Masquerade (2 page)

Oliver turned. “Huh?”

“That woman . . . I think it’s my . . . my mother! There!” Schuyler said, pointing toward a figure running swiftly, disappearing into a crowd of people leaving the Ducal Palace.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Oliver asked, scanning the sidewalk where Schuyler was pointing. “That woman? Are you serious? Sky, are you out of your mind? Your mother’s in a hospital in New York. And she’s catatonic,” Oliver said angrily.

“I know, I know, but . . .” Schuyler said. “Look, there she is again—it’s her, I swear to God, it’s her.”

“Where do you think you’re going?” Oliver demanded, as Schuyler scrambled to her feet. “What’s gotten into you? Hold on! Sky, sit down!” Underneath his breath he muttered, “This is a huge waste of time.”

She turned around and glared at him. “You didn’t have to come with me, you know.”

Oliver sighed. “Right. As if you would have gone all the way to Venice on your own? You’ve never even been to Brooklyn.”

She exhaled loudly, keeping her eyes focused on the blond woman, itching to be out of the slow-moving boat. He was right: she owed him big-time for accompanying her to Venice, and it annoyed her that she was so dependent on him. She told him so.

“You’re
supposed
to be dependent on me,” Oliver explained patiently. “I’m your human Conduit. I’m supposed to help you navigate the human world. I didn’t realize that would mean being your travel agent, but hey.”

“Then
help
me,” Schuyler snapped. “I need to go. . . .” she said frantically. She made up her mind and jumped from the gondola to the sidewalk in one graceful leap—a leap no human would have been able to execute, since they were a good thirty feet away from the nearest
marciapiede
.

“Wait! Schuyler!” Oliver yelled, scrambling to keep up.
“Andiamo! Segua quella ragazza!”
he said, urging the gondolier to follow Schuyler, but not quite sure that the man-powered boat would be the best way to chase a fast-moving vampire.

Schuyler felt her vision focus and her senses heighten. She knew she was moving fast—so quickly that it felt as though everyone else around her were standing still. Yet the woman was moving just as fast, if not faster, soaring across the narrow channels that wormed through the city, dodging speedboats and flying toward the other side of the river. But Schuyler was right at her heels, the two of them a blur of motion across the cityscape. Schuyler found herself unexpectedly exhilarated by the pursuit, as if she were stretching muscles she didn’t know she had.

“Mother!” She finally felt desperate enough to call out as she watched the woman leap gracefully from a balcony to a hidden entryway.

But the woman didn’t turn back, and quickly disappeared inside the door of a nearby palazzo.

Schuyler jumped to the same landing, caught her breath, and followed the woman inside, more intent than ever to discover the mysterious stranger’s true identity.

M
imi Force surveyed the industrious scene inside the Jefferson Room at the Duchesne School and sighed happily. It was late on a Monday afternoon, the school day was over, and the weekly Committee meeting was well underway. Diligent Blue Bloods were gathered in small groups at the round table, discussing last-minute details for the party of the year: the annual Four Hundred Ball. Blond, green-eyed Mimi and her twin brother, Jack, were among the young vampires who were going to be presented at the ball this year. It was a tradition that reached back centuries. Induction into The Committee, a secret and vastly powerful group of vampires that ran New York, had been only the first step. The public presentation of young Committee members to the entire Blue Blood society was a bigger one. It was an acknowledgment of one’s past history and future responsibilities. Because Blue Bloods returned in different physical shells, under new names in every cycle— what vampires called the length of a human lifetime—their presentation or “coming-out” was highly important in the recognition process.

Mimi Force didn’t need a herald with a trumpet to tell her who she was, or whom she had been. She was Mimi Force—the most beautiful girl in the history of New York City and the only daughter of Charles Force, the Regis, a.k.a. head of the coven and superior badass, known to the world as a merciless media magnate whose Force News Network spanned the globe from Singapore to Addis Ababa. Mimi Force—the girl with hair the color of woven flax, skin like fresh buttercream, full pouty lips that rivaled Angelina Jolie’s. She was the underage sexpot with a reputation for cutting a reckless swath through the city’s most eligible young heirs: hot red-blooded boyfriends otherwise known as her human familiars.

But her heart had always been, and always would be, much, much closer to home, Mimi thought as she looked across the room at her brother, Jack.

So far, Mimi was satisfied. Everything was shaping up to be picture-perfect for the night at the St. Regis Hotel. This was the biggest party of the year. Unlike that tacky little circus they called the Oscars, with its sniveling actresses and corporate shilling, the Four Hundred Ball was a strictly old-fashioned affair—about class, status, beauty, power, money, and blood. Bloodlines, that is, and more specifically, Blue Bloodlines. It was a vampire-only ball: the most exclusive event in New York, if not the world.

Absolutely no Red Bloods allowed.

All the flowers had been ordered. White American Beauty roses. Twenty thousand of them, specially flown in from South America for the occasion. There would be ten thousand roses in the garland entrance alone, the rest scattered among the centerpieces. The most expensive event planner in the city, who had turned The Metropolitan Museum into a Russian wonderland straight out of
Dr. Zhivago
for the Costume Institute’s Russian exhibit, was also planning to hand-make ten thousand silk roses for the napkin rings. And to top it all off, the entire ballroom would be scented by gallons of rosewater perfume pumped into the air vents.

Around Mimi, The Committee conferred on last-minute issues. While the junior members, high school kids like herself, were occupied with busywork—filing RSVP cards, checking off guest lists, confirming logistics for the two fifty-piece orchestras’ stage requirements and lighting—the senior coven, led by Priscilla Dupont, a well-known Manhattan socialite whose regal visage graced the weekly social columns, was involved with more delicate matters. Mrs. Dupont was surrounded by a group of similarly thin, polished, and well-coifed women, whose tireless work on behalf of The Committee had led to the preservation of some of New York’s most important landmarks and funded the existence of the city’s most prestigious cultural institutions.

Mimi’s extra-sensitive hearing picked up on the conversation.

“Now we come to the question of Sloane and Cushing Carondolet,” Priscilla said gravely, picking up one of the ivory linen place cards scattered in front of her. The cards were embossed with the name of each guest, and would be placed at the front reception with a designated table number.

There was a murmur of disapproval among the well-heeled crowd. The Carondolets’ growing insubordination was hard to ignore. After they had lost their daughter Aggie a few months ago, the family had shown signs of being distinctly anti-Committee. Rumor had it they were even threatening to call for an impeachment of Mimi’s father.

“Sloane can’t be with us today,” Priscilla continued, “but she has sent in their yearly donation. It’s not as big as it has been in the past, but it is still substantial—unlike some other families I won’t mention.”

Donations to the Four Hundred Ball benefited the New York Blood Bank Committee, The Committee’s public name, which was organized ostensibly to raise money for blood research. The money it brought in was also used in part to fight AIDS and hemophilia.

Every family was expected to make a magnanimous donation to its coffers. The combined offerings fueled The Committee’s multimillion-dollar budget for the entire year. Some, like the Forces, gave above and beyond the call of duty, while others, like the Van Alens, a pitiful branch of a once-powerful clan, had struggled for years to come up with the requisite amount for their tithe. Now that Cordelia was gone, Mimi wasn’t even sure if Schuyler knew what was expected of her.

“The question is,” Trinity Burden Force, Mimi’s mother, said in her lilting voice, “is it
appropriate
for them to sit at the head table as they usually do, knowing what they have said about Charles?” Trinity posed the question in a way that let the rest of The Committee know that she and Charles would rather dine on ashes than dine with the Carondolets.

“I say shaft them at the back table with all the other fringe families!” BobiAnne Llewellyn declared with her forceful Texan bray. She made a joking slash across her neck, if only to display the thirty-carat diamond on her ring finger. BobiAnne Llewellyn was the second and much younger wife of Forsyth Llewellyn, who currently served as junior senator for New York.

Several ladies seated around Priscilla Dupont shuddered ever so slightly at the suggestion, even if they privately agreed with it. BobiAnne’s crass way of putting it was distinctly not the Blue Blood way of doing things.

Mimi noticed her friend Bliss Llewellyn look up at the sound of her stepmother’s grating voice. Bliss was one of The Committee’s newest members, and her face had turned as red as her curls when she’d heard BobiAnne’s guttural laugh boom across the room.

“Perhaps we can reach a compromise,” Priscilla noted in her gracious manner. “We will explain to Sloane that they shall not sit at the head table this year, seeing as they are still in mourning and we respect their grief. We will place the Van Alen girl at their table as well. They cannot argue with that, seeing as they were great friends of Cordelia’s, and, as her granddaughter, she too has suffered a loss.”

Speaking of Schuyler—where was that little wretch? Not that it was Mimi’s problem, but it annoyed her that Schuyler hadn’t even bothered to show up for today’s Committee meeting. She’d heard someone say that Schuyler and her human sidekick, Oliver, had gone to Venice, of all places. Venice? What the hell were they doing in Venice? Mimi wrinkled her nose. If one had to abscond to Italy, wasn’t the shopping in Rome and Milan better? Venice was just wet and stinky, in Mimi’s opinion. And how were they able to get permission from the school to do so?

Duschene did not look kindly upon self-scheduled school vacations—even the Forces had been reprimanded when they had taken the twins out of school last February for a ski vacation. The school had already allocated an official “ski week” in March on the calendar that all families were supposed to follow. But tell that to the Forces, who maintained that the powder on Aspen Mountain in March was deeply inferior to February’s snowfall.

Mimi threw a silk rose across the table at her brother, Jack, who was involved in a lively discussion with his subcommittee over security issues, blueprints of the St. Regis ballroom spread out in front of them.

The rose fell into his lap, and he looked up, startled.

Mimi grinned.

Jack colored a bit, but returned her smile with a dazzling one of his own. The sun shone through the stained-glass windows, framing his handsome face with a golden glow.

Mimi thought she would never get tired of looking at him: it was almost as gratifying as looking at her own reflection. She was glad that after the truth of Schuyler’s heritage—a half blood! Practically Abomination!—had been revealed, things between the two of them had gone back to normal. What passed for normal around the Force twins, anyway.

Hey handsome
, Mimi sent.

What’s up?
Jack replied, without speaking.

Just thinking of you.

Jack’s smile deepened, and he threw the rose back at his sister so that it landed in her lap. Mimi tucked it behind her ear and fluttered her eyelashes appreciatively.

She checked over the RSVP cards once again. Since the ball was a community affair, it would be a party dominated by the Elders and the Wardens—an older crowd. Mimi pressed her lips tightly together. Sure, it would be a fun party—the most glamorous event ever—but suddenly she had an idea.

What about an after-party?

For Blue Blood teens only? Where they could really let loose without worrying about what their parents, Wardens, and Committee leaders thought?

Something more edgy and adventurous . . . something only the crème de la crème could attend. A cold, glittering smile played on her lips as she imagined all her silly little peers at Duchesne begging for an invitation to the party. All in vain, Mimi thought. Because there would be no invitations. Only a text-message sent to the right people on the night of the Four Hundred Ball would reveal the location of the after-party. The Alterna-vampire Ball.

Mimi glanced over at Jack, who was holding a sheet of paper in front of his face, covering his handsome visage. And she suddenly remembered a scene from a past life of theirs: the two of them, bowing to the Court at Versailles, their faces concealed behind ornately beaded and feathered masks.

Of course!

A masquerade ball.

The after-party would require elaborate masks.

No one would be sure who was who—who had been invited and who had not—creating the most
exquisite
social anxiety.

She liked this idea very much. Any time she could exclude other people from having fun, Mimi was always ready.

I
t’s not like she hasn’t had this dream before. Of being cold and wet, and of not being able to breathe. All the other dreams had been like this, except this one felt real. She was freezing, shivering, and as she opened her eyes to the murky darkness, she sensed another presence in the shadow. A hand, grasping her arm, lifting her up, up, up toward the light, and breaking the surface.
Splash!
Bliss took a ragged, coughing breath, and looked around wildly. It was no dream. This was real. She was submerged in the middle of a lake. “Hold still, you’re too weak. I’ll swim us to shore.” The low voice in her ear was soothing and calm. She tried to turn around to look at his face, but the voice interrupted. “Don’t move, don’t look back, just concentrate on the shore.” She nodded, rivulets of water dripping from her hair into her eyes. She was still coughing, and felt an enormous need to retch. Her arms and legs were weak, although there was no current. The lake was placid and still. It was hardly even a lake. When Bliss’s eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw that she was in Central Park, in the middle of the man-made lake where, last summer, before she’d enrolled at Duchesne, her parents had taken her and her sister to the boathouse restaurant for dinner.

The boats were nowhere to be found this time. It was almost the end of November, and the lake was deserted. There was frost on the ground, and for the first time that evening, Bliss felt a cold seeping into her veins. She started to shake.

“It’ll pass. Your blood will heat up, don’t worry. Vampires don’t get frostbite.” That voice again.

Bliss Llewellyn was from Texas. That was the first thing Bliss said to new acquaintances. “I’m from Texas,” as if identifying her home state went a long way to explaining everything about herself: the accent, the big curly hair, the five-carat diamond rocks on each ear. It was also a way for Bliss to hold on to her beloved hometown, and a life that seemed more and more remote from her current reality as just another pretty girl in New York.

In Texas, Bliss had stood out. She was five foot ten (with the hair height, she was easily six feet tall), fierce, and fearless—the only cheerleader who could execute a tumbling leap off the top of a fifty-person pyramid and safely land feet first on the soft grass of the football field. Before she discovered she was a vampire and capable of such physical dexterity, Bliss had chalked up her coordination to luck and practice.

She had lived with her family in a sprawling, gated mansion in an exclusive Houston suburb, and had driven to school in her grandfather’s vintage Cadillac convertible—the one with real buffalo horns on the hood. But her father had grown up in Manhattan, and after a fruitful run as Houston’s leading politician, had abruptly uprooted the family when he ran—and won—New York’s empty senate seat.

Adjusting to the frenzy of the Big Apple after life in Houston was difficult for Bliss. She felt uneasy in all the glamorous nightclubs and exclusive parties Mimi Force, her self-appointed new best friend, dragged her to. Give Bliss a jug of Boone’s, a few girlfriends, and a DVD of
The Notebook,
and she was happy. She didn’t like hanging out at clubs, feeling like a wallflower while watching Mimi have all the fun.

But her life had suddenly picked up when she’d met Dylan Ward, the sad-faced, black-eyed boy with the sexy smolder who had walked, cigarette-first, into Bliss’s life in a back alley on the Lower East Side just a few months ago. Dylan had been a misfit at Duchesne, too—a sullen, alienated rebel with a bunch of loser friends, including Oliver Hazard-Perry and Schuyler Van Alen, the two most unpopular kids in their year. Dylan had been more than a friend; he was an ally, not to mention a possible boyfriend. She blushed to remember his deep, penetrating kisses—oh, if only they had not been interrupted the night of the party. If only . . .

If only Dylan were still alive. But he had been taken by a Silver Blood, turned into one of them and then killed when he had come back to visit her—to
warn
her. . . . Bliss blinked back tears, remembering how she had found his jacket crumpled on her bathroom floor and covered in blood.

Bliss had thought that that was the last time she would ever see Dylan again, and yet . . . this boy who had rescued her . . . his low voice in her ear—it had been so familiar. She didn’t dare to hope; she didn’t want to believe in something that couldn’t be true, that couldn’t possibly be real. She had clung to him as he pulled her steadily to the shore.

This wasn’t the first time Bliss had woken up in an unexpected place, only to find herself inches from danger. Just last week she had opened her eyes to find herself perched on the topmost ledge of the Cloisters Museum, high up in Fort Tryon Park. Her left foot had been dangling off the edge, and she had caught herself just in time to pull back and save herself from a dangerous fall. Bliss realized she probably would have survived the fall anyway, with only a few scratches, and wondered idly that if she did want to commit suicide, what options would be available to an immortal anyway?

And then today she had found herself in the middle of the lake.

The blackouts—the nightmares of someone stalking her, and of being here but not here—were getting worse. They had begun the year before: excruciating, head-pounding migraines accompanied by terrifying visions of crimson eyes with silver pupils, and sharp, glittering teeth . . . and of running down endless corridors while the beast chased her, its foul breath sickening in its intensity . . . catching up to her, bringing her down to the ground, where it would devour her soul.

Stop it, she told herself. Why think of that now? The nightmare vision was gone. The beast—whatever it was— resided in her imagination only. Wasn’t that what her father had said? That the nightmares were simply part of the transformation? Bliss was fifteen, the age at which the vampire memories resurfaced, the age in which the Blue Bloods began to realize their true identities as immortal beings.

Bliss tried to recall everything that had happened earlier that day, if there was any clue as to how she could come to find herself half drowned in the Central Park lake. She had gone to school as usual, and afterward had attended another tedious Committee meeting. The Committee was supposed to teach her and all the new inductees how to control and use their vampire senses, but for the last two months the organization had been more invested in planning a fancy party than anything else. Her stepmother, BobiAnne, had attended the meeting, embarrassing Bliss with her screechy voice and her tacky outfit, a head-to-toe-logo’d Vuitton tracksuit. Bliss hadn’t realized they made casual wear out of the same brown canvas as the luggage. She thought her stepmother looked like one big gold-and-brown train case.

Afterward, because her father was home for a change, the family had dined at the new Le Cirque that had recently relocated to sumptuous quarters at One Beacon Court. The famed New York dining hall catered to the powerful and wealthy, and Senator Llewellyn had spent the evening shaking hands with the other well-heeled patrons—the mayor, the broadcaster, the actress, the other senator from New York. Bliss had ordered her foie gras rare, and had enjoyed slathering gooseberry jam on the thick, rich, creamy goose liver on her plate.

When dinner was over, they had attended an opera, in the family’s private box. A new Met production of
Orfeo ed Euridice
. Bliss had always loved the tragic story of how Orpheus descended into Hell to rescue Eurydice, only to lose her at the very end. But the stentorian rumbling and mournful singing had rocked Bliss to sleep, leading her to dream of the watery abyss of Hades.

That was where her memory ended. Was her family still in the theater? Her father seated like a stern, grave idol, his hands placed under his chin, watching the show intently while her stepmother grimaced and yawned, and her half sister, Jordan, silently mouthed all the words. Jordan was eleven years old and an opera freak—freak being the definitive word, in Bliss’s estimation.

They were near the dock now, and the steady hand hoisted her up the ladder next to the pier. Bliss slid on the slippery ledge, but found she could walk. Whoever he was, he was right: her vampire blood was warming her up, and in a few minutes she wouldn’t even notice that it was forty degrees outside. If she had been human, she would have been dead, drowned for certain.

She looked down at her damp clothing. She was still wearing the same clothes she had worn to dinner and the opera. An intricately embroidered black satin Temperley dress—ruined now. So much for dry-clean only. Only one of her five-inch patent leather Balenciaga platforms remained. The other one was probably at the bottom of the lake. She looked askance at the opera program she was still holding tightly in her hand, and released it, letting it flutter to the ground.

“Thank you . . .” she said, looking behind her to finally see the face of her savior.

But there was nothing behind her but the calm blue waters of the man-made lake. The boy was gone.