The Den of Shadows Quartet Read online

  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 multi colored 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 Vidas 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.”

  Christopher started to ask a question, then paused.

  “Christopher, I’m a witch. A Daughter of Macht,” she elaborated. Unlike the modern Wiccans, her kind was not human, had never been human.

  “I don’t care if you’re Dominique Vida herself,” Christopher declared brazenly.

  Christopher’s words caused a hysterical giggle to catch in Sarah’s throat. Her mother was the most famous — or in vampire circles, infamous — vampire hunter born in hundreds of years.

  In answer, she drew the knife from her back; the moon glinted off its silver hilt. Christopher swore under his breath, and she smiled wryly “Christopher, Dominique is my mother.”

  Now he looked at her wit
h a small amount of skepticism, which was the last thing she expected. Most vampires were far more wary of her kind. “You? But you’re …”

  She sheathed her knife, trying to show that she meant no threat to him. “I’m what?”

  “I’ve met a lot of hunters in my time, Sarah …” He raised a hand, gestured vaguely. “You don’t seem like the type.”

  Stepping forward, she put her right hand flat-palmed against his chest and her left over his throat, pushing him back into the wall.

  Shock filled Christopher’s features, but then he said, “Your knife is still on your back, and if this was a real fight, we both know I could kill you before you could reach it.”

  She closed her right fist, drawing Christopher’s attention to its position above his heart, and then moved her hand to the wall.

  With her mind she reached out and triggered the spring on the knife she wore on her wrist, and the blade snapped out, slicing two inches into the wood paneling of the wall.

  “Don’t underestimate me, Christopher.”

  “Are you going to kill me, Sarah?” he asked, but there was no fear in his voice — just an edge of anger. He was getting defensive, trying not to let his hurt show. She recognized the act; anger was much less painful to feel than the sorrow.

  “I’m not going to kill you. I don’t want my family to.”

  “I can take care of myself.” So fearless. Most vampires were afraid of her kind, but Christopher did not seem the least bit worried.

  “Meaning what? If my mother or sister attacks you, you’ll kill her? There is no good situation here, except for you to leave me alone. I’m not right for you.”

  “Sarah, I don’t care who you are,” he repeated. “I’ve taken a knife from one of your line before. I have a scar, but I’m still alive. If someone attacks me, I leave. That’s how I’ve survived for more than fifty years.”

  She flinched. How had he taken a Vida knife and lived?

  That question was shoved from her mind as she processed the comment about “fifty years.” According to the story Nissa had told, he was easily three times that old.

  She bit back her questions, and focused on the issue at hand.

  “Christopher, maybe you don’t care, but I have to.”

  “You’re a teenager — it’s your job to act out against your parents. What’s the worst they could do to you?” The question was shockingly naïve.

  “The worst? Christopher, you don’t understand. I am Sarah Tigress Vida, youngest Daughter of Vida. If my mother finds out I have befriended a vampire, she will disown me. I’ll lose my title, my name, my weapons, and even my magic.”

  “That could be rough, but you’re strong enough to get through it,” Christopher said, still not understanding.

  “I would be defenseless. I’ve killed too many of your kind before. I’ve made a lot of enemies. If I can’t fight back, I’m dead. If my line disowned me, it would be the same as them killing me.”

  “That’s why you want me to leave you alone?”

  She paused for only a moment. “They’ll kill you, too, if they see you with me again. Maybe you’re willing to risk that, but I’m not. I would hate myself for doing it, but I need to defend myself, so if you come near me again, I will have to act.”

  For an instant, some trick of shadow combined with Sarah’s guilt made Christopher look not like a friend who had been betrayed, but like an enemy who had been wronged.

  “Fine,” he answered, and now his voice was like a steel door, closing on some of the best times Sarah had ever had.

  CHAPTER 11

  AS SOON AS Christopher was out of sight, Sarah ran from the school grounds, vaulted into the driver’s seat of her car, and put the key in the ignition. Her hands were trembling; as soon as she noticed, the movement ceased.

  Sarah Tigress Vida was not perfect, but she hadn’t lost control since her father had died, and she didn’t intend to now.

  But she absolutely could not face her family right now. Dominique and Adianna were the last people she wanted to see. Neither did she care to see the other vampire hunters with whom her family would be celebrating the New Year.

  At nearly eleven o’clock, she pulled into the brightly lit parking lot of SingleEarth Haven. The mishmash of brilliant auras seeped out of the magically protected building — vampires, shapeshifters, witches, and humans.

  She found Caryn near the door. The healer took one look at Sarah and led her to an empty room.

  “Why the gloom?” Caryn asked gently, as Sarah collapsed onto the bed.

  When Sarah did not answer, Caryn put a hand on her shoulder, friendly despite the fact that they had never been friends. The other witch’s aura was like a warm breeze, gentle and soothing as it brushed over Sarah’s skin.

  “Sarah, what’s wrong?”

  “Can I just stay here tonight? I can’t face my mother right now.” Sarah grimaced. “If I don’t come home tonight, she’s going to want to know where I’ve been. She’ll be upset if I miss the gathering, but it’s not against the law for me to be here.”

  Caryn sat on the bed next to the flustered hunter. “So long as you’re here peacefully, you’re welcome to stay. But I would have thought you’d want to spend the New Year with your family.”

  Sarah closed her eyes, trying to clear from her mind Christopher’s expression. “There are some things I need to think through before I see them again. And I don’t want to fight with Dominique on a holiday.”

  Caryn patted her hand. “Stay as long as you like. If you’re feeling up to it, you should come downstairs, meet some of the others. Even a hunter needs peace in her life sometimes.”

  “And how would SingleEarth react to a hunter in their midst?” Sarah asked dryly.

  “If you walk in there, some vampires will be nervous, but they’ll give you a chance.” Sarah laughed, but Caryn went on, saying, “It’s the effort that matters. Every vampire, every witch, still has a human soul.”

  Sarah hesitated, but spending the night alone in this little room, listening to the music from downstairs and staring out the window, was not how anyone would want to spend a holiday.

  Caryn led her downstairs, where the SingleEarth party was bustling with activity Humans mingled with vampires and witches, laughing and joking together as if they were all the same kind.

  Sarah rotated her shoulders, trying to work the tension from between her shoulder blades. No matter how light and happy the revelers were, she kept expecting to feel a knife in her back.

  “Loosen up, Sarah,” Caryn encouraged her. “Introduce yourself to someone, and ask him to dance. Just have fun. SingleEarth is a safe, neutral place — no one’s going to bite.”

  Despite Caryn’s urging, Sarah’s feeling of being misplaced refused to fade. She did not join the party, but watched from the edge, until at nearly two o’clock in the morning there was some excitement outside. Someone grabbed Caryn’s arm, pulling her toward the doorway.

  Caryn paused when she saw whatever it was that stood beyond the door, but she quickly gathered herself and stepped outside, with Sarah hurrying after.

  The yard was bright, and Sarah recognized the figure that was leading Caryn toward a dark corner. She trailed behind unobtrusively, not wanting to speak with Christopher if she could help it, but not willing to leave Caryn alone with any non-SingleEarth vampire, even one that she knew. Christopher had blood on his arm, and a small streak of it on his cheek as if he had brushed hair out of his face without realizing his hand was bloody.

  Christopher had driven to the party, which was odd in itself, since he, like even the weakest of vampires, could have traveled more easily with his mind. He was driving a sleek white Le Sabre that Sarah had never seen before. She understood instantly though, when he opened the door to the backseat to reveal an injured human.

  Sarah relaxed a bit when she realized Christopher was here to help a human friend, but then her suspicions rose. How had the girl been injured in the first place?

  Caryn slip
ped into the car, ignoring the blood, while Christopher knelt beside the open door.

  “Apparently she was at a bash, and she got into a fight,” he explained quickly. “One of the vampires there asked me to get her help.”

  “Why didn’t he bring her himself?” Caryn asked, her voice faint, as most of her concentration went to examining the human.

  “Just help her,” was all Christopher said in answer.

  A second later, Sarah heard Caryn’s breath hiss in with surprise.

  Curious, Sarah stepped forward to look into the car.

  The girl’s naturally smooth, dark skin was marred by bruises and shallow wounds, and Sarah could tell that the unconscious victim’s jaw was probably broken. She was bleeding in several places, and her breathing was quick and shallow.

  Sarah could only see the girl’s right arm, but that was enough. Faded scars marked her skin — a rose on her right shoulder and a strand of ivy on her wrist. This girl was one of Nikolas’s victims. Had Nikolas beaten her, or had some other vampire caused this more recent injury?

  And what was Christopher doing with Nikolas?

  “Sarah, Christopher, give me some room,” Caryn ordered. Her voice was soft, but the authority was unmistakable. Sarah could feel the gentle pulse of magic emanating from the healer — a warm, peaceful glow, so different from the painful Vida magic.

  Sarah could see tension in Christopher’s movements as he slipped past her without a word, and moved further away from the light.

  “Who is she?”

  Christopher paused. “Her name is Marguerite,” he answered cautiously “They asked me to take her, because no one in that group is allowed within a hundred yards of SingleEarth.”

  “Why you?”

  “Probably because they could find me.” His voice was growing cooler. “Blood calls to blood — a lot of the people in my line are in that circuit.” The words seemed a challenge, as he flaunted his connection to the killers.

  She glanced at the car, where Caryn was still working. “What happened to her?”