It’s not safe,”Jordan said, looking directly at Dylan.

“Let’s go, she’s a freak,” Bliss said, scowling at her sister, who was dressed all in white and looked like she was about to receive her first communion.

“I’m telling!”Jordan threatened.

“Go ahead! Tell everybody!” Bliss shot back.

Dylan smirked, and without another word, Bliss followed him through the back door, down the stairs, toward the first level of the mansion.

One of the school’s housekeepers looked up from inside the copy room, which faced the back staircase. ” Wha’ you kids doing here?” she asked, putting a hand on her ample hips.

“Adriana, be cool.” Dylan smiled.

The housekeeper shook her head, but she smiled back.

Bliss liked that Dylan was on friendly terms with the staff. Even though he was just being polite, it was still nice. Mimi treated the ground staff and the service workers with wither ing condescension.

Dylan led Bliss out the side door past the Dumpsters and out the service entrance. Soon they were free, and walking down Ninety-firstStreet .

“What do you want to do?” he asked.

She shrugged. She inhaled the fresh autumn air. Now, that was something she was really starting to enjoy about New York . The crisp, clean fall weather—they didn’t have weather like that down in Houston . It went from muggy to rainy. She put her hands in the pockets of her calf-skimming Chloe trench coat.

“It’s New York , we could do anything,” he teased. “The whole city is open to us. We could see a burlesque show, or a bad comedy act. Hear some Derrida lecture at NYU. Or we could go bowling at the Piers. I know, what about this bar in the East Village where the waiters are real Belgian monks? Or maybe we could go rowing in the Park?”

“Maybe we can just walk to a museum?” she asked.

“Oh, artsy girl.”He smiled. “All right. Which one?”

“The Met,” she decided. She’d only been there once, and only to the gift shop, where her stepmother had spent hours picking out floral prints for souvenirs.

They walked towardFifth Avenue and arrived at the Metropolitan Museum in quick time. The front steps were filled with people scarfing down their lunches, taking pic tures, or simply basking in the sun. It was a carnival atmos phere; someone was slapping bongos on one end, and a boom box blasted reggae music on the other. They walked up the steps and inside.

The lobby of the museum was bustling with activity and color—schoolchildren on field trips lined up behind their teachers, art students walked briskly with their sketchbooks tucked underneath their arms, a Babelian prattle of many different languages bubbled from the tourists.

Dylan slid a dime underneath the glass ticket counter. “Two, please,” he said, an innocent smile on his face.

Bliss was a little appalled. She checked the sign. SUGGESTED DONATION: $15. Well, he had a point, it was sug gested, not mandatory. The cashier handed them their round Met pins with no comment. Apparently, he’d seen it all before.

“Have you ever been to the Temple of Dendur ?” Dylan asked, leading Bliss toward the northern end of the museum.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “What’s that?”

“Stop,” he said. He put his hands gently on her face. “Close your eyes.”

“Why?” She giggled.

“Just do it,” he said. “Trust me.”

She closed her eyes, holding a hand against her face, and she felt him tug at her hand, leading her forward. She walked hesitantly, feeling ahead of her—they were inside some kind of maze, she thought—as he led her briskly through a series of sharp turns. Then they were outside of it. Even with her eyes closed, she could sense they were in a large, empty space.

“Open your eyes,” Dylan whispered.

She blinked them open.

They were standing in front of the ruins of an Egyptian temple. The building was majestic and primitive at the same time—in direct contrast to the clean, modern lines of the museum. It was absolutely stunning. The hall was empty, and there was a long horizontal fountain in front of the temple. It was a breathtaking piece of art, and the history behind it—the fact that the museum had meticulously shipped and reconstructed it so that the temple looked perfectly at home in a Manhattan museum—made Bliss’s head roll.

“Oh my God.”

“I know,” Dylan said, his eyes twinkling.

Bliss blinked back tears. It was the most romantic thing anyone had ever done to her—ever.

He looked directly into her eyes, nodding his head down toward her lips.

She fluttered her eyelashes, her heart racing in her chest, swooning. She leaned toward him, lifting her face to be kissed. He looked gentle and hopeful, and there was some thing appealingly vulnerable about the way he couldn’t meet her gaze.

Their lips met.

And that’s when it happened.

The world went gray. She was in her skin but not in her skin. The room was constricting. The world was shrinking. All four walls of the temple were suddenly whole. She was in the desert.

She could taste the acrid sand in her mouth, feel the hot sun on her back. A thousand scarabs—

black and shiny, buzzing flew out of the temple door. And that was when she began to scream.

Catherine Carver’s Diary

30th of November, 1620

Plymouth , Massachusetts

Today Myles Standish took a team down the coast to Roanoke , to bring medicine, food and supplies to the settlement there. It is a fortnight’s sail, so they will be gone a good while. I was heartsick to see John go off with the men. So far, we have been safe, but who knows for how long. No one dares say. The children grow quickly and are a delight to all. There has been an abundance of twin births. The Allertons recently had triplets. Susannah White, whose husband, William, also journeyed to Roanoke , came to visit. We agreed it is a fertile season. We have been blessed.

— C.C.

ELEVEN

Schuyler was still thinking about what Jack had said after Aggie’s funeral when she arrived at Dr.

Pat’s all-white office in a chrome-and-glassFifth Avenue tower later that afternoon. He’d asked her why she had ignored his note, and she’d explained she had simply dismissed it as a prank.

“You think Aggie’s death is funny?” he’d asked, his face stricken. She had tried to protest—but her grandmother was calling her and she had to leave. She couldn’t erase the look on his face. As if she had disappointed him deeply somehow. She blew out her bangs loudly. Why did he have such an effect on her? An emaciated woman in a fox-fur jacket across the room glared at her.

Schuyler stared defiantly back.

Cordeliahad made a big to-do about Schuyler seeing Dr. Pat. The doctor was some kind of dermatologist, a famous one. The office was more like the inside of a Miami hotel—the Shore Club or the Delano —than a normal waiting room. It was all white, white flokati rugs, white tile walls, white lacquer tables, white leather couches, white fiberglass Eames loungers. Apparently Dr. Pat was the Dr. Pat, the one who all the socialites and fashion designers and celebrities credited with their fabulous complexions. Several signed and framed photographs from models and actresses hung on the walls.