Masquerade

After mastering the first principle of the glom, Schuyler had moved on to the second principle: suggestion. The second tenet was the ability to plant a seed of an idea in another mind.

"It is how we push the Red Bloods to strive for excellence, art, and beauty," her grandfather revealed. "We use the suggestion. It is a useful tool. Most people don't like to think their ideas are not theirs, so we suggest them instead. If we did not, the humans would have never had the New Deal, Social Security, or even Lincoln Center."

Suggestion was even more complicated than telepathy. Lawrence explained that one had to do it subtly, so the human would not feel as if they were being manipulated. "Subliminal advertising was invented by one of our kind, of course, but when the Red Bloods discovered it, they immediately forbade its use. A pity."

The night before, Lawrence had asked her to suggest something to Anderson. After several hours of Schuyler attempting to not only find the target signal, but to send something to it, Anderson suddenly stood up and said that he felt like a cup of tea, and did anyone else want one?

When he left, Lawrence looked over at his granddaughter.

"That was you, wasn't it?"

Schuyler nodded. It had taken almost all of her strength to send one simple request.

"Good. Tomorrow we will move from afternoon delicacies to more important matters."

The next day at school, the effort it had taken to perform the suggestion took its toll on Schuyler. As she walked down the back hallways after third period, she suddenly began to feel woozy. She swooned and would have tumbled down the back stairs, had Jack Force not been there to catch her.

"Hold on," he said. "Are you okay?"

Schuyler opened her eyes. Jack was looking at her, con- cerned.

"I just lost my footing...I fainted."

The girls on the stairway behind her exchanged knowing smiles. Fainting was a regular occurrence at the school, and a telltale sign of anorexia. Of course Schuyler Van Alen was suffering from an eating disorder. Everyone could tell the bitch was too skinny.

"Let me take you home," Jack said, lifting her to her feet.

"No--Oliver--my Conduit--he can...and really, it's nothing, just I've been working too hard on the glom," she said, half delirious.

"I believe Oliver is currently giving a presentation in English class," Jack said. "But I can call for him if you'd like."

Schuyler shook her head. No, it wasn't fair to ask Ollie to take a bad grade just because she felt ill.

"C'mon, let me put you in a cab and get you home safe."

Lawrence was writing in his study when Hattie knocked on the door. "Miss Schuyler is back, sir. It seems she had an episode at school."

He walked down the stairs to find Jack Force holding Schuyler in his arms. Jack explained that Schuyler had fallen asleep in the cab on the way home. "I'm Jack Force, by the way," he said as an introduction.

"Yes, yes. I know who you are. Just put her down on the couch, there's a good lad," Lawrence instructed, leading Jack into the living room. Jack placed Schuyler gently on a velvet- upholstered pan, and Lawrence covered her with an afghan blanket.

Schuyler's skin was so pale it was transparent, and her dark lashes were wet against her cheek. She was breathing in irregular, tortured gasps. Lawrence put a cool hand on her hot forehead and asked Hattie to bring a thermometer. "She's burning up," he said in a tense voice.

"She fainted at school," Jack explained. "She seemed all right in the cab, and then she said she felt sleepy, and...well...you can see."

Lawrence's frown deepened.

"She's been working on the glom, she said." Jack looked sharply at Lawrence out of the corner of his eye.

"Yes, we were practicing." Lawrence nodded. He sat next to his granddaughter and gently inserted a thermometer between her parched lips.

"That's against Committee rules," Jack noted.

"I don't recall you ever caring very much for rules, Abbadon," Lawrence said. Neither of them had acknowledged their former friendship until then. "You, who stood with us at Plymouth at great cost to your own reputation."

"Times change," Jack muttered. "If what you say is true, then she has been weakened by your own hand."

Lawrence pulled the thermometer out of Schuyler's mouth. "One hundred and twelve," he said matter-of-factly. A temperature that would certainly spell imminent death or permanent damage to a mortal. But Schuyler was a vampire, and it was still within an acceptable range for her kind. "A tad high, perhaps," Lawrence pronounced. "But nothing a good rest won't cure."

A few minutes later, Schuyler woke up to find Jack and her grandfather looking at her keenly. She shivered underneath the wool blanket and pulled it around her shoulders tightly.

"My dear, has this happened before?"

"Sometimes," Schuyler acknowledged softly.

"After lessons?"

Schuyler nodded. She hadn't admitted it, because she wanted the lessons to continue.

"I should have seen this. The first time this happened-- when you went into hibernation that was several days after you chased me in Venice, was it not?"

Schuyler nodded. She remembered what Dr. Pat had said: Sometimes it's a delayed reaction.

"I have figured out why you are so weak," Lawrence said. "I chastise myself for not realizing the problem earlier. It's simple. By exercising your vampire powers, your blue-blood cells are working overtime, and since your red-blood cells aren't high to begin with because of the mixed nature of your blood composition --your energy flags. There is only one solution to keep your blood counts in the normal range. You must take a human familiar."

"But I'm not even eighteen," Schuyler protested, citing the age of consent for the Sacred Kiss. "I was kind of planning on waiting."

"This is serious, Schuyler. I've already lost your mother to a coma, I don't want to lose you as well. While you possess certain special powers that vampires your age wouldn't even dream of having, in many ways, you are also much weaker than the average Blue Blood. You cannot escape from the progress of the transformation, but you can control some of its more adverse effects. You must take a familiar sooner than eighteen. A human boy. For your own sake."

Jack cleared his throat, and Schuyler was surprised to see him there. He had been so quiet during her grandfather's lecture. "I think I'll take your leave, Lawrence. Schuyler."

The door to the room opened just as Jack was about to exit.

Oliver Hazard-Perry stood in the doorway, looking flus- tered at seeing Jack. "I heard Schuyler had to go home from school. I was worried, I came as soon as I could."

The three vampires looked at him, all with the same thought on their minds.

Oliver was a human boy. A Red Blood. And Schuyler needed a familiar....

"What?" Oliver asked, when no one replied. "Do I smell or something?"