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"Show some respect, the Visitor said coldly. Do not speak of your mother that way."
"So it's true. I am her daughter. I am Allegra's daughter", she thought. Her heart was pounding so loudly it hurt her chest a little bit.
"Of course you are," the Visitor said in a reasonable voice that made Bliss feel even more nervous. "We made you together. Now, I think it's time we said a proper hello to Allegra."
CHAPTER 52
Schuyler
The hospital bed was empty. Allegra Van Alen sat in a chair beside it. Schuyler's mother was the picture of elegance and restraint in a simple black dress and a string of pearls. She looked as if she had just come from the office or a charity board meeting, and not as if she had just spent the last fifteen years immobile in the same bed.
Schuyler shuffled into the room, hesitating. But once Allegra opened her arms, Schuyler hurled herself into them.
"Mother." Allegra smelled like roses in the springtime; her skin was as soft as a baby's. Her presence made the room seem brighter, lighter somehow.
Allegra smoothed her daughter's hair.
"Schuyler. You came home."
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Schuyler sobbed. "I'm sorry for everything I said to you in Tokyo." She raised her tear-streaked face. "But how?"
"It was time," Allegra said.
Schuyler broke away from the embrace. She couldn't believe what Allegra was saying.
"So you're telling me you could have woken at any time?"
"No, darling." Allegra shook her head. She motioned to Schuyler to pull up a chair next to hers. "I felt the stirring deep in the glom.... Something has happened to the world.... I felt it. It would have been selfish for me to continue to stop taking the blood. To stay rooted in my isolation."
Then Schuyler saw what had happened as if she had been there: the comatose woman rising from her bed, tearing into the neck of an orderly who had come to change her sheets. The vampire princess awoken. Sleeping Beauty breaking through the glass.
Schuyler choked back a sob. "Lawrence?"
"Is gone. I know. I spoke to him before he passed to the other side." Allegra nodded.
"He told me about the Van Alen Legacy." Schuyler shrugged. "Do you know what I'm supposed to do?"
In answer, her mother pulled her closer and spoke in a voice only Schuyler could hear. "Listen closely, my daughter. For what I am about to tell you can only be told in the shelter of the glom."
"In the days when we called Paradise our home, the paths between the worlds were open. Angels moved freely between Earth, Heaven, and the underground. But after Lucifer's revolt, when the Dark Prince and his followers were cast out of Heaven, the way to Paradise was shut forever. But the seven Paths of the Dead remained open. In Rome, we still trusted Caligula then, did not know he was Lucifer behind the mask, did not know he had made it his mission to discover their locations on Earth. As emperor, he ordered a maze of tunnels built under the city of Lutetia. It was here that he discovered the first path.
In his arrogance, he shared his secret with Michael. The Morning-star was never one for hiding his glory, which would cost him. Michael insisted they build a gate upon the path, and forge a key that Michael would hold in his trust. Lucifer agreed.
But of course it was all a lie. Lucifer's transformation into a Croatan was complete by then. His betrayal of the Code of the Vampires created the crisis in Rome. He stole the key at the earliest opportunity, unleashing Abomination upon the world. But we would not know this until it was almost too late.
The Blue Bloods hunted down the demons and their Silver Blood brethren. We turned Lutetia into a safe haven. Michael defeated Lucifer, taking him down the dead's path to the underworld and locking the gate behind him. Michael then ordered the Blue Bloods to find the remaining six paths, and to build gates upon them to keep the divisions between the worlds secure. The gatekeepers were called the Order of the Seven and included the seven original families of the Conclave.
The gatekeepers agreed to scatter far and wide across the earth, hidden from one another. The knowledge of the gates would remain in the guardians' family, passed down through the generations.
The Van Alen Legacy is just the latest name for the work that Lawrence and Cordelia began when they arrived in the New World. When young Blue Bloods were disappearing again, they suspected that what they had feared for centuries was true: that the gates were failing, and that somehow Lucifer and his Silver Bloods had survived the war in Rome and were planning their return to power.
Lawrence made it his life's work to find each gate and guardian, to warn them of the danger. But Charles never believed in the Van Alen Legacy. He resented his father's doubt of the work he had forged centuries before. So Lawrence went into exile. And the Van Alen Legacy was forgotten."
"But Lawrence was right", Schuyler sent. "They have returned."
"Yes, they have returned, and are desperately seeking to unlock the gates, to free the Devil trapped in Hell. This is why we deceived them so long ago. Charles was not the gatekeeper of Lutetia. The gate's earthly anchor had been moved. The true gatekeeper saw to that a long time ago."
"How do you know that? Are you the keeper?"
