16
The Network used her as a thief at first. It was a welcome return to her old life, even if she didn’t have her old partner.
A teenager now, Nicky became a professional burglar. She broke into the homes of Washington royalty, the offices of global corporations, the halls of power. She worked with teams of Network agents who disabled alarms, security cameras, magnetic locks, and whatever else was in her way, and when she got inside, she stole data.
In Virginia, she broke into the home of a former Congressman and gave the Network access to his computer. In Los Angeles, she broke into the house of a Hollywood producer known for hosting lavish parties that frequently included members of the Samarin clan, and she bugged the place, giving the Network clear-as-crystal audio surveillance of the entire house. In Houston, she sat outside the Ventigen pharmaceutical plant and took pictures of everyone who came and went.
For four years Nicky traveled the world doing secret ops for the Network, and while she couldn’t really say she was happy with the life, at least she was satisfied. She felt like her work honored the memory of Frankie and her father, like it was what she was meant to do.
She was in Seattle when Gia called her about the Thorndike assignment.
“Nicky, an opportunity has opened up to do something tremendous,” Gia said. “We want you to do it. This job is, without question, the most important one the Network has ever assigned. I need you to come to Washington right away.”
Another new town, two new parents and a new extended family, a new house, new cars, a totally new life to learn and absorb as if it were her own, and another new name.
“We keep your first name in your alias,” Gia explained to her. “Your first name is so closely tied to your brain’s vision of who you are that a vampire can sense if you’re faking it. Even when we rework your identity, you’ll still be Nicky. For as long as you work for the Network, you’ll always be Nicky.”
Nicky thought about asking Gia if it mattered that her real name, her birth name, was Celeste, but decided to say nothing. She’d stared down Melissa Mayhew as Nicky and lived to tell about it. She could do the same for whoever else she encountered at Thorndike.
That summer before Nicky’s admission to Thorndike was as fast-paced and purposeful as the search for Frankie and her dad had been agonizing and slow. The entire energy of the Network was aimed at securing the surprise opening in the Thorndike Senior Class for Nicky, and she was in the middle of everything. She had to meet with the Network’s computer hackers, who were creating the paper trail for Nicky Bloom and her fictional family. She had to work with Network strategists who, with lots of input from Jill, gave this fictional family the perfect history to draw the attention of Thorndike’s Admissions Committee.
She and her make-believe parents had to attend private dinner parties, in character, to grease the palms of the people on the Admissions Committee who made the final decisions. She had to help spy on her competitors for the open spot, as the success of the entire mission rested on the Network’s ability to stay ahead of the many wealthy families who would give anything to get their daughters into Thorndike.
It was Jill’s idea to turn the Renwicks into unwitting allies on that front.
“Rather than all of us looking for dirt on the other girls competing for the spot, dirt which their families are certain to have hidden away where we can’t find it, why not have the best dirt digger in Washington do the work for us?” Jill said. “What we need to do is make the Renwicks suspect that Nicky is the least likely of all the applicants to enter the contest. We need to make it clear to Kim and Galen Renwick that Nicky is the only girl in the game who couldn’t possibly wear black to Homecoming.”
One by one, Jill slipped little bits of fiction into the lives of the other girls vying for the open spot, putting those tidbits in places where Galen Renwick would see them and hopefully act on them. For the daughter of a Senator from Illinois, Jill used a phishing scam to steal her social media passwords, then quietly put mentions of Coronation, Sergio Alonzo, and a desire to live forever into her online history. For a wealthy girl from South Carolina, Jill cut and paste the girl’s face onto a security camera photo from a shop on Rodeo drive, making it look like the girl had flown across country to try on expensive black dresses. Jill sent that photo anonymously to a gossip blogger with the subject line, “Planning for Homecoming Already?”
Nicky would have loved to watch all these shenanigans play out – she got a kick out of watching Jill work. But Nicky had her own tasks to attend to, and of those, one of the most important was assembling her look for Homecoming.
“We need to put something together that you really like,” Gia said. “If you feel beautiful, you’ll look beautiful. So, imagine that money is no object and you can have any dress, any accessory, any look at all that you want. What would you choose?”
Nicky didn’t hesitate. For her, the ideal of beauty was the silver cuff bracelet she had worn many years ago after robbing little Timothy’s house in Dallas. Of all the trinkets and keepsakes she had lost when Melissa Mayhew stole her away in the night, she missed that bracelet most.
The Network hired a silversmith to create a new bracelet for her. Nicky had the silversmith make earrings and a necklace to match the bracelet, and she let that jewelry guide the creation of her outfit.
“I wonder if the silver jewelry implies you are second best to Kim,” Gia said. “Kim will be wearing gold. If you’re wearing silver, I just wonder if students will think of gold and silver medalists.”
“Or maybe that’s what we want them to think,” Nicky said. “The other students will see Kim wearing her gold jewelry and think about how this contest has been hers to lose since birth, about how her family crushed anyone who might have challenged her and now she stands alone, higher than everyone else, like a gold medal winner on a podium. If I’m wearing silver, they’ll see some humility. But more than that, they’ll know that Kim already sees herself as the winner. They will be excited at the thought of knocking her off the medal stand. Besides, I really like this bracelet.”
“Fair enough,” said Gia, “but that bracelet….it seems too old for you.”
“It’s not. It’s perfect for me.”
“Just my opinion. Take it or leave it.”
“I’ll leave it.”
“I figured as much.”
Gia was learning not to argue with Nicky. If the Network wanted her in on this operation, then they had to let her do it her way.
Besides, the bracelet wasn’t old, it was classic. A tasteful silver cuff never went out of style. Nicky could have built an attractive, contemporary outfit around it.
But she didn’t. She went retro.
With the Network’s help, Nicky found a vintage clothing specialist in Arlington named Tommy Yuen, who was thrilled to help Nicky create a throwback look for the Thorndike Homecoming.
“I think it’s a brilliant idea,” Tommy said. “I’ve heard that the Thorndike masquerade ball is quite the affair, and students get totally decked out. We’ll find you a dress that will be unlike anything anyone else has on, that’s for sure.”
“Sounds great,” Nicky said, “so long as we’re discrete. I don’t want anyone to know who I am or what I’m looking for.”
“Girl, I know how this goes and you can count on me. I never disclose the names of my clients, and my sources know better than to ask. No one wants to be the bitch who wore someone else’s dress.”
A month later Tommy found the Francesco.
“In the fifties, Francesco Rivelli dominated the runways of Milan and Paris,” Tommy said, holding up the dress. “For my money, no dress he ever designed topped this one. He called it ‘Midnight.’”
Midnight was a sleek, sleeveless V-neck that tied at the waist and begged to be worn.
“Where did you find this?” Nicky asked.
“A collector in Paris had it in storage,” said Tommy. “When he died, his niece inherited it. She knew it was something spe
cial, but based on what she was asking for it, she didn’t know how special.”
“How much was she asking for it?” asked Nicky.
“A thousand,” said Tommy, “but I couldn’t do that to her. This dress is worth fifty times that much. I gave her five.”
“And I’ll give you ten if you can find me some shoes to match,” said Nicky.
The shoes Tommy found more than matched. More than complemented even. They expanded on the whole look. They added a flair to the outfit that Nicky knew would stand out in the ballroom.
The shoes were black suede ankle-strap pumps with six-inch heels and bright red soles.
“Red, huh?” Nicky said, looking at the bottoms of the shoes and wondering what the other students would think.
“Red from behind,” Tommy said. “Red to catch the eyes of those people who are checking out your backside. This red is for the boys in the ballroom whose eyes start at the back of your neck, pause on your butt, and gaze down your legs. Right when their eyes reach your feet, they get a big surprise. Totally sexy, like a red light telling them to stop where they are because you’re too hot for them to get any closer.”
Nicky laughed. “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to walk in these shoes,” she said, gazing at the heels.
“Take them home now and practice,” said Tommy. “I’ll get to work on your makeup.”
“You do makeup?” Nicky asked.
“I do a lot of things,” said Tommy. “And, at this point, I’m not letting anyone else touch you. I’ve got a vision for you, and some other makeup clown might not understand what we’re going for here.”
“What are we going for here?”
“Audrey Hepburn in a mask.”
“I like that,” Nicky said.
“Everyone else is going to like it too,” said Tommy.
As August rolled around, everything started coming together. With a lot of help from the Renwicks, who viewed Nicky as the safest choice for the open spot, Nicky was enrolled at Thorndike. Tommy completed the final details of Nicky’s outfit for Homecoming. All the secret additions to the Bloom family mansion in Bethesda, additions like steel bars that fell over the windows once Sergio was inside, were completed. With only a few weeks left before school started, Nicky’s final task was to hide in her beautiful bedroom and memorize the enormous briefing book that told her anything and everything the Network thought she needed to know.
She was seated at her antique mahogany desk, reading Chapter One, when Gia interrupted her.
“May I come in?” Gia asked.
In her right hand, Gia carried a little booklet, which she now handed to Nicky.
“You’re not giving me another book to read, are you?” Nicky asked.
“This is important info that isn’t in your briefing book,” Gia said.
Nicky sighed as she opened the booklet. The title page read The Notes of Abbot Edward Schneider.
“Nicky, at the Homecoming Ball, Sergio Alonzo is going to dance with you,” Gia said. “And when he does, he’s going to want to get in your mind.”
“I thought that was why you chose me,” Nicky said. “Because he won’t be able to get in.”
“Yes, but what if he realizes you’re keeping him out,” Gia said.
“Melissa Mayhew never did.”
“Melissa Mayhew sees and reprograms twenty little kids a day. To her, they come and go, and it probably never entered her mind that it was even possible that one of those kids would be immune to her charms. Sergio is different. Homecoming is the only time he is ever called upon to do any mind control.”
“What’s he going to try to do to me, anyway?”
“His job is to make sure the loser shows up for the Coronation ceremony. Sergio dances with all the girls wearing black, and puts a command in each of their minds that, even if they lose, they will see this through to the bitter end.”
“He makes them come to their own funeral,” Nicky said.
“Exactly,” said Gia. “It’s so important to Daciana that he does this that the dance cannot end until Sergio has been with every girl. When he’s done dancing with you, he’s going to pin a white corsage to your chest. That’s the orchestra’s signal that his work with you is done. The orchestra won’t play the final song until all the girls wearing black have a corsage.”
“So, this book, The Notes of--”
“Nicky, when I tried to hypnotize you, I knew right away that I wasn’t getting in,” Gia said. “A skilled hypnotist knows what signs to look for. Your eyes dilate, your pulse slows down, your breathing becomes slow and rhythmic. With you, nothing like that happened. But there are ways of getting those effects while still operating entirely with your conscious mind. In that book, Abbot Schneider describes how he used meditation to bring about the physical effects of hypnosis, even when he wasn’t hypnotized. He used a mantra, a three-word phrase, and taught his brain to slow down his heart rate and his breathing whenever he repeated the phrase to himself. He would do this when he was in the room with vampires. He said it makes them implicitly trust you. He would approach the vampires as a friend and they would let him get close when his body was in this state. Something about a slow heart rate and deep, regular breathing puts the vampires at ease. Abbot Schneider said it was like their own bodies were mimicking his, and the vampires would let their guard down. This was how he was able to get close enough to stab them in the heart.”
“Okay,” said Nicky, flipping through the pages of the booklet. It was a very strange text, written almost like an autobiography.
On the fourth day of the third month I had an appointment with the Duchess of Canterbury, Nicky read. I knew that she was ever-living, but she did not know that I knew.
“How easy is this skill to learn?” Nicky asked.
“A lot of operatives like to study this book, and some claim they can bring down their heartrate, but only the Abbot was able to do it when he was in the room with a vampire. We don’t need to master this skill anymore. The Abbot had to get really close to make a kill. He didn’t have the automatic weapons or the computer-controlled traps that we use now. But for you, Nicky…I don’t know, I think this might be something useful for you to learn. I think you were lucky that Melissa wasn’t paying close enough attention to realize her reprogramming wasn’t working. I don’t want to count on you getting lucky again. I’d rather have you prepared.”
“Alright then,” Nicky said. “I’ll read the book.”
Part 3
Intermission
17
Breathe in me.
It is a phrase from many centuries past, read Page 4 from Abbot Schneider’s book. The clerics spoke the words to themselves to call upon the Holy Ghost. They wanted the spirit to breathe in them, to take away their fears and give them the strength to fight these monsters from hell.
Abbot Schneider began and ended every day with the words, repeating them to himself until he was in a sort of trance. He claimed to have trained his mind to respond to the words so quickly that he only needed to say them to himself once and his heart rate would slow down.
Nicky too said the mantra every morning and night. She sat up in bed and focused on the words, listening to their sound in her mind, trying to let them relax her body. She wore a heart rate monitor Gia had given her to check her progress. According to the monitor, the words had no effect on her at all.
As August rolled into September and the school year began, Nicky got too busy to spend any more time on the Abbot’s little mantra, and she gave up.
Now, having made it through the first hour of the Homecoming Masquerade, moments removed from Art and Rosalyn’s attempted wine-spill sabotage, Nicky found the words rolling around in her mind as she walked.
Breathe in me breathe in me.
She was approaching the bar. Ryan was sitting alone. Nicky was eying the empty stool right next to him.
Breathe in me breathe in me.
She was nervous, that’s why the words had popped in her mind. She wa
s trying to calm herself down.
Breathe in me breathe….oh stop it, Nicky. Why in the world are you nervous now? The hard part of the night is over. You came in wearing black, you stood up to Kim, you worked the room, now you’re going to talk to Ryan.
But why? There was no good reason to talk to Ryan. He had rejected her, definitively and without hesitation. He wouldn’t be coming to her party tonight. He wouldn’t be supporting her in the contest. She needed to cut him loose from the plan and move on to somebody else.
So why was she making a beeline for that empty seat right next to him? And why did the thought of speaking with him now make her feel nervous, so nervous that she felt compelled to speak Abbot Schneider’s mantra to herself as she walked?
Nicky’s butt was barely on the empty stool before Ryan was standing to leave.
“Don’t go yet,” Nicky said. “I came here to talk to you.”
“I think it would be best if we just stayed away from each other,” Ryan said.
“Is that you talking, or Kim?” said Nicky.
Ryan looked straight ahead for a second, then got back in his seat.
“Who do you think it was?” he asked.
“Those were Kim’s words, not yours,” Nicky said. “She’s told you to stay away from me, hasn’t she?”
Ryan nodded.
“What in the world does she have on you that would make you behave like this?” Nicky asked.
“Nothing you need to worry about,” said Ryan. “Just know that you’re not going to change my mind, no matter what.”
“I get that. I didn’t come over here to change your mind,” Nicky said.
“Then why did you?”
It was a good question. Why did she come over here? To be seen with him? Maybe. But whatever value there was in that was offset by the risk. Ryan had nearly stood up and left the moment Nicky arrived. With all the people watching – a snub like that would have been disastrous. It was only because Nicky had challenged his manhood, reminded him that Kim was holding him on a short leash, that he was still here.
The Homecoming Masquerade Page 11