HAPTER 13

Bliss

"Listen! I am not going away until I see Bliss! I insist! You will have to call the police if you want me to leave?"

The voice was so strong, so aggressive and braying, so full of itself, brimming with the complete and total assumption that it was one hundred percent in the right, filled with the kind of New York arrogance that only a jaded city dweller could muster. It was the kind of voice that yelled at bike messengers and barked orders at scurrying underlings for half-caf no-foam ventis, so loud and insistent that it pierced through the muffled gauze that kept Bliss from seeing and hearing the outside world.

The Visitor stirred. It was like watching a coiled snake get ready to spring. Bliss held her breath.

The voice continued its tirade. "Can you at least tell her who's here?" What is the meaning of this nonsense?

Bliss jumped. It was the first time the Visitor had spoken directly to her in a year.

With a start, the lights came on, and she found she could see and was looking out the window. There was a short bald man standing at the front door, looking furious and harassing the maid.

"It's Henri", she said.

"Who is he?"

"My modeling agent."

"Explain."

Bliss sent images and memories to the Visitor: waiting outside the office at the Farnsworth Agency, her portfolio balanced on her knees, breakfast meetings with Henri over cappuccinos at Balthazar before school, walking the runway during New York fashion week, the photo shoots in the Starret-Lehigh lofts, her ad campaigns for Stitched for Civilization, jetting off for shoots in the Caribbean, her photographs on billboards, magazine spreads, plastered on the sides of buses and on top of taxis.

"Um, I'm a model?" she reminded him.

The cobra relaxed, coils unfurling, forked tongue withdrawn. But a tense wariness remained. The Visitor was not amused.

A model. A living mannequin.

Quickly he reached a decision. "Get rid of him. I have been remiss to let this happen. We shall keep up appearances. No one must suspect you are not you. Do not fail me."

"What do you mean?, what do you want me to do?", Bliss asked, but before she could finish, she was SMACK, back in her body, completely in control. This was nothing like last week's pathetic attempt to brush her bangs away from her forehead. She had realized how much of herself he was keeping from her, a thought she tried to shelter from him.

It was like coming back to life after being trapped in a coffin. She wobbled like a newborn colt. It was as if the world was coming into focus after years of watching a grainy, fuzzy movie version. She could smell the hollyhocks outside her window, she could taste the salt in the sea air.

Her hands, her hands were her own. They felt light and strong, not weighed down and heavy. Her legs were moving; she was walking! She tripped over the rug. Ouch! She pushed herself up and walked more carefully. But her freedom came at a price, for she sensed him, a presence, in the space just behind (that rear passenger seat), waiting, watching. This is a test, she thought. He wants to see what I'm going to do. I need to pass.... Get rid of Henri. But Henri must not suspect anything odd has happened to me.

She opened her bedroom door, savoring the feel of the cold bronze doorknob in her hand, and ran down the stairs.

"Wait! Manuela! Let him in?" she called, running to the foyer. It was a joy to hear her voice out in the world again, her wonderful throaty voice carrying in the air. It sounded different inside her head. She felt like singing.

"Bliss! Bliss?" the bald man cried. Henri looked exactly the same: the same rimless eyeglasses, the same monochromatic wardrobe. He was dressed all in white, in his summer uniform: a linen shirt and matching pants.

"Henri?"

Henri engulfed her in a flutter of air-kisses. "I've been trying to get in touch with you for months! Everyone feels terrible about what happened! Oh My God! I still can't believe it! I'm so glad to see you're okay! Can I come in?"

"Of course." She led him into the sun-drenched sitting room where the family received guests. Bobi Anne had gone a little overboard with the nautical theme. Scull oars were hung on the walls, the blue-and-white pillows were trimmed with rope, and there were miniature lighthouses everywhere.

Bliss asked the maid to bring refreshments, and settled into the cushions. Playing the grand hostess came easily; it helped that she had been raised to do this all her life. It stopped her from rubbing her bare feet against the throw rug and from bouncing up and down on the cushions.

She was alive! In her own body! Talking to a friend! But she composed her face as carefully as her thoughts. It would not do to look delirious and ecstatic when half her family was dead or missing. That would certainly arouse suspicion.

"First of all, I'm so sorry about Bobi Anne," Henri said, taking off his fancy eyeglasses and cleaning the lenses with the edge of his shirt. "You did get our flowers, right? Not that we were expecting a thank-you card or anything. Don't even worry about it."

Flowers? What flowers? Henri looked concerned when Bliss didn't answer, and she immediately covered up for her confusion, reaching for his hand.

"Of course! Of course? they were beautiful and so thoughtful."

Of course the agency had sent flowers for Bobi Anne's memorial. Through their conversation, Bliss gathered that the papers had explained the deaths of the Conclave by way of a fire at the Almeida villa. Arson was suspected, but with the slow-moving ways of the Policia, there was little hope that justice would ever be served.

The maid returned bearing a pitcher of Bobi Anne's favorite: Arnold Palmers half iced tea, half lemonade (made from lemons picked fresh from their orchard).

"I can't believe it's been a year since I've seen you?" Henri said, accepting a frosty glass filled with the amber drink.

A year!

That was a shock. Bliss almost dropped her glass, her hands were shaking so badly. She had had no idea so much time had passed since she was last in control of her body, of her life. No wonder she had so much trouble trying to remember things.

That meant she had missed her last birthday. The year she turned fifteen, her family had celebrated at the Rainbow Room. But there had been no one around to mark her Sweet Sixteen. Not even herself, she thought dryly. I wasn't even there for my own birthday. A whole year had gone by while she fought to hold on to a semblance of consciousness. She would never get it back, and time was more and more precious now.

A burning anger rose within her, she had been robbed of an entire year, but again, she suppressed it. She couldn't allow the passenger in the backseat to know how she felt. It was too dangerous. She would have to remain serene.

She turned to her agent, her friend, and tried to pretend she didn't feel like he had just punched her in the stomach.

CHAPTER 14

Mimi

Dawn was breaking over the hillsides. Another fruitless night in the slums. They had scanned every man, woman, and child in the designated area. Tomorrow they would do the same, starting in the northern slums in Jacarezinho. The team's spirits were starting to flag.

Mimi didn't think they were ever going to find Jordan. At least not in Rio. Kingsley put on a good show, but Mimi could tell he was frustrated.

"My instinct tells me I'm right, that she's here," he said as they walked quickly down through the maze of makeshift stairways cut into the hillside.

The narrow streets were empty, save for junkyard dogs and the occasional random rooster.

"The glom says you're wrong, boss," Mimi said. She knew he hated it when she called him that.

He spit out a wad of tobacco, a brown spittle that arched out of his mouth. Impressive, if it weren't so disgusting.

"I wish you wouldn't do that," Mimi said.

"Why not tell me what you wish I would do?" Kingsley smiled.

Mimi did not dignify his teasing with an answer. She wondered what it was like to be a reformed Silver Blood, whatever that meant. Did he still have a soul mate? Did the same rules apply? What did Silver Bloods do, anyway? Did they still need the Red Blood to survive? Or did they just live on caffeine and sugar?, which is what Kingsley seemed to subsist on. The guy was skinny, but he could eat a dozen doughnuts in one sitting.

"Cap," Ted Lennox called. "this little girl wants to talk to Force."

It was the same girl who had followed them earlier that evening. The one to whom Mimi had given the stuffed animal, which the little girl was hugging now.

"Sweetheart, what are you doing walking around by yourself?" Mimi asked. "You should be in bed. It's five in the morning."

"Senhora. Senhora. You are looking for someone, yes?" she said in halting Portuguese.

Mimi nodded. The Venators had a cover. If anyone asked for the reason they were in the slums, they played policemen on a missing person case.

"Yes. We are," Mimi replied in the girl's native language.

"A little girl like me."

"How did you know?" Mimi asked sharply. That wasn't part of the story. The fiction was that they were looking for a thief, a criminal, an escaped convict, a grown man. No one knew they were looking for a young girl, because then it would cause red herrings in the dreams. If the people knew what they were looking for, they would be sure to dream about it, and it would make the Venators' work that much harder.

"How did you know we were looking for a little girl?"

"Because she told me."

"Who told you? Told you what?" Mimi asked sharply.

The little girl shook her head, looking suddenly afraid.

"Did you scan her?" Kingsley asked with a tilt of his head.

Mimi nodded. That first night they'd arrived, she'd scanned all the kids. There had been nothing. But had she been thorough? Or had she been too gentle? The glom was unpredictable, some humans did not take well to the invasion of their consciousness. If they woke up during a session, there was a chance it could harm them, even drive them insane. Look what had happened to that so-called witness of theirs.

The Venators were skilled and meticulous, and hadn't damaged any Red Bloods so far. But maybe Mimi hadn't wanted to take that chance. Not with this little girl. She had done a cursory examination and had resisted probing the girl's core subconscious.

Sam removed a picture from his pocket. It was Jordan's school picture. She looked troubled and serious in her plaid uniform. "Have you seen her? Is she the one?"

The little girl nodded, clutching the stuffed puppy to her chest for dear life.

"Well, what do you know? Follow the little children, indeed," Kingsley said.

"Shush" Mimi chided. Her heart began to pound. Could it be possible that all along, the answer to their quest had been right in front of their noses? Following them every step of the way? When had the kids started following them? They had been there since the beginning, that first night. Could they have missed it because Mimi had been too weak, too much of a soft touch, to have scanned the girl correctly?

"Are you sure? Are you sure you have seen her?" Mimi wanted to shake the girl, although it was really herself she wanted to shake. She had let her feelings for the girl get in the way of her job. And since when did Azrael have feelings?

The little girl nodded. "Yes. That's her. Sophia." She called Jordan by her real name. Mimi felt chills up her spine.

Ted knelt before the girl. "How did you know her?"

"She lived over there," the little girl said. "with her grandma. We were scared of the lady. Sophia too."

"Where is she now?"

"I don't know. They took her."

"Who?"

The girl wouldn't say.

"Propon familiar," Mimi said gently, in the coercive tones of the sacred language. Tell your friends. She used compulsion. She didn't want to bring any harm to the girl, but they had to know. "Nothing will happen to you. Tell us what you remember."

"Bad people. A man and a woman. They took her away," the girl said in a flat voice. "On Monday."

The Venators exchanged sharp glances. They had arrived in Rio that day.

"And this grandmother of hers... is she still here?" Mimi asked.

"No. She went away a few days later." The little girl looked at them with large, fearful eyes. "Sophia said there would be people coming for her, good people and bad people. We weren't sure what kind you were at first. But she told us the good people would be with a beautiful lady, and you would give me a toy dog," the girl said haltingly.

"She told you we were coming?" Mimi demanded.

"When the good people come, she said to give them this." The little girl removed an envelope from her pocket. It was grubby and streaked with dirt. But the handwriting was beautiful calligraphy script, the kind usually found on ivory envelopes that announced a bonding.

It was addressed to Araquiel.

The Angel of Judgment, Mimi knew. Also called the Angel with Two Faces. The angel who carried both dark and light within him.

Kingsley Martin.