Homecoming Masquerade, The (15 page)

 Jill put her hand on Annika’s
shoulder.

“Oh hey,” Annika said, as if she
and Jill were old friends who hadn’t seen each other for a long time.

“How’s it going?” Jill asked
her.

“Great,” Annika said before
gulping from her goblet of wine.

Something was wrong. Jill had
spent enough time with Annika that she could tell.

“Is everything alright?” Jill
asked.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Annika
said.

“I don’t know, it just seems
like you’ve got something on your mind.”

Annika gave Jill a look that was
a mix of curiosity and sympathy. “Let’s go someplace to talk alone,” she said.

A minute later they were in the
far corner of the ballroom.

“You know, I was thinking during
the first hour of the dance,” Annika began, “and I’ve decided I’m angry with
you. Really angry.”

“Angry with me. How come?”

“You’ve known about Nicky Bloom
all this time and didn’t tell me.”

“Annika, like I said—”

“I know, I know. Your family’s
in some secret club.” Annika waved her hand dismissively.

“And we weren’t supposed to tell
anyone,” Jill said. “I wasn’t even supposed to tell you tonight. The only
reason I said a thing is because you guys are my friends and I’d hate to see
you get caught backing the wrong girl.”

“See, I think that’s horse
shit,” Annika said. “I think your little club thought it would be a good idea
for you to become friends with me, and this whole summer was just a charade
leading up to that speech you gave us before the dancing started. I think you
started hanging out with us to see if I was worthy of being in your secret club
but decided to stay away from me because I wouldn’t talk enough smack about
Kim.”

“Annika, that’s not how it is.”

“Really? Are you sure, Jill?
Because I seem to remember you trying hard all summer to get my friends to talk
shit about Kim Renwick and I had to shut you down. I thought it was strange at
the time, but now it all makes sense. You were testing me, and I failed. You
didn’t trust me to join your anti-Kim crusade, so instead you fed us this story
tonight that you care about us and don’t want us to get left out.”

Jill took a deep breath. She was
losing her. A whole summer of work and potentially the whole operation would go
down the drain if she didn’t get this turned around.

“It’s not a story, Annika. I do
care, and that’s why I told you guys what we were up to. Okay, I admit it. I
pushed my way into your group this summer because the consortium wanted you,
but that doesn’t mean my friendship was fake. That doesn’t mean the week in
Cozumel, or the lunches, or the girls night out were any less special to me
than—”

“Don’t even talk to me about
girls night out,” Annika snapped. “Oh yes, Jill, I remember everything. I just
pretended to forget because that was better for us both. You and I both need to
be more careful. This isn’t some little game. Make a wrong move in this town
and you might end up dead. Don’t you think for a second that Kim Renwick won’t
arrange for her enemies to end up at the bottom of the ocean, just like
Shannon. You and your little club can go do whatever the hell you want, but I’m
making it out of this year alive. I don’t care which girl wins Coronation, but
I do care about my friends, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to see another
person I care about go down because of stupid DC politics. You put me and my
friends in danger when you started hanging out with us this summer, Jill, so now
I will kindly ask you to leave us the hell alone.”

With that, Annika turned and
walked away. Jill thought about calling after her, but what good would it do?
Annika wasn’t going to back Nicky no matter what Jill said. She had blown it.
Her brilliant plan to bring Annika and her friends over to Nicky Bloom had
backfired big-time. She hadn’t made Annika into a supporter, she’d made her
into an enemy, and there really couldn’t be a worse outcome than that. The big
weapon she’d been aiming for, Annika Fleming’s sway in the senior class, was
now turned against her. They’d be lucky to get anyone to come to Nicky’s
after-party now.

N
icky stood up from the bar and
went to the back of the mansion, thinking about the mission, thinking about her
role in it all. She saw Jill standing there, staring blankly at Annika Fleming,
who was walking away.

It didn’t look good.

Nicky nodded in Jill’s
direction, guiding her with her eyes. There was a hallway in the south corner
of the ballroom that led to the restrooms. Having given Jill a cue to join her
there, Nicky stepped into the hall, but instead of turning towards the
restrooms on the right, she turned left, then left again, finding herself in a
short corridor just outside the kitchen. It was the one spot in the ballroom
that was suitable for Nicky and Jill to get together and talk shop. Not only
was it removed from sight of the party, but it was also a rare blind spot for
the many security cameras in Renata’s mansion.

Jill showed up a few seconds
later.

“How’s it going out there?”
Nicky asked.

“Terrible. Annika is angry at me
and has absolutely no interest in your after-party. She’s scared to death of
betraying Kim and wants me to stay away from her.”

“It’s Shannon, isn’t it?” said
Nicky. “Annika’s afraid she’s going to end up dead.”

“Seems that way,” said Jill.
“What’s weird is that she’s got this other side of her that’s totally
rebellious. The secret boyfriend in Brazil, the forbidden Chinese movie...”

“The secret boyfriend is the
reason she’s scared,” said Nicky. “There’s a reason she’s hiding him. There’s
more to Annika and this Hong guy than we know, and whatever it is, she’s scared
that Kim will find out.”

“So scared that she wants to be
as far away from us as possible,” said Jill. “It sucks. I felt like I was getting
so close to figuring her out.”

“Don’t get discouraged now. This
angry rejection she gave you is the final piece of the puzzle and now we know
what we have to do.”

“Is that so? Then maybe you
should enlighten me what it is we have to do now, because I have absolutely no
idea. I’ve just spent the last three months chasing Annika Fleming only to have
her flip out on me.”

“Jill, you’ve spent the last
three months getting to know Annika Fleming on an intimate level. You have the
intel you need to make this happen. Annika is staying with Kim because of a
secret she doesn’t want revealed. But we already know that secret. We hold all
the cards.”

“All I know is that she’s got
some secret boyfriend who shares her love for a weird foreign film.”

“That’s enough. Once Annika
learns you know that much, she’ll be eager to do as you ask.”

“You’re suggesting I should
blackmail her?”

The look on Jill’s face was
baffling. It was as if Nicky had asked her to commit murder or something.

“Of course that’s what I’m
suggesting,” said Nicky.

“But...that’s just what Kim would
do.”

Nicky sighed. “I don’t know what
you were expecting when you signed up for this, but this game we’re playing –
it’s for keeps. The immortals eat people. At the end of this contest, if I
don’t win, I’ll be put in a cage so the winner can eat me. Blackmailing your
new friend might not be an appealing idea to you, but it’s our best option. Our
only option, really. You have everything you need to march right up to Annika
and demand that she comes to my after-party and that she brings everyone with
her. It’s a strategy that works. Just ask Ryan Jenson.”

“What? Ask Ryan?”

“Yes, Jill, you’re not the only
one who’s having a tough night. Ryan said he isn’t coming to my party either.
Kim has something on him and he’s committed to her through the bitter end.”

“Holy shit,” Jill said. “I
didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn’t know.
Nobody knew.”

“Now what?” said Jill.

“We’re going to regroup and get
back out there,” said Nicky. “You’re going to keep working the crowd, and the
minute you see Annika take a break from the dance floor you’re going to follow
her and make her come to the party.”

“But without Ryan?” Jill began,
“What good is Annika without Ryan? Without Ryan we don’t stand a chance.”

“Ryan’s not the only guy in this
school who has money, and I’ve already worked out a backup plan. But I’ll need
your help to pull it off.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“I need you to find Art Tremblay
and talk me up while you dance with him. If we can’t have Ryan, Art is second
best. He’s got plenty of money.”

“But just a few minutes ago Art
Tremblay was trying to spill wine all over your dress!”

“Exactly,” said Nicky. “And he
failed. Kim just took Art outside and whipped him like a dog. You should have
seen the look on his face when he came crawling back to the ballroom. That guy
is so beaten down I don’t think he could get much lower. A guy like that is
vulnerable. He’ll be open to anyone who is willing to build him up again. And
it’s going to start with you. By the time you turn him over to me, we’ll have
him ready to listen.”

“Nicky, this is crazy. I have no
idea what I’d even say to Art.”

Out in the ballroom, the
musicians began tuning up, which was everyone’s cue that the dancing was about
to start again.

Nicky put her arm around Jill
and began leading her out of the hallway.

“You’re going to tell Art a
story that makes him rethink the ramifications of what happened when he tried
to push me into Rosalyn. The first words out of your mouth will be, ‘I saw what
you did earlier.’”

“What he did?”

“That’s right, what he did. In
your story, Art wasn’t a victim in the great wine spill fiasco. In your story,
Art knew exactly what he was doing.”

While a hundred genuine
teenagers gathered inside Renata Sullivan’s mansion, nine ageless beings in
teenage bodies gathered in the woods outside. As the host of Homecoming, Renata
had certain responsibilities. She had to provide a setting for the party, which
she did gladly. Her mansion, surrounded by a thick swath of Virginia forest,
was the perfect getaway for students and immortals alike. She had to provide
entertainment, which for the students inside meant a chamber orchestra
assembled from all the best players in the world.

And she had to provide food.

For the teenagers inside the
mansion, Renata’s slaves prepared hors’dourves in the kitchen then carried them
around the ballroom on silver platters for all the guests to enjoy. For the
immortals outside, no such courtesies were necessary. For the immortals,
Renata’s slaves didn’t make food. They were food.

At any given time, Renata, like
all members of the Samarin clan, had at least forty slaves on site. A few of
those slaves had been there for many years, growing old in Renata’s mansion
while they taught all the new kids their roles in the house.

But most of the slaves arrived
when they were young and never made it to old age, becoming Renata’s dinner
when they ripened to her liking.

Immortals preferred to feast on
people who were in the prime of life and health. Humans aged eighteen to
twenty-two tasted best. Their blood was vibrant in those years. Their flesh,
tender.

Renata and all the other
immortals of the Samarin clan ate often, feasting on ripe young humans whenever
the mood struck them. Consequently, their slave populations needed frequent
replenishment. That was where Melissa came in.

Melissa Mayhew was a small girl
whose eyes and hair were matching shades of gold and whose tiny frame masked
her enormous ambition. That ambition won her the Coronation contest in 1968.
Immediately seeing her potential to do important work for the clan, Daciana put
Melissa in charge of the newest institution in her hierarchy of power. The
Farm.

The Farm was ten acres of land
in South Florida where new slaves were raised to feed the growing family of
immortals in America. It was a strange creation, absolutely unique in the world
of the ever-living, but it had become necessary. Since Coronation had been
instituted at Thorndike, Daciana’s clan had grown to the largest in the world. They
needed to be fed, and they couldn’t rely on simple hunting alone. These were
respected members of high society now. They couldn’t just go around eating the
innocent.

In those early years of
Daciana’s reign, the clan feasted on the prison population, on the villains who
deserved to die, on the troublemakers who needed to be removed from the
streets, and the world thanked them for it. But there were only so many rapists
and murderers in the world, and very few that were healthy and ripe.

Fearing that her clan would get
greedy and too many innocent people would be missed, Daciana created a farm
where young people could be born and raised in totally anonymity, the sort of
people who could be eaten when ripe without anyone missing them at all.

Murderers, rapists, and thugs
would still be removed from the world, of course, but no longer would Daciana’s
children be forced to eat them. A murderer who had over-ripened would become a
father or mother on the Farm, a parent brainwashed to reproduce and give its babies
up for slaughter. No one would miss the parents; no one would miss the babies.
The Farm was a way for humanity to look the other way while the immortals got
their fill of fresh blood.

Shortly after becoming immortal,
Melissa Mayhew proved herself exceptionally adept at the high level mind
control that was necessary to run an operation like the Farm. Together with a
young auto mechanic named Dominic Volcker, whom Melissa had chosen for her
first immortal bond, Melissa turned the Farm into a machine of mind control,
where the detritus of society came in, had their memories erased, and became
eager, servile livestock.

As headmistress of the Farm,
Melissa had a standing invite to Renata’s Homecoming party, and when she came,
she always brought a horse trailer filled with eight young slaves. Those eight
would replace an equal number that Renata had hand-picked from her collection.
The eight most sumptuous, delicious, ripe slaves Renata owned, offered up as a
gift for the nine immortals invited to join her for a Homecoming gathering in
the woods outside her mansion.

Nine immortals; eight slaves.
The discrepancy was no accident. In a moment, Renata would send her slaves
running into the forest, and her guests would hunt them down. With only eight
slaves for nine immortals, someone would go hungry. It was a race, a game where
these most gifted of predators could test their skills against one another.

Melissa, Dominic, and Renata
were three of the immortals in attendance. Alexander Chapman and his bond,
Ansel Gregory, were numbers four and five. Lena Trang with Thomas Byrne, and
Bernadette Paiz with Mark Spinoza rounded out the total.

Present on the property, but off
somewhere hiding, was Sergio Alonzo, the reclusive immortal who showed his face
only a few times a year. Sergio liked to come to Homecoming to view the girls
wearing black, but he never partook in Renata’s slave chase rodeo.

Also invited but not present was
Daciana herself, and her long-time bond, Aaron Defazio. Their absence was the
topic of conversation as the evening got started.

“Did Daciana say anything to you
about coming or not coming?” asked Lena Trang.

“No,” said Renata. “I haven’t
spoken with her in over a month.”

Melissa didn’t like the way
Renata spat the words from her mouth.
In over a month
, as if it were
Daciana’s responsibility to check in with Renata, as if the mention of
Daciana’s name was somehow an affront.

“Me either,” said Bernadette.

“When is the last time anyone
spoke with her?” asked Lena.

Melissa said nothing as her
peers chattered away like gossipy schoolchildren, even though it was all a
charade. Daciana and Aaron had broken their bond and were in separation. It was
obvious. No one had heard from either of them for weeks. Still, these cowards
danced around the topic, hoping someone else would be the first to say what
they all were thinking, that the queen of their clan had broken a bond for the
first time in nearly a century.

No one knew what it meant that
Daciana and Aaron might have broken up. It was rather like they were children
in a large family whose parents started fighting and then disappeared.

“As far as I’m concerned,
Daciana’s absence merely means the best meat will go to someone else,” Renata
said. “If we’re done speaking of her, I’d like to show off what I have for you
tonight. It is the tastiest line-up I’ve prepared in many years.”

“Yes, please,” said Alexander.

Melissa was as anxious as anyone
to hunt the slaves, but she wasn’t able to just blow off Daciana’s absence like
Renata did. For Melissa, the great appeal of being immortal was the constancy,
the way that some things changed slowly, and other things (like your body) not
at all. This past year—the notable tension whenever Daciana and Aaron were
around – it made Melissa immensely uncomfortable. Now they were at Homecoming,
a night steeped in tradition, practically a holiday, and Daciana was missing.
It was almost too much to bear.

Not that Daciana was some
calming presence or something. Far from it. Daciana was intimidating and
intense, demanding the best of “her girls” in behavior and appearance at all
times. On a normal night, Melissa would be thankful for the opportunity to play
a game while Daciana was gone.

But this wasn’t a normal night.
This was Homecoming. And Daciana’s absence ran headlong into decades of
nostalgia, creating an unfamiliar mix that seemed like a bad omen to Melissa.
It was the end of something. The end of something good, something sinfully
good. And with the end there would be consequences. There were always
consequences.

Renata led them deeper into the
woods, where eight of her slaves stood in a single file line.

“Edgar, come forward,” Renata
commanded.

A tall boy with curly brown hair
stepped out of line and towards Renata. He stopped right in front of her,
standing still with his chin up.

 “Edgar turned nineteen last
February, but has only begun to ripen in the past month,” Renata said as she
stroked his cheek. “He was born at the Farm, but his heritage is Slavic.”

This was another change.
Traditionally, Melissa would be the one to speak of the lineage of the slaves.
After all, it was Melissa who knew these things best. And while it was true
that Edgar was born to parents who had been kidnapped in the Czech Republic, it
wasn’t accurate to say his heritage was Slavic. Edgar had two older brothers
who had already been consumed, and their masters described them as tasting a
bit more Mediterranean, suggesting that Edgar’s parents or grandparents were
not born in the same place they were found.

Melissa would have liked to tell
all of this, but she didn’t want to be rude. These were Renata’s slaves now.
Just because Melissa knew more about their lineage didn’t give her the right to
interrupt the hostess.

But in years past, Renata would
have invited Melissa to tell them more about Edgar. In years past, Renata and
Melissa were tight, the two favorite daughters in the clan. But last year
Renata’s bond with Chad went sour and everything changed. No, not everything.
Just Renata. She changed. She became distant. She started keeping to herself.

Breaking a bond was a nasty
process. Melissa was thankful for the strength of her bond with Dominic. While
all bonds broke eventually, good ones could last a century or longer. Melissa
was certain she and Dominic had one of those bonds. She still loved him as much
as the day she made him.

She used to love Renata too. She
had such fond memories of spending time with her, once.

Melissa and Renata. Within the
highest caste of high society, these were the chosen daughters. These were the
two girls that Daciana favored among all her children. It was beautiful. It was
everything Melissa had ever wanted.

You become the prom queen,
Sergio visits you in the night, you become immortal, you join the clan, you
find your bond, you live forever. Melissa was twelve years old when she decided
this was the path she wanted to take. But no one told her what happens next. No
one told her that bonds come to an end, that love for the ever-living ends with
as much passion as it started.

At the time that Daciana kicked
off the Coronation contest, she and Aaron had been bonded for going on forty
years. By the time Melissa won, there were twenty girls in the clan ahead of
her, including Renata. Not a single one of them had broken their bond. It was
only natural for everyone to assume this was how it always was and always would
be, that immortals found a bond and stayed with them forever. Only the
immortals themselves and the rebels who studied vampire lore had any inkling
how bonding really worked.

Then Renata’s bond disappeared.
Neither Renata nor Daciana said a thing about it. No one knew if Renata killed
him or if he fled, and Daciana made it clear to the entire clan that what
happened between Renata and Chad was Renata’s business. Renata became cold and
distant to her sisters in the clan. Melissa felt like she had lost her best
friend, and when she turned to Daciana for some motherly love, Daciana and
Aaron began to unravel as well.

It was all very unsettling to
Melissa, and the fact that Renata was now changing the rules at Homecoming,
that Melissa was no longer allowed to talk about the slaves, only made it
worse.

“Mmm..I’ve had some delectable
Slavic kids from the Farm over the years,” said Mark Spinoza.

No you haven’t
, thought
Melissa.
You’ve had Edgar’s oldest brother and three of his cousins, and we
don’t know their heritage.

“You’ll like this one if you
enjoy them a bit green,” Renata said. She turned to Edgar. “My guests would
like to smell you now,” she said.

Without any hesitation, Edgar
walked past Renata and to the crowd of immortals behind her, standing in place
while they gathered round and sniffed at him like dogs. Melissa stepped forward
and put her nose to his neck, not because she wanted to, but out of respect for
tradition. She didn’t need to smell Edgar at all. She’d been smelling him and
his family for years. To her, the scents of cherry and oak that emanated from
his skin were reminders of better times, when it seemed she had many centuries
of unchanging wealth and privilege ahead of her.

Renata gave them all a minute to
get a good whiff, then called for the next slave.

“Nellie, come here,” she
commanded, bringing forth an unusually broad-shouldered girl. As Nellie
approached, Edgar returned to his place in line in well-rehearsed fashion.

“Nellie was free raised, landing
on the Farm when she was thirteen,” Renata said.

“She’s a big girl,” said Lena.

“I’ve already decided this one
will be mine,” said Bernadette.

The others laughed. At just over
five feet tall, Bernadette was the shortest immortal at the party, but probably
the one with the biggest appetite.

One by one, Renata called over
her slaves, introducing them each with a little bit of history then allowing
her guests to check them out. The slaves didn’t mind at all that these
immortals spoke openly of eating them. That would change in a moment. To
heighten the fun and improve the taste, Renata would release the slaves from
her mind control. As soon as they were released, fear would begin coursing
through their veins. Fear made the blood taste sweeter.

“I must warn you on this last
one that if you find her intriguing, you’ll be competing with me for a bite.
I’ve been imagining how this one would taste since the day she arrived six
years ago. Aurora, come over here.”