Masquerade (Blue Bloods 2)

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."