The Van Alen Legacy (28 page)

“Come back here.”

Half invitation, half
command.

She turned. Kingsley Martin
was lying on the bed, his arms crossed behind his head.
Arrogant bastard.
Rio had
been a mistake. The torrent of emotions after coming so close to the Watcher, only to have her
slip away . . . the two of them had met up later that night at their hotel. Well. What’s done was
done. She couldn’t change that.

She had been far from home and
feeling low. But she had no excuse for the last twenty-four hours. Okay, so after Kingsley had
told her his whole sad, terrible story, and shared the burden of his secret, they had closed down
the bar downstairs, and then everything had felt inevitable after that. Hooking up once was a
mistake.
Twice?
Twice was a pattern. The Mandarin Oriental was one of Mimi’s
favorite places to stay, and the one in New York was especially lovely. If only she could
convince herself she was here to enjoy the view.

“Well? I’m waiting,” his silky
voice announced.

“You think you can order me
around?” she said, throwing her hair over her shoulders:
a practiced move that she made
appear
unrehearsed. She knew he found the sight of her hair swinging over her back
enticing. “I know I can.”

She moved closer. “Who do you
think you are, anyway?”

Kingsley only yawned. He
tugged at the edge of her robe, pulling it halfway off her shoulders, before she stopped him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I’m getting bonded in two
weeks, that’s what’s wrong,” she snapped, belting her robe tightly around her waist. She had
asked him that night in Rio if this had happened between them before. And she had asked him again
last night. If they had ever been together . . . if . . . if . . . if . . . Of course Kingsley
refused to answer. He had been maddening. Do your exercises, he had said. Do your regressions. He
had teased and mocked her and refused to answer her question.

If it had happened before, I
could forgive myself, she thought. Maybe this is my one weakness. Maybe he is my
weakness.

“Can I ask you something?”
Mimi asked, watching as Kingsley got dressed and walked over to the little dining table. Kingsley
had ordered a breakfast suited for a king. Not just the usual plate of eggs and bacon. There was
also a seafood platter on ice, a full tin of caviar, toast points, chives, sour cream, and
chopped onions. A golden bottle of Cristal was sweating in a wine bucket.

“Anything,” he said, scooping
up caviar with his fingers and licking them. He filled a plate with food, then popped open the
champagne bottle and poured two glasses. He handed her one with a smile.

“I’m serious . . . I don’t
want you to get offended.”

“Me?” he said, balancing his
breakfast on his lap as he took a seat on the couch and put his feet up on the coffee
table.

“What do . . . what
do
Silver
Bloods live on?” she asked. “I mean, other than caffeine and sugar and prawns the
size of your fist,” Mimi said, watching him eat. “I mean, do you still perform the
Caerimonia
? On humans, I mean?”

Kingsley shook his head. He
looked mournful as he dipped his shrimp into the cocktail sauce. “No.” He took a bite. “No, my
dear, that is not an option any longer for those of us who have drunk from the undying blood. I’m
afraid to the
Croatan
the only blood that matters is the blood that runs through
your veins.”

Mimi crossed her legs as she
sat on the bed opposite him. She arched her neck.

‘So, do you ever feel
tempted?”

“All the time.”
He smiled lazily.

“
so
what do you
do?”

What is there to do? I can’t.
I’ve pledged to honor the Code. I live in restraint. I can still eat food . . . and sometimes
some of it even tastes good.” He shrugged and wiped his fingers on the edge of his shirt. She
wanted to tell him not to do that, but didn’t want to sound like his mother. “You mean you can’t
taste any of that stuff “?

“I try.”

“But all those doughnuts . .
.” she said, suddenly feeling sorry for him. He was immortal in the truest sense of the word. He
didn’t need anything to survive. What a lonely and strange way to live.

“Yeah, I know.” He laughed,
but his eyes looked sad. “I eat a lot because I can taste only a fraction of what is in front of
me. I have a bottomless appetite that can never be filled.” He winked. “And that’s why the Silver
Bloods are cursed.”

“You make light of serious
matters, you said that to me once,” she chastised.

“Well, yes. We are very much
alike,” Kingsley said. He put down his empty plate and glass and walked over to stand in front of
her. “And we have fun together, don’t we?” he asked. “Admit it, this is kind of fun . . . isn’t
it?” He licked her neck, then her ear, gently kissing her back and her shoulders. She could smell
the champagne on his lips.

Mimi closed her eyes. A bit of
fun, that was all. It meant nothing. Not to him, not to her.
Hooking up.
That’s all
they were doing.
Purely physical and purely pleasurable.
There were no feelings
involved, no divine connection, no heavenly conscription . . . This was just fun.
Pure and
simple.

Kingsley was still kissing her
neck when she felt his fangs come out, that slight prickling, tickling her skin.

“What do you think you’re
doing?” she asked, feeling afraid, but excited too. She had never known what it was like to be
treated as a victim.
As prey.
He was dangerous. A reformed Silver Blood. You might
as well call him a reformed Doberman.

“Shush . . . it won’t hurt . .
. I promise.” And then he bit her neck, just a tiny bit, just so she could feel his fangs sink in
and pierce the skin, and then she felt his tongue lick a drop of her blood. He licked his lips
and smiled at her. “You try it.”

Mimi was horrified. What had
he just done? And now he wanted her to do it too? “No.” But she had to admit, she was tempted.
She had always wondered what it would be like.

Why the
Croatan
preferred it over the usual
Caeremonia
.

“Go on. You won’t hurt me. I
dare you.”

Being with him made her
feel alive and uninhibited.
What could it hurt?
Just a touch.
Just a
drop.
Just a tease.
She did not want to drink his blood, but she did,
suddenly, very much want to taste it.

To play with a lit
candle.
To hold her finger to the flame, taking it away just before it burned. That knife
edge that skirted between danger and fun.
A roller coaster ride.
The adrenaline rush
was heady. She pushed out her fangs and buried her face into his neck.

The sun rose, filling the room
with light. And Mimi Force was having the time of her life.

She felt bad about leaving
Bliss like that. But right then she was too wound up to even think about anything other than the
fact that the person she had waited her entire life to talk to . . . was now awake.
Alive.
Allegra Van Alen was alive. She had opened her eyes a half hour ago, and she
was asking for her daughter.

As she walked through the
glass doors of New York Presbyterian Hospital, toward the back elevator that would take her to
the permanent care unit, Schuyler wondered how many days, how many nights, how many birthdays,
how many Thanksgivings and Christmases, she had spent walking down the same fluorescent-lit
hallways, with the smell of antiseptic and formaldehyde, walking by the sympathetic smiles of the
nurses, by the tearful groups huddled near the surgical waiting rooms, their faces drawn and
anxious.

How many times?

Too many to
count.
Too many to mention.
This was her entire childhood, right in this
medical center. The housekeeper had taught her to walk, to talk, and Cordelia had been there to
pay the bills. But she’d never had a mother. There had been no one to sing her songs in the bath,
or to kiss her on the forehead to sleep. No one to keep secrets from, no one to fight over her
wardrobe with, no one to slam doors on, there had been none of the normal rhythms of softness and
disagreements, the infinite ways of mother-daughter kinship.

There was only
this.

“You’re here so quickly,” the
attending nurse said with a smile from the nurses?
station
. She escorted Schuyler
down the hallway to the private wing, where New York’s most privileged and most vegetative
slumbered.

“She’s been waiting for you.
It’s a miracle. The doctors are beside themselves.” The nurse lowered her voice. “They say she
might even be on television?”

Schuyler didn’t know what to
say. It still did not seem true. “Wait. I need . . . I need to get something from the
caféteria
.” And she ducked away from the nurse’s side and ran down the entire flight
of stairs to the first floor. She burst through the swinging door, surprising a few interns
sneaking a coffee break on the hidden landing.

She wasn’t sure if she would
be able to do this. It seemed too good to be true, and she couldn’t bring herself to face it. She
wiped the tears from her eyes and walked inside the caf
eteria.

She bought
a
bottled
water and a pack of gum, and returned to the right floor. The kind nurse was still
waiting for her.

“It’s okay,” she told
Schuyler. “I know it’s a shock. But go on. It’ll be okay. She’s waiting for you.”

Schuyler nodded.
‘
thank
you,” she whispered.

She walked down the hallway.
Everything looked exactly the same as it always did.
The window looking over the
GeorgeWashingtonBridge.
The whiteboard charts with the patients’ names, medications, and
attending physicians. Finally she stood in front of the right door. It was open just a crack, so
that Schuyler heard it.

A voice, lilting and
lovely through the doorway.
Calling her name ever so softly.

A voice she had only heard in
her dreams.

The voice of her
mother.

Schuyler opened the door and
walked inside.

“What did you
say?”

Bliss was paying for her new
dress when she was jolted by the Visitor’s voice in her head.

“Do you take Amex?” she asked
the salesgirl sitting at the desk. She tried to maintain her composure while inside the Visitor’s
excitement made her head ache.

“Allegra is awake?
Allegra is alive?”

“Why does
this bring joy to you?”
Bliss asked.
“Why would you care? She’s just
a coma patient in a hospital room.”

“Did you say something?” the
salesgirl asked, shoving the purple dress into a plain brown bag and stapling the top with the
receipt.

“No. Sorry.” Bliss grabbed her
bag and headed out of the room. She bumped into a few girls walking in.

“Do they still have good
stuff, or is it all picked over?” one of them asked.

“Uh . . . I don’t know,” Bliss
muttered, pushing through. She knew they would think her incredibly rude, but it was as if her
head were going to crack open.

Bliss raised her hand to hail
a cab. It was five in the afternoon, and all the taxis had their “Off Duty” signs on, a shift
switch, and worse, it was starting to rain.
New York
weather.
For a
moment she missed Bobi Anne’s Silver Shadow Rolls and the driver who always took her around.
Finally Bliss caught a town car that had just dropped off some executive at the
corner.

“How much to 
168th Street
?”

“Twenty.”

She got inside the car, which
felt warm and cozy after standing in the suddenly freezing rain.

She could still feel the
Visitor’s excitement and agitation. Why did he care? What did he care about some stupid woman in
a hospital?

“Show some respect, the
Visitor said coldly. Do not speak of your mother that way.”

“So it’s
true. I am her daughter. I am Allegra’s daughter”,
she thought. Her heart was pounding so
loudly it hurt her chest a little bit.

“Of
course you are,”
the Visitor said in a reasonable voice that made Bliss feel even more
nervous.
“We made you together. Now, I think it’s time we said a proper
hello to Allegra.”

The hospital bed was empty.
Allegra Van Alen sat in a chair beside it. Schuyler’s mother was the picture of elegance and
restraint in a simple black dress and a string of pearls. She looked as if she had just come from
the office or a charity board meeting, and not as if she had just spent the last fifteen years
immobile in the same bed.