Blue Bloods

CHAPTER 21

Once the meeting was adjourned, Bliss was still reeling from everything she'd learned. She was a vampire, or as she corrected herself; a "vam-pyre," which meant fire angel in the Old Tongue, a Blue Blood. One of the undead. So that explained the memories, the nightmares. The voices in her head. It was strange to think of her blood as alive, but that's what they said—that they had all lived before, a long time ago, and were called into service when they were needed. One day they would be in command of all their memories and would learn how to use them.

The knowledge brought a profound feeling of relief. So she wasn't insane. She wasn't losing her mind. What happened at the Met the other afternoon, when she'd blacked out before kissing Dylan, was probably just part of the whole process. That's what Dr. Pat had meant. So she was normal. She was supposed to feel dizzy and sick. After all, her body was changing, her blood was changing. Maybe now that she understood why she was having them, her nightmares wouldn't scare her as much in the future.

Mimi was grinning from ear to ear when the meeting was over. She walked over to Bliss.

"Are you okay?" she asked gently. She knew it would take some getting used to. But finding out about being a Blue Blood was like a kind of graduation or something. When she and Jack had been inducted, their parents had thrown them a surprise party at the 21 Club.

Bliss nodded.

"C'mon," Mimi said. "Let's go get some steak tartare."

They walked a few blocks toward La Goulue, then took a table on the sidewalk. It was late afternoon, but it was still sunny and warm enough to sit outside. They ordered quickly.

"So, let me get this straight. We can't get killed?" Bliss asked, pulling her seat closer so that no one would overhear their conversation.

"No, we live forever," Mimi said airily.

"Like, forever?" Bliss didn't think she could handle that. How could she live forever exactly. Like, wouldn't she get all wrinkly and stuff?

"Like, forever," Mimi echoed.

"What about the silver stake through the heart?"

"Only if it's from Tiffany's!" Mimi cackled. She took a sip of her Pellegrino. "No, seriously, you've watched too much Bulb. There's nothing that can hurt us. But you know Hollywood. They had to think of ways to kill us off somehow. I don't know how we got such a bad rap." She smiled sweetly, a beautiful monster. "It's all created by The Conspiracy, you know. They like to mislead the Red Bloods."

Bliss's head swam. She still felt confused. "But we die after a hundred years?"

"Only the physical shell. If you choose. Your memories last forever, so you're never really dead," Mimi said, clutching the tiny green bottle of sparkling water and taking another gulp.

"What about sucking blood and all that?"

"It's fun," Mimi said, her eyes glazing over dreamily, thinking about her Italian hunk. "Better than sex."

Bliss blushed.

"Don't be such a prude. I've had tons of humans."

“You're like a vampire slut," Bliss joked.

Mimi's face darkened, but then she saw the humor in it. "Yeah, a real vamp, that's me."

Their food arrived—rare pink slices of tuna carpaccio for Mimi and a mound of steak tartare soaked in a raw egg for Bliss.

Bliss thanked whoever made eating uncooked beef not only acceptable but fashionable and dug into her entrée. She wondered how Dylan would feel if she wanted to make him her human familiar. Did she just, you know, start necking and then chomp on him?

The tables on the sidewalk were quickly filling up with diners from the surrounding neighborhood, mostly women in chic leather and suede coats and pristine denim trousers, holding bulging shopping bags from Madison Avenue stores, stopping by for a quick reprieve from an exhausting day of trying on clothes. Bliss looked around. Almost every table was picking at similarly uncooked foods. She wondered how many of them were Blue Bloods. Maybe all of them?

"What about the sun? Doesn't it like, kill us?" she asked, between bites. The steak melted on her tongue, cold and tart.

"Are you shriveling up and dying right now?" Mimi snickered. "All of us go to Palm Beach every Christmas. Hello!"

Bliss had to admit she wasn't. Dying, that is, from sun exposure. But she did get itchy, and told Mimi about that.

"You just have to see Dr. Pat. There's a pill you take if you're allergic. Some of us are; it's genetic. But you're lucky, the pill you get, it clears acne too. Isn't that great?"

Mimi put down her fork, wiped her lips with a napkin, then took out a Tweezerman file and began sharpening her back teeth with it.

"It's good for the fangs," she matter-of-factly informed Bliss.

Bliss was disconcerted. For a moment, she had looked past the Mimi sitting there and into the face of a person whom she felt she used to know.

"It happened, huh?"

"What?"

"You saw me. Or, you know, some version of me, in some past life of yours."

"Is that what it was?"

"Who was I?" Mimi asked, curious.

"Don't you know?"

Mimi sighed. "Not really. You can go into meditation and learn about your whole history, but it's kind of a pain. You don't really need to."

"You were getting married," Bliss said. "You were wearing a crown."

"Mmmm." Mimi smiled. "I wonder when that was. I don't remember that one. I've been married in Boston, Newport, and Southampton—the one in England, not Long Island. That's where we're from, you know. At least, until we came here. I remember when we settled Plymouth, do you? That's how far back I can go. For now."

But Bliss didn't tell Mimi that in her memory, she'd seen Mimi kissing her groom passionately. And that groom looked an awful lot like her brother, Jack. It was just too creepy. Maybe there was some kind of Blue Blood explanation for it, but for now, Bliss would keep the disturbing image to herself.