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Theboy stepped into the light, his face illuminated by the fire. He looked the same - the same sad eyes, the same mess of black hair. He was wearing the same dirty T-shirt and jeans that Schuyler remembered him wearing the last time she'd seen him.

"Dylan! But how? What happened? Where have you been?" She ran to hug him, an ecstatic smile on her face. Dylan! Alive! He was not expected, but he was very welcome. She had so many questions to ask him: what happened the night he disappeared? How had he escaped from the Silver Bloods? How was it possible that he survived?Advertisement

Yet as soon she got close to him, she realized something was very wrong. Dylan's face was grim, angry. His eyes were unfocused and bordering on hysteria.

"What's going on?"

Lightning-fast, Dylan pushed Schuyler with his mind, a telepathicshove - SLAM! - but Schyler was faster and ducked the mind-blow.

"Dylan! What are you doing?!" She held up her hands as if to shield herself, as though she could protect herself with a physical barrier.

SLAM! Another one. This time the suggestion was to throw herself off the balcony.

Schuyler choked, her brain feeling like it might explode from the pressure it was fighting.

She fled to the terrace, not able to stop the suggestion from taking over her senses. She looked over her shoulder. Dylan was right behind her. He looked manic and cruel, as if possessed by some malicious force.

"Why are you doing this?" she cried, as he sent yet another wrenching, agonizing command.

JUMP!

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Yes. She must comply, she must obey - JUMP! - yes, she will, but if she is not careful, and she has no time to be ... she could lose her footing...she could...Oh God, what if Lawrence is wrong? What if she isn't immortal? She is half human after all...What if she doesn't survive? What if, unlike the other Blue Bloods, the cycle of sleep and rest and reincarnation doesn't pertain to her. What if this one life is all she has? But it is much too late to worry about that now - she has no choice. JUMP! She can't see where she's going, she is flailing and scrabbling for purchase...He's right behind her, so she's going to...

She leaps from the terrace, flying...

No time, no time to scramble for another ledge, no time to grasp a rail...The sidewalk looming...

Schuyler braced herself for impact and landed on her feet. On her boots. THUD. Right into the middle of a stylish mob huddled in front of the Perry St. restaurant. New Yorkers abandoned to the elements because they smoked.

And in a flash, Dylan was right behind her. So fast, he was so very fast...

Then a powerful coercion took over: this was no mere suggestion - this was a control-lock. Crushing. This was what Lawrence had told her was the little-known fifth factor of the glom. The Consummo Alienari. Complete loss of one's mind to another.

For the Red Bloods, alienari meant instant death. For the vampires, it wrought irrevocable paralysis - the mind taken over so that one's will was completely subsumed. Lawrence had told her that taking the blood and the memories of fellow vampires, performing the Caerimonia Osculor on their own kind, was not the only thing Silver Bloods were known for. They had many other tortures and tricks up their sleeve. They did not drain all of their victims; some of them were left to live because they were more useful to the Silver Bloods as pawns.

Schuyler felt a heaviness as the force of the alienari settled in ... she was about to succumb; so much easier to surrender rather than to fight...she felt herself weakening under its hold...What would be left of her if he succeeded? She thought of her mother, alive but not alive, would that be her fate? She was woozy on her feet, swaying; it would be over soon. But then she found something in the dark effluvium - like a tail, the tail of the glom - and she was able to isolate the signal, able to figure out which part was trying to control her, and she twisted it around, like wrestling an alligator - flipped it on its head - and soon she was taking over, and she was bending it to her will, and -

Dylan is screaming - he is the one in pain - he is the one backed up against the wall, unable to move while her mind holds his in her grasp. She can feel it, can feel her dominance taking over, greedily exulting over its triumph. She is squeezing him - his entire being - with her mind. It is like a vise -

She is killing him...

Soon he will no longer be himself...but an extension of her will...

Until...

"SCHUYLER! STOP!"

"DON'T!"

"SCHUYLER!" A roar.

Her name. Someone was calling her name. Oliver. Telling her to stop.

Schuyler released her hold, but not completely. She was still holding out her hand, and twenty feet away, Dylan was pinned to a wall. Held there by her mind. He was gurgling. He couldn't breathe.

"PLEASE!" It was a girl's voice this time. Bliss.

There. She let go.

Dylan sagged to the ground. pqdm.com