The Den of Shadows Quartet (3 page)

Forever is too long to live in fear.

Even so, I do not go to see Tora this night. I do not wish to draw Aubrey’s attention to her until he has forgotten this small challenge. Although I resent being kept away from her, I would rather stay away than have her die so that my pride may be appeased. For Tora, I allow myself to fear Aubrey.

After I hunt, I change to hawk form and return to Concord, my mind still troubled. I fall into bed for the day, but I do not dream — I simply remember.

A
LEXANDER AVOIDED ME
the day after Mr. Karew visited. We attended morning services as a family, but the rest of the day, Alexander mostly stayed in his room. During the short time he was out he looked dazed, as if he was seeing something I could not see or hearing voices I could not hear. Perhaps he was. I still do not know, and I never will.

When he approached me that evening, the dazed look was gone, replaced by determination.

“Rachel?”

“Yes?”

“I need to speak to you,” Alexander told me. “I do not know how to explain to you so that you do not think …” He paused, and I waited for him to continue.

“There are creatures in this world besides humans,” Alexander went on, his voice gaining strength and determination. “But they are not what the witch hunters say they are. The witches …” Again Alexander paused, and I waited for him to decide how to say what he
needed to say. “I do not know if Satan exists — I have never seen him, personally — but I do know that there are creatures out there that would damn you if they could, simply for spite.”

This was nothing I had not heard before at church. But my brother said it differently than the preacher ever did. I would say it sounded as if Alexander had more faith, but that wasn’t quite it. It sounded as if, in his mind, he had proof.

“Alexander, what has happened?” I whispered. His words seemed a warning, but it was not a warning I understood.

Alexander sighed deeply. “I made a mistake, Rachel.” Then he would say no more about it.

I went to bed that night feeling uneasy. I was afraid to know what Alexander’s words meant, but even more afraid because I did not know.

Around eleven I heard footsteps moving past my door, as if someone was trying without success to move quietly. I rose silently, so as not to wake Lynette, with whom I shared the room, and tiptoed to the door.

I left my room and entered the kitchen, where I caught a glimpse of Alexander leaving by the back door. I began to follow him, wondering why he was sneaking out of the house at such a late hour.

I well knew the abstract look that I had glimpsed on his face: he had seen something in his mind. Whatever vision had driven him from sleep had scared him, and it pained me that he had walked straight past my door, not even hesitating, not willing to confide in me.

Alexander had slipped through the back door, but I hesitated beside the doorway, hearing voices behind the
house. Alexander was speaking with Aubrey and a woman I did not know. Her accent was different from Aubrey’s, but again it was not familiar to me. I did not know then that she had been raised to speak a language long dead.

The woman Alexander was speaking with had black hair that fell to her shoulders and formed a dark halo around her deathly pale skin and black eyes. She wore a black silk dress and silver jewelry that nearly covered her left hand. On her right wrist she wore a silver snake bracelet with rubies for eyes.

The black dress, the jewelry, and most of all the red-eyed serpent, brought one word to my mind:
witch
.

“Why should I?” she was asking Alexander.

“Just stay away,” he ordered. He sounded so calm, but I knew him well. I caught the shiver in his voice — the sound of anger and fear.

“Temptation,” the woman said, pushing Alexander. He fell against the wall, and I could hear the impact as his back hit the wood. But she had hardly touched him! “Child, you would regret ordering me away from your sister,” the woman added coldly.

“Do not hurt her, Ather.” It was the first time I had heard her name, and shivers ran down my spine upon hearing my brother speak it. My golden-colored brother did not belong in the dark world she had risen from.

“I mean it,” Alexander said, stepping forward from the wall. “I am the one who attacked you — leave Rachel be. If you need to fight someone to heal your pride, fight me, not my sister.”

When I heard this, my heart jumped. Alexander was
my brother. I had been born with him and raised with him. I knew him, and I knew he would not harm another human being.

“You and that witch should not have interrupted my hunt,” said Ather.

“You should be grateful ‘that witch’ helped me stop you. If you had killed Lynette —”

“Which sister matters more to you, Alexander — your twin, or Lynette? You drew blood; you should have remembered Rachel before you did.”

“I will not let you change her,” Alexander growled.

“Why, Alexander,” Ather said, advancing on him again. “What gave you the idea I wanted to change her?” She smiled; I saw her teeth as the moonlight fell on them. Then she laughed. “Just because she accepted my gift?” Ather took another step toward Alexander, and he stepped back. She laughed again. “Coward.”

“You are a monster,” Alexander answered. “I will not allow you to make Rachel one too.”

“Aubrey,” Ather said. Nothing more. Aubrey had been standing quietly in the shadows. He laughed and moved behind Alexander, but my brother did not react. He seemed unafraid to have Aubrey at his back.

“Rachel, do come join us,” Ather called to me. I froze; I had not realized she had seen me. Ather nodded to Aubrey, who took a step in my direction, as if he might escort me into the yard. I did not step back from him but became angry instead.

“Get away from me,” I spat. I had always been outspoken for my time, and Aubrey blinked in surprise. He stepped to the side and allowed me to walk past him toward Ather.

Alexander had said he had made a mistake. Now he was trying to protect me from the two who had come to avenge that mistake. I stalked past Aubrey to where Ather was standing.

“Who are you?” I demanded. “What are you doing here?”

“Rachel,” she purred in greeting, ignoring my questions. She showed fangs when she smiled, and I was reminded of the serpent on her bracelet.

“Rachel, do not get angry,” Alexander warned me.

“Too late.” I spat the words into Ather’s face. “Why were you threatening him?”

“Do not demand answers from me,
child,”
Ather snapped.

“Do not call me child. Leave my property, now, and leave my brother alone.”

Ather laughed. “Does this creature truly mean so much to you?” she asked me.

“Yes.” I did not hesitate to answer. Alexander was my twin brother. He was part of my family, and I loved him. He had been cursed with a mixture of too much faith and damnable powers. He did not deserve the taunting he was receiving.

“That’s unfortunate,” Ather said dryly, and then, “Aubrey, will you deal with that distraction?” I started to turn toward Aubrey, who had drawn a knife from his belt, and barely saw him grab my brother before Ather took my head in both her powerful hands and forced me to look into her eyes. “Now he means nothing.”

I heard Aubrey laugh, and then stop. I thought I heard a whisper, but it was so soft, so quick, that it could have been the wind. Aubrey reentered my line of
vision, sheathing his blade. Then he disappeared, and I was left watching the place where he had stood. I stared after him, in shock perhaps. I heard nothing anymore, felt nothing.

Then what had just happened seemed to hit me, and I tried to turn to my brother, who was so silent — too silent….

Ather grabbed my arm.

“Leave him there, Rachel,” she told me.

But Alexander was hurt, maybe dying. I had no doubt Aubrey had drawn the knife to kill him. How could she tell me to leave him? He needed help.

“I said,
leave him,”
Ather whispered, once again turning me toward her. I stepped back, meeting her black eyes.

Cold shock was beginning to fill my mind, blocking the way of terror and pain. My brother could not be dead — not this suddenly.

“Do you know what I am, Rachel?” Ather asked me, and the question jolted me from my silent world.
This
was reality — not Alexander’s death, not black roses. I could deal with this moment, so long as I did not think of the one before.

“You appear to be a creature from legend,” I said carefully, worried about the consequences my words might have.

“You are right.” Ather smiled again, and I wanted to slap that smile from her face. I remembered Alexander’s words —
I am the one who attacked you
— and my surprise at hearing them. I could not believe my brother would ever harm anyone. The idea that such violence was in
me
was shocking … yet also strangely exciting.

Ather continued before I could say anything.

“I want to make you one of my kind.”

“No,”
I told her. “Leave. Now. I do not want to be what you are.”

“Did I say you had a choice?”

I pushed her away with all my strength, but she barely stumbled. She grabbed my shoulders. Long-nailed fingers twining in my hair, she tilted my head back and then leaned forward so that her lips touched my throat. The wicked fangs I had glimpsed before pierced my skin.

I fought; I fought for the immortal soul the preachers had taught me to believe in. I do not know whether I ever believed in it — I had never seen God, and He had never spoken to me — but I fought for it anyway, and I fought for Alexander.

Nothing I did mattered.

The feeling of having your blood drawn out is both seductive and soothing, like a caress and a gentle voice that is in your mind, whispering
Relax
. It makes you want to stop struggling and cooperate. I would not cooperate. But if you struggle, it hurts.

Ather’s right hand pinned both of mine together behind me, and her left hand held me by the hair. Her teeth were in the vein that ran down my throat, but the pain hit me in the chest. It felt as if liquid fire was being forced through my veins instead of blood. My heart beat faster, from fear and pain and lack of blood. Eventually I lost consciousness.

A minute or an hour later, I woke for a moment in a dark place. There was no light and no sound, only pain and the thick, warm liquid that was being forced past my lips.

I swallowed again and again before my head cleared. The liquid was bittersweet, and as I drank I had an impression of power and … not life or death, but time. And strength and eternity …

Finally I realized what I had been drinking. I pushed away the wrist that someone was holding to my lips, but I was weak, and it was so tempting.

“Temptation.”
The voice was in my ears and my head, and I recognized it as Ather’s.

Once again I pushed away the wrist, though my body screamed at me for doing so. Ather was insistent, but so was I. I somehow managed to turn my head away, despite the pain that shot through me with each beat of my heart. I could hear my own pulse in my ears, and it quickened until I could hardly breathe past it, but still I pushed away the blood. I believed, for that second, in my immortal soul, and would not abandon it — not willingly.

Suddenly Ather was gone. I was alone.

I could feel the blood in my veins, entering my body, soul, and mind. I could not get my breath; my head pounded and my heart raced. Then they both slowed.

I heard my own heart stop.

I felt my breath still.

My vision faded, and the blackness filled my mind.

N
EVER BEFORE AND NEVER AFTER
have I felt the soul-tearing, mind-breaking pain I experienced that night. I have looked into the minds of willing fledglings; never have I seen my own pain reflected. My line’s strength comes at a price, and the price is that pain. It has changed us all. One cannot be conscious throughout one’s own death and not be changed.

Perhaps that was the worst part. Or perhaps the worst part of my story is yet to come.

The visions of my past linger in the present. Alexander’s face floats in my mind, and I cannot seem to make it disappear. My two lives have nothing in common, and yet as I stand in this house I feel as if I have somehow been transported back to the past, before my brother was killed.

Seeking a diversion, I bring myself to New York City I do not shift into hawk form. I simply bring myself away with the ability that only my kind has — the ability
to change to pure energy, pure ether, for the instant it takes to travel in that form to another place. It takes me only a thought, and I arrive in less than a second.

I automatically shield my aura as I appear in the alley, not wishing to announce my presence to the world. Then I walk through the scarred wooden door that leads to Ambrosia, one of the city’s many vampire clubs. This place was once owned by another of Ather’s fledglings, a vampire named Kala. But Kala was killed by a vampire hunter. Yes, they do exist; witches and even humans often hunt our kind. I do not know who owns this place now that they have killed Kala.

The club is small and looks like any café — or it would if it had windows and more light than the single candle in the corner gives. Of course, I can see by the dim light, but a human would be close to blind in Ambrosia.

At the counter is another of my kind. I do not know him. He has his head down on the counter, and the skin I can see is almost gray. As I walk through the door he does not even look in my direction, though he does raise his head long enough to empty the glass that stands on the counter near him, and to lick the blood from his lips as a shiver wracks his body.

“Who did this to you?” I ask him, curious. There is no disease on Earth my kind can catch, and almost no poison that affects us, so I wonder why he looks ill.

“Some damn Triste,” the stranger growls. “He was in the Café Sangra. I didn’t even realize he wasn’t human.”

I wonder how Aubrey would react if he learned a Triste witch had been in the Café Sangra.