Blue Bloods: Keys to the Repository (5 page)

Stephen was her first and only human familiar.

In any event, in the fal of 1990, Al egra made Stephen her bondmate, against the Code of the Vampires, breaking her blood bond to her brother,

Charles. His name appears on Schuyer Van Alen’s birth certificate, but it is unknown whether he lived to see his daughter. The documents are unclear

on the time of his death, again, perhaps a deliberate deception on Al egra Van Alen’s part—it is our belief that she did not want the Committee to

know very much about her human husband, and many documents pertaining to his whereabouts are missing or were destroyed. We can only assume

that he is dead, as he has never been in contact with either his comatose wife or his errant daughter.

Current Status
: Presumed deceased

OLIVER HAZARD-PERRY

Human Familiar/Human Conduit

Birth Name
: Oliver Aloysius Fitzgerald Hazard-Perry I

Origin
: October 18, 1992, New York, New York

Physical Characteristics
:

Hair
: Brown

Eyes
: Hazel

Height
: 5’11”

Born to one of the oldest human families in service to the vampires, Oliver Hazard-Perry was assigned to Schuyler Van Alen from the moment of his

birth. Like al human Conduits, Oliver has been trained in the art of secrecy and vassalage. He has performed admirably wel , and as Schuyler’s

human Conduit, Oliver has gone above and beyond the cal of duty. It is noted that he is not only her best friend, but her confidant, protector, and

“partner in crime,” according to a Repository intern posted at Duchesne. However, he displayed uncharacteristical y poor judgment by al owing her to

take him as her human familiar, marking him with the Sacred Kiss, an offense that has so far gone unpunished, due to an order from the Regis

(Lawrence Van Alen, 2007).

Oliver is an exceptional student at Duchsene, with one of the highest human IQ’s recorded for his generation. His academic performance has

been stel ar, although his participation in athletics has been the minimum required of a Conduit. He is a frequent visitor to museums and gal eries,

and is one of the youngest important col ectors of antiquities in the world.

The Repository has long suspected that Oliver was instrumental in aiding and abetting Schuyler Van Alen’s yearlong evasion from Committee

justice. However, the Committee is satisfied with his confession, and further investigation into the possibly il egal nature of his actions has been

terminated. (Note: The Hazard-Perry family recently made a sizable donation into the Committee’s accounts.)

He was rumored to have been spotted at Kennedy Airport with Schuyler Van Alen the day after the Silver Blood attack at St. John’s Cathedral.

However, details remain inconclusive, as conflicting eyewitnesses report that she was last seen with Jack Force, entering the International Terminal.

Under the Vampire–Conduit Confidentiality Act of 1755, Oliver wil not confirm or deny any of our suspicions of Schuyler Van Alen’s actions or

whereabouts. In any event, with Schuyler missing, Oliver has been relieved of his duties as human Conduit and has chosen to serve the Committee in

another position.

Current Status
: Repository Scribe

Author’s Note: A request—more like a plea—I receive very often from my readers is to tell the story of Schuyler and Jack’s first meeting at the

Perry Street apartment. So I thought I would write it, since I wanted to see it for myself.

THERE’S A FIRST (OR FOURTH) TIME FOR EVERYTHING, OR “MR. DARCY REQUESTS”

Schuyler’s Story

When Schuyler awoke that morning, she found that a book had been slipped underneath her door. It was wedged tightly in the narrow space, and

she had to pul it out careful y so it wouldn’t bend or catch.
The Plague
by Albert Camus. She held it up and flipped through the yel owed pages. Inside

the book was an envelope, and inside the envelope was a key. There was nothing else—no note, no address, nothing. Schuyler had no idea what the

key was for, but she had an inkling that she should not ask Mimi about it.

She retrieved an old pair of Doc Martens from her trunk and removed one of the frayed shoelaces. She looped one end of the shoelace through

the key and tied it around her neck so that it hung underneath her shirt col ar, hidden. The book she put away in her backpack. She had read
The

Plague
for class the year before and had not liked it very much; had found it depressing and severe. Why had
h e
chosen to give her a copy?

Because, of course, the moment she picked it up, she knew who had given her the book—there was no one else in the Force town house that even

cared that she lived there now.

She tried to remember the story of
The Plague
: a terrible epidemic strikes a smal town, which is then quarantined from the rest of the world.

One of the main characters is separated from his wife—whom he longs for throughout the novel. He struggles to hold on, fighting despair only

because he so desperately wants to see her again. Schuyler’s heart began to beat a little too fast. Was it possible that she was reading too much

into this? Certainly. She tried to remember what she had learned in Mr. Orion’s English class. Wasn’t Camus’s story one of social breakdown and the

futility of the human condition?
The Plague
was a story about rats and disease, wasn’t it? But what had
he
argued . . . Oh, she remembered now . . .

He had argued that the story was about longing and exile . . . and love.

So what? Schuyler thought, running a hairbrush through her dark hair before pul ing it back into a ponytail. So what if he’d given her a book and

key? She was stil miserable. She was stil living with
them
and not her grandfather. Ever since she’d arrived, she had been made to feel as welcome

as Jane Eyre at Gateshead with her rich cousins. She was lucky that Mimi hadn’t locked her in the closet yet.

And so what if he’d kissed her the day before? His kisses meant nothing. He had kissed her and run off three times now—the first at a party, the

second at the masquerade bal , and the third in her bedroom yesterday. It was just yesterday. She tried to shake off the memory, pul ed on her coat

and headed downstairs. She wanted to leave while the house was stil quiet; she didn’t want to risk bumping into anyone, wanted the chance to slip

away as quietly as possible without anyone noticing.

She walked out and took a deep breath of fresh air. She couldn’t understand him. What did he want? He was bonded to Mimi, wasn’t he? And

yet he had kissed her yesterday afternoon, and then had disappeared so quickly she had to assume he was repulsed by her, or perhaps repulsed by

his attraction to her, which was just as humiliating. Maybe he only liked her when no one else was looking. . . . Maybe he was just playing a game . . .

toying with her emotions while she churned with confusion and desire. . . .

Three stolen kisses—it didn’t add up to anything, real y. He was never going to be her boyfriend, she thought as she turned right onto 96th Street.

He was never going to sling his arm around her as they walked down the hal , never take her to Winter Bal , never declare his love over the PA system

by mangling the lyrics to “Come on Eileen,” as Jamie Kip had done so charmingly last week when he’d serenaded Al y El y, before the head girl had

cut him off. But Schuyler didn’t want any of that—did she? She had never yearned for popularity. It struck her as absurd anyway, to want popularity.

Popularity was fickle and elusive, like trying to catch fireflies in a jar. You were either born with it or relegated to wal flower status according to the

mysterious and unknowable workings of the universe.

It wasn’t something you strove for or wished for or worked for, no matter how many sil y articles and teenage novels and Hol ywood movies tried

to convince you otherwise. Popularity was something other people decided
for
you—other people decided you were fun and pretty and interesting

and wanted to be your friend. Hence, you were popular. Most people thought Schuyler was weird, and left her alone.

She arrived at school early and ate her breakfast by her locker. She’d brought a yogurt and banana taken from the Forces’ immaculate commercial

refrigeration system (nothing so bourgeois as a fridge, of course; this was the size of a smal closet). Classes wouldn’t start for another half hour yet,

and she relished having the place to herself. Soon enough, the hal ways would be fil ed with the sound of gossip and camaraderie, and Schuyler

would feel even lonelier than when she was alone. It was so much easier when no one was around.

As much as she was not the kind of girl who wished he would claim her as his own in front of everyone to see, a little part of her could not help but

wish for it nonetheless. The problem with being alienated is that one is never alienated enough, she thought as students began to trickle in before the

first bel . She could swath herself in black clothes and hide behind her hair, shut off the rest of the world and listen to angry music on her iPod, but

somehow it was al a pose, wasn’t it? Was she just a poser? Because why was she drawn to him, then, the kind of boy that every girl wanted to date?

Didn’t that mean she was just like everyone else? If only she didn’t care so much; but she did. At heart, behind the quiet and the scowl and the indifference, she cared very, very much.

And then, there he was. Right in the middle of a group of laughing, joking boys—always right in the center, the tal est and handsomest one—the

one you couldn’t help but stare at. . . .

Jack Force. He must have just gotten back from crew practice on the Hudson. She could always tel when he had been rowing; she could smel

the sea air on his skin, in his hair, his cheeks were ruddy and flushed. He looked happy.

For the briefest second he caught her eye—but then turned away.

Schuyler bent down to her books, biting her bottom lip. She had just imagined it, hadn’t she? The kisses, everything. They didn’t exist in the real

world. In the real world, she and Jack were strangers. She wasn’t looking, and someone jostled her elbow so that she lost her grip on her bookbag,

and the book—
The Plague
—tumbled out, and she thought, If this is what some people think is a love story, they are just kidding themselves.

But aren’t all stories about love in some way?

Schuyler startled to hear Jack’s voice in her head, and looked up, but the hal way was empty. The second bel rang, and she was late.

Only the good ones, only the good stories
, she thought, wondering if he could hear her, if he was listening.

The next morning, another book had been slipped underneath her door. What was this al about? Was he building her a library? This time, since the

book was too thick to fit completely, it had been shoved, stuffed in the opening between the door and the floor, halfway in and halfway out, so that

when Schuyler pul ed it out, the paperback was bent in the middle and the pages were creased.
Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen. This time,

inside the book there was a note.

173 Perry Street. #10 N. Midnight. Use the key.

She touched the key that hung around her neck, for luck.
The Plague
yesterday. Now
Pride and Prejudice
. Was it an alphabetical choice? she

wondered, amused. Talk about a love story.
Pride and Prejudice
—so obvious, wasn’t it? Schuyler had always been skeptical of its pul until she had

spent a long, heady weekend wrapped up in the joys of its combative romance. Elizabeth and Darcy don’t so much fal in love as fight their attraction

every step of the way. Schuyler had come to love the book despite her misgivings, to hold its promise of carriages and Pemberley to her chest as

stoutly as she believed that Elizabeth should have inherited the carriages and the estate on her own. It was so difficult to imagine such a stringent,

corseted world for women; to imagine a life completely dependent on one’s ability to land the right guy. Stil , there was something deeply appealing

about such a story. It made the romance so much more . . . What did they cal it? High stakes.

In any event,
Pride and Prejudice
was way more appealing than
The Plague
.

Feeling reckless and giddy, and just a tad
plucky
—like the kind of girl who tramped around the marshes in the dark— she scribbled a note and

slipped it under Jack’s door.