A more naпve guest might assume they were making out. One pale hand was wrapped around the back of the boy’s neck, and the girl’s long hair fell around her face, blocking from view the seam between her lips and the human boy’s throat. His eyes were half closed, and one hand twined absently in the vampire’s hair, holding her to his throat.
Sarah recognized the dark hair, the slender form, and she wished she did not. Nissa.
Forcing her attention to the rest of the room, her aura brushing over the others, Sarah picked out the vampires easily. This crowd was weak, not killers—and for that she thanked every god and goddess she had ever heard of—but she did not recognize any of them from Single Earth, either.
That meant there was some danger here for her. Even vampires who did not frequently kill would be nervous in the presence of a Vida, and entering a large group of them, barely armed and weakened by injury, seemed a bad idea.
She was about to leave, but the vampire who had opened the door was talking again. “I haven’t seen you around here before,” he said. “Who invited you?” Though his tone was not exactly suspicious, she could tell the vampire was uneasy around her. Having someone ask about her was unusual; at most of the bashes she had crashed, the vampires didn’t care who a guest was, so long as she could bleed.
“She’s with me.” Sarah turned, barely checking her instinct to draw her knife, as she sensed someone approach behind her.
The vampire who had been asking sighed. “I should have known.” He wandered off.
Christopher ran his hands through his short black hair, nervous. “Sarah . . . I would have invited you, but . . .” She could guess his thoughts.How do you explain something like this to someone you assume is human?
“You don’t have to explain,” Sarah offered in an attempt to save the vampire the unease of beginning the conversation. She could sense Christopher’s shock even through his midnight eyes.
“I don’t?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Sarah saw Nissa release the human she had been feeding on. He lay back, a bit dazed, but he looked like he would be fine; if there was anything a vampire knew, it was how much blood a human could afford to lose without being harmed.
The girl looked up, and her eyes widened as she saw Sarah standing with Christopher. She wiped her lips clear of blood with the back of her hand.
“I already know what you are.” The sentence had been directed at Christopher, though Sarah was busy reading Nissa’s features. Seeing blood on her friend’s mouth had unnerved her.
“Why don’t we go upstairs for a minute?” Christopher suggested, looking from his sister to his unexpected guest. Nissa nodded.
“That sounds good,” Sarah answered. Christopher led the way, and Sarah saw Nissa quickly snatch a mint from a table next to the couch before the wall cut her off from view.
A few moments later, the three gathered in Nissa’s room, which was not open to guests. Sarah hesitated in the doorway as Nissa and Christopher made themselves comfortable.
The room was surprisingly normal. While Sarah had known better than to expect a coffin, bats, and bricked-over windows, it was still surprising to see the scattering of schoolbooks that littered the desk. A composition book had been tossed casually in a corner amidst a flurry of crumpled paper and pens, and the pastel blue walls were decorated with posters from musicals like Rent, Les Miserables,and West Side Story.
“Well, then,” Nissa breathed, and Sarah caught the scent of mint barely disguising the reek of fresh blood.
Sarah meant to speak instantly, telling them who she was, but Christopher forestalled it, asking hesitantly, “Are you part of Single Earth? Or . . .”
She barely managed not to laugh at that question. Sarah Vida, a member of Single Earth? Oh, Dominique would have a heart attack at the very suggestion.
Nevertheless, she was here, talking with two vampires, two friends who just happened to be bloodsucking fiends.
She was flattered at least that he thought of SingleEarth before the alternatives. He still thought she was human, and if she was tolerant of his kind, then it stood to reason that she was either part of SingleEarth, or one of those pathetic creatures who chased after the vampires in order to have her blood taken.
“No, I’m not,” she said slowly, trying to decide how best to tell the truth. She would rather have been somewhere else, anywhere but in the middle of a house full of vampires she did not know and whose behavior she could not predict. “I didn’t know you had a circuit,” she stalled.
“It’s Nissa’s,” Christopher answered, nodding to his sister. “She hosts. I just hang out.”
The vampire bashes that Sarah frequently crashed followed a pattern. The members of each party circuit alternated hosting, so as to keep the hunters guessing where the next one would be. All that Sarah had attended had been violent, deadly for any humans who attended, but she had heard about ones like this, where the human guests were simply that—guests, not a main course. They donated blood occasionally, but not at risk to their lives.
“Do you go to bashes often?” Nissa asked from her perch on the bed.
“When I can,” Sarah answered truthfully, wondering how—and if—she should ease into the topic she had come to discuss. The presence of several unknown vampires downstairs made her a little hesitant to reveal herself.
Christopher flinched, worry in his eyes. “Not all of them are as safe as Nissa’s group.”
“I know.”
“The worst is Kendra’s circuit,” Nissa warned. “If you stumble on one of theirs, they’ll probably kill you without a thought.” Softly, she added, “That’s the one Kaleo travels in.” The name seemed to strike a chord in both vampires, and Sarah remembered Nissa’s sculpture of the leech.
Stop stalling, Sarah,she ordered herself, even as she commented, “You were telling me about Kaleo in sculpture.”
“Kaleo . . . was the one who changed me,” Nissa said hesitantly. She glanced at her brother, who just shrugged.
“If you want to tell it, it’s your story,” he pointed out.
“We grew up in the South, just before the Civil War,” Nissa began softly. “Our father worked at a nearby plantation and I took care of the owner’s two daughters, while my brothes worked as stable hands for one of the other wealthy families. We weren’t rich, but we were happy. My mother died when Christopher and his twin brother were both very young, and I more or less raised them.”
With a sigh, she continued, “We were an artistic family. I was the singer, though both of my brothers had talent in that area too. Christopher would write songs and poetry. Even when he said grace at night, his words could bring you to tears.
“That’s what damned us—music and art,” Nissa went on. “Because it drew Kaleo to me. He was also an artist. If he hadn’t learned about my talent, he never would have given me more than a passing glance. As it was, he fell in love with me . . . and I with him.” That admission sounded painful. “I was seventeen, a romantic and an optimist, and Kaleo was—is—very handsome, and very charming, especially when he has it in his mind to win someone over.” Nissa paused in her story.
When she continued, her voice was barely more than a whisper. “For a while our relationship was wonderful, but I learned what he was when I caught him feeding on the woman I worked for.” With difficulty, Nissa explained, “He did not have time to hurt her before I interrupted. She woke up later, unharmed, and I stupidly assumed that Kaleo wasn’t dangerous, that he would not have hurt her even if I had not interfered.”
Her voice wavered as she confessed, “I forgave him, and even came to love him more. Then he offered me immortality, and I said no.” Nissa took a deep breath to keep herself composed. A hint of anger entered her voice, overlaid with sorrow.
“I thought for a while that we could continue as before, but Kaleo doesn’t take no for an answer. Eventually he became so insistent that we argued every time we were together, and finally I told him to leave me alone.” A moment of silence
passed before she continued. “My brothers were twelve and I was barely nineteen when Kaleo killed our father. I could have stopped him, had I been home a minute earlier, but instead I ran in moments after he died. Christopher’s twin was there, and he saw everything. Kaleo made it very clear that he would not hesitate to snap my brother’s neck if I refused again.
“So I agreed.” The words seemed to catch, as Nissa choked back the memory. “I stayed with my brothers for a few years, but my kind does not exist easily in the human world. There was . . . an incident. I changed my brother, and he changed Christopher the next night. And now we’re here.”
“What happened to your other brother?” Sarah asked. The instant the words were out of her mouth, Christopher’s expression made her regret the question.
“He doesn’t run with us,” Nissa answered quietly. It was clear she didn’t want to go into the topic, and Sarah decided not to press.
The silence hung heavy, both vampires obviously contemplating their painful history. Sarah’s mind drifted back to her purpose here, but she couldn’t tell them now. Not when they had just opened their hearts to her. She couldn’t betray a trust like that, even if she hadn’t asked for it.
No one seemed to know exactly how to get over the conversation, so Sarah got up and walked around the room a bit. Once again she noticed the school textbooks.
“Why do you go to school?” she asked. “If you’re . . . that old, then why bother?” She did not want to do the math to figure out exactly how old.
“If you spend too much time away from humans, you forget your own humanity,” Nissa said, her voice distant. “It gets harder to remember that you used to be one of them, and easier to think of them like . . . cattle,” she finished apologetically. “Most of our kind is like that. They don’t see anything wrong with killing humans. Christopher and I decided we needed a reminder.” Sarah remembered with unease Adianna’s comment about the vampire blood slowly destroying the last shreds of humanity, and was glad she was not immediately called on to speak. Nissa continued with what sounded like forced brightness, “It’s nice to actually be part of the human world for a bit, though I suppose I could imagine places more glamorous than high school.” With a brief glance to some flyer on her desk, she added, “Speaking of, are you sure you won’t come to the Halloween dance? It will be a lot of fun.”
Sarah started to argue, but instead just shrugged.What the hell,she thought,I can do this one last thing, can’t I?Dominique would be furious, but the dance would be over early enough for her to make the ceremony at midnight. As Nissa had said, sometimes it was nice to just be a part of the human crowd for a while.
She heard herself answer, “Sure. I’ll find a way to come.”
CHAPTER 9
SATURDAY NIGHT, Sarah wrote a note to Dominique:I am going to attend a dance at school, but will be back in plenty of time for the ceremony. Sarah.
She dressed carefully, added a hint of makeup, and pinned the sleeves of her dress to hide the spring-loaded knife sheath on her left wrist. She could trigger the mechanism with a small burst of power if necessary. Another knife was on her back. She trusted Christopher and Nissa, but no vampire hunter went out unarmed, especially at this time of year. The moon was full, it was the witches’ New Year, and her aura flickered around her, strong and bright. She had too many enemies in the vampire world that would be able to recognize it.
Sarah met up with Christopher and Nissa just outside the door to the school.
“Sarah, you look great!” Nissa exclaimed.
Nissa’s full skirts billowed around her as she crossed the floor. She was dressed in an emerald-colored Renaissance-style gown that laced up in back and showed off her perfect figure. Christopher had dressed as a Gypsy, with a colorful vest and a multicolored scarf pulled around his waist.
Sarah was wearing the same dress she would wear for the ceremony later, a light, silvery cotton gown that flowed around her legs when she moved. Around her waist, in place of the silver belt she would wear at midnight, was a sapphire sash that matched her eyes. It was embroidered with silver stars, and had been hidden somewhere in the back of her closet. She had not worn it in a very long time; it had been a gift from her sister, before Adianna had given up such frivolous things like sisterly teasing and birthday presents in order to follow in Dominique’s emotionless footsteps.
The constellations on the barely worn sash reminded Sarah of the picture Christopher had drawn. Since she could hardly go around holding planets, she wore sun and moon earrings.
When the three met up outside the gym, Christopher’s eyes said that he recognized the outfit.
As they entered the dance together, the brush of another witch’s aura caused Sarah to stretch out a tendril of power and try to locate its source, but the crowd of students was so thick she could not.
A slow song started, and Christopher looked to her. “Want to dance?” he asked as he reached for her hand.
She saw an edge of nervousness in Christopher’s expression when she hesitated, and before she could think it through she answered, “Sure.”
She tensed when Christopher touched her. Stretching out her senses to locate the other witch had made her hypersensitive to his vampiric aura. He looked so human, so fragile, and yet his presence made her every sense shriek in warning.
She distracted herself by focusing on the other witch. The power she sensed was familiar enough that it made her uneasy. She wasn’t supposed to be here, but Dominique wouldn’t have come to fetch her, would she? If she was at the dance, or if Adianna was here . . .
Everything about the moment was wrong. At this distance, at this time, Christopher’s aura ran over her skin like thousands of spider legs scampering across bare flesh.
She stopped dancing at the same time she saw Adianna in the crowd. How distracted she must have been not to have recognized her sister’s presence.
“I can’t do this,” she whispered, stepping back from Christopher, shaking her head violently. If Adianna saw him, after having given her warning . . .
“What? What did I do?” Christopher asked. The hurt in his eyes was so raw she wanted to comfort him.
But “I’m sorry” was all she could say before she turned away. She who had been taught to fight to the end, win or lose, now ran from one of the very creatures she hunted.
Leaning against the wall outside, completely alone, Sarah felt better. A moment later the doors opened again and Adianna came out, her eyes moving sharply around the area as she checked for any possible threats.
“Sarah, Mother is throwing a fit. She asked me to find you. What are you doing here?” Adianna winced at the obvious answer when the door opened again and Christopher followed them out.
Christopher froze, no doubt sensing danger but not fully understanding it.
“Please, Adia, let me handle this,” Sarah asked softly, catching Adianna’s wrist before the other hunter could move.
Sarah—Adianna said, reaching out with her mind.
Responding the same way, Sarah interrupted,I’m going to tell him the truth, and then I’ll come home. I care about him, and about his sister. I don’t want either of them hurt. Just let me say good-bye my own way. And don’t tell Dominique.
Adianna could read Christopher’s aura almost as well as Sarah could, and knew the vampire was not a threat physically. She nodded. If Sarah was going to tell him who she was, and end the friendship, then Adianna would let her do it.
Adianna backed away, keeping her gaze on the vampire until she slipped around the corner to the front of the building.
CHAPTER 10
“WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT?” Christopher asked, bewildered.
“Adianna . . . doesn’t like you.” It was the most she could think to say. “Come here—away from the door. I need to talk to you, and I don’t want someone wandering into our conversation.” She led him to the back of the building.
“What did I do?” Christopher asked when she hesitated to explain.
“You”
—are a blood-sucking leech—“didn’t do anything wrong,” Sarah answered. She took a breath to brace herself for her next words, because they would hopefully end the closest thing she had ever had to a true friendship. “But I need you to leave me alone.” Only seventeen years as Dominique Vida’s daughter kept her own pain from her voice. She couldn’t continue this double life, and Christopher would be safer knowing nothing. “I want you to stay away from me,” she continued, driving the knife home. “Don’t talk to me. Don’t come near me. Don’t even look at me.”
“If that’s how you feel,” he answered, his voice cooler than a moment ago, though she could still hear his hurt in it. She had hidden enough of her own emotions in her life to recognize that he was trying to do the same.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be—you aren’t the first to turn me down, and you probably won’t be the last.”
“I don’t want you getting hurt, Christopher.” He shrugged, turning away, as if it didn’t matter.
“It’s harder to do than one might think,” he answered bitterly.
The words gave her a moment of pain. “Christopher, turn around.” She couldn’t leave him like this, without understanding. She was trying to protect him; she did not want to hurt him.
“I’m leaving. I won’t bother you.”
“Christopher, look at me!”
He turned around, his face completely neutral except for a hint of anger behind his eyes.
“What?” His voice was cold, controlled—very different from the Christopher that Sarah had come to know. She wondered when in his life he had needed to learn how to show nothing of his thoughts, nothing of his feelings.
“It isn’t you,” she said quietly. She couldn’t stand to let him leave without telling him her reasons. “It isn’t who you are . . . and it isn’t even what you are. Well, in a way it is, but . . .” She sounded like a bumbling idiot, she knew, but the necessary words did not come easily to her. “It’s not just what you are. It’s what I am.”
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