The Den of Shadows Quartet (7 page)

“I don’t want your games!” I shout. If the one who left this reminder is still near, let him confront me.

No one answers.

M
Y PAST AND MY PRESENT
have combined to taunt me. Shaking with grief and anger, I return to Ambrosia. I glance around the room, checking for Aubrey. I do not see him.

I come to this place seeking a diversion. The ghost of Rachel cannot follow me here.

I see my image reflected in a crystal glass someone has left on a counter. My reflection is a misty apparition, but I can see Tora’s markings in my hair and I laugh. This is something Aubrey will never take from me.

In this moment I feel like exactly what I am: a wild child of the darkness. A dangerous shadow in a mood to make trouble.

I look around the room again. Smiling, I toss my tiger-striped hair back from my face and perch on the counter. The girl behind it, a younger fledgling, opens her mouth as if to tell me to get down but then thinks better of it.

“What do you see, Tiger?” someone asks me, and I turn toward him. “You look around this room as if you saw it differently from all of us. What do you see?”

I recognize him, and I know he recognizes me. He is Ather’s blood brother, Jager. People say he treats all life as a game that must be played — a cruel and deadly game in which whoever is winning makes the rules.

Jager appears eighteen, with dark skin and deep brown hair. His eyes are emerald green, and they reflect the dim light like a cat’s. I know it is the same illusion as my hair. All vampires have black eyes, and Jager had dark eyes even when he was alive — he was born nearly five thousand years ago, in Egypt, and watched the great pyramids rise.

“I see someone who does not show his true eyes,” I observe. “What do you see?”

“I see that my warnings to Ather and Aubrey were justified,” he answers.

“Was it you who warned Ather I would be strong?”

“It was I who warned her that you would be stronger than she.”

He sits on the counter beside me, and the girl behind it gives up, moving to a table on the other side of the room.

“Ather is weak,” I comment. “It is one of her flaws. She changes those who will be stronger than her, because it makes others think she has more power than she does.”

“She isn’t the only one you are stronger than, Risika,” he answers. “Aubrey isn’t often challenged, because people know he is powerful, and they are afraid
of him. He has you afraid of him, although he is not much stronger than you are, if at all.”

“Oh, really?” I ask, not believing him. “Then we must be speaking of different Aubreys, because I lost the last time I fought the Aubrey I know.”

“You could hide that scar with a thought. You have the power to do that,” Jager says, changing the subject.

“I could,” I answer. “But I don’t.”

“You wear it like a warning — a sign that you will avenge it.”

“I will avenge more than this scar, Jager.”

“When?” he presses. “Will you wait for him to start the music? Or will you start it yourself?”

“I prefer to kill in silence.”

Jager gazes at me and smiles. “Happy hunting, Risika.” A moment later he is gone.

I lie back on the counter, thinking on his words, and then I too am gone. We are phantoms of the night, coming and going from the darkened city like shadows in candlelight.

I return to my home in a light, detached mood, not bothering with the complexities of revenge. I look out the front window, watching the few who are also returning to bed as the sun rises.

One of Concord’s other shadows enters his house — a witch, but only by heritage, as he is not trained. He is not a threat to me.

I also see Jessica, Concord’s young writer, looking out her own window. Jessica writes about vampires, and her books are true, though no one understands how she knows what she does. I wonder if I should tell
her my story — perhaps she could write it for me. Perhaps it is my story she now writes.

I go upstairs and fall into bed and a vampiric sleep.

My dreams are my memories of the past. I dream of my years of innocence, while I was still fighting what I was.

I
DID NOT RETURN
to my home for three years, and when I finally did, no one saw me.

It was nearly midnight when I stopped in Concord, which was intentional. I did not wish to run into any humans.

I did not want to be recognized, of course, but more than that I was not sure I could control myself. The last time I had fed had been two nights previous, on a thief who had the ill luck to attack me as I wandered the darkened streets. The thirst beat at me viciously.

Though I consoled myself by saying I only killed those who deserved it, Aubrey’s words always echoed in my mind:
Are you a god now, Risika, deciding who is to live and who is to die?
Thieves and murderers sustained me, but only just. I fed only as often as I needed to in order to survive, and the hunger was always near.

I stood outside the house I had once lived in, perched on the edge of the well, watching the house like a ghost, able to see and hear but unable to do anything else.

Would he recognize me, even if he saw me? The three years had changed me. My fair skin was frosty white, and my golden hair was tangled, not having seen a comb in a while. I wore men’s clothing, having lost my patience with long dresses as I explored the forests, mountains, and rivers of the country.

Of course I could have walked up to the door and asked my father if he knew who I was, but I would not. He would only be hurt more when I had to leave again. I would not let him know what I had become.

Lynette was asleep in her room, but my father was awake, and crying. He looked out the window, and though I knew he was looking in my direction, he did not see me. I had learned how to shield my existence from mortal eyes.

The tears on his face sent daggers into my heart. I had a powerful vision of Aubrey and Ather lying dead, with me standing above them. Would anyone weep if they were killed? I did not think so, but I would never have the chance to know. Aubrey had proved beyond any doubt that I would not be the one to give him death.

A woman drifted downstairs behind my father. Her dark hair was tied back, and even from this distance I could see that her eyes were chocolate brown. Her skin was not as fair as my mother’s had been. When she put a hand on my father’s shoulder, I could see that she did not have the graceful artist’s hands my father had often described my mother as having.

“Peter, it’s late. You need to sleep.”

My father turned to her and gave a weak smile, and for an instant I felt an irrational urge to go inside and
shake
this woman. I had seen my father’s thoughts, and I knew without a doubt that this stranger was his wife. Her name was Katherine. Had he married her trying to replace us? Did she even know about Alexander and me? Did she care?

These people were no longer my family that I knew. But I could not help hating this woman for trying to take my place.

“Jealous?” someone said over my shoulder, and I swung around toward Aubrey, knowing that my eyes were narrowed with hatred. “If she bothers you that much, kill her.”

“I am sure you would appreciate that,” I hissed.

He laughed. “You have too many morals.”

“And you have none,” I snapped back, trying to keep myself from hitting him. I refused to leave while he was here, his attention on my father and this innocent woman.

Innocent woman … strange, how my opinion changed so quickly. As soon as Aubrey suggested I kill her, I felt the need to protect her.

“I have some morals, I suppose,” he argued, though his voice was light. He had taken no offense at the accusation. “But none that interfere with the way I survive. Look at yourself, Risika — you can hardly preach the benefits of morality.”

Though I did not hate myself for killing to survive, I feared that I would one day become as indifferent to murder as Aubrey was.

“If you came here to convince me to abandon my morals, you are wasting your time,” I snapped.

“You are hardly my only motive for being here,” he answered lazily.

My father and his wife had decided to get some air and were now sitting on the back porch, quietly discussing how the farm was doing, Lynette’s suitors, and everything else except for the reason my father had been crying.

As if he could sense my gaze on him, my father turned toward me, but this time his eyes went wide, as if he could see me despite my efforts.

Standing, he took a step in my direction before his wife put a hand on his arm. “There’s no one there, Peter,” she insisted, and my father sighed.

“I could have sworn I saw her….” He shook his head, taking a raspy breath.

“You could have sworn you saw her a few days ago, but she was not there. You thought you saw your son the week before that, but he was not there. They never are, Peter, and they never will be. Let them go.”

My father turned about and went inside the house. Katherine closed her eyes for a moment and whispered a prayer.

Why did she not help him herself? Was she so blind that she could not see how much her words had hurt him?

Aubrey laughed beside me. “You
are
jealous.”

I spun toward him again, losing my temper. “Could you go somewhere else?”

“I could,” he said. “But this is more fun.”

“Damn you.”

He shrugged, then looked past me to my father’s wife, who had just stood and moved toward the house.

She hesitated, then turned slowly, sensing eyes on her back.

“Leave her alone, Aubrey,” I commanded.

“Why?”

Katherine looked up as if she had heard a sound, and then walked toward us, though I could tell that she did not really see Aubrey or me.

I clenched my fists, knowing that he was baiting me and knowing equally well that if he had set his mind on killing this woman, there was no way I could stop him.

Katherine gasped as Aubrey stopped hiding himself from her. She froze, eyes wide.

“Fine, Aubrey — you have made your point,” I snapped, stepping between him and his prey “Now leave.”

“And what point would that be?” he inquired. “I do not share your reservations, Risika. I hunt when I wish, as I always have.”

“Hunt somewhere else,” I said. His eyes narrowed.

“Who … Wh-What do you want?” Katherine stammered, backing away from us. She was breathing quickly, and her heart was beating fast from fear.

Aubrey disappeared from where he stood and reappeared behind her. Katharine stumbled into him and let out a gasp.

Aubrey whispered into her ear and she relaxed. Then he reached up and gently pulled her head back, exposing her throat….

I
SNAP AWAKE
, instantly alert.

There is someone in the house, in the room.

I rise from my bed. “Why do you hide, Aubrey?” I ask the shadows. “Do you finally fear me? Are you afraid that if you challenge me again you will lose?” I know this is not Aubrey’s fear, but I am in the mood to taunt, just as I know he is.

There is one taunt that almost guarantees a vampire’s response: accusing him of being afraid.

“I will never fear you, Risika,” Aubrey answers as his form coalesces from the shadows of the room.

“You should,” I respond. Vampiric powers strengthen with strong emotions — hate, rage, love — and Aubrey brings all those emotions to the surface of my mind.

Despite my hatred, if I fight him I will lose. This is a lesson I learned well years ago. Aubrey is older, stronger, and much crueler.

For now, though, he lounges against the wall, throwing his knife into the air and catching it. Throwing,
catching. Up, down. The faint light glints on the silver blade, and I have a sudden picture in my mind of Aubrey missing the knife, and of it slicing across his wrist.

He has modernized his style since the 1700s: he wears black jeans tucked into black boots, a tight red shirt that shows off the muscles of his chest, and a metal-studded dog collar. The green viper has been replaced by the world serpent from Norse mythology, which played a part in the destruction of the world. On his upper arm is the Greek Echidna, mother of all monsters, and on his right wrist is the Norse monster Fenris, the giant wolf who swallowed the sun.

I wonder what Aubrey will do when he becomes bored with these designs. Maybe cut them off with an ordinary knife. His flesh would heal in a matter of seconds. Maybe I could volunteer to help…. No one would mind if I “accidentally” cut his heart out in the process.

“Why are you here, Aubrey?” I finally ask, not willing to wait for him to speak.

“I just came to offer my condolences for the death of your poor, fragile kitten.”

My body freezes with rage. Aubrey knows how to hurt me, and how to make me lose my temper. He has done so before.

I start to move toward him — to hit him, to make him hurt as much as I do.

“Careful, Risika,” he says. Just two words, but I stop. “Remember what happened last time you challenged me.”

“I remember,” I growl. My voice is heavy with pain and rage. I do remember — I remember very well.