The Den of Shadows Quartet

by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

  Then there was also the bonus of immortality and the tempting idea of pummeling Fala into a bloody smear on the wall.

  You need to ask? she finally said, and heard Aubrey sigh with relief.

  Of course, she would be the first of his line — her line, she amended, realizing she’d soon be a part of it — to have been asked. They had been changed for various reasons — on a whim, out of spite or hatred or love. But not one of them had had a choice in the matter.

  Jessica smiled wryly as she realized the favor that Fala had unintentionally given. Jessica had fought for her life when Fala had taken her blood, and now had free choice as Aubrey offered his.

  Aubrey drew his knife — the same one he had used to shed Ather’s blood years ago, when he had been changed. He slid the blade across his skin at the base of his throat, and he pulled Jessica toward him to drink.

  She had known this moment in the lives of each of her vampiric characters; had described it in words and tasted it in dreams. But never had she fully understood it.

  As she drank, she closed her eyes and abandoned herself to the sweet taste and the feeling that came with it. The English language had no way to properly express this rolling power that filled her like blue lightning, slipping into every molecule of her body and changing everything it touched.

  Jessica tried to cling to the sensation, but a gentle numbness began to ease across her skin and into her mind, like the first tendrils of sleep. She was only vaguely aware of the fact that her heart had slowed and stopped, and only distantly did she realize that she was no longer breathing. The inevitable blackness of death stole over her, and she succumbed to it willingly trusting that she would wake shortly.

  Jazlyn was in constant pain for the first few days, but even that pain served as a welcome reminder that she was alive.

  The first thing she did was go to the church, inside which she had not dared set foot since the day she had been changed. The priest blessed her and listened to her confession, which she abridged for the sake of his sanity.

  She thought she had been given another chance — a chance to leave behind the life of darkness and evil. When the child came — Carl’s child, whom she should have had years before — she thought it was a sign that she’d been forgiven.

  Instead, the child was a reminder of her past. Jessica was flawless, brilliant … and shadowed by the night. She looked nothing like Carl or Jazlyn; instead, she had Siete’s fair skin, black hair, and emerald eyes.

  Those eyes could look upon someone and see the darkest parts of their soul.

  Jessica had spent more than twenty years in Jazlyn’s womb, kept alive only by Siete’s blood. She was more his child than Jazlyn’s.

  There was no way for Jazlyn to raise the child who brought back her every painful memory. No child deserved to have a mother who could not brush her raven hair, or look into her gemstone eyes, without shuddering.

  Jazlyn put the child up for adoption, so that she could be given to caring parents who knew only of sunlight and laughter. Jessica deserved that life; she had done nothing wrong.

  Jazlyn prayed that her child would never be touched by the darkness of her past.

  CHAPTER 32

  JESSICA’S HEART HAD STOPPED. Her face was almost white, and as cool as the fall air surrounding her. She had died only moments before, as Aubrey’s blood had entered her system. He left her side reluctantly to check on Caryn.

  Caryn’s breathing was slow and deep, and she seemed to be fine except for the cataleptic sleep she was in. At the moment Aubrey’s hunger was more of a danger to the witch than anything else.

  Almost without thinking, he brought both girls and himself to his seldom-used house in New Mayhem, where no one would bother them. The forest had far too many predators in it to leave them alone there, and he didn’t know what Caryn would want him to tell her mother.

  He put Caryn in the one bedroom with windows, knowing that no witch would want to wake and not be able to see either the stars or the sun. But he left Jessica in a bedroom with heavy blackout curtains that would block the sun while she slept.

  Then, before the mingled scents of Jessica’s and Caryn’s blood could defeat his usually iron self-control, he went searching for dinner. Having fed well, he returned home to watch over the girls, and finally allowed his mind to turn to other things.

  Like how many ways he could fillet Fala, for one. Or how many ways he would fillet Fala, for two.

  An hour before sunset, Aubrey dragged himself away from Jessica’s side. Fala needed to be dealt with before Jessica woke.

  He appeared just behind Fala in her room, his knife at her throat and his mind clamped on hers to hold her in place.

  “I hope she sliced you open very well,” he snarled, pressing the edge of the blade into her throat just slightly.

  “And I hope she’s very, very dead,” Fala answered in kind, softly so as to not put any more pressure against the blade. Despite her caution, a thin line of blood appeared on her dark Egyptian skin. “If she isn’t, I’ll correct that error soon.”

  “I suggest you don’t,” he said. Considering how the last fight had gone, Jessica might win if Fala chose to pick another.

  “She drew blood, Aubrey,” Fala answered. “I have claim, and you can’t stop me from acting on it.”

  What he had done for Jessica would have been illegal had Fala conquered her pride earlier and admitted that Jessica had been the one who wounded her. Instead, she had waited until now to actually call on blood claim, and now was too late.

  “The law only applies if she’s human,” he answered coldly.

  Then his attention was drawn away as he sensed a familiar presence just outside the door.

  Jessica had washed the blood off her skin, but her pallor showed that she still needed to feed.

  “Don’t stop her,” Jessica said. Aubrey released Fala but didn’t move away; Jessica was certainly not strong enough to best Fala in a fight now, before she had even fed. Yet she walked calmly toward Fala, looking at the vampire with scorn. “Wounded by a human … what a blow that must have been to your pride.”

  Fala growled, but she restrained herself from attacking with Aubrey so near.

  “I have no desire to fight you,” Jessica said simply, almost regally.

  Fala’s eyes narrowed in response, but she made no immediate comment. Aubrey knew that Fala could tell as well as he could how strong Jessica would be once she had fed.

  “However,” Jessica continued, just as controlled, “if you ever harm anyone I care about, or come anywhere near me, you will very quickly learn just how many interesting stories about your past I still have to share.”

  She didn’t wait for Fala to react. Instead, she disappeared, presumably to feed.

  CHAPTER 33

  JESSICA RETURNED SHORTLY to Aubrey’s home in New Mayhem, her fair skin flushed with the blood meal she had taken in a sleazy corner of New York City only minutes before.

  Aubrey was lounging on one of the couches in the living room when she entered. He stood and approached her. “Caryn went home, but she left this for you,” he said, handing her a letter.

  Jessica scanned Caryn’s letter — a long, rambling, maudlin farewell. She made a point to hide her own emotions as she silently said her goodbyes to the person who had probably been her last tie to the mortal world.

  “And,” Aubrey added reluctantly, glancing toward the table, where Jessica’s computer now sat, “she had me bring that here.”

  Jessica smiled wickedly How harmless the contraption appeared — plain black plastic without a single scratch or mark to show how much tumult it had helped her cause. She wandered to the table and brushed the laptop’s case affectionately.

  Aubrey had followed her. “Do you really need that?” he asked.

  “I can’t write without it,” she answered, assuming the closest she could manage to an innocent expression before the underlying mischief showed through.

  “You live to make trouble, don’t you?�
��

  “Life is nothing without a little chaos to make it interesting.” She turned to face him and playfully raised her gaze to meet his, challenging. “What do you want to do about it?”

  SHATTERED

  MIRROR

  Dedicated to Carolyn Barnes, who knows these characters as well as I do, understands all my vague references and odd humor, and can push me on when I’ve 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? You — and 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 didn’t, 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 rearview 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 rearview 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, referring 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 after effect 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.