Masquerade

 

Winter finally arrived in New York in earnest, unleashing several storms. The city was covered by a pristine blanket of snow for several days, until it turned to gray and yellow mush, creating impromptu snowbanks around the sidewalks and muddy puddles that hardy citizens either jumped across or grimly splashed through in salt-caked rubber boots.



Schuyler was glad for the cold, as the weather reflected her current mood. The holidays were a typically quiet time for the Van Alens. In the past, she and Cordelia would attend services at St. Bartholomew's across town, then have a modest repast at midnight on Christmas Eve.



As she did every year, she spent this Christmas Day with her mother at the hospital. Julius and Hattie had the day off to be with their families, so she had taken the bus all the way uptown by herself. The hospital was practically abandoned when she arrived. There was one sleepy guard at the front desk and a skeletal crew of nurses anxious to finish their shifts. She noticed the staff had tried to infuse the place with some Christmas cheer. There were wreaths on each door, and a lone Charlie Brown --like Christmas tree with brown branches stood in the middle of the nurse's station, along with a flickering menorah.



Her mother was asleep on the bed as usual. Nothing had changed. Schuyler placed another unopened gift by her mother's bedside. Through the years, Schuyler's presents collected more and more dust in her mother's closet.



Dusting off the snow, she removed her coat, and stuffed her wool cap and gloves in its pockets. If Cordelia had been there she would have set out their Christmas lunch, removing turkey and stuffing, ham and hot rolls from Tupperware containers Hattie had prepared. Hattie had made up the same meal for Schuyler to bring, but eating it without Cordelia correcting her on her table manners or snapping at the nurses to bring her porcelain, not plastic, plates just wasn't the same.



She turned on the television and settled in to eat her lonely lunch and watch another rerun of It's a Wonderful Life. The movie never failed to make her more depressed, since there was no happy ending for Allegra that she could see.



Oliver had invited her to spend the day with his family, but she had declined. Whatever family she had left in the world was in this lonesome hospital room. This was where she belonged Across town on the Upper East Side, the great houses and lavish apartments were empty of their residents. The Forces had already left on their Gulfstream IV for their annual sojourn, shipping their beachwear via FedEx to their villa in St. Barths, where they would spend the first week of the break, and sending their ski gear to their Aspen cottage for the second half of their vacation. The Llewellyns were off to Texas to visit family for Christmas and were meeting up with the Forces in Aspen for New Year's.



Even Oliver's family had made plans for a beach getaway to the family compound in Tortola, but he had opted to stay in the city to be close to Schuyler.



He planned to visit the Van Alen town house the day after Christmas with an abundance of presents. They always spent Boxing Day together. Oliver liked to bring over a crusty baguette, French butter--the real kind, he stressed, nothing like the bland American versions--several jars of premium Russian caviar from Petrossian, as well as a magnum of champagne from his parents' wine cellar for their post-Christmas feast.



But on the morning of the twenty-sixth, just as Oliver had packed the picnic basket with treats and was about to leave, he received a frantic call from Hattie, the Van Alen's maid.



"Mr. Oliver, you come, you come right now," she begged.



Oliver immediately jumped into a cab and arrived at the brownstone, to find Hattie frantic and incoherent, wringing her hands on her apron and close to tears. She led him up the stairs to Schuyler's room.



"Miss didn't come down for breakfast. I thought she was just sleeping in, until Beauty ran down the stairs and practically pulled me up here. Then I saw she was just lying there, and I couldn't wake her up. God help me, she looks so much like Miss Allegra, and I was so worried because she wouldn't move, didn't even look like she was breathing, so I called you, Mr. Oliver."



Beauty, Schuyler's bloodhound, was whimpering at the foot of her bed. The dog jumped up and licked Oliver's hands and face when he entered the room.



"You did well, Hattie," Oliver said, patting Beauty and then shaking Schuyler and checking for her pulse. There was none, but that didn't mean anything. His Conduit training had told him vampires could slow their heartbeat to a barely detectable rhythm to conserve their energy. Yet Schuyler was only fifteen years old and had only begun the transformation. It was too early for her to go into preservation mode. Unless...



Oliver suddenly had an awful thought: what if Schuyler had been attacked by a Silver Blood? His hands shook as he dialed his aunt, Dr. Pat, the human doctor who cared for Blue Bloods. Dr. Pat discouraged Oliver from waiting for an ambulance or taking her to a proper hospital. "They won't know what to do with her. Just get her to my office now. I'll meet you there."



When Oliver arrived, holding Schuyler in his arms, Dr. Pat and her team were ready. They wheeled out a hospital bed, and Oliver gently laid his friend down.



"Tell me she'll be all right," Oliver pleaded.



Dr. Pat checked Schuyler's neck. There were no marks. No sign of Abomination. "She should be. It doesn't look like she's been attacked. She should be fine. They are immortal. But we'll see what's going on."



Oliver waited in Dr. Pat's outer room on a particularly uncomfortable plastic chair. His aunt had always been enamored of modern furniture, and the office resembled the lobby of a trendy hotel rather than a clinic: all-white plastic furniture, white flokati rugs, white space-age lamps. After a few anxiety-ridden hours, Oliver's aunt emerged from the inner office.



Dr. Pat looked tired and beat. "Come in," she told her nephew. "She's awake. I gave her a transfusion. That seems to have done the trick."



Schuyler looked even smaller and more fragile in the hospital bed. She was wearing one of those gowns that tied in the back, and her face was paler than usual. He could see her blue veins through her transparent skin.



"Well hello, Sleeping Beauty," Oliver cracked, trying to mask his concern.



"Where am I?"



"You're in my office, child," Dr. Pat said solemnly. "You went into hibernation. It's not something that usually happens until much, much later. It's another word for prolonged sleep, something vampires do when they are weary of immortality at the close of a cycle."



"My head feels weird. And my blood--it feels strange. Icky."



"I had to give you a transfusion. You had very low blood cell counts. It's going to feel strange for a little while as the new blood adjusts to the old."



"Oh." Schuyler shuddered. "Oliver, can you excuse us?"



"Good to see you're okay," Oliver said, gripping Schuyler's shoulder tightly. "I'll just be outside."



Once Oliver was gone, Dr. Pat shone a light into each of Schuyler's pupils. She made a note on her chart, while Schuyler waited patiently for the diagnosis.



Dr. Pat examined Schuyler closely. "You are fifteen, yes?" Schuyler nodded.



"Inducted into The Committee?"



"Yes."



"Like I said, you had very low red-blood cell counts. Yet your blue-blood cell counts are off the charts. In some ways, you already have the blood levels of a full-fledged vampire, and yet your body went into hibernation, which means you aren't producing the right levels of antigens."



"What does that mean?"



"It means the transformation is going a bit haywire with you."



"Excuse me?"



"The transformation is a process in which your blue- blood cells your vampire DNA--starts to take over. You grow your fangs, your body switches from needing nourishment from food to needing nourishment specifically from human blood. The memories start to come back, and your powers, whatever they are, begin to manifest."



Schuyler nodded.



"Yet there's something odd in your blood analysis. The vampire cells are taking over, but it's not a normal,gradual process, wherein the human self is shed for the immortal like a snake shedding its skin. I'm not sure, but it's almost as if your human DNA is fighting the vampire one. Resisting it. And so to overcompensate, your vampire DNA is fighting back, hard--sending your human blood counts way below where they should be. The shock sent your body into hibernation. Did something happen? Sometimes it's triggered by a traumatic event."



Schuyler shook her head. The night before had been uneventful.



"Sometimes, it can be a delayed reaction," Dr. Pat surmised. "It must be your mixed blood," she added. Dr. Pat knew all about the circumstances of Schuyler's birth. She had been Allegra's obstetrician.



"No one has ever documented what happens when human DNA mixes with vampire blood. I'd like to put you under observation for a while."