Keys to the Repository Read online

  During a dinner party to welcome the Blue Bloods to the city, the Silver Bloods revealed themselves at last and, led by the traitor Nan Cutler, slaughtered the members of the Conclave and left the house to burn with the Black Fire. Mimi barely made it out of the party alive, but it was her hand that felled the false Regent.

  Schuyler and Lawrence rushed to Corcovado only to experience more grief. Through Lucifer’s trickery, Leviathan was released and Lawrence slain. Before dying, Lawrence pressed Schuyler to fulfill his legacy and bring salvation back to their people. During the aftermath of Lawrence’s murder, Bliss Llewellyn discovered a startling revelation about her provenance.

  Back in New York, in the absence of a Regis, the Coven named Forsyth Llewellyn Regent, to preside over what was left of the Blue Blood leadership—a Conclave made up almost entirely of retired Elders and Wardens. They blamed Schuyler for causing Lawrence’s death, and she fled New York with Oliver rather than face her sentence. Schuyler bade good-bye to Jack as well, for loving him could only lead to his doom.

  Schuyler and Oliver traveled around the world, one step ahead of the Venators chasing them. In Paris, she was captured by no less than Jack Force himself. Meanwhile, Mimi had joined Kingsley’s team to hunt for Jordan Llewellyn, who had been kidnapped by the Silver Bloods in Rio. Bliss, left at home in the Hamptons, desperately fought for the mastery of her soul.

  Charles left for Paris to hunt Leviathan, only to get caught in his own trap. The Conclave, reduced to seven ruling houses, proposed a resolution reinstating Charles in the position of Regis when he returned. But Forsyth Llewellyn had other plans. He immediately called for a White Vote, nominating himself as Regis, under the orders of his true master, Lucifer.

  Before the vote was tallied, Ambrose Barlow and Minerva Morgan, two of the oldest Wardens on the council, brought a damning anonymous letter about Forsyth to Mimi’s attention. Mimi stalled on giving Forsyth leadership of the Conclave by withholding her approval.

  Now, the Conclave remains leaderless in a time of great darkness. But there is a good omen at last: Allegra Van Alen finally awoke from her dreamless sleep with words of wisdom and hope for her two daughters, the light (Schuyler) and the shadow (Bliss).

  As our story continues, the fate of the Blue Bloods rests in the hands of the newest generation of vampires and their loyal human Conduits. Can Schuyler, Jack, Oliver, Mimi, and Bliss work together to bring back peace and safety to their community? Or will Lucifer and his Silver Bloods destroy everything the Blue Bloods have worked so hard to build in their earthly home?

  FAMILY RECORDS:

  VAN ALEN

  A formerly prominent New York family whose influence and largesse was instrumental in the founding of modern-day Manhattan, the Van Alen name was once synonymous with power, privilege, and patronage. But the family fortune has been dwindling for many years, now reduced to a few real estate holdings and nothing more.

  SCHUYLER VAN ALEN

  Half-blood

  Birth Name: Schuyler Theodora Elizabeth Van Alen Chase

  Origin: September 1, 1992, New York, New York

  Known Past Lives: None: she is Dimidium Cognatus (half-human, half-vampire), the first and only one of her kind.

  Bondmate: None. Schuyler is a trueborn new spirit with no heavenly past.

  Assigned Human Conduit: Oliver Hazard-Perry

  List of Human Familiars: Oliver Hazard-Perry, no others

  Physical Characteristics:

  Hair: Black

  Eyes: Blue

  Height: 5’7”

  Schuyler is the only daughter born to immortal mother, Allegra Van Alen (Gabrielle, the Uncorrupted) and mortal father, Stephen Chase, her mother’s only human familiar. The Van Alens were once one of the community’s wealthiest and most illustrious families, but fell on hard times when Allegra broke her blood bond to her brother Charles (Michael, Pure of Heart). Home is a shabby mansion on 101st Street and Riverside Drive. Other Van Alen holdings include a Nantucket compound, and a pied-à-terre in Paris (currently rented to visiting tourists).

  Schuyler was born premature, and as a baby was perpetually underweight. Her pediatrician noted that she did not speak until her fourth birthday, when she suddenly began using whole sentences. Her primary caretaker, Cordelia Van Alen, her maternal grandmother, refused to allow speech therapy, insisting that her granddaughter was perfectly capable of speaking and would do so when she was ready.

  School reports from Duchesne indicate that Schuyler was a quiet and thoughtful child, socially awkward, and if not for her best friend and human Conduit, Oliver Hazard-Perry, would have been a complete outcast. She excelled in Language Arts and Applied Arts, and was once honored by the faculty for diligence in her studies.

  According to medical records from the Committee physician, Dr. Patricia Hazard, Schuyler’s half-blood heritage means she has many powers that vampires her age do not, but also that her mixed blood makes her weaker and her Transformation to vampire unstable. Her immortality is in question due to her human progenitor.

  Schuyler’s birth was a flagrant violation of the Code on her mother’s part, and the Conclave has not yet come to a formal decision on her fate. Because it is said that the daughter of Gabrielle will bring the Blue Bloods the salvation they seek, Schuyler has been allowed to live. For now.

  Schuyler Van Alen spends most of her time alone; she has a fondness for museums and long walks in Central Park, and made it a habit to revisit her comatose mother in the hospital every Sunday.

  The following is a report from a Repository intern currently enrolled in Duchesne:

  Intern Report #101

  Schuyler Van Alen dresses like a nineteenth-century street urchin in thriftstore castoffs, but was recently tapped to be a model by New York’s top agency during a casting call held at school. She gives the impression of being short of stature yet is in fact slightly taller than average. Her best friend, Oliver, calls her Sky, and according to a poem written in his diary (filched from his locker and scanned while subject was in class):

  Her blue-black hair falls in curtains

  Surrounding a delicate heart-shaped face

  Blue eyes set deep in a pale, almost ivory complexion

  Stunning

  Beautiful

  Schuyler

  Even those not so enamored will grudgingly accede that she is attractive. The beginnings of her Transformation came right on schedule in her fifteenth year, with the discovery of the sangre azul on her forearms. Duly inducted into the Committee during the first semester of her sophomore year, she has displayed questionable judgment in the process of her Transformation. Her attendance at Committee meetings is inconsistent, and she recently performed the Sacred Kiss with her human Conduit, in a flagrant violation of Committee rules. According to Dr. Hazard, she had no other choice but to do so or she would have succumbed to a sickness and the loss of consciousness that felled her mother.

  Intern Report #202

  While retiring in nature, Schuyler displays an unerring ability to attract the attention of the opposite sex. She was spotted dancing with Jack Force at the fall Informals, and rumors have it that her infatuation with Duchesne’s most handsome and popular student may be returned. During the after-party at the Four Hundred Ball, she was spotted kissing a fellow masked reveler. Conflicting reports have the boy in question as Oliver Hazard-Perry, Kingsley Martin, or the most likely candidate, Jack Force.

  Intern Report #303

  Schuyler’s infatuation/relationship with Jack Force appears to have grown since she was ordered to move to the Forces’ town house after her adoption by her uncle, Charles Force. Several interns have confirmed sightings of Schuyler and Jack entering a residential building on Perry Street separately but within minutes of the other (real estate records show apartment 10 N. titled to the Benjamin Force Trust).

  From a page from Schuyler’s journal:

  “To love Jack is to ruin him, to risk his very life. His eventual bonding with Mimi is law, it is life an
d death. I must leave him. I cannot keep doing this to Oliver, who loves me so much and whom I love as well. I cannot live with the guilt anymore. I have to say good-bye.”

  (Renfield’s notes continued)

  Schuyler Van Alen was put to a Committee hearing after the events in Rio, where Regis Lawrence Van Alen was murdered. She has been on the run for a year since the trial, but we can assume she returned to New York, as she was spotted at the bonding ceremony of Madeleine (Mimi) and Benjamin ( Jack) Force at St. John’s Cathedral.

  We have pieced together the story and have discovered that Schuyler was hiding in the city under the name Skye Hope, using her shape-shifting abilities to pose as the daughter of an ex-hippie traveling singer.

  Details on the events at St. John’s are still coming to light. Eyewitness reports state that a silver mist appeared in the church, and the demon Leviathan himself abducted Schuyler, and they disappeared into the world of the glom. Venators on the scene reported that Jack and Mimi Force also disappeared at this time. Several minutes later, Jack and Schuyler emerged from the glom, Jack gravely injured and bleeding heavily. Guests at the scene testified they witnessed Schuyler offering her blood for him to drink. She was overheard telling him that as she was half human, that her blood could save him. Jack Force was then observed performing the Sacred Kiss on her, risking Corruption.

  Schuyler was last seen at John F. Kennedy Airport with her faithful human Conduit/familiar, Oliver, but at the last moment, conflicting reports indicated that she entered the terminal with Jack Force, with Florence, Italy, as their possible intended destination.

  Current Status: Missing. Suspected to have sought refuge in European Coven.

  ALLEGRA VAN ALEN CHASE

  Gabrielle, the Uncorrupted, the Virtuous, the Messenger, Archangel of the Light

  Birth Name: Allegra Elizabeth Van Alen

  Origin: August 24, 1969, New York, New York

  Known Past Lives: Rose Standish (Plymouth), Tomasia Fosari (Florence), Junia Tertia (Rome), Meni (Egypt)

  Bondmate: Charles Force (broken). Bonded to Stephen Chase (Red Blood)

  Assigned Human Conduit: Warren Hazard-Perry (deceased)

  List of Human Familiars: Stephen Bendix Chase, no others

  Physical Characteristics:

  Hair: Blond

  Eyes: Green

  Height: 5’7”

  Allegra Van Alen is the current reincarnation of Gabrielle, the Uncorrupted, one of only two of our kind who was not cursed or fallen, but became a vampire by choice instead of sin.

  Like many Blue Bloods of her generation, she began her education at the Duchesne School in Manhattan but transferred to Endicott Academy, a boarding school in Massachusetts, during her junior year. As a student, Allegra was known on campus as cheerful, spirited, and athletic; captain of the girls’ field hockey team and a natural-born leader. She made a stunning debut at the Four Hundred Ball on her eighteenth year, leading the cotillion with her brother, Charles. Town & Country christened her the “debutante of the decade.”

  As far as the Repository is concerned, nothing in Allegra’s past or her personality suggested that she was capable of violating the Code in a most egregious manner. When she came of age at twenty-one (not eighteen, as previously believed: see new documents updating Allegra’s history/diary/Hazard-Perry notes), Allegra forsook her blood bond to her bondmate and vampire twin, Charles Force (Michael, Pure of Heart: see Force Family Files/Angelus Files/Pure) to elope with her human familiar, Stephen Chase. The marriage remains the only instance of a vampire-human bonding. The couple lived in hiding for several years until Charles Force, acting from his position as Regis of the Conclave, lifted the sanction and allowed Allegra to return to the Coven.

  Allegra succumbed to a self-imposed coma in 1995, three years following the birth of her half-human daughter, who was conceived from the illegal union with her husband/human familiar. While earlier reports indicated that Allegra lapsed into unconsciousness immediately following the birth of her child, the Repository has concluded that the confusion on the dates of Allegra’s current long-term hospitalization stemmed from her lengthy stay at the maternity ward after the difficult birth of her child. The date of that earlier internment (9/1/1992) was mistakenly applied as the date of her remittance into the care facility.

  It is speculated that sorrow from the death of her human husband {DEATH UNCONFIRMED–RENFIELD} was what led Allegra to lapse into a comatose state. She would not participate in the Caerimonia Osculor with any other human after their bonding, and when he died, she chose to withdraw from life as well.

  A recent visit to her hospital bed revealed that even at forty years of age, Allegra has kept her incandescent beauty. While most of the community used to visit at her bedside, in recent years, only two visitors have signed the security logs: her estranged bondmate, Charles Force, and her daughter, Schuyler Van Alen.

  While some in the Coven believe that Charles Force could use his considerable influence on his twin to wake her, he himself has admitted that he has no such power over her reduced state.

  From Hospital Records

  DATE REDACTED BY ORDER OF REGIS

  —An orderly working the late shift reported that he heard screaming from patient’s room.

  —Patient undisturbed. (Orderly delusional?)

  —Security logs indicate visit from her daughter. But signature is of a B. Llewellyn? (Is this correct? Reconfirm with security.)

  DATE REDACTED BY ORDER OF REGIS

  —Patient awake and coherent. Alert: Dr. Patricia Hazard

  —Daughter visit. (S. Van Alen)

  DATE REDACTED BY ORDER OF REGIS

  —Patient missing.

  CONFIDENTIAL,

  From Lawrence Van Alen Records

  This letter was found among Allegra Van Alen’s personal effects.

  My daughter,

  If you are reading this, you are awake. I am writing, for I fear we shall not meet in this lifetime or in any other. I am leaving for Rio tomorrow evening, and I do not know if I will be able to return.

  Before I left, I wanted to finally answer the question you posed to me before I went into exile. Yes, you did have a child in {REDACTED}. We kept her hidden from you after her birth, and her destruction was my doing. I cannot speak for Charles, but I ask you to forgive him for the sin we committed so many centuries ago. He did only what I asked of him, for the good of the Coven.

  I leave you as ever, your loving father,

  Lawrence

  TOP SECRET

  Conclave-level Only

  Gabrielle birthed many reincarnated spirits in many cycles. She is, in a sense, mother to all, but we have recently learned that she had not one but two trueborn daughters: children who were created as new spirits and not simply a reincarnation of an immortal one. (So far, Gabrielle is the only vampire able to procreate in the human sense. No other vampire female has been able to create new life instead of carrying the immortal spirits of those who came before.)

  The House of Records has always been aware of Schuyler Van Alen, but only recently has been apprised of the continued existence of Allegra’s other daughter, one born during {REDACTED}. The child was to have been destroyed by order of the Regis. New information indicates that Cordelia Van Alen may have been correct in her assumption that the child survived as a result of treachery within the Conclave. With the disappearance of Forsyth Llewellyn during the attack at St. John the Divine, and recent documents previously suppressed by Warden Cutler that show Bliss Llwellyn carried the mark of Lucifer on her neck, the Conclave has come to the conclusion that Bliss Llewellyn is Allegra’s firstborn daughter (the product of Allegra’s union with Lucifer) and a Silver Blood. The Repository is still in the dark as to how this came to be.

  Current Status: Missing. Suspected to be searching for Charles Force in the White Darkness.

  (For more on Allegra’s story see Misguided Angel, Repository Record #505, which contains the comprehensive file on the many lives of Gabrielle.)<
br />
  CORDELIA VAN ALEN

  Seraphiel, Angel of Song

  Birth Name: Cordelia Edith Benjamin

  Origin: August 12, 1841, New York, New York

  Known Past Lives: Catherine Carver (Plymouth), Isabella Arosto (Florence), Julia Caesaris (Rome)

  Bondmate: Lawrence Van Alen

  Assigned Human Conduit: James Owen Perry (deceased)

  List of Human Familiars: Anthony Smith (1919–1925), David Lancaster (1926–1943), Tobias West (1943–1969), Dmitri Stefan (1969–1982), Kenneth lindsey (1983–1999), Rigoberto Morales [also her hairdresser] (1999–2006)

  Physical Characteristics:

  Hair: White (blond in her younger years)

  Eyes: Green

  Height: 5’2”

  Cordelia Van Alen was, until her untimely expiration, the matriarch of the Van Alen family. She was Schuyler’s grandmother and acted as her legal guardian after Allegra fell into a coma. One of the Coven’s longest-serving Wardens, Cordelia nevertheless found herself in a diminished position in the Conclave after she clashed once too often with the ruling Elders.

  Born in 1841, Cordelia was a precocious child, and in her youth was known for her lovely soprano singing voice. She married Lawrence Van Alen in 1859 in a lavish bonding ceremony at the Van Alen mansion on Fifth Avenue. She was allowed to go beyond three times the normal human life span to prepare as the next mother to the Uncorrupted, Allegra and Charles, whose spirits were entrusted to her guidance according to the laws of the House of Records in 1969.

  Throughout Blue Blood history, Cordelia, along with her exiled bondmate, Lawrence, has been agitating for increased vigilance against the possible return of the {REDACTED} {REINSTATED/BY ORDER OF THE REGIS LVA} Silver Bloods. {ALL REDACTED MENTION OF SILVER BLOOD REINSTATED IN CURRENT RECORDS BY ORDER OF REGIS LVA} She was instrumental in calling up the spirit of the Watcher, the Pistis Sophia, in this cycle, to be born to and fostered by the family of Forsyth Llewellyn.