Blue Bloods (Blue Bloods 1)

Mimi and Jack were the only children of Charles Force, the sixty-year-old, steely-haired media magnate who owned an upstart television network, a cable news channel, a popular newspaper tabloid, several radio stations, and a successful publishing empire that made profits from autobiographies of World Wrestling Federation stars. His wife, the former Trinity Burden, was a doyenne of the New York society circuit, and chaired the most prestigious charity committees. She was instrumental in the foundation of The Committee, of which Jack and Mimi were junior members. The Forces lived in one of the most sought-after addresses in the city, a luxurious, well-appointed townhouse that covered an entire block across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

"Oh c'mon," Mimi pouted, immediately placing her feet back on her brother's lap. "I need to stretch my legs. They're so sore. Feel," she demanded, grabbing a sinewy calf and asking him to feel the muscle tense underneath. Strip Cardio was a bitch on the joints.

Jack frowned. "I said quit it," he murmured in his serious voice, and Mimi immediately retracted her tanned legs, tucking them beneath her butt and letting the undersoles of her four-inch Alaia heels scrape against the white suede couch, leaving dirty scratch marks on the immaculate cushion.

"What's wrong with you?" Mimi asked. Her brother had arrived in a foul mood just a minute ago. "Thirsty?" she taunted. Her brother was such a party pooper lately. He hardly ever went to Committee meetings anymore, something their parents would freak out about if they ever found out. He wasn't dating anyone; he looked weak and spent, and he was undeniably cranky. Mimi wondered when the last time was that he had had any.

Jack shrugged and stood up. "I'm going out to get some air."

"Good idea," Bliss added, rising in a hurry. "I need a smoke," she explained apologetically, waving a pack of cigarettes in front of Mimi's face.

"Me too," Aggie Carondolet, another girl from Duchesne said. She was part of Mimi's crowd, and looked just like their leader, down to the $500-dollar highlights and sullen expression.

"You don't need my permission," Mimi replied in a bored voice, although the opposite was true. One didn't simply leave Mimi's presence - one was dismissed.

Aggie smirked, and Bliss smiled nervously, following Jack toward the back of the club.

Mimi shrugged. She never bothered to follow the rules, and tended to light up wherever and whenever she felt like it - the gossip columns once gleefully published the five-figure tally of her smoking fines. She watched the three of them leave, disappearing into the crush of bodies throwing themselves around the dance floor to obscene rap lyrics.

"I'm bored," she whined, finally paying attention to the guy who had hardly left her side all evening. They had been dating for all of two weeks, an eternity on the Mimi time line. "Make something happen."

"What do you have in mind?" he murmured groggily, licking her ear.

"Mmmm," she giggled, putting a hand underneath his chin and feeling his veins throb. Tempting. But maybe later, not here, not in public at least. Especially since she'd just had her fill of him yesterday ... and it was against the rules... Human familiars were not to be abused, blah, blah, blah. They needed at least a forty-eight-hour recovery time ... But oh, he smelled wonderful ... a hint of Armani ...aftershave and underneath ... meaty and vital... and if she could just get one little taste... one little... bite... but The Committee met downstairs, right beneath Block 122. There could be several Wardens here, right now ... watching... She could be caught. But would she? It was dark in the VIP room... Who would even notice in this crowd of self-involved narcissists?

But they would find out. Someone would tell them. It was eerie how they knew so much about you - almost as if they were always there, watching, inside your head. So, maybe next time. She would let him recuperate from last night. She ruffled his hair. He was so cute - handsome and vulnerable, just the way she liked them. But for now, completely useless. "Excuse me for a second," she told him.

Mimi leaped from her seat so quickly that the cocktail waitress bringing a tray of lychee martinis to the table did a double take. The crew around the banquette blinked. They could have sworn she was sitting down just a second ago. Then in a flash, there she was: in the middle of the room, dancing with another boy - because for Mimi, there was always another boy, and then another and another, each one of them all too happy to dance with her - and it seemed like she danced for hours - her feet never even touching the ground - a dizzying; blond tornado in eight-hundred-dollar heels.

When she came back to the table, her face glowing with a transcendental light (or merely the effects of benefit high beam?), her beauty almost too painful to bear - she found her date sleeping, slumped over the edge of the table. A pity.

Mimi picked up her cell phone. She just realized that Bliss had never returned from that cigarette break.

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CHAPTER 1

The Bank was a decrepit stone building at the tail end of Houston Street, on the last divide between the gritty East Village and the wilds of the Lower East Side. Once the headquarters of the venerable Van Alen investment and brokerage house, it was an imposing, squat presence, a paradigm of the beaux-arts style, with a classic six-column fa?ade and an intimidating row of ?dentals? - razor-sharp serrations on the pediment's surface. For many years it stood on the corner of Houston and Essex, desolate, empty, and abandoned, until one winter evening when an eye-patch - wearing nightclub promoter chanced upon it after polishing off a hot dog at Katz's Deli. He was looking for a venue to showcase the new music his DJs were spinning - a dark, haunted sound they were calling "Trance."

The pulsing music spilled out to the sidewalk, where Schuyler Van Alen, a small, dark-haired fifteen-year-old girl, whose bright blue eyes were ringed with dark kohl eye shadow, stood nervously at the back of the line in front of the club. She picked at her chipping black nail polish. "Do you really think we'll get in?" she asked.

"No sweat," her best friend, Oliver Hazard-Perry replied, cocking an eyebrow "Dylan guaranteed a cakewalk. Besides, we can always point to the plaque over there. Your family built this place, remember?" He grinned.

"So what else is new?" Schuyler smirked, rolling her eyes. The island of Manhattan was linked inexorably to her family history, and as far as she could tell, she was related to the Frick Museum, the Van Wyck Expressway, and the Hayden Planetarium, give or take an institution (or major thoroughfare) or two. Not that it made any difference in her life. She barely had enough to cover the twenty-five dollar charge at the door.

Oliver affectionately swung an arm around her shoulders. "Stop worrying! You worry too much. This'll be fun, I promise."

"I wish Dylan had waited for us," Schuyler fretted, shivering in her long black cardigan with holes in each elbow. She'd found the sweater in a Manhattan Valley thrift store last week. It smelled like decay and stale rosewater perfume, and her skinny frame was lost in its voluminous folds. Schuyler always looked like she was drowning in fabric. The black sweater reached almost to her calves, and underneath she wore a sheer black T-shirt over a worn gray thermal undershirt; and under that, a long peasant skirt that swept the floor. Like a nineteenth century street urchin, her skirt hems were black with dirt from dragging on the sidewalks. She was wearing her favorite pair of black-and-white Jack Purcell sneakers, the ones with the duct-taped hole on the right toe. Her dark wavy hair was pulled back with a beaded scarf she'd found in her grandmother's closet.

Schuyler was startlingly pretty, with a sweet, heart-shaped face; a perfectly upturned nose; and soft, milky skin - but there was something almost insubstantial about her beauty. She looked like a Dresden doll in witch's clothing. Kids at the Duchesne School thought she dressed like a bag lady. It didn't help that she was painfully shy and kept to herself, because then they just thought she was stuck-up, which she wasn't. She was just quiet.

Oliver was tall and slim, with a fair, elfin face that was framed by a shag of brilliant chestnut hair. He had sharp cheekbones and sympathetic hazel eyes. He was wearing a severe military greatcoat over a flannel shirt and a pair of holey blue jeans. Of course, the flannel shirt was John Varvatos and the jeans from Citizens of Humanity. Oliver liked to play the part of disaffected youth, but he liked shopping in SoHo even more.

The two of them had been best friends ever since the second grade, when Schuyler's nanny forgot to pack her lunch one day, and Oliver had given her half of his lettuce and mayo sandwich. They finished each other's sentences and liked to read aloud from random pages of Infinite Jest when they were bored. Both were Duchesne legacy kids who traced their ancestry back to the Mayflower. Schuyler counted six U.S. presidents in her family tree alone. But even with their prestigious pedigrees, they didn't fit in at Duchesne. Oliver preferred museums to lacrosse, and Schuyler never cut her hair and wore things from consignment shops.

Dylan Ward was a new friend - a sad-faced boy with long lashes, smoldering eyes, and a tarnished reputation. Supposedly, he had a rap sheet and had just been sprung from military school. His grandfather had reportedly bribed Duchesne with funds for a new gym to let him enroll. He had immediately gravitated toward Schuyler and Oliver, recognizing their similar misfit status.

Schuyler sucked in her cheeks and felt a pit of anxiety forming in her stomach. They'd been so comfortable just hanging out in Oliver's room as usual, listening to music and flipping through the offerings on his TiVo; Oliver booting up another game of Vice City on the split screen, while she rifled through the pages of glossy magazines, fantasizing that she too, was lounging on a raft in Sardinia, dancing the flamenco in Madrid, or wandering pensively through the streets of Bombay.