"Afterward you always feel like you're going to hurl. Or that your cholesterol count just skyrocketed," Bliss said, making a face.
It was quiet when they climbed back into the car and felt the soporific effects of their heavy meal. A half hour later, the GPS blared "EXIT ON THE RIGHT IN FIVE HUNDRED METERS," and Oliver followed the
signs up the ramp and down the road to a parking lot. They had arrived.
The rehabilitation center grounds were immaculate. It looked more like a five-star resort, where celebrities went to hide after a lost weekend, rather than a high-priced treatment facility for floundering vampires. They saw a group practicing tai chi on the lawn, several others performing yoga poses, and clusters of people sitting in the grass in a circle.
"Group therapy," Bliss whispered as they made their way to the front door of the main building. "I asked Honor what it was like here, and she said there's a lot of past-lives-regression therapy."
They were greeted at the entrance by a slim, tanned woman in a white T-shirt and white pants. The effect was less clinical and more fashionable - like a New Age ashram.
"Can I help you?" the woman asked in a friendly manner.
"We're here to visit a friend," Bliss said, who had become the de facto spokesman for the trio.
"Name?"
"Dylan Ward."
The counselor checked the computer and nodded. "Do you have permission from the senator to visit this patient?"
"I'm, uh, his daughter," Bliss said, showing the woman her ID.
"Great. He's in the north campus, in a private cottage. Follow the path out the door, you'll see signs." She handed them visitor stickers. "Visiting hours are until four. The caf§Ù is in the main building. It's International Day - I think it's Vietnamese. You guys like pho?"
"We already ate," Oliver said, and Bliss thought she sensed a hint of a smile in Oliver's words. "But thanks."
"It seems nice here," Schuyler said as they walked through the greenery.
"The Committee does do a good job, I'll give them that. Nothing but the best for the vamps." Oliver nodded and put on a pair of dark sunglasses.
Bliss couldn't believe how calm and organized everything was. This was where they put troubled Blue Bloods? Maybe she'd made a mistake in hiding Dylan for so long. Maybe they really could help him here. She began to feel less strained and more optimistic. Several patients waved to them as they passed.
Dylan's room was one of the nicer cottages, with a white picket fence and rosebushes growing by the windows. A nurse was sitting in an anteroom.
"He's sleeping. But let me see if he'll take visitors," she told them. She disappeared into the main room, and they could hear her talking in a soft, gentle voice to Dylan.
"He's ready for you." The nurse smiled and indicated that they were welcome to go inside.
Bliss exhaled and didn't realize she was holding her breath all this time. Dylan certainly looked better. He was sitting up in bed, there was color in his cheeks, and he didn't look as thin or haggard. His black hair had been cut so it didn't fall in lank strands on his face, and he was cleanshaven. He looked almost like his old self, like the boy who played air guitar during chapel just to annoy the teachers.
"Dylan! Thank God!" she cried. She was happy to see him looking so much healthier.
He smiled at her pleasantly.
"Do I know you?" he asked.
"The past can sometimes blind us from what is happening today," the chief warden said to begin his lecture. "It is why we were in denial about the Silver Bloods' existence for so long. Because our past had told us they were no longer a threat. Because the past had blinded us to their existence. We had forgotten what the early days in our history were like. We had forgotten about the Great War. About our enemies. We had become soft and contented. Gorging on Red Blood and getting fat and lazy and ignorant."
A fine thing to say when your waistcoat strained at the buttons, Schuyler thought. It was yet another Monday. Yet another Committee meeting. A tedious one too, since they wouldn't be practicing mutatio today.
Sitting beside her, Bliss and Oliver looked just as bored as she felt. The visit to Transitions had been greatly disturbing to all of them, affecting Bliss the most. Schulyer didn't know what they expected to see, but they certainly hadn't expected to find Dylan's memories and personality erased completely.
Sure, Dylan didn't seem like he was about to knock them out with a mind-blow or start spouting off accusations about one of them being Satan's minion, but he didn't seem at all like himself either. It was as if he were a different person altogether. He was amiable, pleasant, and totally dull.
None of his doctors were around to answer any questions, and the nurse wouldn't tell them anything except that Dylan, as far as she could tell, was "fine." He was dutifully going to all the therapy sessions and making "progress."