Homecoming Masquerade, The (3 page)

T
he truth about Nicky Bloom was
that she had no financial backers for her Coronation campaign yet, other than
Jill. The truth was that, while there was a group of smart and powerful people
helping her, none of those people were Washington insiders. None of them had
the big money necessary for Nicky to win Coronation.

The truth was that Nicky and
Jill were in this ballroom under false pretenses. They were pretending to be
normal seniors at Thorndike who were excited to wear their masks to Homecoming
and eager to join the ruling class when they graduated.

They were nothing of the sort.

Jill and Nicky were members of
the Network, an underground movement dedicated to overthrowing the immortals
who ruled Washington and the world.

It was no accident that Nicky
Bloom, the only child of a mostly unknown family from the Midwest, somehow won
the open spot in the senior class, beating out far wealthier and more connected
families who had been trying to get their daughters into Thorndike for years.

It was no accident that Nicky
Bloom’s father, a commodities speculator, hit on a winning streak in the
financial markets that turned his family into the sort of power players who
could come to Thorndike Academy. Neither was it an accident that Nicky’s
transcripts, personal history, and entire digital footprint combined into the
perfect profile for an incoming Thorndike student.

The Network was behind all of
this.

Jill was the Network mole who
made Nicky’s presence possible. Jill’s reports from inside Thorndike had been
invaluable to the organization, which had come to see Thorndike and its sordid
Coronation ritual as a problem that had to be solved. Because of Jill’s intel,
the Network knew they had to seize on the opportunity presented by the death of
Shannon Evans.

They took that opportunity to
get Nicky Bloom into the school so she could enter the Coronation contest.

At first, Jill was displeased
the Network was giving the big job to this mystery girl from who knew where.
Hadn’t Jill earned the privilege of the big job inside Thorndike? Hadn’t Jill
proved her mettle as an undercover operative?

And in those first weeks of
school, when Nicky was lying low, dressing like a total nobody, spending all
her time with Ryan Jenson, Jill wondered if the Network knew what it was doing.
She was worried if Nicky, as confident and sharp as she was, could really pull
off the assignment they had given her.

Now, mere moments after Nicky’s
arrival at the dance, Jill understood and accepted. Nicky Bloom was amazing.

Jill watched in awe as Nicky
strutted across the ballroom with strength and confidence, perfectly oblivious
to the stares and the silence. Nicky looked so ridiculously stunning, so
completely transformed from the quiet new girl she had played those first weeks
at school, that it didn’t matter if no one knew her, if she walked alone to the
bar. She had an aura about her. Nicky Bloom was pure cool.

And that aura, that cool,
allowed the party chatter to resume as if nothing had happened. The confrontation
between Nicky and Kim shocked the entire ballroom into silence, but Nicky had
brushed it off like it was nothing. She had given everyone else permission to
move on with the night, and that’s exactly what they were doing. They were
moving on because Nicky did, and in that way, Nicky was already inserting
herself into their lives as a leader, as the sort of girl who could win
Coronation.

Unlike Jill, whose father was a
genuine power broker in DC and whose family had many Thorndike graduates in its
past, Nicky Bloom was a total fabrication, an alias. Everything about Nicky,
from her parents to her history to even her name, was a creation of the
Network. The real girl that Jill knew as Nicky Bloom was born as someone else,
had lived someone else’s life, had somehow involved herself with the Network at
an early age and been groomed for espionage of this sort. Nicky Bloom’s
“parents” were Network agents, also working undercover. Her extended family was
a lie, aunts and uncles, grandparents, cousins, and childhood friends scattered
throughout the country, all of them ready to play their part when necessary,
all of them agents of the Network. Her house, a brand new mansion in Bethesda,
was purchased by the Network with money they had moved through various money
laundering operations and into the Bloom family bank account. Her entire life
was a fabrication, sprung from the best minds of the resistance, all part of a
master plan to turn the tide against the vampires once and for all.

The plan to create Nicky Bloom,
to insert her into the Thorndike senior class, to have her wear black to
Homecoming, and hopefully, to win the Coronation contest – all of it was aimed
at a single end. In order to become immortal, the winner of the Coronation
contest had to spend an evening with a vampire. An immensely important vampire
named Sergio Alonzo.

Sergio was the reason they were
here. Winning Coronation and getting that visit in the night from Sergio was
the goal of this operation.

Long ago, the leaders of the
Network had identified Sergio Alonzo as the key to everything that had gone so
terribly wrong with the world. One of the oldest and most unusual vampires,
Sergio was as powerful as he was elusive. Many vampire hunters had dedicated
their lives to killing him. None had even come close.

It was Elliott Toffler, Abbot of
the Brotherhood of St. Albert, whose brain had hatched the wild scheme in which
Jill and Nicky now were players. Break an agent into Thorndike, have her enter
the Coronation contest. Throw all the Network’s resources behind her. Do
whatever it takes to make her win. And then, when the Coronation contest comes
to an end and Sergio pays a nighttime visit to the winner, ambush him.

Nicky Bloom’s brand new mansion
in Bethesda was more than a showpiece home suitable for a new student at
Thorndike. It was a house that had been custom built to trap a vampire. The
minute Sergio stepped inside, steel bars would fall over the windows and doors,
and all the best vampire hunters in the world would emerge at once to kill him.

But all of that only came about
if Nicky won, and a winning campaign started tonight. The Homecoming Masquerade
would last for two more hours. When it was over, the senior class would leave
the mansion in the many limousines that waited for them outside. They would
take off their masks and reconvene in more comfortable attire at four separate
after-parties, one for each entrant. They would pay more than a thousand
dollars each to get into these parties. That money would become the opening
balance in each entrant’s Coronation account.

Judging by the chatter, Kim’s
after-party was where most of the class was headed. Kim’s father had scored the
East Room of the White House, and was charging $10,000 at the door. Samantha
and Mary’s parties, in contrast, would be small affairs at their homes, where
family and close friends would gather and show their support, everybody
donating whatever they could.

No one knew a thing about
Nicky’s after-party yet. It was Jill’s job to change that. She had started with
Annika Fleming and her little band of followers. She had laid the groundwork,
telling them the cover story that a secret consortium of wealthy parents was
behind Nicky’s entrance. That story would make Nicky a more credible candidate.
That story played on the hatred almost everyone in the ballroom had for Kim and
her family. Even though Jill had sworn the others to secrecy, she knew full
well that Annika, Mattie, Jenny, and Jake would spread the story all over the
ballroom. She expected that by intermission, the whole class would know that
Nicky was the centerpiece of an attempted coup. People would speculate about
which families were supporting her in secret. They would start to wonder if
this new girl had a legitimate shot at winning the whole thing.

And then they would wonder if
they should be supporting her rather than Kim.

“Hey Jill.”

It was Mattie, who had broken
away from their little huddle and followed Jill to the bar.

“Yes?”

“I know you wanted to quit
talking about this, so I’ll keep it short,” Mattie said. She was lowering her
voice now as the two of them walked toward the bar together. “You said Nicky
was having an after-party at the Hamilton. Do you know anyone else who’s going
to be there?”

 “I will,” said Jill. “And I
predict by the end of the night, you will too. In fact, I’m betting that, by
the time the masquerade is over, most of the class is going to Nicky’s party
rather than Kim’s. Not only will they get a chance to support the eventual
winner, but they’ll also be treated to a private concert by Jada Razor.”

“Seriously? Jada Razor is going
to be at Nicky’s after-party?”

Jada Razor, the biggest pop star
in the world, held secret sympathies for the resistance. Her sold-out concerts
around the globe, where millions of dollars in small bills changed hands every
night, were the Network’s most effective money laundering operation. When the
Network asked her to interrupt her world tour for a special, private concert
dedicated to the cause, she was more than happy to comply.

“That’s right,” said Jill.
“Maybe I’ll see you there?”

“Yeah,” said Mattie. “Maybe you
will.”

“C
abernet, please,” Nicky said.
The bartender, a meek little guy with bright blue eyes and rosy cheeks, gave
the slightest of nods, a sophisticated, well-rehearsed motion, and retrieved a
bottle of ’92 Amandi from the rack behind him. Nicky guessed this bartender was
fifteen years old.
Fifteen
. Two years younger than the students he was
serving tonight. Should have been a sophomore in high school somewhere. Should
have been learning to drive, working a first job, playing video games.

Should have had parents who
loved him, who looked out for him, who would die before letting him end up
here.

The boy had black hair, buzzed
short, and wore the same white jacket and black pants as the fifty-some other
slaves in the mansion. Nicky watched him pour the wine into a crystal goblet,
wondering what was in his mind as he did so. Did some part of him wish he were
elsewhere? Was his conscious mind as enslaved as his subconscious?

Did he feel as miserable as he
looked?

This was the third slave she had
seen tonight. The first was in the driveway, coordinating all the limousine
traffic. The second had opened the front door for her. Those two were both
middle-aged men, the sorts of slaves an immortal kept around for continuity’s
sake. The older slaves taught the younger ones what to do, a job that was
continuous since younger slaves were constantly being replaced. Those older
slaves were the exception. Most of the prisoners in Renata’s mansion were like
this bartender. Kids. Brought in from the Farm to work until Renata decided
they were ripe.

Nicky leaned against the bar and
took a sip of the wine. Deep and dry, the wine was an absurd choice of drink
for this crowd. Seniors at Thorndike were sure to become wine snobs one day,
but on this night, they gulped down the expensive vintages like two-dollar
tequila. Sure, these students liked to pretend they recognized “blueberry and
tropical notes” or “hints of oak and chocolate”—the sort of claptrap their
parents were teaching them to talk about—but it was all for show. The
masquerade ball would last only two hours, during which time everyone here had
to be sophisticated and coy. Then everyone would hop in their limo and go to
the after-parties, where they would get thoroughly wasted.

Nicky stood alone, her back to
the party, her eyes looking down at the bar. As she listened to the chatter all
around her, she wondered what sort of perversion allowed these people to party
and play while so many suffered. She wondered how they justified it in their
minds. The immortals used mind control to trap young people in their mansions,
holding them as slaves until they smelled just right, at which point they ate
them. All these students just looked away from this madness, choosing not to
see it for the evil it was. They chose to ignore the evil because their
families were a part of it. The immortals relied on the wealthy and powerful to
hold the system together. The families of Thorndike Academy protected,
defended, and enabled the immortals in exchange for their piece of the pie.

Nicky waited for the
conversation to reach its peak, then she turned away from the bar and
re-entered the party. Keeping her ears open for her own name, she heard someone
talking about being in Nicky’s second period class but never noticing her.
Someone else said, “Every time I saw that girl last week she was all dumpy
clothes and glasses and shit,” which made Nicky smile. She had put together an
understated look during those first days at school, but she hardly would have
called her clothes “dumpy.”

She overheard Jill working a
small crowd with her own script.
Nicky Bloom made it all the way to
Homecoming in a black dress and Kim Renwick never saw it coming
. It sounded
like she was doing well with it. In a way, Jill’s job tonight was more
difficult than Nicky’s. Jill Wentworth was the best hacker in the Network,
maybe in the world, but she wasn’t a great field operative, even if she fancied
herself as one.

Nicky knew this because of the
briefing book, a thousand-page document prepared by the Network for Nicky to study.
The briefing book began with a history of the immortals and Thorndike, then
went on to give descriptions of everyone and everything Nicky might encounter
while on assignment. It was a collection of all the Network’s intel on every
student, every family, every teacher...

The authors of the briefing book
were uncredited, but for the most part, Nicky could tell which Network
operatives had written which parts. The historical research was the work of
Phillip and Helena Fischer, the wealthy benefactors from Colorado who were
playing the roles of Nicky’s parents in this assignment. The section about the
wider connections, the way the immortals and power players in Washington
interacted with the larger world, was the work of Nicky’s mentor and trainer,
Gia Rossi.

The student descriptions
belonged to Jill, who was a master of keeping her ears open, both on campus and
on the Internet. At times, these were the most informative parts of the book.
At other times, they were downright useless.

A section about Art Tremblay,
for instance, was spot on.

Eldest son of property
magnate Merv Tremblay, Art has a chip on his shoulder that undoubtedly comes
from being a disappointment to his macho father. He became a gym rat when he
hit puberty, but even his big muscles can’t hide the truth about him. Art wants
everyone to think he is the manly type, but the truth is he is about as macho
as a goldfish.

The section about Ryan Jenson,
in contrast, was a mess.

Listless and without a moral
compass, Ryan Jenson is a true product of Washington. He can be kind and
approachable, but it’s all fraudulent. Ryan has his own agenda and it’s only
about him.

Ryan Jenson, the richest member
of the senior class, was Nicky’s primary target in this assignment. She’d been
working on him since the first day of school. In the first minutes of her first
meeting with him, when she “accidentally” ran into him in the hallway, Nicky
could tell that Jill’s description of Ryan was way off. Hardly the “listless
product of Washington” Jill had called him, Ryan Jenson was the only student at
Thorndike with a true sense of self. He was a kind, decent person, who
understood right and wrong. He didn’t belong in Washington’s upper crust and he
knew it. He was trying to find a way out.

When Nicky had pressed Jill for more
about Ryan, Jill said, “He’s a flirt who likes to use people.”

That told Nicky all she needed
to know. Jill, who’d had a thing with Ryan during their freshman year, was
still hung up on this guy, and her feelings had found their way into the
briefing book. They had disrupted Jill’s work, and they made Nicky wonder what
other parts of the briefing book were inaccurate.

Still, for whatever shortcomings
Jill had as an operative, she more than made up for them with her brilliant
mind and her courageous spirit. And the things she could do with a computer
bordered on the miraculous.

 Nicky glanced at the
grandfather clock in the corner of the room. Five minutes before nine. People
were already lining up for the first dance. Nicky needed to find a place. She
took stock of the entire room once more, trying to place all three of her
competitors, the other girls wearing black.

Samantha Kwan was in the far
corner, talking to Josh Manson.

Kim and her minions were in the
middle of the party, the largest clique in the ballroom.

Mary...well, Mary was just
standing where everyone could see her, acting aloof and oblivious.

Was there anyone else? No, Nicky
was the only surprise entrant this night. Everything was on schedule. The clock
would chime in a few minutes. The dance would begin, and Nicky would get to
work on the next part of the plan.