Shattered Mirror dos-3
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Shattered Mirror
( Den of Shadows - 3 )
Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
To the casual observer, Christopher Ravena and Sarah Vida look like normal high school students. But he’s a vampire who has sworn off human blood, and she’s a witch, a daughter of the most powerful vampire-hunting dynasty in history. Slowly, without meaning to, Sarah finds herself won over by his sensitivity, his gentleness, his kindness.
But his past and her future collide when they both get tangled up with Nikolas, one of the most reviled vampires ever.
Shattered Mirror
Den of Shadows 3
Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
Dedicated to Carolyn Barns, who knows these characters as well as I do, understands all my vague references and odd humor, and can push me on when Ive all but given up. Carolyn, I owe you.
As always I must mention my family, especially my sister Gretchen. Thank you for believing in me, for listening to my dreams.
My love to Indigo of the Round Table. Carolyn, Sydney, Irene, and Valerie, where would I be without you all? Youand Alexandre, and TSB, and Londra, and Hawk, and Ysterath, and even the evil fairy (whom I never liked even if he was a good guy)are the people who make my life interesting.
More thanks go to the members of the Rikai Group for all their encouragement and support while I was editing Shattered Mirror. My deepest gratitude goes to Kyle Bladow, who believed in me even when I didnt, and to Darrin Kuykendall, who showed me how to put water on my cereal while I waited for the milk.
Last but not least, thanks to my editor, Diana. Without her suggestions and comments, this book would never have become what it is today.
The Two Trees
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart.
Gaze no more in the bitter glass
The demons, with their subtle guile.
Lift up before us when they pass,
Or only gaze a little while;
For there a fatal image grows
That the stormy night receives,
Roots half hidden under snows,
Broken boughs and blackened leaves.
For ill things turn to barrenness
In the dim glass the demons hold,
The glass of outer weariness,
Made when God slept in times of old.
There, through the broken branches, go
The ravens of unresting thought;
Flying, crying, to and fro,
Cruel claw and hungry throat,
Or else they stand and sniff the wind,
And shake their ragged wings; alas!
Thy tender eyes grow all unkind:
Gaze no more in the bitter glass.
W. B. Yeats
CHAPTER 1
SARAH VIDA SHIVERED. The aura of vampires seeping from the house in front of her was nearly overwhelming. She drove around the block once, then stopped her car a couple of yards away from the white Volvo she had been following. Her sapphire Jaguar was flashy, and she hadn’t had time to change the plates.
She was lucky she had been planning on crashing a different party, or she would never have been ready for this one. She had come across the white Volvo’s owner at a gas station and had tailed her here.
She cut the motor and ran her fingers through her long blond hair, which was windblown by the drive in the convertible. Flashing a killer smile at no one, she checked her appearance in the rear view mirror. The girl in the glass appeared attractive, wild and carefree. The core of stone was not visible in her reflection.
As she stood, Sarah smoothed down her blue tank top and cream jeans and automatically checked to make sure her knives were in place—one in a spine sheath on her back and one tucked into each calf-high boot. Only then did she approach the house.
With blinds and shades pulled, the house appeared empty from the outside, but the illusion was quickly shattered. Before she even had a chance to knock, someone pulled open the door.
Leech,Sarah thought, disgusted, as she flashed a smile as practiced as the one she had given her rear view mirror at the vampire who had opened the door.
Whoa.Her smile did not waver, even though the vampiric aura in the house hit her like a sledgehammer to her gut. Her skin tingled at the sense of power, the feeling as unpleasant as sandpaper scraping across raw skin.
Unpleasant feeling or no, she began to mingle, looking always for the prey she was risking her neck to find—Nikolas.
Nikolas was one of the most infamous of his kind, a vampire who had hunted blatantly since the 1800s. His first known prey had been a young mother named Elisabeth Vida. Elisabeth had been a witch, a vampire hunter, and incidentally, Sarah’s ancestor. Her family had been hunting Nikolas ever since—without success.
Nikolas was clever—he had to be to have eluded hunters from the most powerful family of witches for so long. But he was also vain, and that would be his downfall. Every one of his victims wore his marks, decorations cut into their arms with the blade of his knife. Nikolas allowed some of his victims to live, but he twisted their minds to make them sickeningly loyal to him. Hunters had caught more than one of those warped humans, but they each professed to choose death before they would betray the vampire.
One of them, however, had made a mistake. A flat tire on the way to this bash had left her fuming at a gas station off Route 95, and she had been too preoccupied to cover the scars on her arms. The attendant, a member of the hunters’ complex system of informants, had called Sarah; she had followed the girl’s white Volvo here.
Taking a breath to focus her senses, Sarah searched the room with all six of them. Human scents mingled with the overpowering aura of vampires. Sarah felt pity and a slight disgust for the living who flitted among the vampires like flies clinging to dead flesh. Though Sarah did see one human boy leaving just after she came in, most of these humans would stay, out of either ignorance or perverted loyalty.
She didn’t like being inside this group without backup, but the short drive between the gas station and this house had only allowed for a few cell-phone calls, which had reached only busy signals and answering machines. She couldn’t risk making a serious kill, outnumbered as she was, but if she played nice tonight, she had a good chance of wangling an invitation to the next bash this group hosted. She could bring in the big guns then.
The trick was to avoid being killed—or munched on. She was posing as free food, human and helpless, but letting a vampire feed on her was further than she was willing to go. Besides, even the weakest vampire would be able to taste the difference between the bland vintage of human blood and the power in her own witch blood.
It was past ten o’clock at night, and the back of Sarah’s neck tingled with apprehension. Any hunter worth her blade generally knew better than to stay at a bash after midnight. Called the Devil’s Hour, midnight was when the killing was done.
Yet if Sarah wanted an invitation, she needed to stay and convince these creatures she was one of the idiotic humans who bared their throats willingly. Any hunter, from the most amateur to the most respected, would give his right eye and his life for a chance to take down a group of vampires this strong.
Sarah befriended the girl she had followed, and within fifteen minutes she had charmed her way into receiving one of the slick white cards that stated the time and location of the next bash this group was hosting.
Now all she had to do was follow the two simplest rules any hunter ever learned: Don’t get caught, and clean up after yourself.
As the Devil’s Hour drew near, Sarah found the weakest of the vampires and made sure she was alone with him when the clock struck.
“I don’t think Kaleo meant this room to be open to the public,” her companion pointed out, referri
ng to their vampire host. Sarah recognized the name with revulsion. Nikolas was not the only creature in this group the hunters would love to take down.
Hiding her thoughts, she smiled and put a hand on her companion’s shoulder, forcing herself to ignore the unpleasant thickness of his aura. “Maybe I just wanted you all to myself,” she teased, meeting his black vampiric eyes.
The fiend got the message and leaned closer to her. Sarah ran her fingers through his ash blond hair, and he wrapped a slender hand around the back of her neck, gently urging her forward.
She leaned her head back, knowing where his gaze would travel. He fell for it, as they always did, and as she felt his lips touch her throat, she reacted.
Shoving him back into the wall, she used his moment of confusion to draw the silver knife from the sheath on her back. Before he could recover his wits, she slammed the blade into his chest, then twisted the knife to make sure his heart was completely destroyed. Vampiric power lived in the blood, and any well-trained hunter knew to twist the knife and obliterate the source of that power. Even Sarah, with a silver blade forged by magic thousands of years old, was still careful. The Vida blade would poison any vampire it scratched, but there was no reason to be careless.
The kill was silent and quick; no one outside even knew this monster was down. Sarah absently wiped her clean hand on her jeans, brushing away the tingling aftereffect of touching him, and touched her throat to reassure herself that there were no puncture marks.
She tucked the body into a corner, knowing this house would probably be abandoned for a while after this bash—that was one of the techniques the vampires used to keep hunters from tracking them down. They were rarely stupid enough to sleep in the same house where they killed.
For a moment she paused, pondering the lifeless body, wondering how any person would willingly become a creature who fed on humanity, a monstrous parasite. He would have taken her blood and killed her had she not killed him first.
She shook her head. It was dead, as it should have been when the vampire blood first froze its heart years ago. That was all that mattered.
Checking herself for blood and finding none, she took a moment to relax as she waited for some time to pass.
She sensed another vampire behind her but forced herself to turn slowly, as if a little groggy. She recognized the vampire immediately. Kaleo had pale blond hair and sculpted features, which would have made him attractive had his aura not been enough to make Sarah’s stomach churn. In the midst of his blond features, his black eyes seemed infinitely darker. Kaleo was one of the oldest in his line, and more powerful than any creature Sarah had ever faced.
For a moment, Sarah debated going for her blade. Attacking Kaleo by herself with so many of his kind near would probably mean the end of her life. But it might be worth it.
Before Sarah could make a move, though, Kaleo glanced pointedly to the doorway behind which Sarah had hidden her prey. “What excellent taste,” he congratulated her. “He was rather a pain.”
A prepared vampire was more difficult to fight than an unsuspecting one. Without hesitation, Sarah went for her knife.
CHAPTER 2
“YOU DROVE HOME LIKE THIS?”
Sarah nodded sharply in answer to the healer’s question.
Caryn Smoke shook her head but made no comment.
She was the strongest living member of her line, and had nearly been disowned recently due to her associations with vampires. Sarah had disliked the girl ever since the trial, but Caryn was an effective healer, and Sarah only turned to the best.
Sarah had been raised to ignore pain so it would not incapacitate her in a fight, and tonight those lessons had proved invaluable. Both bones in her right forearm had broken when Kaleo grabbed her wrist and threw her into a wall; her head had hit hard enough that had she been human it would have knocked her out. Instead, she had simply drawn another knife with her left hand.
Fortunately, Kaleo and his guests had all been more interested in the pleasures willingly provided by their human sycophants than in fighting a vampire hunter, and had quickly lost interest in Sarah and allowed her to escape.
Sarah had been lucky. She had survived because the vampires had gotten bored. That—added to the fact that she hadn’t seen Nikolas—grated on her.
It was almost five o’clock in the morning by the time Caryn was finished setting the arm. The healer moved on to deal with Sarah’s numerous other scrapes, bruises, and minor sprains when Dominique Vida returned from hunting and came to see her injured daughter. As she sized up Sarah’s condition, her expression was calm, but marked with distinct disapproval.
“You were careless,” Dominique chastised, after she heard the details of Sarah’s night. “You went into that group unprepared, and you stayed past midnight.”
Sarah lowered her gaze, but did not allow her defiant expression to fall.
Finally Sarah spoke up, her voice sure despite Dominique’s reproach. “Nikolas was there.” Dominique could complain all she liked about Sarah’s carelessness, but if Nikolas was part of that group, then they had a lead to finding him.
“Nikolas?” Dominique’s voice was sharp. “You saw him?”
Sarah shook her head. “One of his prey—marked.”
“That doesn’t help much unless you saw the vampire himself,” Dominique pointed out dryly, and Sarah set her jaw to keep from arguing. “And now we have no way of tracking him down.” Sarah did not bother turning over the invitation she had received. After having teased and released the hunter they had found in their midst, the vampires would know better than to host the bash she had mistakenly been invited to.
“You’re set,” Caryn said, her normally quiet voice raised to interrupt the conversation. She patted the cast on Sarah’s arm gently. “You’ll need a week or so to heal completely, and until then I recommend that you take it easy. Okay?” The last was said with a sharp look to Dominique.
The Vida matriarch nodded. “Thank you for your help, Caryn. Sorry to bother you so late.”
Caryn shrugged, her fatigue visible. “No problem. I was in the neighborhood, at a Single Earth hospital.”
Dominique did not react to the remark, and Sarah copied her mother’s neutral mask. Single Earth. The organization was growing by leaps and bounds, with humans, witches, vampires, and shapeshifters joining, all working toward a common cause: unite all the creatures on Earth. Though a noble goal, it was never going to work. Vampires were hunters, evil by nature, and most were incapable of containing their need for bloodshed. Even the vampires at Single Earth, who survived by feeding on animals or willing donors, admitted that it was painful to live without killing.
“I guess you probably won’t be at school tomorrow?” Caryn asked on her way out.
Sarah glanced to her mother, but saw no sympathy. “I’ll be there.” No matter how hard a night Sarah had had, Dominique was not one to allow her daughter to slack off, not even for a few days so she could start at her new school on Monday. Sarah would start bright and early on Wednesday morning.
Sarah had been expelled from her last school for fighting on school grounds. In the process of extinguishing a vampire, some school property had been broken, and the administration had not been particularly understanding. Only some quick thinking by Sarah’s sister, Adianna, had kept anyone from finding the body.
After the incident, Dominique had decided to move her daughter away from the constant excitement of the city and into a dull Massachusetts suburb named Acton. Caryn and her family lived there.
Dominique returned upstairs to sleep, and Caryn caught Sarah’s good arm.
“I should warn you. There are a few vampires in the school.” Upon Sarah’s look, she added sternly, “They’re harmless, and they have every right to be there. If you hurt any of them—”
“If they’re harmless, I’ll just ignore them. I can’t afford to get kicked out of another school, anyway. Okay?” Sarah offered. Caryn nodded.
Sarah’s pride, already ground
into the dirt, deflated even more when the door opened again and her sister entered the house.
“Hey, little sis,” Adianna greeted her. Noticing the cast, she added, “Rough night?”
Adianna Vida, one year Sarah’s senior, was almost as perfect as their mother—intelligent and controlled. She had graduated last year, but was taking a semester off before starting college to train harder, and to “look out for” her little sister.
Right then Adianna’s blond hair was tousled, and Sarah saw a smear of blood on her dark blue jeans as if she had wiped a knife clean. She had obviously been fighting, and she had just as obviously won.
Adianna patted her sister’s shoulder as she passed toward the stairs. “Rest up. The world will survive without you for a week or so.”
CHAPTER 3
SEVEN-THIRTY-FIVE is a beastly hour to begin school,Sarah thought, as she opened her locker. The bell rang and she sighed. Hopefully being the new girl would excuse her tardiness. It certainly had no other perks. She thought fleetingly of the hunting companions she had left behind, with whom she had crashed bashes and stalked the darkest corners of the city. By morning, rarely had a blade been left clean.
She forcibly banished such thoughts. She was here now, and it was time to begin this new life.
Her first block was American history, and though she located it easily, the class had already begun when she slipped through the door.
“Sarah Green?” the teacher confirmed as Sarah turned over the folded pink pass from the office. Mr. Smith was a balding, tired-looking man whose crisp suit pants and shirt seemed out of place in the high school. He gestured toward the class. “Take a seat . . . there’s one open right next to Robert—”
“Actually, someone’s sitting there,” one of the boys in the back of the room called. As Sarah’s attention turned to Robert, she realized that he looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place his face in her memory. He had looked up just long enough to see who had come in the door, and was now writing something in a notebook. The desk next to him appeared empty to Sarah; the chair was vacant.