Revelations (10 page)

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.

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 Castañeda, 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 been 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.”

“Here? Just at home?” Mimi frowned. That did not sound special at all.

Up front, Edmund Oelrich was shuffling papers at the podium and greeting the well-preserved women who made up the senior committee.

“Saint John the Divine is a fabulous Gothic cathedral. You could wear a train longer than Princess Di’s. And we could get the Boys Choir of Harlem. It would be properly angelic.”

Mimi considered the suggestion. It was indeed a beautiful church, she told Lizbet, and they could have the reception at the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum afterward. Charles was a museum trustee and had been particularly generous that year. She waved to Jack, who had just come in the door. Her brother joined her and gave a quick smile.

“Who are you talking to?” he mouthed.

“So, we’re on the same page here? Saint John’s? And then the Met?” Lizbet was asking. “And you did say you wanted to invite the whole Four Hundred, yes?”

“Done and done!” Mimi said with satisfaction. She put away her phone and smiled at her brother. Now that she knew his secret, she noticed that he looked everywhere in the room except toward the corner where Schuyler was sitting.

Schuyler’s sidekick, that equally annoying human Oliver, arrived soon after. That was another travesty—letting humans into their exclusive meetings. Charles would never have allowed it during his tenure. But Lawrence had made it clear he expected the Conduits to undergo their own training as well, and what better way to learn about their calling than to join the Committee.

Mimi sensed Jack tense by her side. Oliver had kissed Schuyler on the cheek. That was interesting. She used her vampire sense to zero in on Oliver’s neck. She spotted the telltale bite marks immediately. They were undetectable to the human eye, but glaring to the vampire sight. So. The little half-blood had made her best friend her familiar.

Well.

It gave Mimi an idea. If Schuyler wasn’t going to give up her pathetic little liaison with Jack, then maybe she could be forced to.

Oliver could prove useful.

Mimi would have to act fast. She’d told Lizbet she wanted her bonding to take place in three months.

Nineteen

Unlike Mimi, Bliss enjoyed the Committee’s new agenda. She liked discovering and using her vampire abilities, instead of merely memorizing boring facts about their history, or stuffing envelopes and critiquing caterers for extravagant events that she didn’t look forward to attending. Lessons got her blood pumping. She was thrilled to find herself adept at some of the more difficult tasks, like the
mutatio,
for instance.

The senior committee had asked the younger members to arrange themselves into groups of two or three while they practiced the delicate art of metamorphosis.

“All vampires should be able to change into smoke, or air, or fog; although most of us can transform into fire and water as well. As you might be aware, The Conspiracy saw to it that the false legends about our people perpetuated in Red Blood history are based on a modicum of truth.” Dorothea Rockefeller, their guest lecturer, chuckled as she said this. The Conspiracy was a great source of amusement to the Committee.

“They also thought it might be suitable if the humans were led to believe that our kind can only transform into bats or rats or other creatures of the night. That way the Red Bloods would be lulled into a false sense of security during daylight hours. And while it is true that those of us who have the ability to shape-shift may choose these rather repulsive physical shapes, most of us do not. In fact, our lady Gabrielle chose a dove as her
mutatus.
If you are one of the few who can transform at will, you will find a shape that suits your abilities. Do not be surprised when it is one that you did not expect.”

Bliss was one of the lucky few. She found she could switch from girl to smoke and back again, and then tried out other forms—a white horse, a black crow, a spider monkey—

before settling into the shape of a golden lioness.

But Schuyler simply stood in the middle of the room, getting more and more frustrated with each failed attempt. “Maybe it’s because I’m half human,” she sighed when yet another try at forcing her matter to change into a different configuration resulted in her simply falling onto the floor, still herself.

“Hey, what’s wrong with being human?” Oliver asked, watching with fascination as Mimi Force transformed herself into a phoenix, a column of fire, and a red serpent in the space of three seconds. “Wow—she’s good.”

“Show-off,” Bliss hissed. “Don’t worry about her. And stop laughing, Ollie. You’re distracting Schuyler!” Bliss tried not to be too smug about her success, but it was satisfying to know that Schuyler wasn’t great at everything.

“Look, here’s what you do. You’re supposed to visualize your goal. You have to
be
the fog. Think like fog. Let your mind go blank. Can you feel it—a wispiness—it starts in the edge of your skin, and then …”

Schuyler obediently closed her eyes. “Okay, I’m thinking fog. Golden Gate. San Francisco. Little cat feet. I don’t know…it’s not happening.”

“Sshhhh,” Bliss admonished. She could already feel the transformation begin, could feel all her senses shift, could feel her very being disappear into a soft gray cloud. She was having fun imagining how she could use this new talent, when she had another vision. It hit her with a bang. The starkness of the image was like a punch in the gut.

Dylan.

If he’d looked merely disheveled before, he was worse now. His clothing was in tatters, his shirt ripped to shreds, his jeans torn, and his hair wild. He looked like he hadn’t eaten or slept in weeks. He was standing in front of the school gates, shaking the bars and raving like a madman.

“What’s wrong?” Schuyler asked immediately when Bliss stumbled.

“Dylan. He’s here.”

That was all she needed to say.

The three of them ran out of the Committee meeting, ignoring the curious faces of the other members, leaving the library, and running down the stairs. Their vampire speed meant Schuyler and Bliss arrived at the gates ahead of Oliver, who was gasping as he tried to keep up with them.

Duchesne was located on a quiet corner of Ninety-sixth Street, on Prep School Row.

Since it was mid-afternoon, the streets were practically deserted, save for a nanny or two pushing a stroller toward the park.

The boy who stood in the middle of the sidewalk violently shaking the gates looked like a prophet from a bygone age, a throwback to a time of preachers and pontificators, when ragged men warned about the End Of The World. There was almost no sign of the teenage boy who had wanted to grow up to play guitar like Jimi Hendrix and had been the instigator of countless pranks.

“ABOMINATION!” he thundered when he saw them.

“It’s my fault,” Bliss cried, already close to tears at the sight of Dylan. “I know I promised I was going to tell the Conclave about him, but I couldn’t. And I didn’t check up on him … I left him and I ignored him … I wanted him to just go away. It’s all my fault.”

“No, it’s mine,” Schuyler said. “I was going to tell Lawrence, but—”

“It’s all our fault,” Oliver said firmly. “We should have done something about him, but we didn’t. Look, we’ve got to get him out of here. People are going to start asking questions,”