by L. J. Smith
“Do it quickly,” somebody whispered. A flash and Jez saw who: a woman with dark red hair and delicate, bony shoulders. She had a face like a medieval princess. “I won’t fight you,” the woman said. “Kill me. But let my daughter live.”
Mother…
These were her memories.
She wanted to see more of her mother—she didn’t have any conscious memory of the woman who’d given birth to her. But instead there was another flash. A little girl was huddled in a corner, shaking. The child had flame-bright hair and eyes that were neither silver nor blue. And she was so frightened…
Another flash. A tall man running to the child. Turning around, standing in front of her. “Leave her alone! It’s not her fault. She doesn’t have to die!”
Daddy.
Her parents, who’d been killed when she was four. Executed by vampire hunters….
Another flash and she saw fighting. Blood. Dark figures struggling with her mother and father. And screaming that wouldn’t quite resolve into words.
And then one of the dark figures picked up the little girl in the corner and held her up high… and Jez saw that he had fangs. He wasn’t a vampire hunter; he was a vampire.
And the little girl, whose mouth was open in a wail, had none.
All at once, Jez could understand the screaming.
“Kill her! Kill the human! Kill the freak!”
They were screaming it about her.
Jez came back to herself. She was in Muir Woods, kneeling in the ferns and moss, with the skinhead cowering in front of her. Everything was the same… but everything was different. She felt dazed and terrified.
What did it mean?
It was just some bizarre hallucination. It had to be. She knew how her parents had died. Her mother had been murdered outright by the vampire hunters. Her father had been mortally wounded, but he’d managed to carry the four-year-old Jez to his brother’s house before he died. Uncle Bracken had raised her, and he’d told her the story over and over.
But that screaming…
It didn’t mean anything. It couldn’t. She was Jez Redfern, more of a vampire than anyone, even Morgead. Of all the lamia, the vampires who could have children, her family was the most important. Her uncle Bracken was a vampire, and so was his father, and his father’s father, all the way back to Hunter Redfern.
But her mother…
What did she know about her mother’s family? Nothing. Uncle Bracken always just said that they’d come from the East Coast.
Something inside Jez was trembling. She didn’t want to frame the next question, but the words came into her mind anyway, blunt and inescapable.
What if her mother had been human?
That would make Jez…
No. It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t just that Night World law forbade vampires to fall in love with humans. It was that there was no such thing as a vampire-human hybrid. It couldn’t be done; it had never been done in twenty thousand years. Anybody like that would be a freak….
The trembling inside her was getting worse.
She stood up slowly and only vaguely noticed when the skinhead made a sound of fear. She couldn’t focus on him. She was staring between the redwood trees.
If it were true… it couldn’t be true, but if it were true… she would have to leave everything. Uncle Bracken. The gang.
And Morgead. She’d have to leave Morgead. For some reason that made her throat close convulsively.
And she would go… where? What kind of a place was there for a half-human half-vampire freak?
Nowhere in the Night World. That was certain. The Night People would have to kill any creature like that.
The skinhead made another sound, a little whimper. Jez blinked and looked at him.
It couldn’t be true, but all of a sudden she didn’t care about killing him anymore. In fact, she had a feeling like slow horror creeping over her, as if something in her brain was tallying up all the humans she’d hurt and killed over the years. Something was taking over her legs, making her knees rubbery. Something was crushing her chest, making her feel as if she were going to be sick.
“Get out of here,” she whispered to the skinhead.
He shut his eyes. When he spoke it was in a kind of moan. “You’ll just chase me.”
“No.” But she understood his fear. She was a huntress. She’d chased so many people. So many humans…
Jez shuddered violently and shut her eyes. It was as if she had suddenly seen herself in a mirror and the image was unbearable. It wasn’t Jez the proud and fierce and beautiful. It was Jez the murderer.
I have to stop the others.
The telepathic call she sent out was almost a scream. Everybody! This is Jez. Come to me, right now! Drop what you’re doing and come!
She knew they’d obey—they were her gang, after all. But none of them except Morgead had enough telepathic power to answer across the distance.
What’s wrong? he said.
Jez stood very still. She couldn’t tell him the truth. Morgead hated humans. If he even knew what she suspected… the way he would look at her…
He would be sickened. Not to mention that he’d undoubtedly have to kill her.
I’ll explain later, she told him, feeling numb. I just found out—that it’s not safe to feed here.
Then she cut the telepathic link short. She was afraid he’d sense too much of what was going on inside her.
She stood with her arms wrapped around herself, staring between the trees. Then she glanced at the skinhead, who was still huddled in the sword fern.
There was one last thing she had to do with him.
Ignoring his wild flinching, she stretched out her hand. Touched him, once, on the forehead with an extended finger. A gentle, precise contact.
“Remember… nothing,” she said. “Now go.”
She felt the power flow out of her, wrapping itself around the skinhead’s brain, changing its chemistry, rearranging his thoughts. It was something she was very good at.
The skinhead’s eyes went blank. Jez didn’t watch him as he began to crawl away.
All she could think of now was getting to Uncle Bracken. He would answer her questions; he would explain. He would prove to her that none of it was true.
He’d make everything all right.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
L.J. Smith is the New York Times bestselling author of The Vampire Diaries and has written more than twenty-five books for young adults. She lives in the Bay Area of California, where she enjoys reading, hiking, traveling, and communing with her cat Suzie. Her favorite place is a cabin in Point Reyes National Seashore. Come visit her at www.ljanesmith.net, where she has lots of free stories for downloading.
