The Den of Shadows Quartet

by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

  My vision faded, and the blackness filled my mind.

  CHAPTER 7

  NOW

  NEVER 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.

  The Triste witches appear almost identical to humans. If one can read auras, their auras feel the same. Their hearts beat, and they breathe. They need to eat, just as humans do. Their blood tastes just like a human’s.

  However, they are not human in the least. Like vampires, Triste witches are immortal. They do not age, and their blood is poison to our kind. This child who chanced to feed off one is lucky he did not take much, or else he would already be dead.

  “Since when does Aubrey allow Tristes in his territory?” I ask. The two kinds — vampires and witches — are usually enemies. The word Triste can almost be used as a synonym for vampire hunter.

  “He doesn’t. I was feeding,” he answers, cringing a bit. “And then found myself on the floor with my arm broken. Aubrey tossed me away from the witch like some kind of a doll. They got into an argument, and the witch was thrown out. But this witch, he gave me this on the way out,” he says, holding up a folded slip of paper. “Said to give it to some fledgling of Ather’s.”

  He adds, “Ather doesn’t have any fledglings called Rachel, does she?”

  “What?” I gasp. I am the only one of Ather’s fledglings who has ever been called by that name, and only Ather and Aubrey know it.

  “He said, ‘Give this to Rachel — Ather’s fledgling.’”

  I no longer wish to take the paper from his hand. I do not wish to know what it says. Rachel was human, weak, prey Only Aubrey would call me by that name. Except for Ather, he alone knows all the memories it stirs, and he is the only one who would try to hurt me with it.

  I am not Rachel, and I can never be Rachel again, I think. Rachel is dead.

  I leave Ambrosia without another word, my head reeling with anger. I have seen Aubrey only twice since my death, and both times were long ago. Until recently, I have avoided him like bad blood.

  When I return to my home at dawn, I find one of Aubrey’s servants in my yard. This is my town, and I do not tolerate other vampires, or their servants, in my territory. This applies to Aubrey above all else, because he would take what is mine if I allowed it.

  I change to human form less than a foot from the interloper and push him against the wall of the house.

  “What do you want?” I demand.

  “Aubrey sent —”

  I have no patience and reach into his mind, finding the information I want. Aubrey sent him to warn me away again. If Aubrey had come himself we would have fought, and while I know he does not fear challenging me, I cannot see us fighting again without one of us dying.

  “Tell him I hunt where I wish,” I say to the human. “And I will kill any other servants of his who approach me.” It is dangerous to send such messages to another vampire. What I have said is very close to a challenge — one I hope to avoid — but so be it. If I must, I will play thin ice with Aubrey tonight. I do not care that if the ice breaks it will be I who falls through.

  I leave the human on the doorstep and return to my room.

  CHAPTER 8

  1701

  I FELT MYSELF DIE. I remember hoping I would wake again, that somehow I would live, but then I realized what that would mean.

  I was dead.

  I threw myself into the shadows of death and became lost.

  Senses and memories came slowly when I first awakened.

  I remembered a death, and I remembered that it had been I who had died, but I did not remember who that “I” was.

  Trying to open my eyes, I saw only blackness. I thought I was blind, and that terrified me. Was this death, then? Floating forever in blackness, not even remembering who you had been?

  As that thought brushed my mind I realized I was not floating. No — I could feel a wooden floor beneath me, and I was leaning against a wall that was cold and smooth like glass. I groped blindly around myself but felt nothing else. Behind me was the glass wall, and in front of me was only blackness.

  I forced myself to my feet. Though all my muscles were stiff, after a moment I was able to stand.

  I felt for my pulse and could not find it. I tried to shout and realized I did not have air in my lungs to do so. No heartbeat. No breath. I became afraid once again. I was dead, wasn’t I? If not, what was I?

  Humans breathe when alive, even when they are asleep or unaware of their breathing. Since waking, I had not taken a breath, and I had not noticed until now.

  I finally tried to draw a deep breath, but sharp pain shot through my lungs. It knocked me to my knees, then slowly began to fade. Finally it subsided, and I tried to speak, wondering if I would be able to hear myself. Are not the dead both deaf and mute?

  I took another tentative breath, and the pain did not strike as hard this time, so I used the breath to ask the darkness, “Can anyone hear me?” I received no reply, and I did not wish to ask again.

  I tried to ignore my fear, working the stiffness from my joints and forcing myself to take another breath. The pain was almost gone, but my ribs still felt sore, as if the muscles around them had not been used for a long time. I felt no need to exhale, and I did not become dizzy when I did not do so. Letting out the unnecessary breath, I marveled when my body did not tell me to take another.

  I had my senses of touch and hearing. I could speak. I could taste, and the taste in my mouth was sweet and vaguely familiar. I licked my lips and found that it was there as well. A memory tried to surface in my mind, one of pain and fear. I did not want it, so I pushed it away.

  I tried to determine whether I could smell anything in the
darkness. A honeylike scent wafted in the still, cool air. Beeswax? A candle, perhaps? I could also smell the light, dry scent of wood and an even fainter scent like frost — glass. It did not occur to me that I should not be able to smell glass. No human could.

  Beneath these scents was something I did not recognize — not really like a smell at all, but like something between a taste and a fragrance that you catch for a moment on the breeze. Or perhaps it was the breeze itself, a gentle movement in the air. I focused on this sensation, and though it did not become clearer, its presence was strong.

  Later I learned that this feeling was aura. The aura of death — my death — and of a vampire: Ather, my dark, immortal mother, who gave me this life against my will and who killed my mortal self.

  I tried to walk, searching for a way out of the black room I was in, and found it surprisingly easy. The stiffness was gone from my body, and I moved smoothly, more as if I was floating than walking. The wood beneath my bare feet was smooth and cool.

  I followed the wall until I reached a place that was not glass — a wooden door. I opened it slowly and blinked at the light that poured in. Turning my face away, I caught sight of the room I had just left. All four walls were mirrored, and my reflection flew back at me hundreds of times. Amazement filled me. Whoever owned this house must be rich, to have so much glass in one room. And yet there were no windows at all: nothing to let in the light and air.

  I walked back into the room, entranced by my own reflection, hardly recognizing myself. I approached the mirrored surface and stretched a tentative hand out to the stranger reflected there. Her hair was still my golden hair, and her body had nearly my body’s shape, but her form was more graceful, and when she walked she seemed to glide effortlessly. Her eyes were black as midnight, her skin as pale as death.

  “Look hard, Risika,” a voice behind me said. “Remember it well, for soon it will fade.”

  I spun toward the voice. Everything about the speaker was black, from her hair and eyes to her clothing, everything but her unnaturally fair skin. My first thought was witch. It came from some vague recollection of my past life, though I did not know what that life had held.

  My next thought was Ather. I remembered her — I remembered the dark halo her hair formed around her pale skin, and I remembered her icy laugh.

  A scene flashed through my mind. Once again I remembered my death, but now I remembered before that — Aubrey, sheathing the knife that had just taken a life. Whose life? I did not know and was not sure I wanted to.

  “Why have you brought me here?” I demanded. “What have you done to me?”

  “Come, now,” Ather told me. “Surely you can figure it out. Look at my reflection — look well. Then tell me what I have done to you.”

  I obeyed her command and turned back to the mirror. I could barely see her reflection. In the glass her form was so faint that her black hair appeared as little more than pale smoke.

  “Now look at your own reflection,” she told me.

  I did. Once again I looked at the figure in the mirror, wondering if she could truly be me. I had a picture of myself in my mind, and it was not the same as the one I was seeing; though very close, perhaps, it was still very wrong.

  “Who am I?” I asked, turning back to her. I truly did not know.

  “You do not remember your life?”

  “No.” Ather smiled as I responded. A cold smile — if a snake could smile, it would smile as she did.

  “I thought so,” she answered. “Your memory will, sadly, return later, but for now …” She trailed off with a shrug, as if it did not matter.

  “Who am I?” I demanded. “Answer me.” I was angry, but her nonchalance was not the only reason. My mind had been spinning since I awoke. The sensation had been faint at first, but now the edges of my vision were beginning to go red.

  “Why?” she responded. “Who you were no longer matters. You are Risika, of Silver’s bloodline.”

  “And who is Risika?” I pressed, trying to ignore the painful shiver that wracked my body. “What is she?”

  “She is — you are — a vampire,” Ather told me. The information took a moment to reach my mind. I knew words like witch and Devil. This one was foreign. From somewhere, some memory I could not quite see, I heard someone say, “There are creatures out there that would damn you if they could, simply for spite.”

  Surely Ather was one of those creatures the speaker had been talking about. And Aubrey — I remembered him as well. Once again I saw him sheathing his knife, but still I could not remember why he had taken it out.

  “You have made me into —” I broke off.

  “Do you know I can read your mind like a book?” Ather said, laughing. “You are young now, still partially human. You will quickly learn to shield your thoughts, perhaps even from me. You are strong, even now. He warned me you would be. Was he afraid you would be too strong for me to control?”

  I did not say anything, hardly understanding what Ather said. My head was spinning as if I had hit it on something, and I was having difficulty focusing on anything.

  Ather paused, looking at me, and then smiled. When she did, I could see pale fangs, and I repressed another shiver. “Come, child,” she told me. “You need to hunt before your body destroys itself.”

  Hunt. The word sent dread through me. It reminded me of wolves and cougars, animals who stalked their prey in the forest. Blood soaking into the ground. So much blood …

  Now I wanted that blood. I could see the scarlet death in my mind. Surely the blood was warm and sweet and —

  What was happening to me? These thoughts were not mine, were they?

  “Come, Risika,” Ather snapped. “The pain will worsen until you either feed or go mad from it.”

  “No.” I said the word solidly without reluctance, despite the way I felt. I was burning, and there was dust in my veins. I thought of blood and craved it the way I craved water on a long, hot day. I knew what Ather meant when she said hunt, but I would not kill to ease my own pain. I was not an animal. I was a human being….

  At least, I hoped I was human. What had Ather done to me?

  “Risika,” she told me, “if you do not feed, the blood I have given you will kill you.” She was not pleading with me; she was stating facts. “It will take days before you are truly dead, but by sunset tomorrow you will be too weak to hunt for yourself, and I refuse to spoon-feed you. Hunt or die, it is your choice.”

  I hesitated, trying to remember. There was a reason that I should not hunt. Someone I knew would have resisted, someone I loved but could not remember … I could not remember. The only reason I could remember now was the one I had been taught all my life by the preachers — because killing was a sin.

  But dying by my own choice was a sin as well.

  Perhaps I was already damned.

  “Foolish child,” Ather said. “Look at yourself in that mirror and tell me that your own church would not condemn you for what you are. Would you refuse the life I have given you to try to save the soul which your god has damned?”

  “I will not sell my soul to save my life,” I said, though in my mind I was not so sure. My church was cold and strict, but I feared the nothingness of a soulless death just as much as I feared the flames of the spoken Hell. And perhaps she was right. Perhaps it was already too late.

  “No,” I said again, trying to convince myself more than her. “I will not.”

  “Brave words,” Ather told me. “What if I told you it did not matter?” She was whispering now, as if that would drive her words into my mind. It was working. “You signed the Devil’s book as your blood fell onto my gift to you.”

  In my mind the scene played itself out again. A black rose, the thorns sharp like the fangs of a viper. A drop of blood falling on the black flower as those fanglike thorns cut the hand that held them. Black eyes, much like Ather’s black eyes but somehow infinitely colder, watching like a snake as the blood fell. Watching like a viper, like the thorns of the rose,
as if he had bitten me …

  My mind was filled with dark images and darker thoughts of snakes and hunting beasts and red blood falling on black petals. My heart was filled with pain and anger and hatred and the black blood that had damned me.

  CHAPTER 9

  NOW

  I PULL MYSELF from my memories. I curse the fool I was to think I could save my damned soul with silly protests.

  Aubrey’s servant has run from my home, and I sense him leaving my town. He fears for his life, with good reason. Had he stayed I would have killed him. He knows I would, and he knows I can smell his fear.

  I may have been changed against my will, but I do not fight what I am anymore. There is no greater freedom than feeling the night air against your face as you run through the forest, no greater joy than the hunt. The taste of your prey’s fear, the sound of its heart beating strong and fast, the smells of the night.

  I stand in this small town, so near to the dead and almost as near to the faithful in the church across the street, feeling the fear of the human running from my home. For that is what I am — a hunter. I learned long ago that I could not deny that fact.

  Every instinct tells me to hunt this running, frightened creature. I am a vampire, after all. But I am not an animal, and I was once a human. That is what makes my kind dangerous: a hunter’s instincts and a human’s mind. Humanity’s cruel way of toying with the world, laced with the savage, unthinking hunt of the wild animal.

  But I do have control, and I will let this human live to tell his news to Aubrey, whom he fears even more than he fears me. He is the bearer of bad news, and Aubrey does not like bad news.

  I refuse to allow Aubrey to rule me, but only because it is the way of my kind. I fear Aubrey as much as this human does, perhaps more, for I know exactly what Aubrey is and what he is capable of.

  I am restless. Despite the rising sun, I am in the mood to do something.

  After making a quick check to make sure there is no blood on me from the previous night’s hunt, I leave my house. I walk, partly because I am not leaving Concord and thus not going far, but mostly because I have a craving to move.