The Van Alen Legacy Read Online Free PDF Page A

testimony. According to your recollection of the events at Corcovado, a boy

had been transformed into the image of Lucifer himself. Your grandfather ordered you to kill him,

but you missed. Lawrence then struck the fatal blow, mistakenly killing an innocent and unlocking

Leviathan’s prison, setting the demon free. The demon then murdered him. Is this all correct so

far?”
    “Yes,” she said

quietly.
    The Inquisitor consulted his

notes for a moment. Schuyler had met him once before, when her grandfather had hosted a few

members of the Conclave at the house. His name was Josiah Archibald, and he had retired from the

Conclave years ago. His granddaughters were her classmates at Duchesne. But if he felt at all

sympathetic to her plight, he masked it well. “He was right in front of you, was he not? The

boy?” the Inquisitor asked, looking up.
    “Yes.”
    “And you say you were holding

your mother’s sword?”
    “Yes.”
    He snorted, looking pointedly

at the assembled Elders, who then leaned forward or shuffled in their seats. The only active

surviving member of the Conclave was Forsyth Llewellyn, who sat in the back, his head covered in

bandages and his left eye swollen shut. The others were emeritus members like the Inquisitor.

They sat clustered in a semicircle, looking like a group of shrunken elves. There were so few of

them left: old Abe Tompkins had been fetched from his summer home on Block Island; Minerva

Morgan, one of Cordelia’s oldest friends and the former chairwoman of the New York Garden

Society, sat gargoyle still in her knit boucle suit; Ambrose Barlow, who looked like he was fast

asleep.
    “Gabrielle’s sword has been

lost for many, many years,” the Inquisitor said. “And you say your mother appeared to

you ?, poof! Out of nowhere, and handed it to you. Just like that. And then

disappeared. To go back to her bed at the hospital, presumably.” His voice

dripped with sarcasm.
    Schuyler shifted uncomfortably

in her seat. It did seem fantastic and amazing, and unreal. But it had happened. Just as

she had described.
    “Yes . . . I don’t know how,

but yes.”
    The Inquisitor’s tone was

condescending. “Pray tell us, where is this sword now?”
    “I don’t know.” She didn’t. In

the chaos afterward, the sword seemed to have disappeared along with Leviathan, and she told them

so.
    “What do you know about

Gabrielle’s sword?” the Inquisitor asked.
    “Nothing. I

didn’t even know she owned a sword.”
    “It is a true sword. It holds

a special kind of power. It was forged so that it always meets its target,” he grumbled, as if

her ignorance were a sign of guilt.
    “I don’t know what you’re

getting at.”
    The Inquisitor spoke very

slowly and carefully. “You say you were carrying your mother’s sword. A sword that has been lost

for centuries and that has never failed to strike its enemies in all its history. And yet . . .

you did. You failed. If you were indeed holding Gabrielle’s sword, how could you

miss?”
    “Are you saying that I wanted

to miss?” she asked, incredulous.
    “I’m not saying that: you

are.”
    Schuyler was shocked. What was

happening? What was this? The Inquisitor turned to his audience. “Ladies and gentlemen of the

Conclave, this is an interesting situation. Here are the facts of the matter. Lawrence Van Alen

is dead. His granddaughter would like us to believe a rather outrageous story, that Leviathan, a

demon that Lawrence himself buried in stone a millennium ago, has been released, and that that

same demon killed him.”
    “It’s true,” Schuyler

whispered.
    “Miss Van Alen, you had never

met your grandfather until a few months ago, is that correct?”
    “Yes.”
    “You barely knew him from a

stranger on the street.”
    “I wouldn’t say that. We

became very close in a short amount of time.”
    “Yet you harbored bitterness

against him, did