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CHAPTER 19

Bliss

Muffie Astor Carter (real name Muriel) was a Blue Blood in every sense of the word She was educated at Miss Porter’s and Vassar, and had worked in the publicity depart Dr Sheldon Carter, who had found faeon to the Park Avenue set Their bonding was one of the more controversial ones in recent memory, as it had taken each quite a few attempts to find the other He was her second husband and she his third wife

She was also one of New York’s most popular socialites Jealous rivals sniped that the public just took a liking to her naeously preppie it sounded like a joke But it was not; it was the real thing, like Muffie herself, who ee of brash nouveau-riche hordes adding "von? or ’de? to their names and who didn’t know a Verdura from a Van Cleef

Every year Muffie opened up her sprawling Hamptons estate, "Ocean’s End", for a fashion show to benefit the New York Blood Bank It was the highlight of the August social calendar Located at the end of Gin Lane, the property sprawled over six acres and included a uesthouse, a twelve-car garage, and staff quarters

The sweeping grounds featured two pools (saline and freshwater), tennis courts, a lily pond, and professionally rass was cut by hand, with scissors, every other day, to keep it at just the right length

Balthazar shook Bliss’s hand with a limp handshake and passed her on to Muffie with a wan s so well,Bliss the most insubstantial of embraces Muffie had a broad, recessed forehead with nary a wrinkle (her plastic-surgeon husband’s ) and the perfect blond coif pervasive on the Upper East Side She was the epitoraceful, and appropriate She was everything Bobi Anne had wanted to be but could nevernot to feel too aard "It’s good to be here"

"You’ll find the rest of thelate as usual," Muffie said cheerfully

Bliss walked toward the backstage area of the tent, swiping a canape frone froht: this was an easy gig It wasn’t a real fashion show, merely a presentation to wealthy clients in the name of charity Whereas a real fashion shoas a chaotic coy and anxiety, attended by hundreds of editors, retailers, celebrities, and covered by hundreds of o show on Muffie Carter’s estate was lorified trunk shoith models It was so odd to be back in the real world, to be walking on da on appetizers, and looking out at the Carters’ a over the horizon, and to find out that in some parts of the world, even their world, the world of the Committee and the Coven, there were soht disinterested in what had happened in Rio

Muffie and the other women on the Co up Bobi Anne’s death or the massacre of the Conclave Bliss understood that they si benefits, doing the rounds of couture shows, horse shows, and charity causes, which filled their days They did not seeht: they were in the deepest denial They didn’t want to accept the return of the Silver Bloods They didn’t want to accept the reality of what the Silver Bloods had done and were planning to do They were satisfied with their lives and they didn’t want anything to change

It had been so long since any of them had been warriors, soldiers, arainst the Dark Prince and his legions It was hard to iroup of underfed overly Botoxed socialites and their slacker children as hardened warriors in a war for heaven and earth It was as Cordelia had said to Schuyler: the vaent, more and more like humans every day, and less inclined to fulfill their heavenly destiny

It dawned on Bliss that this hat had set Cordelia and Lawrence apart, they cared They had kept their vigilance against the forces of hell and had sounded an alar The Van Alens were the exception to the norm It only made sense that Schuyler would be just like them Her friend had never felt coh she had been born into it But Schuyler wasn’t the only one Even Miotten their gloried past Just one look at the way Mih to convince anyone that there was more to that skinny bitch than just the capacity to shop

But these people, this self-satisfied group of elites who had barely even blinked at the news of the massacre, these people called themselves vampires?

"Exactly Just like the h to overcome when the tiotten used to being alone, and had forgotten that the Visitor could pop in at any time

CHAPTER 20

Mimi

El Sol de Ajuste was located in Cidada de Deus, The City of God, the notorious slums in the western part of the city that had inspired a major Hollywood movie and a subsequent television show, City of Men Of course, the real city was nothing like the cleaned-up Hollywood version, which was the equivalent of a ’slu fashionable grittiness The reality of poverty wase, the bare-bottoarettes; the way no one batted the flies away, they ay past caring about so more than a tin shack, a lean-to with a roof and a wooden counter pocked with holes When Mihs were harassing the barback, the boy who cleaned the counters and sopped up the spilled beer with ragged towels Mi members’ cheeks: they were meang, and responsible for hetto This was going to be interesting

"Voc? deve tr’s pesos?" the barback insisted You owe hed and cursed at the boy, pushing hiainst the wall

The elderly proprietor stood behind the table, looking frightened and annoyed to find his e his se, black-clad foreigners

"Can I help you?" he huffed in Portuguese, keeping an eye on the kid "You! Leave histers tripped the boy, sending hi facedown on the floor

In answer, the fat bully gave the cowering boy a sharp kick in the head There was a sickening crunch of a steel-toe boot against bone, and in a quickhad a knife to the bartender’s throat "You got so to say to us, old sley ordered in a quiet voice

"Piss off," the leader said He was a skinny kid with a pock in the back He held up his auto lords acted as an unofficial police presence in the shantytowns, playing judge and executioner at their whim But the only law they upheld was their own

"Happy to, as soon as you let these good people go," Kingsley said s ht for the sorry group of Red Bloods If the vampires wanted to, they could destroy everyone in the roo Mimi could see it already: a pile of corpses on the floor