Ivy froze. “A what?”
“A ritual,” he explained, “to test whether she is worthy of the Blood Secret.”
“Uh-oh,” Olivia said under her breath.
“But why?” Ivy gasped.
“Why?” her father repeated in exasperation. “Because, between the article in Vamp and the footage of Olivia at ASHH, they have deduced that there has been a violation of the First Law of the Night!”
“Is she going to be hurt?” Ivy asked.
“Hurt?” cried Olivia.
“I don’t know exactly,” Ivy’s father answered with a shake of his head, his anger suddenly faltering.
“But what does she have to do?” Ivy pressed.
“I know that there are three trials she must pass,” her dad answered. “Olivia,” he asked, “do you think your parents will allow you to sleep at our house on Friday night?”
“I think so,” Olivia said. “Why?”
“That is the appointed date and time for your initiation.”
“But that only gives her one night to prepare!” Ivy objected.
Her father studied Olivia’s face. “The best and only way to prepare,” he said solemnly, “is for you to be ready to bare your true soul.”
“What if she doesn’t pass?” Ivy asked in a small voice.
He peered down at her, and Ivy couldn’t tell whether his eyes were filled with hope or hopelessness. “If it is meant to be,” he said in a resigned voice as he turned away to descend the steps, “then it shall be.”
Chapter 10
On Friday evening, Olivia’s mom dropped her off in front of the Vegas’ house. Luckily, her mom had a bridge game, so she couldn’t even attempt to come inside.
When Olivia rang the bell, Ivy opened the door at once. Inside the foyer, Mr. Vega greeted Olivia with a solemn nod. No one spoke, and then Olivia heard footsteps approaching briskly from down the hall. Into the light of the foyer stepped a tall vampire woman wearing a black and red kimono. It took Olivia a second to realize what was so striking about her. Then she saw what it was. The woman wasn’t wearing the contact lenses most vampires used all the time to protect their eyes from the sun and disguise their eye color, and she had red eyes.
“I am Valencia Deborg,” the woman declared. There was a ruffle of her enormous sleeves, and a thick black binder appeared in one hand, while a ballpoint pen materialized in the other. She clicked the pen meaningfully. “Secretary of human relations for the Vampire Round Table.”
“And I,” said a nasal voice from the darkness, “am Mr. Boros of ASHH.” Olivia half expected a tall, mustachioed vampire to appear in a black cape. Instead, a short bald man in a rumpled suit stepped into the light beside his colleague.
“I saw that guy leaving ASHH right before we snuck in!” Ivy whispered in Olivia’s ear.
“And I saw you sneak in on the security cameras,” said the man coolly, “right after I left.”
Ivy and Olivia both straightened to attention.
“We are here to supervise the initiation of Olivia Abbott,” Valencia Deborg said solemnly. “The trials shall commence in one hour, at the setting of the sun.”
Casting a sidelong glance toward her sister, Olivia could see Ivy looked totally worried, which made her feel even more nervous.
“Before we begin”—Mr. Boros held up a stubby white finger—“we must be clear about what is to occur. There are fewer than a dozen humans in the world who know the Blood Secret, all under exceptional circumstances.”
“And your circumstances,” Ms. Deborg said, training her fiery eyes on Olivia, “are the most exceptional of all.”
“Unprecedented, according to our records,” confirmed Mr. Boros in his nasal voice.
“The tests to which you are to be subjected were devised hundreds of years ago,” Ms. Deborg told Olivia. “They were used only in those rare instances when a human learned the Blood Secret and there was a vampire willing to vouch for him. Is there a vampire present willing to bear this burden?”
“I will,” Ivy and her father said at the same time. Olivia could see that her sister was as surprised as she was by Mr. Vega’s volunteering like that.
Ms. Deborg and Mr. Boros nodded at each other, and Ms. Deborg continued. “The original tests were torturous . . .”
“Hideous,” said Mr. Boros with a shudder, as Olivia felt the color drain from her face.
“And unspeakably painful,” Ms. Deborg concluded.
“But now, of course,” Mr. Boros added casually, “the tests are more ritualized.”
A sigh of relief escaped from Olivia’s mouth. “In the past,” Ms. Deborg explained, “if applicants proved unworthy, they were summarily killed. Since the 1926 Vampiric Accord, that is no longer the way.”
“So what happens if I fail?” Olivia asked nervously.
“Your memory of anything and everything vampire related will be erased, and you will never see or have any contact with your sister ever again,” Mr. Boros answered simply.
“What?” Ivy and Olivia both exclaimed.
“How is that possible?” Olivia asked.
“Vampire scientists have developed a concoction for this purpose,” Ms. Deborg answered.
“I understand it’s not unlike a strawberry smoothie,” Mr. Boros remarked proudly, “which is much less messy than the old method of removing a portion of the cranial cortex.”
“And I wouldn’t be able to remember Ivy at all?” Olivia demanded. The vampire officials nodded.