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CHAPTER 5

Mi into so a new planet Everyone’s internal world is different and unique Some are cluttered, stuffed with dark and kinky secrets pushed to the edge of their minds, like racy underwear and handcuffs shoved in the back of a closet So bunnies and falling snowflakes Those are rare This guy’s psyche looked pretty standard, and Miate him, his childhood home A suburban kitchen: white tiles, Forsley pulled up a stool across frololom did that to vampires: made them look even more beautiful than they already were

"What are you talking about?" the guy asked, a confused look on his face ’show him"

Mimi found the memory and played it on the television set on the kitchen counter

"You resley asked as they observed Frat Boy step out onto a hotel balcony and watch a tall ates "You reme for over a year The eleven-year-old girl had been kidnapped frohtered at a party by Silver Bloods

The Venators had scanned the ht the little girl had disappeared, every guest, every staff uards to the chambermaids, with no luck The Llewellyns had been too traumatized to be of much help Which was understandable, but still useless No one knew anything, no one re in front of the That you saw this sley said ’this man does not exist You lied to us"

"But I don’t smoke," Frat Boy protested "I don’t remember this at all What is this? Who are you?" In the bar, Mi to stir They didn’t have much time

"Why did you lie to us? Answer the question?" Kingsley barked For months they had tracked down every man who had stayed in the hotel who fit the description Frat Boy had given the executives, businessnificance had turned up After the better part of a year, they began to wonder if they were chasing a ghost, a phantoe Just yesterday the Conclave had ordered theone, case closed But Kingsley decided they needed to pay their witness another visit

"Let sley asked

"Nobody I don’t knohat you want ht I don’t even re in my mom’s kitchen?"

"Why were you in Rio?" Ted Lennox asked etting married" he slurred "We were there for the bachelor party"

"You went all the way to Rio for a bachelor party? You?" Mi down at his prone foruy looked like the farthest he ever traveled was the corner 7-Eleven

"Hey, I lived in New York not too long ago I was a banker We alent ahenever anyone got as Punta Cana But then I lost my job and had to move back in with my parents Don’t be a hater now"

"Laid off "? Sam Lennox asked

"No just I don’t res that well anyone back So on the side of his skull with a worried look on his face

Co about the witness did seeuy they had questioned a year ago had been much more articulate and alert, e that they had tracked him down in the boondocks She had assumed anyone who stayed at such a fancy hotel also ca," Sam said "Look at his prefrontal cortex It’s clear"

"He doesn’t reain," Kingsley said ’this doesn’t make sense"

Mimi pulled up the memory for a second time The four of them watched it intently It was the saht, his prefrontal cortex showed the guy wasn’t lying when he said he didn’t remember it

"Oh, dear lord How could we have sley said, e of the picture

Then she sahat Kingsley saw: a slight tear on the border of the guy’s memory It was like a seam that had been repaired It was so fine, and so well done, you would never even notice it Whoever had done this was good You needed to be lom to pull this offA false h to have fooled a tea false erous It couldlunatics, unable to distinguish fact fro city banker into a slacker who lived with his parents

"Let hisley said wearily

Mimi nodded She released her hold on his mind, and the four of them stepped back into the real world Their witness was slu

This was no suspect This was a victim

CHAPTER 6

Bliss

Every day since thaton the mountaintop in the middle of Corcovado, the hunchbacked mountain, Bliss had to ask herself three important questions

Who am I? Where am I? What happened to me?

She’d started the practice one day not too long ago when she’d woken up to find she couldn’t remember why she was so sad Then the next day, she couldn’t remember whether or not she was an only child But what really scared her was the day she’d looked in the er She had no clue who the girl with the red hair was And that’s when she got the idea to ask herself the three questions every

If she didn’t take the time to remember who she had been, then the Visitor would take over coirl who had once failed her driving test in an old 1950s Cadillac convertible, would be no longer Not even this half-faded ered in a small corner of her brain

So They were in the Ha up for breakfast; her servant was calling for her No; not her servant?her father ’servant? was the Visitor’s word for Forsyth, not hers Sometimes that happened Sometimes she would find she could hear the Visitor so clearly But then a door would slaain The Visitor had access to her past, to her entire life, but she had no entree to his His conversations with Forsyth were behind a closed door, his thoughts hidden in shadow

A part of her was relieved that the Visitor did not talk to her anymore She dimly remembered that there had been little conversations between them once, but those had ceased Now there was just silence She understood it was because he didn’t need to coer to assu her blackouts, but now he did not need them to do what he pleased He was in the driver’s seat Still, she wasn’t exactly abandoned on the side of the road, either She had answered the first question successfully, hadn’t she?

She was Bliss Llewellyn The daughter of Senator Forsyth Llewellyn and stepdaughter of the late Bobi Anne Shepherd She had grown up in Houston until her family moved to Manhattan soon after her fifteenth birthday She was a student at the Duchesne School on E 96th Street, and her favorite hobbies were, in no particular order: cheerleading, shopping, and ht There had to be ain Okay Her narand house in Houston’s River Oaks neighborhood, but her favorite part of Texas was her Pop-Pop’s ranch, where she would ride horses over lush prairies blanketed ildflowers Her favorite subject in school was Art Huallery or, barring that, become a curator at the Met

She was Bliss Llewellyn, and right now she was in the Hamptons An upscale beach co on traffic) where people froet away from it all" only to find theust in the Hamptons was as frantic as September in New York Back when she was still just Bliss and not a vessel for evil (or VFE, as she had coh instead of cry), her step to do" Bobi Anne had been big on ’the thing to do" and had coe list of dos and don’ts &uazine editor in a for about Bobi Anne was that she always tried so hard to be fashionable and always ended up the coes froan to flood her brain She was an athletic girl, and had spent the threeto surf She had broken her right wrist again that year The first three ti, and tennis This time she’d fractured it for a stupid Hamptons-style reason She’d tripped on her new Louboutin platforms and landed on her wrist

Now that she had answered the first and second questions in detail, she had no choice but to move on to the third And it was always the third question that was the most difficult to answer

What happened to s Bliss felt herself grow cold It was funny how she could still feel things, how the ghost-h each of her senses lingered She could feel her phanto an ordinary life: eating chocolates, walking the dog, listening to the sound of the rain as it dru the softness of a cotton pillowcase against her cheek

But she couldn’t dwell on that Right now there were things she did not want to remember, but she had to force herself to try

She reloved doores were sent up quickly She re friends at school: Mihed at her white leather handbag Mi at the same time But she’d had other friends, hadn’t she? Yes, of course she had There was Schuyler Van Alen, who had beco she was, or how beautiful, and Oliver Hazard-Perry, the human boy with the wry sense of humor and the iht at a club, shared cigarettes in an alley, and a boy She hadlimp in her arms Dylan Ward She felt nu now What had happened in Rio Everything The killing Lawrence Running down the hill, away from Sky and Oliver because she did not want them to see her face, to see her for who she really was

Silver Blood spawn

With Forsyth, she had returned to New York for Bobi Anne’s funeral A memorial, really, because like the other dearly departedto bury There was nothing left of Bobi Anne, not even a singed lock of her highlighted hair A giant blown-up glamour shot on an easel took the place of a coffin at the front of the altar The photograph showed her stepmother at her finest azine

The funeral had been packed The entire Blue Blood community had coainst the Silver Bloods Mimi had been there with her twin brother, Jack They had offered her words of solace and comfort