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But they were not without hope. Gabrielle, the Virtuous, out of love for her people, chose to descend with them, to bring a ray of light to the damned. She was joined by her mate, the mightiest of them all, Michael, Pure of Heart, who could not bear to spend eternity apart from her. Gabrielle and Michael were called the Uncorrupted, vampires by choice instead of sin.

Together, Gabrielle and Michael established the Code of the Vampires, a foundation of rules that would govern their community through the centuries, and help them to forge a way back to their glorious home in Paradise. The life cycles of the vampires were coordinated to match a human lifetime, and so the vampires followed the rites of life (Expression), death

(Expulsion), and reincarnation (Evolution).

But Lucifer and his minions remained contemptuous of their fall from Paradise. They had no desire to regain God’s grace or to live by the Code. They preyed on their fellow vampires, feeding on their blood and memories until they became beings of chaos, misery, and delirium. Their blood turned silver, and they were called Croatan, the Silver Bloods.

For a time they were subdued and controlled by the power of the Uncorrupted, and for centuries served as the Blue

Bloods’ slaves. That is, until the day the slaves rose up against their masters in a merciless slaughter. Thus did Michael declare war against Lucifer and his followers, seeking revenge and bringing death and havoc to his enemies.

The war culminated in a final battle in ancient Rome, when

Cassius (Michael) unmasked the emperor Caligula, who was revealed to be Lucifer himself. Michael sent Lucifer into the fires of Hell by the point of his golden sword, forever locking him behind an impenetrable gate.

After Rome, for millennia the Blue Bloods lived in relative safety. However, every hundred years or so, rumors persisted of attacks on young vampires in Venice, Florence, Barcelona, and

Cologne, but information was inconclusive, and later suppressed. For all intents and purposes, the community believed the Silver Bloods had been destroyed.

Distressed by the rise of religious persecution in Europe in the seventeenth century, a coven of Blue Bloods crossed to

America, looking for peace. But the ancient evil followed them there, with a rash of mysterious disappearances at Plymouth. A few years later, their entire settlement at Roanoke was taken, with no clue as to their whereabouts except for a lone message—“Croatan”—nailed on a tree.

During this time of chaos in Plymouth, John Carver (the angel Metraton) called for a White Vote to challenge the leadership and gain the title of Regis of the Coven. John and his wife, Catherine Carver (the angel Seraphiel), were convinced that the Silver Bloods had never been fully vanquished and that a traitor Silver Blood was hidden among their ranks; that one of their own was Corrupted. John Carver agitated for vigilance and an investigation.

But Myles Standish (the archangel Michael) was equally passionate in his belief that the Silver Bloods no longer walked the earth. For the first time in Blue Blood history there was disagreement within the Conclave of Elders. But John Carver lost the White Vote, as the Conclave chose Myles Standish, thereby confirming their faith in Michael once again. The

Carvers lost their governing position in the Conclave, their lone opposing voice silenced under the Regis’s ironfisted rule.

As the years went by, the Blue Bloods grew comfortable, satisfied, fearless, and proud. They amassed vast wealth and influence in the New World that rivaled the grand palaces and empires they had built in the Old. The Silver Bloods had neither been seen nor heard from since Roanoke. As far as the ruling

Conclave was concerned, Croatan were a myth; their existence legislated out of Blue Blood history.

In New York City, the Conclave leadership established the

Committee, under whose aegis the vampires ran the Board of

Trustees of the New York Blood Bank, among other educational institutions and charitable causes, as the Blue Bloods continued to advance their mission to bring art, light, truth, and justice to the human world.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN NEW YORK . . .

Four hundred years after the disappearance of the Roanoke colony, the mysterious attacks on the vampires began again. In

New York City, Blue Blood victims were being taken during their most vulnerable period, their adolescence, before they are fully in control of their powers. Aggie Carondolet, a student at the

Duchesne School, and four other teenagers, were fully consumed to Dissipation, their life force drained from their veins.

Half-blood vampire Schuyler Van Alen, along with her human Conduit, Oliver Hazard-Perry, and fellow Blue Blood

Bliss Llewellyn, attempted to solve the murders and the disappearance of their friend Dylan Ward, who was charged with the crime. Schuyler’s investigation brought her in contact with her secret crush, Jack Force, and to the malicious attention of his twin sister, Mimi. The Force twins hailed from the richest and most powerful Blue Blood family in the city. Their father, Charles Force, was the latest reincarnation of Michael, the vampires’ immortal leader.

Schuyler learned the truth about the Silver Bloods from her grandmother Cordelia Van Alen, who was fatally injured after a

Silver Blood ambush. Following Cordelia’s last wish, Schuyler left for Venice to find her exiled grandfather. Lawrence Van Alen returned to New York to tell the Coven the same thing he had told them back in Plymouth as John Carver: he suspected that one of the oldest families of the Conclave had been Corrupted, and was hiding a powerful Silver Blood—perhaps the most powerful Silver Blood of all.

After Aggie’s death, the Carondolets called for a White

Vote to replace Charles Force, who was then the Regis of the

Coven, their leader. They were unsuccessful in their attempt.

Like the Carvers centuries before them, the Carondolets were promptly banished from the council. Charles Force refused to believe that the Silver Bloods had returned. He dismissed the deaths as random anomalies, not the work of their old, mythical foes.

But he could not stop the Committee from calling in the

Venators, the Conclave’s secret police force, to investigate the murders, sending one of them to enroll at Duchesne, the elite private school that many of the victims had attended. Kingsley

Martin, the Venator assigned to the mission, was ordered to discover who among the young Blue Bloods had been drawn to the Dark Matter, a sign of Silver Blood Corruption. Mimi Force was the strongest suspect.

A Silver Blood attack at the Repository of History, the very center of the Blue Bloods power, left the Chief Warden murdered. Mimi was charged with the crime and brought to face a blood trial. Only a vampire with Gabrielle’s power would be able to clear her by reading the true memories embedded in her blood. Schuyler, as Gabrielle’s daughter, agreed to perform this act. In the blood memory, Schuyler discovered that Kingsley

Martin, the Venator and allegedly a reformed Silver Blood, was the true culprit, and that Mimi was innocent. Schuyler also found out that Jack Force returned her feelings for him. But this discovery was complicated by the fact that she had recently performed the Sacred Kiss with Oliver Hazard-Perry, marking him as her human familiar, bound to her by blood and love.

Under Lawrence’s influence, and after the embarrassment of the blood trial, the Conclave called for a White Vote, and for the first time since the Blue Bloods’ banishment from the

Kingdom of Heaven, Michael was no longer Regis, as Charles

Force lost his position. They named Lawrence to lead them in his place.