But she would connect with the base, hit her mark, stand with her right leg bent back above her head, and hold the pose until she was thrown upward in a triple-somersault pop-flick to land on her feet.
Too bad Duchesne didn’t have a squad. Bliss had tried to start one, but no one was interested. Snobs! They didn’t know what they were missing. The feeling of the night of a big game. The anticipation of the crowd. The thrill of running out on the field, pom-poms bouncing, the roar from the stands, the jealousy and the admiration. On Fridays, cheerleaders were allowed to wear their uniforms to class. It was akin to wearing a crown. The scorpion.
She’d nailed it.
If I could do that, I can do this, she told herself.
Move. Your. Hand! She could feel her bangs in her face. The Visitor had not bothered with haircuts, or manicures either. Bliss was annoyed. All that work to look cute gone down the drain. Her hair was wild and untamed, rough to the touch. She had to do something about it.
There. Urrrgh! Her hand jerked away, moving like a marionette, like a puppet on strings. But she’d done it. Her hand awkwardly brushed her hair, moved it away from her eyes.
So.
I can do it.
I can take control of my body. It’s going to be difficult and painful and slow, but I can do it. I’m not out of the game yet.
Now all she had to do was learn how to walk again.
The Conduit
For almost seventy years, Christopher Anderson had served as faithful human Conduit to Lawrence Van Alen. He was the one who had brought Schuyler to the hospital to have her arm properly looked at after they’d returned from Corcovado with the news of his master’s passing. The spry, gracious gentleman had never struck Schuyler as being particularly elderly, but since Lawrence’s death it looked as if age had finally caught up with him. He was frail now and walked with a cane.
Anderson visited her that last night at Oliver’s, where she had been staying since returning from South America. She hadn’t the courage to go back to the brownstone on 101st Street. It hurt too much to know that there would be no Lawrence puffing on his cigar in his study. Her grandfather’s Conduit advised her to leave the country as soon as possible. He had read the transcript of the investigation. “You cannot take chances. No one knows what will happen tomorrow. It is better that you go now and disappear before they can renounce you as a traitor.”
“I told you,” Oliver said, looking meaningfully at Schuyler.
“But where would we go?” she asked.
“Everywhere. Do not stay anywhere for longer than seventy-two hours. The Venators are fast, but they will be using the glom to find you, and it will slow them down a little. Wherever you go, make sure you end up in Paris next August.”
“Why Paris?” Schuyler asked.
“The full European Coven converges every other year for a grand party and a congress,” Anderson said. “Lawrence had been planning to attend the biannual meeting. You shall take his place instead. The countess will see you. The Conclaves have been estranged ever since the Blue Bloods left the Old Country. She never had any faith in Michael and the New York Coven. She will have even less faith now, when she hears of Lawrence’s demise. She was one of his oldest friends.”
The countess had been a friend to Cordelia as well, Schuyler realized later. She vaguely remembered the royal couple: their stately home had made more of an impression. She hadn’t thought anything in particular of them except that they had seemed gracious and extremely wealthy, just like everyone in Cordelia’s circle. Now Schuyler understood they were special. The countess had been married to the late Prince Henri, who would have been the King of France save the Revolution. Henri had been Regis of the European Conclave. Upon the end of his cycle, his queen had assumed the title.
Anderson was leaving the city too. Upon a vampire’s death, human Conduits were released from service and allowed a choice: the Repository or freedom. They could work for the Coven at large, or they could have a normal life.
Anderson told them he had no desire to live out the rest of his life in a basement. He was going back to Venice, back to the University. Of course, his memory would be erased by the Conclave. That was a prerequisite to his leaving them. The Blue Bloods kept their secrets.
Schuyler understood Anderson’s choice, but it saddened her all the same. Anderson was the last remaining link to her grandfather. Once he left the Coven, he would be a stranger to her. But she would not deny him his desire for an ordinary existence. He had spent a lifetime in service to the Van Alens.
“Go and find the countess,” Anderson continued. ‘tell her everything that has happened. There has been distrust between the covens, so she might not know the truth about the massacre in Rio. And, Schuyler?”
“Yes?”
“I know what they’ve planned for me tomorrow at my exit interview. The forced amnesia. But don’t worry, I will never forget you.” He shook her hand, and she clasped his in hers.
“Nor shall I forget your great kindness,” Schuyler replied. Oliver was right as usual. They had to leave immediately. The Venators would come for her that evening. They would come to take her away.
“The countess will help you.”
Schuyler hoped her grandfather’s old friend was right.
CHAPTER 10
Schuyler
“Look at you,” Oliver murmured, coming up from behind to rest a warm hand on Schuyler’s exposed hip.
She turned to him with a soft smile and placed her hand firmly on top of his so that they were practically embracing. Whatever happened tonight, at least they had each other. It was a source of great consolation to both of them.
“You don’t look too bad yourself,” she said.
He was dressed as a Mogul prince, in a fine gold brocade riding jacket and a white turban atop his caramel-colored hair.
In answer, Oliver took her bejeweled hand and pressed it to his lips, sending a delicious shiver up her spine. Her friend and her familiar. They were a team. Like the Los Angeles Lakers, unbeatable, Schuyler couldn’t help thinking. She always made corny jokes when she was nervous.
“What’s this?” she asked, as Oliver pressed something into her palm.
“I found it in the garden earlier,” he said, showing her the crushed fourleaf clover. “For luck.”
I don’t need luck, I have you, she wanted to say, but she knew Oliver would think it was cheesy. Instead, she accepted the flower and tucked it into her sari with a smile.
“Shall we?” he asked, when the bhangra pop ended and the orchestra switched to a waltzy version of the Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood.” He led her out to the middle of the dance floor located in the grand ballroom just off the courtyard. The room was festooned with floating Chinese lanterns, delicate orbs of light that looked incongruous against the French classical architecture. There were only a few people dancing, and Schuyler worried they would look conspicuous as the youngest people on the dance floor by several decades.
But she had always loved this song, which wasn’t so much a love song as the opposite of one. “I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me.” And she loved that Oliver wanted to dance. He held out his arms and she stepped into them, resting her head on his shoulder as he circled her waist. She wished dancing was all they had to do. It was so nice just to live in the moment, to enjoy holding him so closely, to pretend for a little while that they were merely two young people in love and nothing else.
Oliver led her smoothly through every dance, a product of mandatory ballroom lessons from his etiquette-obsessed mother. Schuyler felt as graceful as a ballerina in his confident direction.