Мелисса де ла Круз - Keys to the Repository

—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.)

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.

During her long tenure as one of New York City’s most active social matrons, Cordelia presided over the New York

Blood Bank Committee, the Central Park Conservancy, and served on the board of trustees for the Metropolitan Museum of

Art, the Museum of Modern Art, New York City Ballet, and the

New York Philharmonic.

Elegant, birdlike, and imperious, Cordelia was intimidating and aloof in manner, even in her relations with her granddaughter. However, she always avowed to intimates among the Coven that while she was instrumental in many great causes and charities, her greatest joy in life was watching

Schuyler grow up.

Cordelia was attacked by a powerful young Silver Blood during the New York slayings of 2006, but fortunately did not suffer from Full Consumption. Before her “death,” she pressed upon Schuyler to find her grandfather, Lawrence Van Alen, whom Cordelia guessed was still living in Venice.

Current Status: Expired in this cycle. Will return in the next Expression.

LAWRENCE VAN ALEN

Metraton, Heavenly Scribe

Birth Name: Lawrence Theodore Winslow Van Alen (also called “Teddy”)

Origin: Enmortal. Does not adhere to the cycle of Expression and Expiration.

Known Past Lives: John Carver (Plymouth), Ludivivo Arosto

(Florence), Gnaeus Magnus Pompey (Rome)

Bondmate: Cordelia Van Alen

Assigned Human Conduit: Christopher Anderson

List of Human Familiars: Unknown

Physical Characteristics:

Hair: White (blond in his younger years)

Eyes: Blue

Height: 6’0”

Until recent events cleared his name and reputation, Lawrence

Van Alen was considered by many in the Coven to be an agitator, a traitor, and a troublemaker. Upon the founding of the

New World, as John Carver, he lost his prominent position in the Conclave after losing the White Vote. The council had voted to follow Myles Standish (Michael), as they have always done, regardless of the suspected return of the Silver Bloods.

Lawrence was a prodigious reader and writer of historical books, and was the founding director of the Repository of

History. Many of the books in our library are from his personal collection. During his tenure as Committee Warden (1710

-1790), he made the secondary and collegiate education of young Blue Bloods a necessary provision to their progression, regardless of their ability to remember the knowledge gleaned from past cycles. According to his speech before the Conclave, “Blue Bloods must understand our place in the world before we can attempt to change it. You may be able to call up an entire encyclopedia, but nothing is more meaningless than a brain with no heart and no reasoning.”

An Enmortal, he bonded to Cordelia Benjamin in 1859 and disappeared from the Coven’s records after his self-imposed exile around 1873 (dates still unconfirmed). According to

Cordelia’s diaries, they had decided to separate, believing that

Lawrence would be safer conducting his research on his own.

For as long as he lived, he believed that the Silver Bloods had infiltrated the highest echelons of the Conclave.

According to Conduit Hazard-Perry’s notes, Lawrence was hiding in plain sight as a professor of linguistics and history at the University of Venice. Upon his return to the New York Coven after the attack at the Repository, Lawrence immediately called for the White Vote and won the title of Regis. During his brief tenure as head of the Coven, he opened up the Repository