The Van Alen Legacy by Melissa de La Cruz Page B

wondered.

Everyone had digital cameras now. Darkrooms were prehistoric. Like handwritten letters and proper

first dates.
    “Darkrooms, Force? You don’t

strike me as a photographer.”
    “But I will strike you,” Mimi

sent back.
    “ Har-har .”
    “Go back to your patient.

You’re going to wake mine.”
    It was against protocol for

Kingsley to pop into her head space. The four Venators could sense each other, but they were

supposed to be on separate channels, watching different dreams. They had entered a women’s

dormitory, a place in the city where girls from the outlying provinces paid a pittance for a

bed.
    Mimi was in a girl’s mind. The

girl was the same age as her, roughly, for this cycle: seventeen.
    The girl worked as a

chambermaid in one of the hotels. Mimi scanned the last three months of her life. Saw her making

the beds and clearing out the trash, vacuuming rugs and pocketing the small tips the guests left

on the bedside tables. Saw her waiting for her boyfriend, a bike messenger, after work at a small

café. Work, boyfriend, work, boyfriend. What’s this? The hotel manager was forcing

the girl into his office and making her take off her clothes. Interesting. But was

it real?
    Venator training meant Mimi

had learned how to distinguish fiction from reality, expectation from realization. Was the girl

really being abused by her boss or was she just fearful that it would happen? It looked like a

fear dream. Mimi placed a compulsion: she imagined the girl pushing her boss away, kicking him

right where it hurt. There. If it ever happened, the girl would know what to do now.
    “Call it. Lennox One?”

Kingsley’s voice echoed through the darkness.
    “Clear.”
    “Two?”
    “Clear.”
    “Force?”
    Mimi sighed. There was no sign

of the Watcher in any of the girl’s thoughts. “Clear.” She blinked her eyes open. She was

standing over the girl, who was sleeping soundly under the covers. Mimi thought she had a small

smile on her lips. There is no need to be afraid, Mimi sent. A girl can do anything she wants to

do.
    “Right. Move

out.” Kingsley led them into the night, through the unpaved roads and rickety steps leading

farther into the tumbledown, jigsaw row of makeshift houses and apartment buildings cut into the

mountains. She followed the team up the hill, walking by overflowing garbage cans and piles of

rotten junk.
    Not all that different from

certain parts of Manhattan, Mimi thought, although it was amazing to see how closely people lived

and how twisted their priorities were. She had seen homes, hovels, really, with no running water

or toilets, but whose living rooms boasted forty-two-inch flatscreen televisions and

satellite dishes. There were shiny German cars in the makeshift garages while the children went

without shoes.
    Speaking of children:

she heard them before she saw them. The merry little band of brats who had been

following them around all week. Their dirty faces streaked with tar, their ragged clothes

bearing faded American sports team insignias, their hands outstretched, palms facing upward,

empty. It reminded her of a public-service announcement that used to run in the evenings: “It’s

ten p.m. Do you know where your children are?”
    “Senhora Bonita, Senhora

Bonita,” they chanted, their bare feet slapping on the wet path.
    “Shoo?” Mimi hissed, batting

them away like pesky flies. “I have nothing for you today. Nada para voce. Deixe -me sozinho ?” Leave me alone. Their

begging gave her a headache. She wasn’t responsible for these people, for these children. . . .

She was a Venator on official business, not some celebrity on a public relations campaign.

Besides, this was Brazil, a developing country. There were places around the globe that were far

more desperate. Really, the little urchins didn’t know how lucky they were.
    “Senhora, senhora .” The little one, a cherub in