A few blocks away, in an altogether different penthouse the Llewellyns' outlandish triplex, nicknamed "Penthouse des R?ves" due to its awesome, if surreal, extravagance Forsyth Llewellyn was standing in front of a secret compartment behind the shoe closet. He quickly turned the knob on the vault two clicks to the right, then three clicks to the left, and stepped back as the five-inch stainless steel door swung open.

"Daaaad, what's this all about?" Bliss asked, standing beside him. "I'm supposed to meet Jaime in the lobby at eight." She was holding Miss Ellie, her Chihuahua, in her arms. Miss Ellie was her canine familiar, named after her favorite character, on Dallas, of course. Just as promised, Mimi had set Bliss up with Jaime Kip. It was a total friend-date. Jaime had absolutely no interest in Bliss, and vice versa. In fact, it was Jaime who had suggested they meet in the St. Regis lobby since they were both attending with their families. Bliss got the distinct impression Jaime had asked to be her escort for the sole purpose of getting Mimi off his back. Mimi could be quite pushy when she wanted to be.

Bliss crossed her arms and looked around at her step- mother's enormous dressing room. It never failed to impress guests during the ritual house tour. The "closet" was easily two thousand square feet. It had a step-down Roman bath lined with travertine marble and was equipped with dancing showerheads along the side, so that you bathed in the midst of a fountain. There was an endless hallway of mirrors that masked a series of compartments that housed five thousand items of designer clothing, which had been catalogued and archived by BobiAnne's personal assistant. Too bad so much of what was inside was, in Bliss's opinion, vulgar and tasteless. BobiAnne had never met a marabou-trimmed leopard-print poncho that she didn't like.

BobiAnne was absorbed in her own toilette, and Bliss could hear her stepmother's gravelly laugh echo around the dressing chamber as she gossiped with her two stylists.

Bliss looked at herself in the infinity of mirrors. She had decided to wear the green Dior after all. Her father and stepmother had simply gasped when they saw her.

"My dear, you are so beautiful," BobiAnne had whispered, clasping her stepdaughter in her bony arms made stringy by too much Pilates. It was like being hugged by a skeleton.

BobiAnne was forever praising Bliss's good looks to the heavens, and disparaging her own daughter's rather plain appearance. Jordan, who at eleven was too young for the ball, had peeked in while Bliss was getting dressed and rendered her own judgment. "You look like a slut."

Bliss had thrown a pillow at her sister's retreating back.

After showing her parents the dress, her father had taken her aside and led her to the safe. He pulled open several of the suede-lined drawers custom-made to BobiAnne's exact specifications. Bliss could see the sparkle of her stepmother's many diamond tiaras, necklaces, rings, and bracelets. It was like the inside of Harry Winston. In fact, rumor had it that when the Texans had moved to Manhattan, the senator's wife had cleaned out the vaults at all the major diamond merchants in order to celebrate their ascendance in the city's social realm.

He pulled out a long black velvet box from a bottom drawer.

"This was your mother's," he said, showing her a massive cushion-cut emerald set in a platinum necklace. The emerald was as large as a fist. "Your real mother's, I mean. Not BobiAnne."

Bliss was struck silent.

"I want you to wear it for this evening. This is an important time for us, for our family. You will honor your mother's memory with this jewel," Forsyth said, clasping the necklace around his daughter's neck.

Bliss knew little of her mother, only that she had cycled out early for an unknown reason. Her father never talked about her, and Bliss had grown up understanding that her mother was a painful subject. There was little to remember her by, and what few photographs remained were washed-out and faded, so that her mother's features were almost indistinct. When Bliss asked about her, her father only said to "channel her memories," and that she would meet her mother again if time allowed it.

The dog in Bliss's arms went berserk, snapping and growling at the stone.

"Miss Ellie! Stop!"

"Silence!" Forsyth ordered, and the dog jumped from Bliss's arms and high-tailed it out the door.

"You scared her, Daddy."

Bliss looked at the emerald, which had nestled itself inside her cleavage. It was heavy against her skin. She didn't know if she liked it or not. It was so big. Had her mother really worn this?

"The stone is called the Rose of Lucifer, or Lucifer's Bane," the senator explained with a smile. "Have you heard the story?"

Bliss shook her head.

"It is said that when Lucifer fell from heaven, an emerald fell from his crown. The emerald was called the Rose of Lucifer, the morning star. Some other stories even call it the Holy Grail."

Bliss absorbed the information quietly, not knowing what to think. Her mother owned a jewel linked to the Silver Bloods?

"Of course," Forsyth said, shaking his head, "it's only a story."

At that moment, BobiAnne entered the room wearing a frightful Versace dress that looked like metallic vinyl siding spray painted on her body.

"How do I look?" she asked her husband sweetly. Bliss and her father exchanged a glance. "Very pretty, darling," her father said with a frozen smile. "Shall we? The car's waiting."

In front of the hotel a phalanx of photographers had gathered, and a swelling crowd of curious onlookers were being held back by security gates and a legion of New York's Finest. As each black town car pulled up to the entrance, flashbulbs exploded in a cacophony of staccato bursts.

"Here we go," BobiAnne exclaimed joyfully as she stepped out of the car and leaned on her husband's arm.

But the paparazzi were only interested in Bliss.

"Bliss! Over here! Bliss! One for me! Bliss--this way!"

"What are you wearing?"

"Who made that dress?"

A few of the photographers and reporters were polite enough to ask the senator and his wife what they thought of the party, but it was obvious Bliss was the main attraction.

There were only ten steps from the curb to the hotel entrance, but it took Bliss a good half hour to get there.

"It's madness," Bliss remarked, looking pleased when she finally arrived in the pink and gold lobby and found her date waiting impatiently by the front reception table.

The St. Regis Ballroom had been transformed into a twin- kling winter wonderland: the crystal chandeliers were hung with softly beaded strings of rhinestones, and glorious American Beauty roses bloomed everywhere, from the soaring, six-foot-tall centerpieces (so heavy that the tables had to be reinforced) to the massive garlands on every archway. A snow-white carpet on the marble floor led the way from the front reception room into the ballroom proper.

"Senator and Mrs. Forsyth Llewellyn," the herald announced as the politician and his wife appeared at the top of the stairs. A spotlight shone on them, and the percussionist played a dramatic drumroll.

"Mr. James Andrews Kip. Miss Bliss Llewellyn." The four of them walked slowly into the party.

The two fifty-piece orchestras faced each other across the expanse of the ballroom, playing a serene waltz as the Blue Bloods displayed their finery--the men dashing and suave in their tails, the women preternaturally thin and impossibly stylish in their couture ball gowns. It was a magical sight. The Committee had really outdone themselves this time. The whole ballroom was filled with a dazzling, white brilliance: the antique crystal chandeliers shone, and the terrazzo floors gleamed.

Jaime deposited Bliss at her table, saluted her, and promptly disappeared for the rest of the evening. So much for that. Bliss found Mimi standing with her parents at the front of the reception line.

"Wow, look at that!" Mimi said, zeroing in on the necklace immediately. "What a rock!"

"It was my mother's," Bliss explained. She told Mimi the legend of Lucifer's Bane.

Mimi took the emerald in her hands, stroking its glacial coldness. Once she touched it, she was transported back to that final battle, flashes of the black day, trumpets sounding in the distance, Michael with his flaming sword, the banishment, and then the cold. The cold...waking up immortal on earth and dying to feed.

"Oh." Mimi's eyes glazed, her hand still cupping the stone. And then she dropped it as if it had burned her.

Bliss was startled. She knew something had happened to Mimi, the flash of insight, the memory spike when she had touched it. And yet when Bliss touched the stone herself, nothing happened. It was just a dead piece of jewelry. Lucifer's Bane. It gave her shivers.

"It's the Heart of the Ocean," Mimi cracked. "Just promise me you won't throw it off the deck of the Titanic."

Bliss tried to laugh. But the stone, fifty-five carats, weighed heavily on her skin.

Rose of Lucifer. Lucifer's Bane. The Prince of the Silver Bloods, his most precious possession, hung around her neck like a noose. She shuddered. Part of her wanted to rip it off her throat and throw it as far away as she could.
    
 

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