by Rye Brewer
“Why don’t you want to do it?”
“Because I’m not sure I want to see Jonah right now—and yes, I know that’s immature, and I’m only thinking about myself, but haven’t I spent enough time thinking about everybody else? I mean, for years. I had to work to keep Sara alive. I had to protect her when I rescued her—and I would do it again, don’t get me wrong. It hasn’t been entirely about me for a long time. Even with Jonah, I’ve been worried about him for almost as long as I’ve known him. Maybe it’s time for me to be a little selfish. Just a little.”
It was a long time before he spoke again. “I understand how you feel. I felt the same way when you first came to me.”
“You did?”
“Yes. It was a big risk, taking you in. And then you ran off…”
“I remember,” I said, wincing.
“But Anissa, this isn’t simply one or two other vampires facing the possibility of getting… these powers.” He turned toward Sara.
She was still resting. I wondered how much longer she would need to recuperate.
“There are thousands of Bourkes in that building. Any number of them might have gotten that contaminated blood.”
“And one of them might have brought it to the clan,” I added with a frown. “There’s no way of knowing yet how it got there.”
“Don’t you want to know?”
“Of course, I do. But it’s definitely not my place to walk into a clan meeting and start asking questions.” I leaned against the stone lining the window and wrapped my arms around myself, still staring out across miles and miles of land that appeared silver in the light of the full moon. “I could talk to Jonah about it, though, and he could go to the clan. That’s his job.”
I turned away from the window and gazed up at my brother. Brother. The word still stuck in my mind sometimes.
“You’re right. I’ll figure something out, even if it’s not to help them but to help myself. Because I do want answers. Who did this to my sister?”
“That’s a start,” he said, then added, “Our sister.”
I smiled. “Right. Our sister.”
Mom’s voice floated to us from the other side of the chamber. “The tea is ready.”
She practically glowed from the inside out.
It hit me this was the first time she had prepared anything for all her children at once. No wonder she seemed so jubilant, even if she was only pouring tea for us.
I breathed in the sweet, slightly spicy blend before drinking.
“What happened?”
The three of us turned to where Sara was sitting up, looking around with a dazed expression.
4
Anissa
“Sara, sweetheart.” Mom rushed to her side and sat with her as she had before—only this time, she enfolded her in her arms. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”
Sara, meanwhile, gazed at me over Mom’s shoulder with wide, frightened eyes.
I nodded, smiling, encouraging her, reminding myself she was just as clueless as I used to be. I remembered how shocking it had been, finding out Mom was still alive.
She pulled far enough away to stare at her. “It’s really you?”
“It is,” Mom assured her, smoothing the hair back from her forehead. “It’s really me.”
“You look so different.”
Mom nodded. “There’s so much to tell you. Do you think you’re well enough to hear about all of it?”
“Well enough?”
“I mean, do you think you’ll be able to hear it without…?” She was trying to be delicate, of course.
Sara’s expression hardened when she understood. “I’ll do my best.”
Even so, there was a charge in the air.
“Try to direct it out the windows, at least,” Mom suggested.
“That will bring attention to us,” Allonic murmured.
“With any luck, anyone who sees it will assume it’s an electrical storm.” She turned back to Sara. “I was badly burned in the Great Fire. But not enough to kill me, obviously—though, if I hadn’t found my way to ShadesRealm, I wouldn’t have survived.”
“Why did they tell us you died?” Sara asked.
The charge in the room increased, and the air crackled.
“Take a deep breath,” I murmured, kneeling next to her. “The way you practiced.” She did, and the air shifted again. I couldn’t hear the static sound anymore.
Mom said, “I suppose it was the easiest, most logical conclusion. I know many of us perished that night.”
I couldn’t help but think about Lucian starting the fire, and how Jonah and his family suffered because of it.
“Why didn’t you come back when you were healed?”
That wasn’t such an easy question to answer, and I could tell Mom wrestled with herself before trying.
“Heal.” She shook her head. “It took many years for me to heal, for one. I was only hours, maybe minutes away from death when I reached safety. I had not only burned in the Great Fire, but I’d burned in the sun when I wasn’t strong enough to get to shelter in time. It took a lot to heal—a lot of shade blood, from Allonic’s father—and that’s why I’ve, erm, changed complexion,” she explained with a wry smile.
“You still could have come back,” Sara insisted.
“This isn’t easy for me to admit,” Mom said. “You see, I had another child to think about by then, too. I couldn’t bring him with me. He would be shunned at best, or worse, killed. Besides, I wasn’t sure what would wait for me. And I couldn’t bring you girls to ShadesRealm because I couldn’t guarantee you’d be safe here, either. I had to trust you would be all right since you were grown-up—much more than Allonic was. He was only a baby and couldn’t fend for himself if I left, even to go and see you.” She touched her own face. “Can you imagine what the rest of them would say if they knew I had consorted with a shade? Life would be terrible for you both. It was a very difficult decision with many factors to consider,” she finished.
I had never thought about it that way before. When I put myself in her shoes, it made sense. I couldn’t imagine what I would’ve done.
Sara didn’t seem quite so convinced, but she kept her opinion to herself. She looked at me. “And you knew all of this?”
I had to wonder whether it was a good idea to be so close to her when she could become emotional at any second.
“Not all” I admitted, waiting to see how she would react.
“Some, though. And you didn’t tell me?”
“I never had the chance. How many times in the recent past have we been together? I don’t blame you for that, of course, but it’s the way things have played out. At first, I wasn’t sure you were strong enough to handle the news—you had just gotten free, remember? You were recovering. And then things spiraled so fast…”
Mom raised an eyebrow, but I ignored it. This wasn’t the time to go over Sara’s torture, not when she could shoot lightning.
“That’s true.” Sara nodded.
“I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you. I really did.”
“What about you?” she asked.
“Me?” I put a finger on my chest.
“Where were you for all this time? Scott kept giving me all sorts of excuses, and he kept telling me Jonah was keeping you safe, but he wouldn’t give me any concrete information. I’ve been going crazy, worrying about you.”
“I’m sorry. You didn’t have to. I turned out all right.”
I decided to fill her in as best I could—glossing over the worst moments, of course, and choosing exactly what I did and didn’t have the right to talk about. I didn’t bring up Sorrowswatch at all, and I never mentioned anything involving Fane. It wasn’t my place to announce he was really Jonah’s father, Dommik Bourke.
“Who is this Jonah you keep mentioning?” Mom asked.
“He’s the head of the Bourke clan.” Used to be the head. But that was a technically that didn’t seem worth mentioning at the moemtn. I was careful to keep from look
ing her in the eye.
“A Bourke?”
“They’ve been protecting us,” Sara explained. “We didn’t have any place to go once we left the mansion.”
“Right. We knew Marcus would want us back, so we had to hide somewhere. And Jonah… Jonah and I…”
“The Bourkes started the Great Fire,” Mom said.
“No, they didn’t. It wasn’t them. Not everybody knows this—in fact, almost nobody does.” I felt a sudden desperation to get Mom to understand the Bourkes weren’t the clan she thought they were back when she was a Carver and they were the enemy. “It was someone else who started the Fire, but he blamed it on the Bourkes.”
“Who?”
“Lucian,” I whispered.
I tried to explain it the best I could, leaving out all the parts about Fane and making it sound like Gage overheard the story at headquarters when he was hiding out there.
It wasn’t easy to edit myself as I went along. I wondered if there would ever be a time when we could let go of all the old secrets and live freely.
I couldn’t remember a time when there weren’t secrets between me and almost everybody I knew. I also hoped I remembered the lies I was telling, in case I needed to, in the future.
I turned to Sara. “What about Scott? Does he know about your new powers?”
She shook her head, staring down at her lap. “I couldn’t tell him about it. I was too ashamed and scared. At first, I thought it was neat.” She shook her head again, laughing a little. “It sounds so stupid, saying that now.”
“It isn’t stupid,” Mom said, rubbing Sara’s back. “You discovered something new about yourself and you were excited by it. That’s natural.”
“Excited, yes. I felt special. More confident. Like I could take on anything or anybody.” She looked at me from under her lowered lashes. “After everything that happened before, it meant a lot for me to feel powerful.”
“I bet it did.” I patted her knee.
“But after a little while—just a few days, maybe a little more—I started losing control. The power got stronger and stronger, and I couldn’t make it stop. I thought it would kill me, or I would kill somebody else by accident. I don’t think Scott ever noticed a difference in me. Nothing negative, anyway. He might have liked my confidence, but he didn’t know the reason for it.”
“He must be worried about you,” I said, trying to be gentle. “Do you want me to get in contact with him, to at least let him know you’re all right?”
“Oh, no. No.” She shook her head so hard I was afraid she’d hurt herself.
“Why not?”
“I’m ashamed of myself. I even turned off my phone, so I wouldn’t have to see when he was calling,” she whispered.
“There’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Mom reminded her. “And Anissa wouldn’t tell him the reason you went away. She only wants to assure him you’re not in trouble.”
“I don’t think so. I mean, I’ll think about it. I don’t know. I don’t know about anything.” The crackling started again. Mom and I exchanged glances.
“All right. We won’t talk about it now.” I took a few deep breaths, and she followed along until the crackling was down to a minimum.
When she was calm again, with a cup of tea clasped in her hands, Sara asked, “What am I supposed to do about this? If I can’t stop it and I don’t know how to harness it, I have no future. None with any vampires, anyway.”
“Don’t talk like that,” I said.
I didn’t want to think it. Bad enough we couldn’t go back to the Carver mansion, but never being able to live around vampires again?
“I can’t help it. This is what has been on my mind ever since I started losing control. I know they’ll shun me. Maybe even kill me. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
Mom shot me a look to quiet me down before speaking. “No one is going to kill you, sweetheart.”
“But what are we going to do? What can we do about this?” She stared at all of us, including Allonic.
I wished I knew what to say. Judging from the heavy silence in the chamber, none of us had any idea.
5
Philippa
I had to get outside. It was all too much. But not to the roof because Scott would probably follow me out there to start a fight with me, or maybe to ask me how we could all be so unfair to him.
I loved him, I really did, but he was getting on my last nerve.
Why didn’t we tell him about Dad? Why didn’t we tell him about Mom? Why wasn’t he good enough to go with us to Sorrowswatch?
On and on, sometimes he asked the same questions over and over again because he didn’t like the answer the first time.
I had already broken up more than one near-fight between him and Gage, and my patience was almost paper thin.
Why did we exclude him?
I thought the answer was obvious. He’d been so far up Sara’s butt for so long we couldn’t count on him to keep clan business inside the clan. He hadn’t even been around half the time.
How were we supposed to share huge, game-changing secrets with him, then? Forget taking him to Sorrowswatch. He’d have wanted to take Little Miss Mopey with him, and she’d probably have shot lightning bolts at us the way she did at me.
Freak.
I still shivered every time I remembered that night. If Scott knew anything about his girlfriend’s powers, he hadn’t said.
I took the elevator straight down to the basement and went out through the side door, where I used to meet Vance.
Just thinking about him and remembering all the times we had met up out there made my chest ache.
Where was Vance? Or rather, where was his body? That was the real question.
Vance, my Vance, was in the vault. Locked inside an ancient body. No way out. Or maybe he was in his own body kept prisoner by Valerius who had left the ancient body and taken over Vance’s. Or did he go back and forth?
I wondered why they didn’t teach us about things like this, all the different spells and things. Maybe because they didn’t want us knowing things like that existed. But wouldn’t it be better to know how to counter a curse than to not know the curse existed at all? Just my opinion.
I leaned against the wall with my arms folded over my chest, gazing up at the little strip of the sky I could see between the buildings. It was a clear night, chilly. If I were out in the country, I’d be able to see the stars.
That was one thing I missed about the old days, back when we were human. I missed living out in the country and staring up at the stars at night. Sure, having clubs and bars and parties and stuff was a bonus—but when I was in a mood, like I was now, I wanted something simple. I wanted the stars. In New York, there was no such thing.
There were places like Times Square that were bright as day even in the middle of the night. No chance a star could fight its way through that kind of light pollution.
A noise startled me, and I straightened in time to see two tall figures approaching me.
One of my hands fumbled around behind me as I searched for the handle to open the door.
“Don’t worry, Miss Bourke.” They both flashed credentials in my face, but I couldn’t make out what they said or what the badges meant.
“Who are you?”
“Is there a place we can talk privately?” one of them asked, while the other guy looked up and down the alley.
“This is pretty private, right here. Nobody ever comes out here.”
“Just the same, Miss, we’re on your clan’s property. It would make us feel better if we went to a neutral location.” He let a glimpse of his fangs appear.
A neutral location? Who were these guys? And what was up with the fangs—thinking they could intimidate me?
“Um, sure. There’s a coffee shop at the corner.”
“Great. Let’s go.”
They didn’t even offer to let me go inside to get my purse.
Not like I would have. I’d be too afraid they were going to follow
me.
I walked with them to the sidewalk and pointed out the shop. We were there in a minute, and I took a table by the window while one of them sat with me and the other got a cup of something to make it appear like we were regular customers.
The shop was busy, but then again, it was always busy. I never understood the human obsession with caffeine.
When we were settled, they both stared at me.
One of them was taller than the other one, with black hair he combed high off his forehead. I asked to see his badge again. His name was Drake.
Will, the other one, was shorter and a little on the heavy side, with blond hair and thick glasses. He was cute in an offbeat kind of way.
I didn’t care if either of them were cute or if they had faces at all. I was used to sizing guys up like this when I first met them.
“Miss Bourke—may I call you Philippa?” Drake asked.
“Sure,” I shrugged.
“Philippa, we’re from the League’s Special Investigations Unit.”
My heart took off racing. “Is that the same as Special Ops?”
They glanced at each other, raised an eyebrow each, then looked at me.
Oh, shoot.
I should learn to shut up before I talked myself into trouble.
“How do you know about Special Ops?” Will asked.
“And what exactly do you know?” Drake added.
Did I give Vance away?
I wasn’t supposed to know Special Ops existed at all, right?
“Oh, I don’t know. I heard the name once. I didn’t think about it until just now.” I shrugged again, but I made sure I stared them both in the eye when I could. I didn’t want to seem guilty.
“Even so, that seems like a fairly strange thing to overhear,” Drake murmured, tapping one of his long fingers on the tabletop. He was sharp.
It wasn’t going to be easy, getting around him.
I giggled. “I think I was out one night, at the club. You know our club, the one we Bourkes own? I was in the ladies’ room with the stall door closed, so I couldn’t see who was talking. One of the girls was bragging about how she was sleeping with a guy from Special Ops. She acted like it was the greatest thing in the world or something. I don’t know.” I rolled my eyes. “I think she was lying, anyway. Who randomly walks into a bathroom and announces something like that? Even when they’ve been partying?”