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Almost getting killed in Venice was probably the best thing to have happened to their relationship. Faced with the prospect of losing his twin forever, Jack became the soul of devotion.

  She still remembered how he'd held her the night after the Blood Trial. His face had aged overnight with worry. "I was so afraid. I was so afraid of losing you. "

  Mimi had been moved enough to forgive his transgressions. "Never, my love. We will be together always. "

  After that, there had been no more talk of Schuyler. Even when the little rat had moved into their home, Jack remained cold and indifferent. He never spoke to her, he barely even looked at her. As far as Mimi could tell, secretly probing his mind when his guard was down, he never thought about Schuyler at all. She was simply an irritating houseguest. Like a blemish you couldn't erase.

  Maybe she had accomplished what she'd wanted after all. She hadn't been able to get rid of Schuyler, but the attack had succeeded in securing the love of her vampire twin.

  "Butter-poached lobster," the waiter murmured, silently setting down two new dishes. "So I was thinking, we might as well invite everyone to the bonding," Mimi said, in between bites. Jack grunted.

  "Oh, I know. You like the old-fashioned way, just the two of us in the moonlight, blah, blah, blah. But remember Newport? Now that was a party. And you know, having the Four Hundred at a bonding is the way to go now. I heard Daisy Van Horn and Toby Abeville just got bonded in Bali. It was a 'destination bonding. '" Mimi tittered.

  Jack signaled the waiter for another bottle of wine. "You know, most Red Bloods these days wait until their thirties to wed. What's the rush?" he asked, regarding with supreme satisfaction the seventh - or was it eighth? - course: a bowl of chilled pea soup.

  "Well, my blood is blue, my friend. " Mimi curled her lip. True, the Red Bloods they knew did wait a ridiculously long time for their bondings, but those were mere earthly weddings. Humans broke their vows every day with no consequence. This was a celestial situation. While it was tradition for vampire twins to bond on their twenty-first birthday, Mimi saw no reason to wait until then, and there was nothing in the Code that said they couldn't do it earlier. The sooner they said their vows, the better.

  When the oaths were exchanged, their souls would mold to each other. Nothing could come between them. They would become one in this lifetime, as they had in all their others. Once the bond was sealed, it could not be broken for the cycle. Schuyler would become nothing more than a distant memory. Jack would forget whatever feelings he had for her. The bond worked in mysterious and irrevocable ways. Mimi had seen it in lifetimes before - how her twin would pine for Gabrielle (who was now Allegra Van Alen in this cycle) in his youth, but once he said his vows, he would not even remember her name. Azrael would be the only dark star in his universe.

  "Shouldn't we graduate from high school first?" Jack asked.

  Mimi didn't listen. She was already planning to get fitted for her bonding dress. "Or I don't know, maybe we could elope to Mexico, what do you think?"

  Jack smiled, and continued to eat his soup.

  Chapter Nine

 

  It occurred to Schuyler that the last time she was at the Odeon, she had been with Oliver and Dylan. It was just over a year ago - Dylan had recently transferred to Duchesne, and Oliver's driver had taken them downtown. They had wandered the streets, in and out of shops and bookstores and record stores, poking in apothecary jars and getting their palms read by a gypsy woman on the sidewalk. Then at the end of the day, they'd trooped into the restaurant, into one of the comfortable, cracked-leather red booths and had eaten moules frites while Dylan ordered beers with his fake ID and told them stories about being kicked out of every prep school in the northeast corridor.

  Dylan was telling them a new story now, Bliss sitting quietly by his side.

  He was telling them about what had happened to him.

  Now that he wasn't trying to kill her, Dylan didn't seem so scary, so . . . crazy and unfocused. Now he just looked too thin, like a cat left out in the rain while its owners were on vacation. His eyes were hooded, and there were black bruises on his cheeks. His skin looked jaundiced and he had cuts - little cuts everywhere on his forearms, as if he'd walked through glass. Maybe he had.

  Oliver put an arm around Schuyler. After what just happened, he had gone beyond caring who would see them together. And for once Schuyler agreed. She liked his hand there. Liked feeling protected. Her mind drifted to the empty apartment on Perry Street. But she made herself focus on Dylan.

  "I don't remember much, really. I ran away, you know. I went to the old Ward House, on Shelter Island . . . I took some refuge there. But the beast caught up with me eventually. I don't remember much of what happened, but I managed to get away again, and this time I got some help.

  "Venators," he continued in an awed tone. "You know about them, right?"

  They nodded. They also knew that one had been sent to Duchesne. Bliss told them about how Kingsley Martin was back. Her father had been at the Conclave meeting that afternoon. But Schuyler didn't pay attention to the news; she wanted to know what had happened to Dylan.

  "Anyway, they let me stay with them, they took care of me while I was recuperating. One of the SB's got me pretty bad in the neck. But the Venators said it was all right, that I hadn't been 'corrupted,' you know. . . 'turned' into one of them. Anyway" - he looked at Schuyler warily - "I overheard their conversations. . . how the Conclave had finally discovered who was the Silver Blood among us, and they said - "

  "They said it was me, didn't they?" Schuyler asked, taking a french fry off Oliver's plate.

  Dylan didn't deny it. "They said it was you, that you were the one. The night at The Bank. The last thing I remember was hanging out with you, Schuyler, and they said you were the one who'd attacked me. "

  "Do you believe that?" she asked.

  "I don't know what to believe. "

  "Do you even know who she is?" Oliver demanded. "I mean, I'm glad you're back and all, man, but you're talking smack. Schuyler is. . . Her mom is. . . " Oliver was so angry he couldn't finish.

  "Do you know the story of Gabrielle?" Schuyler asked.

  "A little," Dylan admitted. "Gabrielle, the Uncorrupted, who was bonded to Michael, Pure of Heart. The only vampires who didn't sin against the almighty. In this cycle, Michael's name is Charles Force. So what?"

  "Gabrielle is my mother," she told him.

  "Show him," Bliss urged.

  Schuyler pushed the large man's watch she wore on her right wrist. Pushed it up the same way she'd seen Charles do it the night she had accused him of being the Silver Blood. How funny that now she had to resort to clearing her name in exactly the same way.

  Etched in her skin, just like on Charles's, was the mark. It was raised, as if burned there, a sigil. A sword piercing clouds.

  "What is it?" Dylan asked.

  "The mark of the Archangel," Oliver explained. "She's a Daughter of the Light. There is no way she's a Silver Blood. She's the opposite. She's what they fear. "

  Schuyler touched the mark. It had always been there, since she was born. She'd thought it simply an odd birthmark, until Lawrence had pointed it out.

  Dylan stared at the mark. It shone. He crossed himself. He looked down at his plate of steak frites. "Then who were they - the Venators who helped me?" he asked, his voice hoarse.

  Oliver smiled thinly. He tapped the table in front of his friend. "Isn't it obvious?"

  "No. "

  "I know exactly who they were. They were the Silver Bloods. "

  AUDIO RECORDINGS ARCHIVE:

  Repository of History

  CLASSIFIED DOCUMENT:

  Altithronus Clearance Only

  Transcript of Venator report filed 2/15

  DYLAN WARD UPDATE: Subject has been interrogated and released.

  Transcript of interrogation destroyed in accordance with Regis Mandate 1011.

  Chapte
r Ten

 

  "Are you sure you'll be okay?" Bliss looked around the dirty hotel room. She'd never been inside. Dylan had always insisted they meet in the lobby of the Chelsea Hotel. The hotel itself had seen better days. It was dilapidated and falling apart, one of the old New York landmarks with a literary and scandalous past. The Chelsea was where a heroin-mad Sid Vicious allegedly stabbed Nancy Spungen, where Dylan Thomas died an alcoholic. It was also the place that inspired Bob Dylan's "Sara" ("Stayin' up for days at the Chelsea Hotel. . . ") and where Allen Ginsberg penned some of his poems.

  She walked around the room, peering out at the rainy street through the blinds. The first night he had returned to her, she'd been shocked and happy to see him. She'd never truly believed he was gone, but it was still mind-blowing to find out he was alive.

  That night she'd begged him to stay nearby, but he had insisted on this hotel. He felt safer downtown he said, and had shuddered at the thought of spending another night in one of those five-star plush hotel suites the Conclave had trapped him in while he was being investigated for Aggie Carondolet's death.

  The night he'd returned, she'd wanted to be close to him, to feel his body next to hers. She'd felt a closer kinship to him knowing he was like her, a vampire, than a mere Red Blood she could suck dry. Before he'd left, they'd had. . . not quite a relationship, but more than a flirtation. They'd been about to start something. . . She still remembered the taste of his skin, the feel of his hands underneath her shirt.

  But Dylan hadn't shown any interest in picking up where they'd left off. While he'd never rejected her outright, she still felt rebuffed romantically. That first night, she had tried to put her arms around him, and he'd hugged her impatiently, quickly letting go as if touching her repulsed him. He'd demanded they go seek Schuyler and confront her, and Bliss had spent hours talking him out of his plan. They had argued, and she had marched him to this hotel, where he had been holed up since. . .

  In this dirty, smelly suite. Didn't they have housekeeping? Why was this allowed? Newspapers stacked waist-high, empty cans littered about, ashtrays overflowing with cigarette butts.

  "Sorry for the mess. "

  She took a seat on the corner of a plaid sofa that was covered with the remains of the Sunday Times. She suddenly felt so tired. She'd been waiting for him to come back, dreaming about it for so long - and now he was here, but it was nothing at all like she'd imagined. Everything was wrong, wrong, wrong. He had tried to hurt Schuyler; he had tried to hurt her.

  As if he knew what she was thinking, Dylan spoke. "Bliss, I don't know what came over me back there. You know I would never. . . never . . . "

  Bliss nodded curtly. She wanted to believe him, but the strength of his force of will on her mind still throbbed. He had done this to her, cut her with a knife - a mental one, but that did not diminish the sharpness of its blade.

  Dylan sat next to her on the couch and pulled her to him. What was he doing? Now he wanted to kiss her? Now he wanted them to be together? When he'd done nothing but make her believe he didn't want that?

  She had to agree with Schuyler and Oliver. Dylan was dangerous. He had changed. Was he corrupted? Was he turning into a Silver Blood? He'd taken Aggie, hadn't he? After their meeting at the Odeon they had placed Dylan in the back of a taxi, and Bliss had had a quick, whispered conference with Sky and Ollie.

  "He can't be alone. "

  "I'll stay with him," she'd promised them.

  "Be careful. He's not the same. "

  "He's not sane. "

  "I know," Bliss admitted.

  "What are we going to do?"

  "We'll figure it out. We always do. " That was Oliver. Always optimistic.

  And now here she was, in this dirty, smelly room, with the boy she'd once loved so much her heart had ached for months after his disappearance.

  Dylan peeled off his jacket. It was a nylon one, a light beige windbreaker, the kind they sold at warehouse stores where you could buy tires in the same aisle as your underwear. She dimly remembered stuffing a bloody leather jacket in the trash. Whatever happened to that? Incinerated.

  She stiffened as his hand grazed her arm lightly.

  "What are you doing?" she asked, wanting to be angry but feeling a rushing, queasy excitement instead. He was so different from the Red Blood boys she'd had. Mimi was right - there was something about being with your own kind that got the blood flowing in a different way.

  He nuzzled her cheek. "Bliss. . . " The way he said her name, so softly, so intimately, his breath warm in her ear.

  "Stay with me," he said. Before she could even halfheartedly protest, he had deftly maneuvered it so they were lying on the couch, her knees underneath his, his thighs pressing against hers, his hands entwined in her hair, and she was running her hands all over his chest - he'd gotten scrawny, but there was a hardness to his muscles that hadn't been there before - then his tongue was in her mouth. . . and it was so sweet. . . She could feel the tears behind her eyes slipping down her cheek, and he was kissing those away too. . . God, she had missed him. . . He had hurt her, but maybe you only hurt the ones you love?

  He fumbled for the hem of her shirt, and she helped him lift it up; he buried his face in the hollow beneath her neck, and then suddenly he jumped away, as if burned.

  "You still have that thing," he said, leaning as far back as he could, pressed up against the other end of the couch, away from her. "Palma Diabolos . . . " He was speaking in a language she could not understand.

  "What?" she asked, still dizzy from his kisses. Still feeling drunk with his scent. She looked at where he was pointing.

  The necklace. Lucifer's Bane. The emerald hung in a chain over her heart. Somehow she had never returned it to her father's safe. Somehow she had gotten into the habit of wearing it everywhere.

  It comforted her to know it was there. When she touched it, she felt. . . better. Safe. More like herself.

  Dylan looked stricken. "I can't kiss you with that thing around your neck. "

  "What?" Bliss pulled her shirt back over her head.

  He continued to look as if he'd been poisoned. "You've been wearing that all along. So that's why I couldn't . . . I knew there was a reason. " Then he was babbling again. In a different language. This time it sounded Chinese.

  Bliss put her shirt back on. He was incredible. She'd been a total idiot. Okay, so maybe she'd promised Schuyler and Oliver she'd keep an eye on him, but it wasn't like he was a danger anymore. He knew Schuyler wasn't a Silver Blood. Plus, he was old enough to take care of himself.

  She certainly wasn't going to stay here one second longer. She was humiliated. She had no idea how he really felt about her. He ran hot and cold. One minute he was ripping her clothes off, and the next minute he was cringing away from her as if her body were the most disgusting thing he'd ever seen. She was tired of this game.

  "You're leaving?" Dylan asked as she gathered her things and headed toward the door.

  "For now. "

  He gazed at her sadly. "I miss you when you're gone. "

  Bliss nodded as if he'd just told her something innocuous about the weather. Dylan could take his hangdog eyes and his sexy voice somewhere else. She just wanted to be alone.

  Chapter Eleven

 

  "Last call, guys," the waitress informed them "Another Campari?" she asked Oliver.

  He rattled the ice cubes and emptied his cocktail glass in one gulp. "Sure. "

  "Anything for you?"

  Schuyler considered another glass of Johnnie Walker Black. She used to hate the taste of whiskey but lately had developed a liking for it. It was fiery and sweet and succulent - the closest thing you could get to the taste of blood. Oliver had once asked her to describe what it tasted like, since he didn't see the appeal. To him, blood tasted metallic and faintly sweet. Schuyler explained that vampires tasted blood with a different sense - it was like drinking fire.
<
br />   Hence, her newfound love of whiskey.

  "Sure, why not," she told the waitress. It wasn't like it was going to get her drunk. Although Oliver looked like he was well on his way. He'd come into the habit of fortifying himself with alcohol whenever they got together. Sure, he wasn't drunk when they were together at school - but those abrupt reunions were so brief it didn't matter. But she noticed whenever they spent a substantial amount of time together, he was always a little buzzed.

  The waitress returned with two cocktail glasses filled to the brim. It was way past midnight, and the only people left in the place were groggy-eyed clubkids getting breakfast after a late night spent at velvet-rope champagnalias, or groggy-eyed clubkids getting breakfast before an early-morning stint at after-hours lounges where no alcohol was served and the clientele preferred their highs to be chemical ones.

  Oliver sipped his cocktail through a red straw. She found it endearing how he liked sweet things. Oliver hated beer and all the usual trappings of what he called "el jocko-Americano. " Somehow the girly drinks made him more manly, in Schuyler's eyes. He wasn't afraid to be himself.

  It was so nice to finally hang out with Oliver in public. She couldn't very well sink her fangs into him with other people around. Lately, whenever they were alone, it hovered in the air, an expectation on his part, and Schuyler had missed their easy friendship. She relaxed in his company.

  "Why do you drink so much around me?" she asked, trying to keep her voice light.

  "I'm offended. You think I'm a lush?"

  "A little. "

  "I don't know. " He looked up at the ceiling instead of looking at her directly. "Dude, you scare me sometimes. "

  Schuyler wanted to laugh. "I scare you?"

  "Yeah, you're all - vampire superwoman. You could have really done some damage to him, you know. " Oliver grinned, although Schuyler knew he was more troubled than he let on.

  "He's fine," she snapped. She didn't really want to dwell on what could have happened back there. She had had Dylan in her grasp. She had felt his mind bowing to hers. Had felt all his memories screaming to be let free. And she had wanted nothing more than to crush all of them - silence all their voices. She'd had it in her power to do so. It was a sobering thought, so she took another sip of her drink.

  "He's not fine," Oliver said. "You know we have to tell Lawrence about him, don't you? They'll have to do something about it. He's showing classic signs of corruption. Delusions, hysteria, mania. "