At the bonding, she would wear it on her hip, under the silk petticoats that would give her dress its shape.
Trinity turned the lights back to their full brightness. “All right, then.” She nodded as if they had just finished talking about something small and trivial instead of having completed something wondrous and life-changing. In the afternoon light, with the sound of taxicabs zooming down the avenues and the metallic beeps from Trinity’s fax machine (receiving yet another copy of a press clip in which she had been written up), it was hard to imagine the world as full of primitive, hidden dangers. How to reconcile a world with instant-messaging and twenty-four-hour news channels with the world of steel and blood.
But that is what their people did: they evolved, they adapted, they survived.
“Pretty cool, huh?” Jack asked, as they took leave of their mother and went their separate ways.
“You betcha.” Mimi nodded, tucking the ebony case under her arm. She ran up to her room and shoved it in the back of her closet behind a rack of shoes.
She was late for Pilates. If she was going to be the most beautiful bride the Coven had ever seen, she’d better haul ass to her trainer’s studio right away. She had arms to sculpt.
Cordelia Van Alen Personal File
Repository of History
CLASSIFIED DOCUMENT:
Altithronus Clearance Only
May 9, 1993
Dear Forsyth,
As you know, I have deeply appreciated your steadfast loyalty and friendship to the Van Alen famliy. It troubles me that we have been estanged of late due to your decision to run and hold a Red Blood office in direct violation of The Code. While I am not convinced you made the right choice, I respect it.
I am writing to beseech you to change your mind concerning your decision not to bring the new spirit of the Watcher into your family.
I must insist that you reconsider. We need vigilance more than ever, and the wisdom of the Watcher to guide us on our way. I fear Charles and his arrogance will bring nothing but doom to our people.
Forsyth, I appeal to you in friendship. Take the Watcher into your family. As a safeguard against the forces of Dark.
Your friend,
Cordelia Van Alen
TWENTY-TWO
Transitions Residential Treatment Center was located in a sprawling multi-building campus in upstate New York. Oliver had offered to drive Bliss and Schuyler, since he had recently gotten his license along with a hot new Mercedes G500. The boxy custom-made silver SUV was his latest source of pride. Schuyler was glad to get away. She’d been feeling guilty about what had happened to Dylan, how much they’d failed him by neglecting to alert the Conclave about his condition as soon as possible. Hopefully the Elders would know the best course of action. Bliss told them her father assured her that Dylan would come to no harm at their hands and would be given the best treatment possible, but she wanted to see it with her own eyes—they all did. In the backseat, Bliss fluctuated between being kind of bummed and being a little too cheerfully manic, Schuyler noticed. She’d been morose and silent when they left, probably worried about Dylan and what condition they would find him in, and Schuyler was glad when halfway through the trip out of the city Bliss perked up and began to jabber energetically over the GPS.
“Peanut M&M’s?” Bliss offered, leaning over with a large open yellow bag.
“No thanks,” Oliver said, keeping his eyes on the road.
“Sure,” Schuyler agreed. It was funny how the Committee couldn’t predict everything: even though they were vampires they hadn’t lost their taste for candy.
It was pleasant to leave Duchesne, if only for a day. Everyone at school knew all the details of Mimi and Jack’s upcoming bonding already (or at least the Blue Bloods did) and couldn’t stop talking about it. The others just thought the Forces were throwing a fabulous party that they weren’t invited to again, and in a way their assumption was correct. Schuyler was sick of hearing about Mimi’s dress and how this bonding compared to all the past ones in their shared history. Piper Crandall constantly reminded everyone that she had been a bondsmaid for Mimi three times already.
It was depressing to think that Jack and Mimi had been together for such an incomprehensibly long time. She almost couldn’t believe it and didn’t want to think about it right then, and busied herself by playing with all the buttons on the shiny new dashboard computer. “Dude, this is like, the most luxurious army vehicle in the world. Check this out!
This is the button that launches the M-15s,” she joked.