The Van Alen Legacy (Blue Bloods 4)

They walked out of the terminal and into the mild, tropical afternoon. Thank goodness for the upside-down weather here. Mimi had braced herself for blistering heat, and discovering it was winter in South America was a pleasant surprise.

The Lennox boys had hailed their own cab to the hotel, which meant she and Kingsley were stuck with each other again. The two brothers had been under Kingsley's command for centuries, but kept to themselves. They preferred their own company and often only spoke when they were spoken to, in monosyllabic grunts. She and Kingsley had had no choice but to talk to each other or die of boredom.

Kingsley whistled for a cab, and they piled in the back and drove slowly into town. The city looked the same, as gorgeous and exotic as ever, but somehow seeing the Redeemer statue above Corcovado mountain did not give Mimi the same thrill it once had. She didn't know what to think, she sure knew what the Conclave thought, even Kingsley had wanted to go after Leviathan as soon as he'd read the report, but he had been sent on this little adventure instead. Forsyth Llewellyn had pressed upon the surviving Elders to make finding the Watcher a top priority. Mimi wasn't wholly convinced, as the senator was, that the Silver Blood traitors had been fully unmasked by the Almeida fire, sure Nan Cutler, their leader, had perished, but there had to be others among the Coven.

Warden Cutler had to have had help. But that wasn't really Mimi's problem right now. All Mimi knew was that when Kingsley began assembling his team, she had volunteered. She'd wanted to get out of New York, away from the shocked, mournful faces of the surviving members of the Conclave. They were all so weak and frightened! It annoyed her to see them cowed and terrified. They were vampires; where was their pride?

They were acting like cornered sheep, bleating to Forsyth about how they should hide. Well, she wasn't going to hide. She wanted to find whoever was responsible for that terrible night, hunt them down and kill them one by one. Sacrilege is what it was, disrespect. The Silver Bloods' attack was vicious in its scope and intensity. They had attempted to wipe out the clan's Elders and Wardens, leaving the community with the irrelevant and the feeble. They had shown them no mercy. Mimi planned to show them the same.

But first they had to find Jordan. Jordan would tell them what had happened; Jordan would know who the Silver Bloods were and where they were hiding.

Because Jordan Llewellyn was only pretending to be a child. Jordan was the Watcher, Pistis Sophia, Elder of Elders, a soul born with its eyes open, that is, with the full command and understanding of all its memories.

Sophia had slumbered for thousands of years until Cordelia Van Alen had asked the Llewellyns, one of the oldest and most trusted families in the Conclave, to take her spirit as their newborn. The Watcher was supposed to keep vigilance against their enemies and to sound the alarm should the Dark Prince ever return to Earth. During the time of the Roman crisis it had been Sophia who had first discovered the Croatan betrayal. Or something like that, anyway.

It was all so long ago, and Mimi couldn't be bothered to remember. When you had lived for thousands of years, going through your memories was like trying to find a contact lens in a pile of broken glass. The past wasn't filed away in a neat tree of folders on a computer screen, marked accordingly with dates and labels for easy access. Instead, the past was a jumble of images and emotions, of knowledge that you did not understand and information you did not remember possessing.

Sometimes, when she had a moment to herself, Mimi wondered why she had volunteered so gladly. She had missed her junior year of high school, and wouldn't be able to graduate with her class. And it wasn't as if she cared about Jordan Llewellyn. She'd only met her a couple of times, and each time, Jordan had made either a face or a rude remark. But something told her she had to go, and Jack hadn't stopped her either.

It was strange how things never turned out the way one expected. Mimi had thought she and Jack would become closer after everything that had happened, especially with that stupid Van Alen brat finally out of the way. Maybe they just took each other for granted now that there was no one between them. But why was it she was here, and he was somewhere else?

"Penny for your thoughts?" Kingsley asked, as if he'd just noticed the silence in the taxicab.

"It's going to cost much more than that," Mimi said. "Let's just say however much it is, you'll never be able to afford it."

"Oh really?" Kingsley cocked an eyebrow. His signature move. Guaranteed to pull in the ladies. She could read it all over his arrogant face. "Never say never."

The hotel they'd booked was a modest one: three stars, and that was stretching it. It was miles from the beach, and the elevator was broken when they arrived. Mimi spent a listless night on itchy sheets and was surprised to find the team in extraordinarily good spirits the next morning. Well. Someone had to like percale.

Kingsley sat at the breakfast table looking newly energized, and not just from the four shots of espresso in his caf¨¦ con leche. He drank coffee like some vampires drank blood. "We've been thinking like humans," he sighed. "Looking for suspects, interrogating witnesses. These are Croatan we are up against. And they took the time to manipulate a memory that led us everywhere but here."

"It means she's here. In Rio. I get it." Mimi nodded. 'They sent us as far away as possible."

"She's probably right under our nose," Kingsley said. "In one of the most populous cities in the world."

"Ten million people," Mimi said. 'that's a lot." Her heart began to sink just thinking about how many more dreams they would have to read, how many endless nights they would have to spend chasing shadows in the dark.

She watched Kingsley walk away from the table and over to the buffet, where the hotel had laid out a full breakfast: platters of cheese buns and salted biscuits; freshly cut papayas, mangoes, and watermelons. Bowls of avocado cream. Chafing dishes filled with slices of honey ham and crispy bacon.

He picked up a watermelon wedge and took a bite, standing in front of the full-length windows that had a panoramic view of the city. Mimi followed his gaze out to the clustered hillsides. The favelas were as crowded and structurally ingenious as ant farms, precariously towering over the cliffs, a Byzantine maze of ghettos housing Rio's urban poor.

"Amazing, aren't they? A city within a city, really," Mimi said. "It's a wonder they all don't come crashing down during flood season."

Kingsley put down the melon rind. 'The shanty towns... of course. The Silver Bloods have always been drawn to chaos and disorder. That's where we'll start."

"Are you serious?" Mimi groaned. "No one goes there unless they have to."

ER 7

Schuyler

It was ten o'clock in the evening, and the first guests were arriving at the landing. As befitting the Oriental theme, a platoon of authentic Chinese junks rented for the party made a stately procession up the river, banners flying the crests of the Great Houses of Europe. Hapsburg. Bourbon. Savoy. Liechtenstein. Saxe-Coburg.

Blue Bloods that had remained in the Old Country in favor of seeking a new home across the ocean. Schuyler stood sentry with the army of servers lined up against the stone wall, just another faceless drone, or so she hoped. Each of them carried a different libation: there were pink cosmopolitans in martini glasses, goblets of the finest Burgundy and Bordeaux from the hostess's vineyards in Montrachet, sparkling water with lemon slices for teetotalers. She carried a heavy tray of champagne flutes, bubbles clustered at the lip, golden and bright.

She could hear the crack-thump of the wind whipping against the multiple sails. Some were decorated as dragon boats, complete with gold-plated scales and luminescent emerald eyes at the bow. Some were kitted out as warships with brightly colored "cannons" poking out of the stern. A grand imperial parade, at once indulgent and beautiful. She noticed something else as well, the crests on the banners were moving, changing with the light, transforming in a fluid dance of form and color.

"Do you see that?" She turned to the girl standing next to her.