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  "But Corcovado - that is troubling," said Edmund Oelrich, who was now chief warden since Priscilla's death.

  "With what we know of the Silver Bloods - how one was able to infiltrate the Repository itself - anything could be possible," Kingsley said.

  "Indeed," Dashiell Van Horn agreed, lowering his half-moon spectacles.

  Lawrence nodded. "You all know, of course, of the rumors that the Silver Bloods fled to South America before they disappeared. The Blue Bloods kept north, and some believed the Silver Bloods headed south to regroup. Of course, we have never had any evidence of this. . . . "

  Several members of the Conclave squirmed visibly. Ever since the attack at the Repository, they had to acknowledge that Lawrence, the former outcast, had been right all along. That the wardens had willfully ignored the signs, had stuck their heads in the sand like a group of ostriches, too fearful to accept the truth: the Silver Bloods, the demons of myth, their ancient foe, had returned.

  "We didn't have any evidence until now. " Kingsley nodded. "But it looks as though Lawrence's suspicions were correct. "

  "If Corcovado is compromised, I cannot stress how grave a danger we are in," Lawrence said.

  "But there have been no . . . deaths?" asked Eliza Dupont in a timid voice.

  "None that we know of," Kingsley confirmed. "One of the young, a Yana Riberio, has also been missing. But her mother thinks she has absconded with her boyfriend on an impromptu weekend in Punta del Este," he said with a smirk.

  Mimi kept silent; she was the only member who had yet to contribute to the discussion. In New York, there had been no deaths or attacks since the night at the Repository. She felt frustrated that she couldn't remember why Corcovado was so important - obviously everyone else on the Conclave knew why, but she didn't. It was annoying not to have come into her full memories.

  The word meant absolutely nothing to her. And she would never ask anyone what it meant either - she had way too much pride. Maybe she could get Charles to illuminate her, although it seemed that ever since his resignation from the Conclave he had little interest in anything save sitting in his room, poring over old books and photographs, and listening to muffled recordings on an old eight-track.

  "As the attack on the Repository has shown, the Silver Bloods are no longer a myth we can choose to ignore. We must act quickly. Corcovado must hold," Lawrence declared.

  What on earth was Lawrence talking about? Mimi wished she knew.

  "So. What is the plan?" Edmund inquired. The atmosphere had shifted. Distress at Kingsley's presence had transformed into distress at the news he had brought.

  Kingsley shuffled the papers in front of him. "I'll be joining my team in the capital. Sao Paolo is a rats' nest. It will make a good hiding place. Then we'll make for Rio on foot, check out the situation in Corcovado, talk to some of the families. "

  Lawrence nodded. Mimi thought he was going to dismiss the meeting, but he didn't. Instead he removed a cigar from his shirt pocket. Kingsley leaned forward with a lit match, and Lawrence inhaled deeply. Smoke filled the air. Mimi wanted to wave her hands and remind Lawrence of the Committee's no-smoking rule, but she didn't dare.

  The Regis regarded the table with a stern eye. "I am aware that some of you are wondering why Kingsley is here today," Lawrence said, finally addressing the question burning in everyone's mind.

  He took another puff from his cigar. "Especially concerning the evidence shown at the blood trial. However, I have since learned that the Martins, and Kingsley in particular, are innocent. Their actions were justified by the mission they were given by the former Regis. For the protection of the Coven, I cannot disclose any more information about this. "

  Her father! Charles had something to do with it - but why wouldn't Lawrence tell them what it was?

  "What mission?" Edmund demanded. "Why was the Conclave kept in the dark about this?"

  "It is not our place to question the Regis," Forsyth Llewellyn reminded sharply.

  Nan Cutler nodded. "It is not our way. "

  Mimi could see the table was neatly divided in two: half the members were indignant and anxious, while the other half were prepared to accept Lawrence's statement with no question. Not that it mattered. The Conclave was not a democracy; the Regis was an undisputed leader whose word was law. Mimi trembled with barely suppressed rage. What happened to the Conclave that had condemned her to burn just a few months ago? It wasn't fair! How could they trust a "reformed" Silver Blood?

  "Would anyone care to formerly lodge a dissent?" Lawrence asked casually. "Edmund? Dashiell?"

  Dashiell bowed his head. "No. We have put our faith in you, Lawrence. "

  Edmund gave a grudging nod.

  "Thank you. Kingsley is once again a voting member of the Conclave, with full Venator status. Join me in welcoming him back to the fold. Without Kingsley, we would not have known about Corcovado so early. "

  There was a smattering of applause.

  The meeting adjourned, and the Elders divided into whispering groups. Mimi noticed Lawrence talking in hushed tones with Nan Cutler.

  Kingsley walked up to Mimi and put a light hand on her elbow. "I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry about what happened. The trial and all. "

  "You set me up," she hissed, shaking off his arm.

  "It was inevitable. Still, I'm glad to see you're well," he said. But his tone of voice indicated that her well-being didn't matter to him in the slightest.

 

 

  Chapter Six

 

  Theboy stepped into the light, his face illuminated by the fire. He looked the same - the same sad eyes, the same mess of black hair. He was wearing the same dirty T-shirt and jeans that Schuyler remembered him wearing the last time she'd seen him.

  "Dylan! But how? What happened? Where have you been?" She ran to hug him, an ecstatic smile on her face. Dylan! Alive! He was not expected, but he was very welcome. She had so many questions to ask him: what happened the night he disappeared? How had he escaped from the Silver Bloods? How was it possible that he survived?

  Yet as soon she got close to him, she realized something was very wrong. Dylan's face was grim, angry. His eyes were unfocused and bordering on hysteria.

  "What's going on?"

  Lightning-fast, Dylan pushed Schuyler with his mind, a telepathic shove - SLAM! - but Schyler was faster and ducked the mind-blow.

  "Dylan! What are you doing?!" She held up her hands as if to shield herself, as though she could protect herself with a physical barrier.

  SLAM! Another one. This time the suggestion was to throw herself off the balcony.

  Schuyler choked, her brain feeling like it might explode from the pressure it was fighting.

  She fled to the terrace, not able to stop the suggestion from taking over her senses. She looked over her shoulder. Dylan was right behind her. He looked manic and cruel, as if possessed by some malicious force.

  "Why are you doing this?" she cried, as he sent yet another wrenching, agonizing command.

  JUMP!

  Yes. She must comply, she must obey - JUMP! - yes, she will, but if she is not careful, and she has no time to be . . . she could lose her footing. . . she could. . . Oh God, what if Lawrence is wrong? What if she isn't immortal? She is half human after all. . . What if she doesn't survive? What if, unlike the other Blue Bloods, the cycle of sleep and rest and reincarnation doesn't pertain to her. What if this one life is all she has? But it is much too late to worry about that now - she has no choice. JUMP! She can't see where she's going, she is flailing and scrabbling for purchase. . . He's right behind her, so she's going to. . .

  She leaps from the terrace, flying. . .

  No time, no time to scramble for another ledge, no time to grasp a rail. . . The sidewalk looming. . .

  Schuyler braced herself for impact and landed on her feet. On her boots. THUD. Right into the middle of a stylish mob huddled in fron
t of the Perry St. restaurant. New Yorkers abandoned to the elements because they smoked.

  And in a flash, Dylan was right behind her. So fast, he was so very fast. . .

  Then a powerful coercion took over: this was no mere suggestion - this was a control-lock. Crushing. This was what Lawrence had told her was the little-known fifth factor of the glom. The Consummo Alienari. Complete loss of one's mind to another.

  For the Red Bloods, alienari meant instant death. For the vampires, it wrought irrevocable paralysis - the mind taken over so that one's will was completely subsumed. Lawrence had told her that taking the blood and the memories of fellow vampires, performing the Caerimonia Osculor on their own kind, was not the only thing Silver Bloods were known for. They had many other tortures and tricks up their sleeve. They did not drain all of their victims; some of them were left to live because they were more useful to the Silver Bloods as pawns.

  Schuyler felt a heaviness as the force of the alienari settled in . . . she was about to succumb; so much easier to surrender rather than to fight. . . she felt herself weakening under its hold. . . What would be left of her if he succeeded? She thought of her mother, alive but not alive, would that be her fate? She was woozy on her feet, swaying; it would be over soon. But then she found something in the dark effluvium - like a tail, the tail of the glom - and she was able to isolate the signal, able to figure out which part was trying to control her, and she twisted it around, like wrestling an alligator - flipped it on its head - and soon she was taking over, and she was bending it to her will, and -

  Dylan is screaming - he is the one in pain - he is the one backed up against the wall, unable to move while her mind holds his in her grasp. She can feel it, can feel her dominance taking over, greedily exulting over its triumph. She is squeezing him - his entire being - with her mind. It is like a vise -

  She is killing him. . .

  Soon he will no longer be himself. . . but an extension of her will. . .

  Until. . .

  "SCHUYLER! STOP!"

  "DON'T!"

  "SCHUYLER!" A roar.

  Her name. Someone was calling her name. Oliver. Telling her to stop.

  Schuyler released her hold, but not completely. She was still holding out her hand, and twenty feet away, Dylan was pinned to a wall. Held there by her mind. He was gurgling. He couldn't breathe.

  "PLEASE!" It was a girl's voice this time. Bliss.

  There. She let go.

  Dylan sagged to the ground.

  Chapter Seven

 

  Blissran as fast as she could. She had seen the whole thing. She was in the cab and she'd seen it all: Schuyler's jump, Dylan coming after, the chase, the reversal. She'd witnessed Dylan's anguish and Schuyler's mastery.

  Oh God, don't let her have killed him.

  "Dylan!" Bliss kneeled by his side. He lay facedown on the sidewalk, so she turned him over gently and took him in her arms. He was so thin. . . just skin and bones underneath a T-shirt. She held him tenderly like a baby bird. He was damaged and pathetic, but he was hers. Tears streamed down her cheeks. "Dylan!"

  When she'd arrived home after her go-see appointment and he wasn't there to meet her as they'd planned, she'd known immediately that something was wrong. She called Oliver and told him to meet her at the Perry Street apartment building as soon as he could. Dylan had been saying all along he was going to do something, and now he had. Luckily, Bliss knew where to find him because she knew Schuyler's secret and where she was going to be that night.

  Dylan opened his eyes. He recoiled when he saw Bliss, and then turned to Schuyler and snarled in a deep, booming rumble, "Argento Croatus!"

  "Are you insane?" Schuyler asked, Oliver standing by protectively. She couldn't believe her ears. Dylan had just called her a Silver Blood. What was going on? What had happened to him? Why did his voice sound like that?

  "Dylan, stop it. Sky - he doesn't know what he's talking about," Bliss said nervously. "Dylan, please, you're not making sense. "

  Dylan spaced out, his pupils dilating rapidly as if a flashlight were shining in his eyes. Then he started laughing in a high-pitched squeal.

  "You've known he was back and you didn't tell me," Schuyler said, and the accusation hung in the air between them.

  "Yes. " Bliss took a sharp breath. "I didn't want to tell you because. . . " Because you would tell the Conclave. You would have them take him away. And yes, he's changed. He's different. He's not the same. Something awful and unspeakable has happened to him. But I still love him. You understand, don't you? You, who wait in an apartment for a boy who does not arrive.

  Schuyler nodded. The two of them understood each other without speaking. It was the vampire way.

  "Still, he can't be like this; we've got to get him help. " Schuyler moved closer to the two of them.

  "Don't touch me," Dylan snarled. Suddenly, he leaped to his feet and grabbed Bliss by the throat, his bony fingers pressing violently on her pale neck.

  "If you're not going to help me, then you're one of them," he said menacingly, tightening his grip.

  Bliss began to cry. "Dylan. . . don't. "

  Schuyler lunged toward Dylan, but Oliver restrained her. "Wait," he said. "Wait - I can't let you get hurt again. . . "

  Meanwhile, Dylan pushed Bliss further and further with his mind, his fury relentless, his power only more frightening in its recklessness. Bliss dropped to her knees. There would be no telepathic gymnastics on her part.

  Now it was Schuyler's turn to scream. Schuyler's turn to beg him to stop.

  Dylan took no notice of them, and stroked Bliss's cheek with his other hand. He leaned in, his mouth on her neck. Schuyler could see his fangs appear. They were about to draw blood.

  "No. . . Dylan. . . please," Bliss whispered. "No. . . "

  "Let me go. " Schuyler shook Oliver off her. Bliss watched as her friend frantically prepared an incantation that would break Dylan's hold.

  But just before Schuyler could send the coercion, Dylan's shoulders shook and he sank to the ground of his own volition, abruptly releasing his victim. Bliss crumpled to the floor, violet imprints from his fingers blooming on her neck.

  Dylan put his head between his knees and sobbed.

  "What the hell just happened?" he cried, and finally his was a voice Bliss recognized. For the first time that evening, Dylan sounded like himself.

  Chapter Eight

 

  "Try it," Mimi said, holding a spoon on which a gelatinous mound quivered. "It's delicious. "

  Her brother looked suspiciously at the appetizer. Gel§? of sea urchin with foamed asparagus did not sound good. But he took a bite manfully.

  "See?" Mimi smiled.

  "Not bad. " Jack nodded. She was right as always.

  They were seated in a private banquette in a restaurant located in the gleaming Time Warner Center. A restaurant that was, for the time being, the most expensive and most celebrated restaurant in Manhattan. Getting a reservation at Per Se was akin to getting an audience with the pope. Near impossible. But that's what Daddy's secretaries were for.

  Mimi liked the new mall, as she called it. It was shiny and glossy and slick, just like the Force Tower. It smelled thrillingly expensive, like a new Mercedes. The building and everything in it was a paean to capitalism and money. You couldn't spend less than five hundred dollars for a meal for two at any of its four-star restaurants. This was post-boom, seven-figure-bonus New York, the New York of financiers and ready-made billionaires, the New York of brash hedge-fund jockeys with shellacked trophy wives flaunting their liposculpted physiques and couture hair extensions.

  Jack, of course, hated it. Jack preferred a city that he had never even experienced. He waxed nostalgic about the legendary days of the Village, when anyone from Jackson Pollock to Dylan Thomas could be found wandering the cobblestoned streets. He liked grit and dirt and a Times Square that was known for its hustlers an
d three-card-monte dealers and underground juice bars (since strip clubs couldn't serve alcohol). He couldn't stomach a New York that had been taken over by the likes of Jamba Juice, Pinkberry, and Cold Stone.

  He had been prepared to despise the precious, sixteen-table restaurant in the middle of what was essentially a shopping mall. But as each course appeared - caviar and oyster sabayon, white truffles generously grated over slippery tagliatelle noodles, marrow over the richest Kobe beef - Mimi could see he was beginning to change his mind. Each dish consisted of a mere handful of bites, just enough to excite the senses and leave them panting for the next gourmet fix.

  They had walked in that evening to find the place crawling with Blue Bloods, which was somewhat unexpected since vampires only ate to amuse themselves; but apparently even those who did not need sustenance appreciated having their taste buds tickled. A couple of Elders, emeritus members of the Conclave - Margery and Ambrose Barlow - occupied a corner table. Mimi saw that Margery had fallen asleep again, as she had between each course. But the waiter, who looked like he was used to it by now, simply shook her awake each time he delivered something new to their table.

  "So how was the meeting?" Jack asked casually, putting down the spoon and nodding to the busboy that he was done.

  "Interesting," she said, taking a sip from her wineglass. "Kingsley Martin's back. "

  Jack looked surprised. "But he. . . "

  "I know. " Mimi shrugged. "Lawrence wouldn't explain. Apparently there's a reason, but it's much too important to share with the Conclave. I swear, he runs that thing like it's the seventeenth century. It's a farce having 'voting members. ' He doesn't ask our opinion on anything. He just does what he wants. "

  "He must have good reason for it," Jack said, his eyes lighting up as the waiter brought new delectables. He looked disappointed to find it was just a dollop of potato salad. Mimi frowned as well. She was expecting gastronomic fireworks, not a picnic dish. But one bite changed her mind. "This is . . . the. . . best potato salad . . . in the world. " Jack agreed, as he busily devoured his.

  "This is nice, isn't it?" Mimi said, indicating the room and the view of Central Park. She reached across the table and took his hand.