"Your father is of no concern to you," Cordelia replied coldly. "Think no more of him. He was not worthy of your mother."
"But who ...?" Schuyler had never known her father. She knew his name: Stephen Chase, and that he was an artist who had met her mother at his gallery opening. But that was all. She knew nothing of her father's family.
"Enough. He is gone, that is all you need to know. I told you, he died soon after you were born," Cordelia said. She reached over and smoothed her granddaughter's hair. It was the first time Cordelia had shown Schuyler physical affection in a very long time.
Schuyler reached for a strawberry tart. She felt deflated and uneasy, as if Cordelia wasn't telling her everything.
"It is a hard time for us, you see," Cordelia explained as she surveyed the plate of petit fours and chose a hazelnut cookie. "There are less and less of us who are choosing to go through the proper cycles, and our values, our way of life, is quickly disappearing. Not many of us are adhering to The Code anymore. There is corruption and dissent in the ranks. Many fear that we will never reach the exalted state. Instead, there are those who choose to fade away into the darkness that threatens to take us. Immortality is a curse and a blessing. I have lived too long already. I remember too much." Cordelia took a long sip from her teacup, her pinky finger pointed down daintily.
As Cordelia put down her cup, her face changed. It sagged and withered in front of Schuyler's eyes. Schuyler felt a wave of sympathy for the old woman, vampire or not.
"What do you mean?"
"It is a coarse time we live in. Full of vulgarity and despair. We have tried our best to influence, to show the way. We are creatures of beauty and light, but the Red Bloods no longer listen to us. We have become irrelevant. There are too many of them now, and too few of us. It is their will that will change this world, not ours."
"What do you mean? Charles Force is the richest and most powerful man in the city, and Bliss's father is a senator. They're both Blue Bloods, aren't they?" Schuyler asked.
"Charles Force," Cordelia said grimly as she stirred honey into her tea. She released her teaspoon with such anger, the other patrons looked up at the sound. Her face was set. "He has his own agenda. As for Senator Llewellyn, holding political office is a direct violation of our Code. We do not interfere directly with human political affairs. But times have changed. Look at his wife," Cordelia said, with a hint of distaste. "There is nothing Blue Blood about her taste and clothing - 'downwardly aspirational, I believe it's called." She sighed as Schuyler rested her hands on hers. "You are a good girl. I have told you too much already. But perhaps it will help when you realize the truth one day. But not now."
It was all Cordelia would say on the matter.
They finished their tea in silence. Schuyler ate a bite out of a chocolate ��clair, but put it down on her plate without finishing it. After everything Cordelia had told her, she was no longer hungry.
CHAPTER 23
It was maddening how your best friend could twist the knobs inside of you so much that it hurt. Oliver had known just where to stab his little barbs. Pod Person indeed! What about him, with his Vespa and his one-hundred-dollar haircuts? And his yearly birthday parties on board his family's two-hundred-foot yacht? Wasn't that just another stab at the popularity that eluded him?
Ever since The Committee meeting and the tea with Cordelia, Schuyler felt uprooted, unmoored, on unsteady ground. There was so much her grandmother had confirmed about their past - and so much she had still left out. Why was her mother in a coma? What had happened to her father? Schuyler felt more lost than ever, especially since Oliver had stopped speaking to her. They had never argued about anything before - they used to joke that they were just two halves of the same person. They liked all of the same things (5 ��Cent, sci-fi movies, pastrami sandwiches slathered with mustard) and disliked all of the same things (Eminem, pretentious Academy Award fodder, self-righteous vegetarians). But now that Schuyler had moved Jack from the ?Not? to the ?Hot? column, without campaigning for Oliver's approval, he had cut her off.
The rest of the week passed by without incident, Cordelia left for her annual fall sojourn on The Vineyard, Oliver continued to refuse to even acknowledge her existence, and she hadn't had a chance to talk to Jack again. But for once, she was too busy with real-world concerns - passing biology, getting her homework done, turning in her English essays - to deal with either of them.
Her jaw hurt whenever she extended and retracted her fangs, and she was relieved to find she didn't feel that deep-set hunger yet. She learned from her grandmother that the Caerimonia Osculor, the Sacred Kiss, was a very special ceremony, and most Blue Bloods waited until the age of consent (eighteen) to perform it; although incidents of pre-term sucking were rising with every generation - some vampires were even as young as fourteen or fifteen when they took their first human familiar. Taking a Red Blood without his or her consent was also against The Code.
On a whim, she decided to visit her mother at the hospital that Friday afternoon after school, since Oliver hadn't invited her to come over and hang out at his place as usual. Besides, she had a plan, and she didn't want to wait until Sunday to try it out. Instead of reading from the newspaper like she did every week, she was going to ask her mother some questions instead. Even if her mother couldn't answer her, Schuyler would feel better just getting them off her chest.
The hospital was quieter on a weekday afternoon. There weren't as many visitors in the lobby, and there was a desolate, abandoned feeling to the building. Life was lived elsewhere; even the nurses looked anxious to take off for the weekend.
Schuyler looked through the glass again before stepping inside her mother's room. Just as before, there, by the foot of the bed, was the same gray-haired man. He was saying something to her mother. Schuyler pressed her ear against the door.
"Forgive me ... forgive me ... wake up, please, let me help you..."
Schuyler watched and listened. She knew who it was. It had to be him. Schuyler felt her heart beat in excitement.
The man kept talking. "You have punished me long enough, you have punished yourself long enough. Return to me. I beg."
Her mother's nurse appeared at her elbow. "Hi, Schuyler, what are you doing? Why don't you go inside?" she asked.
"Don't you see him?" Schuyler whispered, indicating the glass.
"See who?" The nurse asked, puzzled. "I don't see anybody."
Schuyler pressed her lips together. So only she could see the stranger. It was as she thought, and she felt a flutter of anticipation. "You don't?"