The Van Alen Legacy by Melissa de La Cruz Page B

group of underfed overly Botoxed socialites and their slacker children as hardened warriors in a war for heaven and earth. It was

as Cordelia had said to Schuyler: the vampires were getting lazy and indulgent, more and more

like humans every day, and less inclined to fulfill their heavenly destiny.
    It dawned on Bliss that this

was what had set Cordelia and Lawrence apart, they cared. They had kept their vigilance against

the forces of hell and had sounded an alarm. An alarm that no one was too keen on

hearing. The Van Alens were the exception to the norm. It only made sense that Schuyler

would be just like them. Her friend had never felt comfortable in the world of the leisured rich,

even though she had been born into it. But Schuyler wasn’t the only one. Even Mimi and Jack Force

were different. They had not forgotten their gloried past. Just one look at the way Mimi flaunted

her extraordinary vampire abilities was enough to convince anyone that there was more to that

skinny bitch than just the capacity to shop.
    But these people, this

self-satisfied group of elites who had barely even blinked at the news of the massacre, these

people called themselves vampires?
    “Exactly. Just like the members of the Conclave, they will

be easy enough to overcome when the time comes.”

    Bliss shivered. She had gotten

used to being alone, and had forgotten that the Visitor could pop in at any time.

TWENTY

Mimi

    El Sol de Ajuste was located in Cidada de Deus, The City of God, the notorious slums in the western

part of the city that had inspired a major Hollywood movie and a subsequent television show, City

of Men. Of course, the real city was nothing like the cleaned-up Hollywood version, which was the

equivalent of a ‘slum tour’ arranged by hotel concierges: showcasing fashionable grittiness. The

reality of poverty was much harsher and much uglier, the towering mountains of trash, the stench

of sewer and garbage, the bare-bottomed children languishing on the streets, smoking cigarettes;

the way no one batted the flies away, they were way past caring about something so simple as

flies.
    The bar was nothing more than

a tin shack, a lean-to with a roof and a wooden counter pocked with holes. When Mimi and the boys

arrived, a group of rowdy toughs were harassing the barback , the boy who cleaned the

counters and sopped up the spilled beer with ragged towels. Mimi recognized the fierce-looking

tattoos branded on the gang members’ cheeks: they were members of Commando Prata ,

Silver Command, a notorious street gang, and responsible for most of the criminal activity in

this part of the ghetto. This was going to be interesting.
    “Voc? deve tr’s pesos?” the barback insisted. You owe me three

pesos. “ Caralho ! Vai-te foder ?” The fat one laughed and cursed at the boy, pushing him against the wall.
    The elderly proprietor stood

behind the table, looking frightened and annoyed to find his employee being harassed, as well as

finding his small establishment suddenly crawling with strange, black-clad foreigners.
    “Can I help you?” he huffed in

Portuguese, keeping an eye on the kid. “You! Leave him alone?” he cried as one of

the gangsters tripped the boy, sending him falling facedown on the floor.
    In answer, the fat bully gave

the cowering boy a sharp kick in the head. There was a sickening crunch of a steel-toe boot

against bone, and in a quick movement, one of the gang had a knife to the bartender’s throat.

“You got something to say to us, old man?”
    “Put down the blade,” Kingsley

ordered in a quiet voice.
    “Piss off,” the leader said.

He was a skinny kid with a pockmarked face sitting in the back. He held up his automatic weapon

as casually as a soda can. The local drug lords acted as an unofficial police presence in the

shantytowns, playing judge and executioner at their whim. But the only law they upheld was their