Melissa de la Cruz - THE VAN ALEN LEGACY

“First of all, I’m so sorry about Bobi Anne,” Henri said, taking off his fancy eyeglasses and cleaning the lenses with the edge of his shirt. “You did get our flowers, right? Not that we were expecting a thank-you card or anything. Don’t even worry about it.”

Flowers? What flowers? Henri looked concerned when Bliss didn’t answer, and she immediately covered up for her confusion, reaching for his hand.

“Of course! Of course? they were beautiful and so thoughtful.”

Of course the agency had sent flowers for Bobi Anne’s memorial. Through their conversation, Bliss gathered that the papers had explained the deaths of the Conclave by way of a fire at the Almeida villa. Arson was suspected, but with the slow-moving ways of the Policia, there was little hope that justice would ever be served.

The maid returned bearing a pitcher of Bobi Anne’s favorite: Arnold Palmers half iced tea, half lemonade (made from lemons picked fresh from their orchard).

“I can’t believe it’s been a year since I’ve seen you?” Henri said, accepting a frosty glass filled with the amber drink.

A year!

That was a shock. Bliss almost dropped her glass, her hands were shaking so badly. She had had no idea so much time had passed since she was last in control of her body, of her life. No wonder she had so much trouble trying to remember things.

That meant she had missed her last birthday. The year she turned fifteen, her family had celebrated at the Rainbow Room. But there had been no one around to mark her Sweet Sixteen. Not even herself, she thought dryly. I wasn’t even there for my own birthday. A whole year had gone by while she fought to hold on to a semblance of consciousness. She would never get it back, and time was more and more precious now.

A burning anger rose within her, she had been robbed of an entire year, but again, she suppressed it. She couldn’t allow the passenger in the backseat to know how she felt. It was too dangerous. She would have to remain serene.

She turned to her agent, her friend, and tried to pretend she didn’t feel like he had just punched her in the stomach.

CHAPTER 14

Mimi

Dawn was breaking over the hillsides. Another fruitless night in the slums. They had scanned every man, woman, and child in the designated area. Tomorrow they would do the same, starting in the northern slums in Jacarezinho. The team’s spirits were starting to flag.

Mimi didn’t think they were ever going to find Jordan. At least not in Rio. Kingsley put on a good show, but Mimi could tell he was frustrated.

“My instinct tells me I’m right, that she’s here,” he said as they walked quickly down through the maze of makeshift stairways cut into the hillside.

The narrow streets were empty, save for junkyard dogs and the occasional random rooster.

“The glom says you’re wrong, boss,” Mimi said. She knew he hated it when she called him that.

He spit out a wad of tobacco, a brown spittle that arched out of his mouth. Impressive, if it weren’t so disgusting.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Mimi said.

“Why not tell me what you wish I would do?” Kingsley smiled.

Mimi did not dignify his teasing with an answer. She wondered what it was like to be a reformed Silver Blood, whatever that meant. Did he still have a soul mate? Did the same rules apply? What did Silver Bloods do, anyway? Did they still need the Red Blood to survive? Or did they just live on caffeine and sugar?, which is what Kingsley seemed to subsist on. The guy was skinny, but he could eat a dozen doughnuts in one sitting.

“Cap,” Ted Lennox called. “this little girl wants to talk to Force.”

It was the same girl who had followed them earlier that evening. The one to whom Mimi had given the stuffed animal, which the little girl was hugging now.

“Sweetheart, what are you doing walking around by yourself?” Mimi asked. “You should be in bed. It’s five in the morning.”

“Senhora. Senhora. You are looking for someone, yes?” she said in halting Portuguese.

Mimi nodded. The Venators had a cover. If anyone asked for the reason they were in the slums, they played policemen on a missing person case.

“Yes. We are,” Mimi replied in the girl’s native language.

“A little girl like me.”

“How did you know?” Mimi asked sharply. That wasn’t part of the story. The fiction was that they were looking for a thief, a criminal, an escaped convict, a grown man. No one knew they were looking for a young girl, because then it would cause red herrings in the dreams. If the people knew what they were looking for, they would be sure to dream about it, and it would make the Venators’ work that much harder.

“How did you know we were looking for a little girl?”

“Because she told me.”

“Who told you? Told you what?” Mimi asked sharply.

The little girl shook her head, looking suddenly afraid.

“Did you scan her?” Kingsley asked with a tilt of his head.

Mimi nodded. That first night they’d arrived, she’d scanned all the kids. There had been nothing. But had she been thorough? Or had she been too gentle? The glom was unpredictable, some humans did not take well to the invasion of their consciousness. If they woke up during a session, there was a chance it could harm them, even drive them insane. Look what had happened to that so-called witness of theirs.

The Venators were skilled and meticulous, and hadn’t damaged any Red Bloods so far. But maybe Mimi hadn’t wanted to take that chance. Not with this little girl. She had done a cursory examination and had resisted probing the girl’s core subconscious.

Sam removed a picture from his pocket. It was Jordan’s school picture. She looked troubled and serious in her plaid uniform. “Have you seen her? Is she the one?”

The little girl nodded, clutching the stuffed puppy to her chest for dear life.

“Well, what do you know? Follow the little children, indeed,” Kingsley said.

“Shush” Mimi chided. Her heart began to pound. Could it be possible that all along, the answer to their quest had been right in front of their noses? Following them every step of the way? When had the kids started following them? They had been there since the beginning, that first night. Could they have missed it because Mimi had been too weak, too much of a soft touch, to have scanned the girl correctly?

“Are you sure? Are you sure you have seen her?” Mimi wanted to shake the girl, although it was really herself she wanted to shake. She had let her feelings for the girl get in the way of her job. And since when did Azrael have feelings?

The little girl nodded. “Yes. That’s her. Sophia.” She called Jordan by her real name. Mimi felt chills up her spine.

Ted knelt before the girl. “How did you know her?”

“She lived over there,” the little girl said. “with her grandma. We were scared of the lady. Sophia too.”

“Where is she now?”

“I don’t know. They took her.”

“Who?”

The girl wouldn’t say.

“Propon familiar,” Mimi said gently, in the coercive tones of the sacred language. Tell your friends. She used compulsion. She didn’t want to bring any harm to the girl, but they had to know. “Nothing will happen to you. Tell us what you remember.”

“Bad people. A man and a woman. They took her away,” the girl said in a flat voice. “On Monday.”

The Venators exchanged sharp glances. They had arrived in Rio that day.

“And this grandmother of hers . . . is she still here?” Mimi asked.

“No. She went away a few days later.” The little girl looked at them with large, fearful eyes. “Sophia said there would be people coming for her, good people and bad people. We weren’t sure what kind you were at first. But she told us the good people would be with a beautiful lady, and you would give me a toy dog,” the girl said haltingly.