Keys to the Repository Part 4

She nodded, but her attention was elsewhere. The wolf had pushed forward, its teeth inches from her face. Spit oozed from its mouth; the odor was unbearable. Lawson coaxed the creature's head away, so it backed off from Bliss with a whimper.

"Come on now, s...o...b.., lay off," he said, giving the creature an affectionate shake.

One of the kids standing near the car-a little girl, Bliss could now see-she couldn't have been more than eleven- tossed over a dog biscuit. The wolf caught the treat in midair and wandered away from the car, tail wagging.

"s...o...b..?" The wolf was his pet. Bliss tried not to look too incredulous. When her mother had sent her on this quest, she had imagined the Hounds of h.e.l.l as supernatural creatures. Beasts that were half human and half animal, something from nightmares and horror movies. h.e.l.lhound, werewolf . . . same thing, right?

"Is that what you thought? That we turned into them? At the sight of a full moon?" Lawson smirked. How did he know what she was thinking? It was as if he had heard every word. Venators could do that, of course, but she could tell he wasn't a vampire. What was he then? And who was "we"? That group of kids around the car?

Were they with him? They had to be.

Lawson threw back his head and howled. He pulled at his shirt collar in an imitation of an uncontrollable dramatic transformation.

"You're not serious are you?" he asked, looking a bit insulted. "I mean, you know there's no such thing as werewolves, right? They were invented by some desperate screenwriter in the 1940s. We noticed you'd been following s...o...b.. for a while and thought it was high time we finally met. Sorry if what we arranged was a little crude. The boys have a sick sense of humor. Comes from living in the wild, I guess."

Bliss didn't know what to say. Lawson was awfully chatty for someone who, moments ago, seemed to mean her quite a bit of harm. Her neck still pinched where he had held her.

"Sorry about your car, by the way; although you didn't need to overreact so much. Anyway, we'll get you another one. Or Gorg could fix it. Whatever you'd like. But we need to talk about what happened in there. How do you know our language? Nothing like that has ever happened to us before. We thought we knew every Praetorian in the district." He studied her face closely and then plucked a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed her cheek with it. "Best we get you inside and clean up this mess before the police arrive. We don't like to attract attention. This town might look dead, but I a.s.sure you, the small-minded sheriff is very much alive." He hopped off the car and easily lifted open the damaged driver's side door. The metal was bent and twisted, but he hadn't even broken a sweat. He wasn't as frail as he had looked earlier, nor as skinny. Bliss wondered if he had been able to adjust his presence somehow. He was quite tall and muscular. Whatever he was-or any of his friends, for that matter-he was not quite human. But neither did he resemble the exquisite monsters from Lucifer's memory. In any event, he was as much a mystery to her as she was to him.

"Coming?" he asked, waiting for her to step out of the car.

Bliss winced. In the heat of the moment, she hadn't felt the pain.

But now it was unbearable. "I think both my legs are broken."

"Oh G.o.d, now I'm really sorry Malcolm talked me into such a stupid stunt. Here," he said, bending down so that she could put her arms around his neck.

Her legs dangled uselessly as he carried her back to the butcher shop, and she took the opportunity to study him in more detail. He must have wiped the gunk from his hair, because under the glow of the streetlight, Bliss could see that it was actually a lovely deep chestnut color. He had sharp, fine features, wide blue eyes and an Irish nose, a square jaw and a strong forehead. He wasn't frail and sickly at all, but young, virile, and very handsome.

After months of searching, Bliss felt oddly safe in his strong arms, and wondered exactly who or what she had found in Hunting Valley.

Behind them, his team was already clearing away every trace of the accident.

FAMILY RECORDS:.

OFF-COVEN.

While most, if not all, Blue Bloods families are registered with the Coven, there are a few who choose to live outside of Committee jurisdiction. These families and individuals are not affiliated with the Silver Blood threat, but neither do they help advance the Blue Bloods' core mission. They do not attend Committee meetings, are not active in Coven leadership, and for reasons of their own, prefer to live outside and apart form the community.

DYLAN WARD.

Xathaneal, the Hidden One Birth Name: Dylan Elliot Ward Origin: May 5, 1992, Greenwich, Connecticut Known Past Lives: Alfred, Lord Burlington, Earl of Devonshire (Newport), William Bradford (Plymouth), Paolo Ghiberti (Florence) Bondmate: None a.s.signed Human Conduit: None List of Human Familiars: Unknown Physical Characteristics: Hair: Black Eyes: Black Height: 5'9"

Very little is known of the Ward family since they chose to live off-Coven at the beginning of the twentieth century. The only member that has come to the Committee's attention is Dylan, for his role in unmasking the Silver Blood conspiracy.

Dylan enrolled at the d.u.c.h.esne School his soph.o.m.ore year, and the intern reports state that rumors began circulating from the very beginning that he had been kicked out of every prep school on the Northeastern Seaboard, fueled perhaps by his att.i.tude (sullen, aloof, a perpetual scowl) and his purposefully grungy attire (beat-up leather jacket, dirty jeans). However, the truth is much more mundane. Dylan attended Greenwich elementary and middle schools, where he was an average student.

He found friendship with fellow misfits Schuyler Van Alen and Oliver Hazard-Perry, and a budding romance with Bliss Llewellyn, who was overheard saying, "Dylan's the kind of boy who broke the rules and let anything happen, and I like that about him." The prime suspect of the murder of Aggie Carondolet, Dylan was being held by the Committee for questioning when he escaped and was believed to have attacked again, this time targeting Cordelia Van Alen. However, we now believe that far from being the perpetrator and suffering from Corruption, he was in fact yet another Silver Blood victim, whose memory had been egregiously tampered with, causing disorientation and incoherence. The Venators now believe that Bliss Llewellyn, under the influence of Lucifer, was the real perpetrator.

When Dylan reappeared in New York, he sought out Bliss, who turned him over to her cycle father. Forsyth Llewellyn immediately checked him into Transitions, the vampire rehabilitation center. He was checked out after only a few weeks, and his dead body was later found on Corcovado Mountain, next to the corpse of Lawrence Van Alen.

As a vampire with no bondmate, Xathaneal was free to choose a cycle mate among the Coven, and was continually drawn to Azazel (Bliss) over history. In 1870, as the eldest son of the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire, he was engaged to marry Maggie Stanford at the time of her disappearance. It is the Repository's belief that in other incarnations he was drawn to her as well. May Brewster became Goody Bradford, and Giulia de Medici was pledged to Paolo Ghiberti.

Current Status: Finished. Slain by Lawrence Van Alen in Rio.

(See Revelations: Repository Record #303 for more information on his death.) Author's Note: This story takes place after the events in Blue Bloods and before Masquerade . The story is not told from Dylan's point of view, but does shed a little more light on what happened to him.

SHELTER ISLAND.

Dylan's Story It was the light that started it. Hannah woke up at three o'clock in the morning one cold February day and noticed that one of the old copper sconces along the wall was turned on, emitting a dim, barely perceptible halo. It flickered at first, then died, then abruptly came back to life again. At first she chalked it up to a faulty wire, or carelessness on her part-had she turned off the lights before bed?

But when it happened again the next evening, and again two days later, she began to pay attention.

The fourth time, she was already awake when it happened. She felt around the nightstand for her gla.s.ses, put them on, then stared at the glowing bulb and frowned. She definitely remembered turning off the switch before going to bed. She watched as it slowly burned out, leaving the room dark once more. Then she went back to sleep.

Another girl would have been scared, but this was Hannah's third winter on Shelter Island and she was used to its "house noises" and a.s.sorted eccentricities. In the summer, the back screen door never stayed closed; it would bang over and over with the wind, or when someone walked in and out of the house-her mother's boyfriend, a neighbor, Hannah's friends whose parents had houses on the island and spent their summers there. No one ever locked their doors on Shelter Island. There was no crime (unless bike-stealing was considered a crime, and if your bike was gone, most likely someone just borrowed it to pedal down to the local market, and you would find it on your front doorstep the next day), and the last murder had been recorded sometime in the 1700s.

Hannah was fifteen years old, and her mother, Kate, was a bartender at The Good Shop, a crunchy, all-organic restaurant and bar that was only open three months out of the year, during the high season, when the island was infested (her mother's word) with city folk on vacation. The summer people (also her mother's words) and their money made living on the island possible for year-rounders like them. During the off-season, in the winter, there were so few people on the island it was akin to living in a ghost town.

But Hannah liked the winters, liked watching the ferry cross the icy river, how the quiet snow covered everything like a fairy blanket. She would walk alone on the windswept beach, where the slushy sound of her boots scuffing the damp sand was the only sound for miles. People always threatened to quit the island during the winter. They'd had enough of the brutal snowstorms that raged in the night, the wind howling like a crazed banshee against the windows. They complained of the loneliness, the isolation. Some people didn't like the sound of quiet, but Hannah reveled in it. Only then could she hear herself think.

Hannah and her mother had started out as summer people. Once upon a time, when her parents were still together, the family would vacation in one of the big Colonial mansions by the beach, near where the yachts docked by the Sunset Beach hotel. But things were different after the divorce. Hannah understood that their lives had been lessened by the split, that she and her mother were lesser people now, in some way. Objects of pity ever since her dad ran off with his art dealer.

Not that Hannah cared very much what other people thought.

She liked the house they lived in, a comfortable, ramshackle Cape Cod with a wraparound porch and six bedrooms tucked away in its corners-one up in the attic, three on the ground floor, and two in the bas.e.m.e.nt. There were antique nautical prints of the island and its surrounding waters, framed in the wood-paneled living room. The house belonged to a family who never used it, and the caretaker didn't mind renting it to a single mother.

At first, she and her mother had moved around the vast s.p.a.ce like two marbles lost on a pinball table. But over time they adjusted and the house felt cozy and warm. Hannah never felt lonely or scared. She always felt safe.

Still, the next night, at three o'clock in the morning, when the lights blinked on and the door whooshed open with a bang, it startled Hannah and she sat up immediately, looking around. Where had the wind come from? The windows were all storm-proofed and she hadn't felt a draft. With a start, she noticed a shadow lingering by the doorway.

"Who's there?" she called out in a firm, no-nonsense voice. It was the kind of voice she used when she worked as a cashier at the marked-up grocery store during the summers and the city folk complained about the price of arugula.

She wasn't scared. Just curious. What would cause the lights to blink on and off and the door to bang open like that?

"n.o.body," someone answered.

Hannah turned around.

There was a boy sitting in the chair in the corner.

Hannah almost screamed. She had been expecting a cat, maybe a lost squirrel of some sort, but a boy? She was fast approaching her sweet-sixteen-and-never-been-kissed milestone. It was awful how some girls made such a big deal out of it, but even more awful that Hannah agreed with them.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" Hannah said, trying to feel braver than she felt.

"This is my home," the boy said calmly. He was her age, she could tell, maybe a bit older. He had dark s.h.a.ggy hair that fell in his eyes, and he was wearing torn jeans and a dirty T-shirt. He was very handsome, but he looked pensive and pained. There was an ugly cut on his neck.

Hannah pulled up the covers to her chin, if only to hide her pajamas, which were flannel and printed with pictures of sushi. How had he gotten into her room without her noticing? What did he want with her? Should she cry out? Let her mother know? That wound on his neck-it looked ravaged. Something awful had happened to him, and Hannah felt her skin p.r.i.c.kle with goose b.u.mps.

"Who are you?" the boy asked, suddenly turning the tables.

"I'm Hannah," she said in a small voice. Why had she told him her real name? Did it matter?

"Do you live here?"

"Yes."

"How strange," the boy said thoughtfully. "Well," he said, "nice meeting you, Hannah." Then he walked out of her room and closed the door. Soon after, the light blinked off.

Hannah lay in her bed, wide awake, for a very long time, her heart galloping in her chest. The next morning, she didn't tell her mom about the boy in her room. She convinced herself it was just a dream. That was it. She had just made him up. Especially the part about him looking like a younger Johnny Depp. She'd been wanting a boyfriend so much, she'd made one appear. Not that he would be her boyfriend. But if she was ever going to have a boyfriend, she would like him to look like that. Not that boys who looked like that ever looked at girls like her. Hannah knew what she looked like.

Small. Average. Quiet. Her nicest feature were her eyes: sea-gla.s.s green framed with lush dark lashes. But they were hidden behind her eyegla.s.ses most of the time.

Her mother always accused her of having an overactive imagination, and maybe that was all this was. She had finally let the winter crazies get to her. It was all in her mind.

But then he returned the next evening, wandering into her room as if he belonged there. She gaped at him, too frightened to say a word, and he gave her a courtly bow before disappearing. The next night, she didn't fall asleep. Instead, she waited.

Three in the morning.

The lights blazed on. Was it just Hannah's imagination, or was the light actually growing stronger? The door banged. This time, Hannah was awake and had expected it. She saw the boy appear in front of her closet, materializing out of nowhere. She blinked her eyes, blood roaring in her ears, trying to fight the panic welling up inside. Whatever he was . . . he wasn't human.

"You again," she called, trying to feel brave.

He turned around. He was wearing the same clothes as the two nights prior. He gave her a sad, wistful smile. "Yes."

"Who are you? What are you?" she demanded.

"Me?" He looked puzzled for a moment, and then stretched his neck. She could see the wound just underneath his chin more clearly this time. Two punctures. Scabby and . . . blue. They were a deep indigo color, not the brown-ish-red she had been expecting. "I think I'm what you call a vampire."

"A vampire?" Hannah recoiled. If he were a ghost, it would be a different story. Hannah's aunt had told her all about ghosts-she had gone through a Wiccan phase, as well as a spirit-guide phase.

Hannah wasn't afraid of ghosts. Ghosts couldn't harm you, unless it was a poltergeist. Ghosts were vapors, spectral images, maybe even just a trick of the light.

But vampires . . . there was a Shelter Island legend about a family of vampires who had terrorized the island a long time ago.

Blood-sucking monsters, pale and undead, cold and clammy to the touch, creatures of the night that could turn into bats, or rats, or worse. She shivered and looked around the room, wondering how fast she could jump out of bed and out the door. If there was even time to escape, could you outrun a vampire?

"Don't worry, I'm not that kind of vampire," he said soothingly, as if he'd read her mind.

"What kind would that be?"

"Oh you know, chomping on people without warning. All that Dracula nonsense. Growing horns out of my head like your sad vampires on T.V." He shrugged. "For one thing, we're not ugly." Hannah wanted to laugh but felt it would be rude. Her fright was slowly abating.

"Why are you here?"

"We live here," he said simply.

"No one lived here for years before us," Hannah said. "John Carter-the caretaker, he said it's been empty forever."

"Huh." The boy shrugged. He took the corner seat across from her bed.

Hannah glanced at him warily, wondering if she should let him get that close. If he was a vampire, he didn't look cold and clammy.

He looked tired. Exhausted. There were dark circles under his eyes.

He didn't look like a cold-blooded killer. But what did she know?

Could she trust him? He had visited her twice already, after all. If he'd wanted to drain her blood, he could have at any time. There was something about him-he was almost too cute to be scared of.

"Why do you keep doing that?" she asked, when she found her voice.

"Oh, you mean the thing with the lights?"

She nodded.

"Dunno. For a long time, I couldn't do anything. I was sleeping in your closet but you didn't see me. Then I realized I could turn the lights on and off, on and off. But it was only when you started noticing that I began to feel more like myself."

"Why are you here?"

The boy closed his eyes. "I'm hiding from someone."

"Who?"

He closed his eyes harder, so that his face was a painful grimace.

"Somebody bad. Somebody who wants me dead- No, worse than dead." He shuddered.

"If you're a vampire, aren't you already dead?" she asked in a practical tone. She felt herself relaxing. Why should she be scared of him when it was so obvious it was he who was frightened?

"No, not really. It's more like I've lived a long time. A long time," he murmured. "This is my house. I remember the fireplace downstairs. I put the plaque up myself." He must be talking about that dusty old plaque next to the fireplace, Hannah thought. But it was so old and dirty she had never thought to notice it before.

"Who's chasing you?" Hannah asked.

"It's compli-" but before the boy could finish, there was a rattle at the window. A thump, thump, thump, as if some-one-or something-were throwing itself against it with all its might.

The boy jumped and vanished for a moment. He reappeared by the doorway, breathing fast and hard.

"What is that?" Hannah asked, her voice trembling.

"It's here. It found me," he said sharply, as if he were about to flee. And yet he remained where he was, his eyes fixed on the vibrating gla.s.s.

"Who?"

"The bad . . . thing . . ."