Melissa de la Cruz owns Blue Bloods. She is a goddess.

This chapter is dedicated to my wonderful beta, SoloMoon.

A/N: (IMPORTANT!!!) For some reason, the page breaks I insert haven't been working properly. (grrr…) So if you get to a part of this chapter and it doesn't make sense from one paragraph to the next it's probably because there was supposed to be a page break but it didn't show. Sorry about that.

The next morning, Oliver woke early and jumped out of bed, forgetting where he was. Schuyler sat up and squinted at him, scowling in the early morning light. "What time is it?" she muttered, rubbing her eyes.

"Just past six. I'm sorry; I didn't mean to wake you. Go back to sleep."

Schuyler appeared to consider that for a moment, then turned over and buried herself under the covers. Oliver, thinking she was asleep, began changing back into his clothes from the night before and almost jumped out of his pants when she spoke from under the covers.

"What are you going to do?"

He sighed. "I guess I'll have that conversation with Mr. Force, and then I have to head home. We're leaving for my grandmother's later today."

Schuyler rolled over to look at him again. "When will you be back?"

"Two days from now. She only lives in Olean, and she's getting old so she can't take company for too long. Think you can survive without me?"

"No," she said firmly, but her voice was teasing. "Be careful around Charles Force. I don't trust him."

"You be more careful, Sky, around him and Mimi too. I think she's really angry at you."

"No, you think?" she asked sarcastically, but there was no malice behind her words and she spoke without thinking. "Wouldn't you be angry too, if I'd taken a chunk out of your neck?" As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. She sat up quickly and looked at Oliver, but he pretended not to notice that she'd said anything odd.

"Just tell Charles the truth. You saved his daughter's life; I don't see how he can be too angry with you."

"Just watch." Schuyler muttered, and Oliver sat beside her and took her hand.

"You know if you want me to I'll stay with you."

"No, Ollie, it's okay. I'll be fine. "

"Okay," he said, but continued to sit beside her for several seconds before sighing in a resigned manner and standing up. He kissed her cheek lightly before leaving, and Schuyler watched him out the door before curling back up under her covers. Without Oliver there, it was surprisingly hard to get comfortable.

After lolling in bed for another hour or so, Schuyler reluctantly rose, showered, dressed, and ventured downstairs. She walked determinedly into the kitchen, hoping no one else would be up at such an early hour, but luck was not with her that morning. Mimi Force sat at the kitchen table, staring into space and nursing a cup of coffee. As soon as Schuyler walked in she snapped out of whatever daydream she'd been lost in and sat up, glaring evilly at Schuyler. Schuyler quickly grabbed a muffin and an apple from the refrigerator, and steeled herself before walking over to sit down across from Mimi. She knew she would have to get this over with, and she knew it would not be pleasant, and that 100 to 1 said Mimi would not forgive her, but she had to try.

"I'm very sorry about last night," she said quietly. When Mimi only continued to look at her balefully, she tried again. "I swear I didn't mean to hurt you, and I know it was wrong to even try and scare you, but I just…" She trailed off again, feeling uncomfortable as Mimi continued to glare at her. "I hope I didn't hurt you too badly, and I swear it won't happen again," she finished lamely.

Mimi continued to stare at her for a moment, and then she stood slowly and walked around the table until she was face to face with Schuyler. She looked at her for a moment, holding her gaze until Schuyler looked down in shame, then said slowly and clearly, articulating each word, "I know you won't try that again, because you won't get the chance. You get that close to me for any reason, and I swear to you I will rip your fucking throat out. Understand?"

Schuyler nodded mutely, fighting tears, and Mimi turned and sashayed lightly out of the kitchen.

"Unacceptable. Completely unacceptable. If you cannot learn to control yourself then I will—"

"You'll what?" Schuyler broke in to Charles' lecture. "Send me back to live with my grandfather? I'd like that, thank you very much."

Charles rubbed his hand over his eyes, looking at her in annoyance. "I will find a punishment suitable for your insubordination—which I may remind you I am allowed to do now that you are under my jurisdiction." Schuyler thought that only Charles Force could make her adoption sound like a business deal.

"I didn't mean to," she murmured resentfully, looking up at him. "Maybe you should tell you daughter to keep her hands off my fam—my conduit in the future." She froze, biting her nails and hoping Charles hadn't caught her slip up.

"Your actions correlate with those of a Silver Blood," Charles said evenly, his voice heavy but with less malice than genuine concern. She looked down in shame, staring at the pleats of her knee length black skirt. He was right, of course. She had acted like a Silver Blood.

"I don't know why I did it," she whispered, looking up at him and imploring him to understand. "It was like I had no control over myself."

Charles looked at her thoughtfully, and to her great relief the anger seemed to leave his face. "I forget sometimes that you are a new soul, Schuyler van Alen. We all learned to control our bloodlust years ago, shortly after we first came to earth. Well, you will just have to learn."

"How?" Schuyler asked softly.

"There are two Blue Bloods who are known for being adept at controlling the bloodlust and at teaching others to do so. One is proficient in the principles of the matter, the other in the practices. I will arrange to have you taught by both."

"Who are they?" Schuyler asked, thinking she would not want to take lessons from some strange Blue Blood who probably resented and mistrusted her.

"Neither is a stranger to you, I assure you. The vampire known for his understanding of control is Metraton, your grandfather Lawrence van Alen. I suppose I shall have to allow you to see him at least on a temporary basis…"

Schuyler was so elated at the thought of seeing her grandfather again that she tuned out the rest of Charles' sentence, only tuning back in to hear the tail end.

"…other is Azrael, my own daughter Mimi."

"What?" Schuyler whispered, sure she must have heard him wrong.

"The vampire most skilled at teaching resistance to the bloodlust is Mimi." Charles said again. Schuyler felt the bottom drop out of her stomach and she gripped the arms of her chair, trying to keep herself from fainting. She remembered vividly Mimi's words to her only two hours ago and tried to keep herself from shuddering. She didn't know what learning the practices of bloodlust resistance entailed, but she was equally certain that it would involve physical contact and that Mimi would kill her long before teaching her anything. "You will take lessons from both of them. Are we clear?"

Schuyler nodded numbly, figuring she'd allow Charles to break that news to Mimi.

"So," she said, her tone too casual. "If I need to take lessons from Lawrence, wouldn't it make sense for me to start as soon as possible? Say, today?" Charles gave her a look that clearly said she was not fooling him, but to her surprise he sighed and nodded, picking up the telephone and quickly dialing a number.

Two hours later, after sincerely thanking her uncle, she was in a taxi on her way to Central Park to meet her grandfather. Before the cab had even pulled to a complete stop she was half way out the door, throwing a twenty for a twelve dollar fare at a surprised but grateful cabbie. Schuyler ran through the gate at the entrance of the park and looked around in dizzying excitement. She spotted a tall man with a full head of white hair ahead of her, and she took off at a run, causing several joggers and dog walkers to look around and scratch their heads, wondering if they'd really seen a girl dart past them, covering almost sixty yards in a matter of seconds.

Schuyler hit her grandfather hard from behind, causing him to spin around in surprise. She threw herself into his arms, burying her face in his tweed overcoat. He smelled just like she remembered, of tobacco and old leather and just a hint of whiskey. She hadn't realized until just then how much she missed him. It still amazed her that in the span of only a few months he had become an essential—the most essential—part of her existence.

"Hello darling," he said, laughing and spinning her around.

She pulled back to smile at him before quickly hugging him again, making an old lady walking past with her dog smile. She finally let him go and the two of them sat down on a wooden park bench. "I missed you," she said, and she was surprised with her voice shook. More than anyone else, she had wanted the benefit of his advice and guidance during the confusing events of the previous night. He smiled gently and took her hand.

"My son told me one version of what happened. Do you want to fill me in on the truth?"

She nodded numbly, taking a minute to collect herself. She knew Lawrence wouldn't judge her for her actions, but it was difficult to share such an embarrassing incident with someone who she held so much respect and admiration for.

"It wasn't a big deal at first. Mimi was flirting with Oliver and I got pissed off—"

"A justifiable reaction around Madeleine Force, or so I'm told." Lawrence inserted dryly, making Schuyler smile. She found it a little easier to continue after that.

"So she touched him neck, and then her fingers grazed my bite marks—"

"Ah." Lawrence said sharply, looking penetratingly at her. "And you attacked her, is that what happened?"

She nodded numbly.

"That is a perfectly normal and understandable reaction. It is strictly against the Code for a vampire to touch another vampire's marks. Of course, she had no way of knowing, but you are still justified in what you did. It has happened to all of us before. We feel someone touching our marks, and we become incredibly protective and possessive. It is even worse when it is your mate they are touching."

"But I bit her!" Schuyler broke in, not understanding how Lawrence could talk so calmly about something that was clearly not alright.

"Yes. That is regrettable, and slightly worrisome."

"Slightly?"

He looked at her seriously. "Are you attracted to her? I won't judge you if you are."

Schuyler stared at him blankly for a moment, trying to discern his meaning, then her face scrunched up in a disgusted expression and she cried, "No!"

She looked at him slightly reproachfully, wondering how he could even ask. "I find her unattractive if anything. She's a horrible person—she's petty and mean and nasty and possessive and—"

"And about ten millennia older and a hundred times more powerful than you." Lawrence broke in sharply, his tone slightly scolding. "You're lucky she didn't rip you limb from limb."

"I didn't give her the chance," Schuyler said, her voice small. "I just held her down and started drinking. I wouldn't have stopped, either, if Jack hadn't—"

"Jack?? Abaddon was there?" She nodded, not sure why he suddenly sounded panicked. "My God Schuyler, I can't believe I'm speaking with you."

"Why?" she cried, her voice hurt.

"Because the last person who did something like that to Azrael while Abaddon was there was destroyed, obliterated, and is in all senses of the word gone forever. I told you just a minute ago how the reaction is so much stronger when it is your mate being touched. Well, no one is more possessive than Abaddon of the Dark. Three hundred years ago, a Blue Blood named Wilford Gallant lost his mate to a Silver Blood. He was understandably angry and hurt by the loss, and for one reason or another he blamed Azrael for her death. Whether or not she was actually responsible I cannot say, but one night he went to her home and tried to attack her. She probably could have fended him off herself, but he surprised her and started to get the upper hand." Lawrence stopped abruptly and looked down.

"What happened to him?" Schuyler whispered.

"No one knows precisely," Lawrence said darkly. "Schuyler, I was captain of the police in that cycle. I saw the inside of the house." Schuyler looked at him, afraid to ask but wanting to know. "There was blood everywhere, on every surface. When I first walked in I couldn't believe it all came from one person. It was on the walls and the floor, the table, the chairs, the curtains, all over this manor house. Every room except their bedroom. And I asked Abaddon what had happened, if Wilford had turned as well, and he just looked at me calmly and said 'He tried to hurt her. I stopped him.' I asked both of them exactly what had happened, so I would know what to cover up in my report, but neither of them would say. No one ever saw the body. Just the pools and smears and puddles of blood."

Schuyler shivered, sinking back on the bench. She didn't know what exactly Wilford Gallant had done to Mimi, but she was willing to bet that what she had done was just as bad if not worse. She'd felt Jack's power and rage as they'd faced off, but it was just hitting her right now how close she had come to dying the night before.

"He was angry," she began hesitantly. "He pulled me off her and punched me. But he never tried to really attack me. He seemed ready to, but Mimi grabbed him and he seemed to snap out of it." They both mulled over this in silence for several seconds before Lawrence sighed and took her hand in his own, gently stroking her palm.

"Whatever Abaddon did or didn't do is neither here nor there. I didn't mean to yell at you, I'm just concerned for your safety and well-being. I don't mean to scare you about Jack Force—from what I've seen he's a very nice and polite young man. Just please avoid getting on his bad side. But now I'm prattling on again. I came here to teach you about bloodlust and about controlling it. I believe your attraction to Mimi—"

"I'm not attracted to her!" Schuyler said sharply. Lawrence gave her a look and she sat back in silence.

"Your attraction to Mimi's blood most likely stems from the blood trial. While it was unavoidable considering the circumstances, it was not advisable for you to enter the trial with no preparation and no idea what to expect. Hopefully your desire for her blood will wear off in time and with proper training."

Schuyler took all of this in silently. What her grandfather said made sense, and she wanted desperately to believe him. "So what do I do?"

"Once learned, the resistance is not easily forgotten. It may seem fuzzy as your memories return in each progressive cycle but you will never fully forget it once you know it. The first and most essential part is learning to step away from your conscience if the bloodlust ever takes you over."

Schuyler was puzzled by this, and said so. "But shouldn't you try and connect to yourself, to control your actions better?"

"No. The further you can retreat into yourself, the harder the vampire part of you will find it to attack mindlessly. The principle is much like meditation, or the human idea of counting sheep. You must come up with a sequence or pattern and repeat it incessantly, causing yourself to fall into a trance."

They tried for the next hour to cause Schuyler to slip into her mind. They tried counting numbers, letters of the alphabet, colors, and even zodiac symbols, but nothing seemed to work.

"…Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Virgo, oops, I mean Leo, umm…"

"That's enough for now," Lawrence said with a sigh, clasping his hands together as though praying for patience. "I want you to try this every night before you go to bed. Hopefully once you begin lessons with Azrael it will come easier to you. She really is much more proficient than I."

"Grandfather," Schuyler said, pulling him out of his reverie, "I have a question."

"Then by all means, ask it. The only bad question is one you already know the answer to but are too cowardly to accept."

She mulled this over silently for a moment, then collected her thoughts and said, "Why do all the Blue Bloods, even the grownups," --even you, she thought silently— "hold Jack and Mimi in such high regard? I thought Charles and Allegra headed the Coven, and I thought it was them everyone loved."

"They," Lawrence said, and Schuyler looked up in confusion. "The correct phrase would be 'they everyone loved.' And to answer your question, I believe it is because it is very hard to have respect for someone who orders you around but does not face the same consequences if they fail. Abaddon and Azrael are in the same boat as us—our failure is their failure. If Michael and Gabrielle lead us astray, they will not suffer the same dire consequences we will."

"But aren't they different from you? Aren't they more pure, more good? Didn't they choose to become vampires?" If Lawrence was insulted by anything she said, he did not show it, just sighed and answered,

"Yes. And that is why although we defer to Michael and Gabrielle, we trust Abaddon and Azrael."

"I don't understand," Schuyler said, puzzled.

"But you just said it yourself. Gabrielle and Michael are different than the rest of us. They chose exile, instead of falling into it. And while that means we harbor an incredible amount of respect and love for them, it also means that in some ways we envy and even resent them for being eternally blessed and in God's favor while the rest of us are forced to crawl in the dark like ants. But Azrael and Abaddon—they, we all hold in the highest regard, because they fell farther than any of us but still managed to rise out of the ashes. As much love as Gabrielle and Michael might have for us, they will never understand our decision, nor do they want to. Azrael and Abaddon understand, because they are Fallen Angels just like the rest of us."

"It's all politics," Schuyler whispered, amazed. "Michael and Gabrielle are like the strong front running candidates who everyone will vote for because they've got the power, but Abaddon and Azrael are the popular younger ones who might get their hands dirty but can relate to the needs of the people."

Her grandfather nodded, pleased. "After Plymouth there were lots of people calling for William and Susannah White—Jack and Mimi Force, to you—to take over leadership of the Coven, but William refused to challenge Myles outright." He offered Schuyler a small bag of warm, sugar coated peanuts, and she munched them noisily as they continued through Central Park. "Michael has never liked them, you know. He doesn't trust them, probably because he fears the support they wield and the number of loyal followers they have."

"What loyal followers?"

"Have you ever wondered why so many Blue Bloods your own age follow Jack and especially Mimi so religiously, copying their every move?" Schuyler looked at her grandfather, shocked. Of course Jack and Mimi were the most popular students in the school, but why shouldn't they be? They were smart and funny and likable and athletic and good looking and— Schuyler realized with a start that their school-wide popularity wasn't a recent thing. Jack and Mimi had the run of Duchesne since they were in Middle School, a time when everyone thought you were a piece of crap. It suddenly made sense that the Blue Bloods had a deeper, older reason for deferring to the twins.

"So all those people—"

"The current batch of Blue Bloods your own age has always been Abaddon and Azrael's strongest supporters. And, of course, another reason Michael fears them is they are the only Angels to have ever beaten himself and Gabriel." If Schuyler were startled before, it was nothing compared to how she felt now.

"They beat them?"

"Yes. Of course, this was before they decided to turn back to the light, and they did have the help of the other Angels of the Apocalypse—"

"Excuse me?" Schuyler cut him off. "Other Angels of the Apocalypse?"

"Yes. Did you never learn, even in school, that there were Four Angels of the Apocalypse, one for each curse on humanity?"

"No," she whispered.

"The Four are split into two pairs, the Greater and the Lesser. The Greater is Azrael and—"

"Who are the others?" Schuyler broke in, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.

"Abaddon, Azrael, Mephistopheles, and Semael." Lawrence recited softly, and Schuyler swore the sky became darker as he spoke those names. "The Angel of Destruction, the Angel of Death, the Angel of Famine, and the Angel of War."

"Who are they now?" Schuyler whispered. "Who did Mephistopheles and Semael become?" Lawrence looked at her, and he appeared as grave as Schuyler had ever seen him.

"Unfortunately, when Abaddon and Azrael made the decision to come back to the light, their counterparts did not agree with them. They were extremely angry with Death and Destruction, actually. So angry, in fact, that they swore to hunt them and their followers down and consume them all. Semael and Mephistopheles became the first Silver Bloods," he said quietly.

Lawrence left her at the entrance to the park, extracting a promise from her to go directly home and tell no one, not even Oliver, of their meeting. "We will continue to train him in the techniques of resisting the glom, but until he is more proficient it is not wise to share our liaisons with him—not because he is untrustworthy, but because he is a Red Blood and therefore susceptible to suggestion." He kissed her cheek before climbing in a cab and speeding away, leaving Schuyler with much more than a spat with Mimi to think about. She sat on a bench and waited for another cab to appear, mulling over what her grandfather had said. So there were two other Apocalyptic Angels, angels who had created the Silver Bloods, who were theoretically as strong as Jack and Mimi.

Schuyler scowled in the darkness, cursing again her relative lack of knowledge about the history of the Blue Bloods. It was not as if Lawrence or Jack or anyone deliberately left her in the dark, but there were things about vampires that they had known for millennia, and automatically assumed she would know too. She stood up and began walking, tired of waiting for a cab. She'd promised Lawrence she would go directly home, and she was…just taking a little longer route.

She rounded a corner and stopped, halted in her path by the sight before her. He stood squarely in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at her with an impenetrable expression on his face. All day she'd been dreading this conversation, but as the same time she'd known it was unavoidable. Now he was here and there were things they needed to say to each other. She took a deep breath then straightened her shoulders and looked him squarely in the eye. "Hello, Jack."

Ooh, a cliffie! (Of sorts) Okay, so if you're paying attention and keeping track of when I update, you'll notice it's almost always late Sunday night. That's how it's going to be for a while, unless the homework gods smile down on me and my teachers all magically move to Bermuda. So check in (really) late Sunday night or Monday for each new chapter.

BTW, I didn't make up the part about the Four Angels of the Apocalypse, although I did pick the names of two other fallen angels, names not necessarily associated with Famine and War. Oh, and Destruction is normally called Pestilence. If you're interested, do an image search on google with the keywords 'four horsemen'.

Thanks to all the reviewers, I really appreciate your feedback. Another chappie will be up by the end of the week. SoloMoon rocks!

Finally, (sorry this is so long) I'm challenging all Blue Bloods authors and readers to write! The fandom seems to have dried up in the last month. We need to keep the love alive, guys! It doesn't have to be something profound, but everyone should write something! (okay, my rant is done. Goes and hides from angry mob with pitchforks.