The Den of Shadows Quartet (18 page)

“I’ll keep that in mind,” answered Dominique, who
had just entered the room, with Hasana behind her. Caryn paled.

“No one is going to hurt anyone in my household,” Hasana said firmly. “Jessica, you don’t know what you’re saying right now —”

“She knows,” Dominique interrupted. Turning to Jessica, she said bluntly, “If you’d rather be with them, then go. I won’t stop you. But if you choose their side, then I won’t protect you, either.”

“I don’t need your protection,” Jessica growled in answer.

“Jessica, please, get some rest,” Hasana coaxed. “Dominique, leave the poor girl alone. Her mother was just murdered.” She ushered Dominique out of the room. The hunter went willingly; she had said all she needed to say.

Jessica had no desire to sleep, and she told Caryn as much.

“You should try,” Caryn answered. “It will help clear your mind.”

Instead, Jessica began to pace.

Caryn caught her arm, and only a few seconds later, sleep enveloped her. Later the thought occurred to her that despite Caryn’s usual passivity she was still a strong witch. She had easily induced sleep in Jessica’s strained mind.

Jazlyn said no. Immortality was not what she wanted. She wanted to be left alone and given time to grieve. Even this was denied her
.

A week after Carl’s death, Jazlyn learned that she was pregnant. Looking at her, no one would have been able to tell, but the tests had returned positive
.
Why would the universe not leave her alone? She was only twenty-five, and she was a widow. How could she raise a child by herself? Carl’s child deserved better than what she, who was still in mourning, could provide
.

A cruel God gave her this life
.

The next time Siete visited, Jazlyn did not say no. She knew that whatever life she woke up in would not be the life she was leaving
.

But any decision made out of desperation is later regretted. The world of eternal night and lawlessness was no better than the human world she had fled, yet Jazlyn had no more choices
.

The years passed and faded, meaningless and empty. Often Jazlyn found herself remembering things like the beach on which Carl had proposed. She remembered being married outdoors and honeymooning in France
.

Tears came frequently. This was not what she had wanted at all
.

Just past Valentine’s Day 1983, Jazlyn visited Carl’s grave for the first time since his funeral. She brushed off the thin layer of snow and read the stone for the first time: “Carl Raisa, 1932– 1960. ‘I shall smile from Heaven upon those I love. My death is not my end, and in Heaven shall I meet my beloved again
.

But he wouldn’t, because she was never going to reach Heaven. Her kind was evil; she had killed so many times to sate the bloodlust that she would never be forgiven
.

Jazlyn lay weeping in the snowy graveyard that Valentine’s night, wondering why the world had chosen her to torment
.

That was where the witch who called herself Monica Smoke had found her — weeping there for the one she loved. Monica was the first one in more than twenty years who offered her a shoulder to cry on. Then she heard the story and gave Jazlyn the one thing she had thought could never be returned: her life
.

A
S SOON AS SHE WOKE
, Jessica sought out her hostesses. Avoiding Dominique Vida, she quickly found Caryn in her room.

“Do you know of anyone in your line called Monica?” she demanded, closing the door behind her.

“Yes,” Caryn said after a moment of hesitation. “She was my aunt, my mother’s sister.”

“Was?”

“She died. Mother never told me how.” Caryn frowned. “Why, Jessica. What’s wrong?”

Jessica didn’t answer, her mind focused on her own questions. “Have you ever heard of someone called Jazlyn Raisa?” Jessica was determined to understand her own birth, even if that was the only part of her life she did understand.

“Jazlyn Raisa … No. But maybe my mother would.”

Jessica nodded quickly.

“Jessica, what is this about?”

She shook off the question, impatient to find Hasana and hear the truth.

As Jessica entered the kitchen, Hasana looked up from whatever she was cooking. She seemed to sense Jessica’s urgency.

“Jessica, do you need something?”

“Jazlyn Raisa,” Jessica answered without prelude. “I want to know about her.”

Hasana’s face betrayed her mistrust. She paused, taking a breath, and then asked, “What do you know about Raisa?”

“She was a vampire, a direct fledging of Siete,” Jessica answered. “And your sister offered to give her back her life.”

Hasana’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t believe it was possible, but Monica insisted she could do it. She died trying, and I heard nothing more about it.”

“She succeeded,” Jessica filled in.

“Raisa didn’t deserve it,” Hasana growled. “If you know so much, why are you asking me?”

“Jazlyn was pregnant when Siete changed her,” Jessica explained, and she saw shock fill Hasana’s expression. “I want to know what would have happened to the child when Jazlyn became human again.”

The idea seemed far-fetched. Though Jessica knew plenty about her vampires, she knew nothing about anyone who had ever become human again besides what her dreams had told of Jazlyn. Only a witch would know if a baby carried in a vampiric womb would regain its life with its mother.

“I didn’t know there was a child,” Hasana whispered.
“Now I understand. Monica wouldn’t have risked her life to save a vampire. But a baby … Monica must have believed that it would survive.”

“What happened to the child?” Jessica shouted. She had to force herself not to grab Hasana by the shoulders and try to shake the information from her.

“I didn’t know there was one,” Hasana repeated, shaking her head apologetically Jessica turned away and returned to the room she’d been given, needing to think.

Her mother. The term brought a moment of pain. The woman who had raised her was dead; now she had been replaced by a phantom who had never wanted Jessica. Jazlyn Raisa.

Jessica paced softly in her room, trying to organize her thoughts.

Siete was the first of the vampires. He was ancient, even compared to Fala and Jager and Silver, and his mind was powerful enough that he could easily know everything that Jessica had written. His blood ran through her veins as surely as it had run through her mother’s, and her link to him was no doubt as strong as the link he had with his fledglings. The difference was that she was human and had no shields against his mind. So when she slept or simply drifted, she shared his dreams and his thoughts.

The puzzle had come together finally.

Jessica’s gaze fell on her computer. Without making a conscious decision to do so, she sat down and booted it up, wanting to hear the comforting hum.

The familiar compulsion struck her. But ignoring
the book she had been working on, she began another, though she had no idea how this one was going to end.

Several hours and many pages passed before the flow of thoughts ceased. Who, she wondered, would finish it if she died?

N
EEDING TO GET AWAY
from the magic-choked atmosphere of the house, Jessica slipped out of her room and down the stairs.

“Where are you going, Jessica? I’m just about to serve dinner.”

She froze, hearing Hasana’s voice, and turned to see Dominique and Hasana standing together in the next room.

“I was planning to go for a walk, perhaps wander in the woods a bit,” she answered. “Is there something wrong with that?”

Hasana sighed. “Jessica, do you really think you should be going out there alone?” Jessica could hear a hint of annoyance in her voice.

“Do
you
really think I can stay inside until Dominique has killed all the vampires?” Jessica snapped in return. She knew Hasana was trying to help, but she felt like a wolf caged in the shepherd’s barn.

“I could at least deal with a few of them,” Dominique
said, watching Jessica as if for a reaction. “After a while, the others will probably decide you aren’t worth the trouble.”

“After you
murder
another dozen or so of them,” Jessica choked out. She had a sudden, vivid image of Aubrey with Dominique’s knife in his heart. She would not wish Dominique even upon Fala.

“It isn’t murder to kill something that died thousands of years ago,” Dominique argued. “Murder is what
they
do every night, when even you know they don’t need to kill in order to feed. Murder is what they did yesterday to your mother.”

Jessica took an involuntary step toward Dominique and felt the first warning strike from the hunter: a slight burning sensation on the surface of her skin, which flared for a moment and then faded.

Hasana put a hand on Dominique’s arm to get her attention. “Dominique, I hardly think that comment was necessary.”

Dominique sighed. “If she’s going to be staying in this house with you and Caryn, then I need to know whose side she’s on,” she asserted. “Well, Jessica?”

“If it’s a choice between you and them,” Jessica spat in answer, “then I would choose the vampires any day. At least they don’t preach the morality of their killing.”

She spun away, trying to ignore the tension between her shoulders, where she expected any moment to feel the point of Dominique’s knife.

I
T WAS NOT YET SUNSET
when Jessica arrived, once again, at the doorway to Las Noches.

There were fewer people in the room than the last time, which was probably related to the fact that Fala and Aubrey were fighting near the bar.

They stopped in surprise as Jessica entered and began walking fearlessly toward them.

Fala recovered her wits first and slammed Aubrey back into the bar. The sickening crack of a broken bone reached Jessica’s ears even above the music of Las Noches, but she knew he would heal almost instantly.

However, Fala used Aubrey’s moment of pain to whisper a threat into his ear. Jessica could only hear the end of it as she approached.
Either deal with it now, or I will
.

Fala left the club without giving Jessica a second glance.

Aubrey stretched, already recovered from Fala’s attack. As he turned toward Jessica, she saw him check
for the knife at his waist, then shake his head, seeming neither surprised nor concerned to find it gone.

“You’re an idiot, you know that?” Aubrey said as Jessica approached. “We both are.”

“How do you figure that?” Jessica asked. She ignored the fight that she had just witnessed; she knew she was probably the reason behind it.

Parched from the walk in the sunlight, she considered trying to find something to drink in Las Noches’s bar, but worried that she might knock herself out if she chose the wrong thing. While there was nothing in the bar that could kill a vampire, there was plenty that could damage a human.

“You know most of my kind is trying to kill you — particularly the one who just left — and still you come into New Mayhem at sunset,” Aubrey answered dryly.

Jessica had to laugh at that. “My mother was killed yesterday beside a church in broad daylight. If any of your kind was really trying to kill me, it wouldn’t matter where I was.”

She decided that she could probably identify water if she saw it, so she rounded the bar to search.

Are you trying to poison yourself?” Aubrey inquired, watching her.

“Oh, bite me,” she taunted automatically before the irony of the remark registered.

But Aubrey took her at her word. In a graceful movement, he wrapped a hand around the back of her neck and pulled her toward him.

“A tempting offer.” He gently brushed the hollow of her throat with the thumb of his free hand as he spoke.

“You wouldn’t.”

He leaned down and she felt his lips at her neck.
It would never occur to you to be afraid, would it?
he silently asked.

If you wanted to kill me, you would have done so long ago
. She projected the thought and knew that he could hear it.

Are you so sure?

No
, she answered.
But if you bite me I’m going to bite back, and do you really want this crowd to see a human do that?
She was well aware that they had an attentive audience by now.

Is that what
you
want?

Jessica didn’t quite understand Aubrey’s question, but he must have sensed her confusion, because he added,
I did something similar to Ather, and we both know how that turned out
. Aubrey had been changed shortly after a fight with Ather. He had slit her throat when she had tried to feed on him.
Even Fala has suggested that I change you
.

You’re right, you
are
an idiot
, she commented in response.
And yes, that is what I want, which means you can’t do it
.

Jessica was referring to the fact that Aubrey’s line retained its power because every one of them fought. That struggle, as the blood was drained out, was what gave them their strength.

Yes, Jessica was more than willing to become one of their kind. Her hatred of Dominique had finally convinced her. But her readiness meant that she wouldn’t fight, and her strength as a vampire would suffer. She would certainly be weaker than Fala. In essence, if
Aubrey changed her now, it would be the same as his allowing Fala to kill her.

Aubrey knew all this as well, of course, so he released her and she stepped back casually, smoothing her shirt as if the confrontation had been normal. He reached past her, into the bar, and pulled out a bottle of water. She accepted it calmly and took a drink.

W
HAT WAS HE TO DO
about the human called Jessica? Aubrey had had that thought before, and the answer was no more forthcoming than it had ever been.