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  When she entered her grandfather's study he was bent over, packing a file of papers into a leather attach§?case. He had aged in the month they had been separated, Schuyler noticed. His leonine hair was streaked with gray, and there were new lines around his eyes.

  Lawrence was an Enmortal, a rare vampire who did not rest, did not go through the regular cycle of reincarnation. He had kept his same physical shell for centuries. He had the ability to look as young as Schuyler, but that evening he looked as if he carried the weight of a thousand years. He looked, for the first time since Schuyler knew him, ancient. He did not look like a man from the twenty-first century. He looked as if he had been there when Moses had been put in a basket and sent down the river.

  "Schuyler, what a pleasant surprise," he said, although he didn't look surprised to see her.

  "Where are you going?" she asked in response, when she saw his battered valise strapped and packed, next to the desk.

  "Rio," he said. "There's been a massive earthquake; have you seen the news?" Lawrence asked, motioning to the television that had recently been installed in his office. The cameras showed a city engulfed in flames, entire buildings collapsed into piles of debris.

  Schuyler said a quick prayer at the sight of the devastation. "Grandfather, something happened to me. Just a few minutes ago. " She described the sensation, the feeling that she was in the presence of an incredible malice. It was only for the briefest moment, but it was enough to feel polluted in every pore of her being.

  "So you felt it too. "

  "What was it?" Schuyler shuddered. "It was. . . repulsive," she said, even though repulsive was too weak a word for the inchoate hostility she had experienced.

  Lawrence motioned for her to take a seat while he continued to look through his papers. "In your reading, have you come across the chapter on Corcovado yet?"

  "I know it's in Rio. . . . In Brazil," she said hesitantly. She hadn't made much headway on Lawrence's assignments. It was silly of her, but she felt her grandfather was partly to blame for her living situation, and in petulance she had dismissed his suggestions to brush up on her Blue Blood history. He had pressed her to read copies of ancient, formerly forbidden texts - the history of Croatan that had been expunged from the official records until now.

  If Lawrence was annoyed, he didn't show it. Instead he explained patiently, like the university professor he had once been. "Corcovado is a place of power, a source of energy, a primal bivio from which we vampires draw our strength on Earth. Our immortality stems from a harmonic connection to the primordial essence of life, a gift we have retained even after our banishment. "

  On screen, the camera showed the famous statue of Christ the Redeemer looming over the city on its pedestal on Corcovado Mountain. Schuyler marveled that it was still standing while buildings all around the city had been reduced to rubble.

  "The earthquake. The sending I experienced. It's connected, isn't it? Is that why you're going?" she asked, knowing she was right.

  Her grandfather nodded but would not elaborate further. "It is best if you do not know exactly how. "

  "You're leaving tonight, I take it?" Schuyler asked.

  Lawrence nodded. "I'll meet up with Kingsley's team in Sao Paolo first. Then we head to Corcovado together. "

  "And the Conclave?"

  "They are understandably concerned, but it is best if they do not know too many details of my trip. You know my doubts about the Conclave, what Cordelia and I always suspected. "

  "That one of the great families has betrayed us," Schuyler said, watching as her grandfather meticulously arranged his necktie. Lawrence always dressed formally for every occasion.

  "Yes. But I do not know how. And I do not know why. Of course, our misgivings have never been confirmed, and certainly we have never had any evidence of such a betrayal. Yet the latest attacks confirmed that somehow, one or more of the Silver Bloods survived, and have returned to prey on us. That perhaps the Dark Prince himself still walks this earth. "

  Schuyler shuddered. Whenever Lawrence spoke about Lucifer, she felt as if her blood had turned to ice. There was evil embedded even in his name.

  "Now, Schuyler, I must bid you good-bye. "

  "No! Let me come with you," Schuyler said, rising from her seat. That dark, terrible, hateful animosity. Her grandfather couldn't face that thing - whatever it was - alone.

  "I am sorry. " Lawrence shook his head and slipped his wallet into his coat pocket. "You must stay here. You are strong, Schuyler, but you are very young. And you are still under my care. "

  He drew the blinds and put on an old raincoat. Anderson, his Conduit, appeared at the door. "Ready, sir?"

  Lawrence picked up his bags. "Do not look so disappointed, granddaughter. It is not only for your sake that you must remain in New York. If there is one thing I can do for your mother, it's keep you safe from harm, and as far away from Corcovado as possible. "

  AUDIO RECORDINGS ARCHIVE:

  Repository of History

  CLASSIFIED DOCUMENT:

  Altithronus Clearance Only

  Transcript of Venator report filed 2/28

  ?Muffled recording. Two distinct voices are heard: Venator Martin and Charles Force, Regis. ?

  Venator Martin: She has taken the bait.

  Charles Force: Are you perfectly sure?

  VM: Yes. There is no doubt in my mind that she will attempt to perform the Incantation Demonata.

  CF: But a mere child to dabble with such dark magic. Perhaps if you could reveal her to me. . . .

  VM: You know I cannot speak her name until it is confirmed at trial, Regis. But do not worry, I will not allow her to complete the spell.

  CF: But you must.

  VM: Excuse me, Regis? I do not understand.

  CF: It is a test, Venator. The Incantation must be performed. If she fails, you will take up the blade and draw your own blood.

  VM: The Committee knows of this? The Conclave approves?

  CF: Do not worry about the Conclave. This is my business. The Venators are loyal to me, are they not?

  VM: But Regis-the Incantation. Are you sure?

  CF: I am. When the time comes, do it. On my order.

  Chapter Seventeen

 

  When Bliss was growing up, her family lived in one of those mega-mansions that were ubiquitous in River Oaks, a wealthy Houston suburb. Their house was the epitome of "Texas Excess," at twenty-eight thousand square feet. Bliss used to joke that it should have its own zip code. She had never felt comfortable in it, and preferred her grandparents' rambling ranch in the wilds of West Texas instead. Despite their Yankee roots, her family was considered Lone Star aristocracy - their money made in oil, cattle, and well. . . mostly oil. The story the Llewellyns liked to tell was how the family patriarch had scandalized his upper-crust family by dropping out of Yale to work at an oil field. He'd quickly learned the ropes, buying up thousands of acres of oil-rich land to become the luckiest oil baron in the entire state. Was it luck or due to vampire ability, Bliss wondered now.

  Forsyth was the youngest son of the youngest son. Her grandfather was a rebel who'd stayed East after boarding school, married his Andover sweetheart, a Connecticut debutante, and raised their son in her family's Fifth Avenue apartment, until bad luck on the stock market sent the family back to the Texas homestead.

  Her grandfather had been one of her favorite people. He'd retained his Texan drawl even after his years in the Northeast, and he'd had an ironic, saucy sense of humor. He liked to say he didn't belong anywhere and therefore belonged everywhere. He was nostalgic about his life in New York, but he'd dug in and took over the family business when no one else wanted the ranch, preferring to move to the glass metropolises of Dallas or San Antonio instead. She wished Pap-Pap had stuck around; what was the point of being a vampire if you had to live a human-length lifetime anyway, and then had to wait to get called up again for the next cycle?
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br />   Bliss had grown up among many cousins, and until she moved to New York and turned fifteen, had always assumed there was nothing particularly special or interesting about her. Perhaps it was a willful ignorance. There had been signs, she realized later on: her older cousins hinting of "the change," furtive giggles from the already initiated, her father's rotating secretaries who, she now understood, served as his human familiars. It just recently occurred to Bliss how odd it was that no one ever spoke of her real mother.

  BobiAnne was the only mother she'd ever known. Bliss had an uneasy relationship with her tacky, over-protective stepmother, who showered Bliss with affection while ignoring her own child, Bliss's half sister, Jordan. BobiAnne, with her furs and diamonds and ridiculous decorating schemes, had tried too hard to replace the mother Bliss had never known, and Bliss couldn't hate her for it. On the other hand, she couldn't love her for it either.

  Forsyth had married BobiAnne while Bliss was still in the cradle, and Jordan had been born four years later. A silent and strange child, who was pudgy to Bliss's willowy form, pasty to Bliss's ivory complexion, and difficult in comparison to Bliss's easygoing temperament. Yet Bliss couldn't imagine life without her younger sister, and displayed a fierce protectiveness whenever BobiAnne would tease or insult her own progeny. For her part, Jordan adored her sister when she wasn't mocking her. It was a normal sibling relationship - full of spats and bickering, and yet bolstered by a faithful and abiding loyalty.

  One always took the most important things in life for granted, Bliss thought, when a few days after the fashion show she took a taxi to the uppermost reaches of Manhattan. She directed the driver to the Columbia-Presbyterian hospital.

  "Are you family?" inquired the guard at the reception desk, pushing forward a visitor sheet for her to sign.

  Bliss hesitated. She touched the photograph hidden in her coat pocket for luck. It was similar to one her father kept in his wallet, a copy of which she'd found in a jewelry case and now held in her hands.

  "Yes. "

  "Top floor. Last room at the end of the hallway. "

  She wished she had someone to accompany her, but she couldn't think of anyone she could ask. Schuyler would certainly demand an explanation, and Bliss would not be able to provide a reasonable one. "Um, I think you and I might be sisters?" just sounded too preposterous.

  As for Dylan, Bliss had shoved all thoughts of him to the back of her mind. She knew she should check up on him, especially now that he'd stopped trying to contact her, but she was too angry and humiliated to return to that awful room at the Chelsea Hotel. The strange tics she'd observed: the guttural speech, the high laugh, the strange babble of languages only made her more fearful of him. Bliss knew it was wishful thinking, but she couldn't help hoping that maybe things would just go back to normal. She'd promised Schuyler and Oliver she would deal with it - turn him in to the Committee and the Conclave - but so far she kept finding excuses not to. Even if she'd decided not to be attracted to him anymore, she couldn't find it in her heart to rat on him either.

  She had other things to worry about, even though she knew she wasn't going to find any answers at the hospital. Allegra was in a coma, after all. And it was useless to try bringing up the subject with her father.

  All her life, Bliss had been told that her mother had died when she was young. That "Charlotte Potter" had been a schoolteacher her father had met during his first political campaign, when he'd run for state congressman. Now Bliss wondered if Charlotte Potter had ever existed. Certainly there were no wedding albums, no trinkets, no heirlooms to indicate any such woman had ever been married to her father. For the longest time she had assumed it was because BobiAnne did not want reminders of the former Mrs. Llewellyn.

  She didn't know anything about her real mother's family, and with her acute vampire memory, could go back to the time when she'd first asked her father what her real mother's name was. She was five years old, and her father had just read her a bedtime story. "Charlotte Potter," he'd told her cheerfully. "Your mother's name was Charlotte Potter.

  Bliss had been charmed. "Just like Charlotte's Web!" she'd squealed. And her last name was just like the woman who wrote all those books on her shelves, Beatrix Potter.

  More and more, Bliss suspected that her father had just made it up. The other day when she'd mentioned the name to Forsyth, he had simply looked blank.

  Bliss walked to the end of the hall and found the room. She pushed the door open and slipped inside.

  Allegra Van Alen's room was as cold as a meat locker. The woman slumbering in the bed did not move. Bliss approached the bedside tentatively, feeling like an intruder. Allegra looked peaceful, ageless, her face unlined. She was like a princess in a glass coffin: beautiful and still.

  She thought that when she finally saw Allegra she would sense something - know for sure whether she was related to her or not. But there was nothing. Bliss touched the necklace hidden underneath her shirt for comfort, then reached over to hold Allegra's hand, feeling her papery skin. She closed her eyes and tried to access her past lives, her memories, to see if she had any knowledge of Gabrielle.

  In flashes she would catch a glimpse of someone who looked familiar, who might have been her, but Bliss wasn't sure. In the end, the woman in the bed was as much a stranger as the nurse in the hallway.

  "Allegra?" Bliss whispered. It seemed presumptuous to call her "mother. " "It's me. I'm. . . Bliss. I don't know if you remember me, but I think you might be my . . . " Bliss suddenly stopped short. She felt a pain in her chest, as if she couldn't breathe. What was she doing here? She had to go. She had to leave immediately.

  She was right; she would find no answers here. She would never know the truth. Her father would never tell her, and Allegra could not.

  Bliss left, troubled and confused, still seeking answers to questions she kept in her heart.

  She did not know that when she left the room, Allegra Van Alen began to scream.

 

  Chapter Eighteen

 

  Committee meetings never started on time, so Mimi didn't worry when her conference call with her bonding planner ran a little longer than she'd planned. Ever since Lawrence had been installed as Regis, the meetings had less and less to do with social planning and fund-raising and more to do with, in her opinion, totally redundant vampire lessons.

  Edmund Oelrich, the doddering senile goat from the Conclave who was the new chief warden, didn't run as tight a ship as the late Priscilla Dupont, and was completely ignorant of the fact that if they wanted to secure the right honorary chairs for the annual spring gala for the ballet in May, they should have sent feelers out a few weeks ago. As it was, all the former First Ladies were already unavailable, and the governor's wife was immersed in her husband's latest scandal. At this rate they would have to settle for the mayor's girlfriend, who wasn't remotely fashionable or at all interested in doing social work under the guise of social-climbing.

  Mimi entered the library room at Duchesne, found a seat in the back, and tapped on the Bluetooth device attached to her ear as an excuse for not greeting her friends. She thought the Committee's lessons were a complete waste of time. She'd been adept at all her skills since transformation, and it galled her that other vampires were so slow. Today they were supposed to learn more about mutatio, the ability to change into the elements: fire, water, air. Mimi sighed. She had been disappearing into a fog since she was eleven. She had "developed" early, as they say.

  "Sorry, could you repeat that again?" she asked, shaking the tiny silver receiver wedged in her ear. "You think we could have it at the White House? No?"

  The firm she'd hired, Elizabeth Tilton Events, had recently orchestrated a five-day extravaganza in Cartagena, wherein Don Alejandro Casta§?a, the Blue Blood heir to his father's sugar-and-beverage fortune, had been bonded to his vampire twin, Danielle Russell, a recent Brown graduate. Mimi and Jack had represented the family, and Mimi had bee
n a little miffed when the talk at the rehearsal dinner was about how extraordinary everything had been. The best man had announced that "the next bonding will have to be on the moon, since no one else is going to top this!"

  Mimi was sure going to try.

  "Darling," Lizbet Tilton cooed. "I'm sorry, but with the new administration, the Rose Garden is out of the question. I don't think we contributed enough to the campaign. But there has to be somewhere else you'd like to have it. "

  "What about Buckingham, then? I'm sure my father can call in a favor. "

  Lizbet laughed heartily. "Sweetheart, what century are you in? Have you got your lifetimes confused? Even though you're a Royal, that branch of the clan has never forgiven us for leaving. Besides, they're terribly strict these days. Even Charles and Camilla had to get married off-site. "

  Mimi pouted. "Well, I guess we could do it in on the island," she said, noticing that Schuyler and Bliss had just entered the room. Mimi sent a quick suggestion and caused Schuyler to suddenly trip. Ha. Someone sure wasn't doing their occludo lessons. Schuyler's mind was as open as a wound.

  "You mean your dad's place in Sandy Cay?" Lizbet asked. "That would be fabulous. " The Forces owned their own private island in the Bahamas. "Everyone could jet down for the weekend, and if they don't have wings we could charter a plane. We just did that for Alex and Dani in Colombia. "

  Mimi so did not want her bonding to be just like anyone else's.

  "What about Italy?" Lizbet suggested. "One of the ancestral palaces? You guys still have that place in Tuscany?"

  "Um, no. Not Italy. Bad memories?" Mimi chided, glaring at the group that was staring at her. The chief warden and the rest of the senior committee had finally arrived, and lessons were about to commence.

  "Right. Sorry. "

  "You know," Lizbet said thoughtfully, "with all the hoopla of everyone getting bonded everywhere, no one has done a five-star New York bonding in decades. "