Chapter 4
The truth about Nicky Bloom was that she had no financial backers for her Coronation campaign yet, other than Jill. The truth was that, while there was a group of smart and powerful people helping her, none of those people were Washington insiders. None of them had the big money necessary for Nicky to win Coronation.
The truth was that Nicky and Jill were in this ballroom under false pretenses. They were pretending to be normal seniors at Thorndike who were excited to wear their masks to Homecoming and eager to join the ruling class when they graduated.
They were nothing of the sort.
Jill and Nicky were members of the Network, an underground movement dedicated to overthrowing the immortals who ruled Washington and the world.
It was no accident that Nicky Bloom, the only child of a mostly unknown family from the Midwest, somehow won the open spot in the senior class, beating out far wealthier and more connected families who had been trying to get their daughters into Thorndike for years.
It was no accident that Nicky Bloom’s father, a commodities speculator, hit on a winning streak in the financial markets that turned his family into the sort of power players who could come to Thorndike Academy. Neither was it an accident that Nicky’s transcripts, personal history, and entire digital footprint combined into the perfect profile for an incoming Thorndike student.
The Network was behind all of this.
Jill was the Network mole who made Nicky’s presence possible. Jill’s reports from inside Thorndike had been invaluable to the organization, which had come to see Thorndike and its sordid Coronation ritual as a problem that had to be solved. Because of Jill’s intel, the Network knew they had to seize on the opportunity presented by the death of Shannon Evans.
They took that opportunity to get Nicky Bloom into the school so she could enter the Coronation contest.
At first, Jill was displeased the Network was giving the big job to this mystery girl from who knew where. Hadn’t Jill earned the privilege of the big job inside Thorndike? Hadn’t Jill proved her mettle as an undercover operative?
And in those first weeks of school, when Nicky was lying low, dressing like a total nobody, spending all her time with Ryan Jenson, Jill wondered if the Network knew what it was doing. She was worried if Nicky, as confident and sharp as she was, could really pull off the assignment they had given her.
Now, mere moments after Nicky’s arrival at the dance, Jill understood and accepted. Nicky Bloom was amazing.
Jill watched in awe as Nicky strutted across the ballroom with strength and confidence, perfectly oblivious to the stares and the silence. Nicky looked so ridiculously stunning, so completely transformed from the quiet new girl she had played those first weeks at school, that it didn’t matter if no one knew her, if she walked alone to the bar. She had an aura about her. Nicky Bloom was pure cool.
And that aura, that cool, allowed the party chatter to resume as if nothing had happened. The confrontation between Nicky and Kim shocked the entire ballroom into silence, but Nicky had brushed it off like it was nothing. She had given everyone else permission to move on with the night, and that’s exactly what they were doing. They were moving on because Nicky did, and in that way, Nicky was already inserting herself into their lives as a leader, as the sort of girl who could win Coronation.
Unlike Jill, whose father was a genuine power broker in DC and whose family had many Thorndike graduates in its past, Nicky Bloom was a total fabrication, an alias. Everything about Nicky, from her parents to her history to even her name, was a creation of the Network. The real girl that Jill knew as Nicky Bloom was born as someone else, had lived someone else’s life, had somehow involved herself with the Network at an early age and been groomed for espionage of this sort. Nicky Bloom’s “parents” were Network agents, also working undercover. Her extended family was a lie, aunts and uncles, grandparents, cousins, and childhood friends scattered throughout the country, all of them ready to play their part when necessary, all of them agents of the Network. Her house, a brand new mansion in Bethesda, was purchased by the Network with money they had moved through various money laundering operations and into the Bloom family bank account. Her entire life was a fabrication, sprung from the best minds of the resistance, all part of a master plan to turn the tide against the vampires once and for all.
The plan to create Nicky Bloom, to insert her into the Thorndike senior class, to have her wear black to Homecoming, and hopefully, to win the Coronation contest – all of it was aimed at a single end. In order to become immortal, the winner of the Coronation contest had to spend an evening with a vampire. An immensely important vampire named Sergio Alonzo.
Sergio was the reason they were here. Winning Coronation and getting that visit in the night from Sergio was the goal of this operation.
Long ago, the leaders of the Network had identified Sergio Alonzo as the key to everything that had gone so terribly wrong with the world. One of the oldest and most unusual vampires, Sergio was as powerful as he was elusive. Many vampire hunters had dedicated their lives to killing him. None had even come close.
It was Elliott Toffler, Abbot of the Brotherhood of St. Albert, whose brain had hatched the wild scheme in which Jill and Nicky now were players. Break an agent into Thorndike, have her enter the Coronation contest. Throw all the Network’s resources behind her. Do whatever it takes to make her win. And then, when the Coronation contest comes to an end and Sergio pays a nighttime visit to the winner, ambush him.
Nicky Bloom’s brand new mansion in Bethesda was more than a showpiece home suitable for a new student at Thorndike. It was a house that had been custom built to trap a vampire. The minute Sergio stepped inside, steel bars would fall over the windows and doors, and all the best vampire hunters in the world would emerge at once to kill him.
But all of that only came about if Nicky won, and a winning campaign started tonight. The Homecoming Masquerade would last for two more hours. When it was over, the senior class would leave the mansion in the many limousines that waited for them outside. They would take off their masks and reconvene in more comfortable attire at four separate after-parties, one for each entrant. They would pay more than a thousand dollars each to get into these parties. That money would become the opening balance in each entrant’s Coronation account.
Judging by the chatter, Kim’s after-party was where most of the class was headed. Kim’s father had scored the East Room of the White House, and was charging $10,000 at the door. Samantha and Mary’s parties, in contrast, would be small affairs at their homes, where family and close friends would gather and show their support, everybody donating whatever they could.
No one knew a thing about Nicky’s after-party yet. It was Jill’s job to change that. She had started with Annika Fleming and her little band of followers. She had laid the groundwork, telling them the cover story that a secret consortium of wealthy parents was behind Nicky’s entrance. That story would make Nicky a more credible candidate. That story played on the hatred almost everyone in the ballroom had for Kim and her family. Even though Jill had sworn the others to secrecy, she knew full well that Annika, Mattie, Jenny, and Jake would spread the story all over the ballroom. She expected that by intermission, the whole class would know that Nicky was the centerpiece of an attempted coup. People would speculate about which families were supporting her in secret. They would start to wonder if this new girl had a legitimate shot at winning the whole thing.
And then they would wonder if they should be supporting her rather than Kim.
“Hey Jill.”
It was Mattie, who had broken away from their little huddle and followed Jill to the bar.
“Yes?”
“I know you wanted to quit talking about this, so I’ll keep it short,” Mattie said. She was lowering her voice now as the two of them walked toward the bar together. “You said Nicky was having an after-party at the Hamilton. Do you know anyone else who’s going to be there?”
“I will,” said Jill. “And I predict by the end of the night, you will too. In fact, I’m betting that, by the time the masquerade is over, most of the class is going to Nicky’s party rather than Kim’s. Not only will they get a chance to support the eventual winner, but they’ll also be treated to a private concert by Jada Razor.”
“Seriously? Jada Razor is going to be at Nicky’s after-party?”
Jada Razor, the biggest pop star in the world, held secret sympathies for the resistance. Her sold-out concerts around the globe, where millions of dollars in small bills changed hands every night, were the Network’s most effective money laundering operation. When the Network asked her to interrupt her world tour for a special, private concert dedicated to the cause, she was more than happy to comply.
“That’s right,” said Jill. “Maybe I’ll see you there?”
“Yeah,” said Mattie. “Maybe you will.”