The Den of Shadows Quartet by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
They separated, Sarah going back inside the school, and Adianna toward the parking lot.
The bell had rung while Sarah had been speaking with Adianna, so she went immediately to her class, arriving late. Luckily the teacher was tolerant because she was new to the school; Sarah was in no mood for a detention tonight. She had too much on her mind.
What was she going to do about Christopher and Nissa?
Adianna’s worries were legitimate — at least the ones involving Mother and Vida law. If Dominique found out about her budding friendship with two vampires, she would kill them.
Sarah flexed her hand. Old phantom pain reminded her of the other danger. Sarah had had her powers bound once; she could not imagine what it would be like to have them stripped forever.
Sarah almost convinced herself to give up her new friends, for their safety as well as her own. She managed to avoid Christopher’s questioning looks in calculus that afternoon, and she said nothing but a casual greeting in response to his hello after class.
Christopher had to stay after to talk to the teacher, and Sarah managed to slip out before he was free. She was home, sitting on her bed, before she found his next gift tucked into her calculus notebook; she had no idea when he had managed to slip it there.
It was another drawing — her, dressed in a pale gown. Above her outstretched left hand, the sun and the moon were suspended; she held the earth in her right hand. A sash was tied about her waist, embroidered with stars. In elegant script, a poem had been written down the page on the figure’s left side.
Fantasy, a shining goddess,
She controls the tides.
Fantasy, a brilliant goddess.
She controls our lives.
Fantasy, a golden goddess —
In her hands is the light.
Fantasy, a silver goddess —
In her hands is the night.
Sarah got up and tucked the card into her desk. Next time she saw Christopher she would tell him the truth — about her family, and about all the laws she was breaking. She would tell him the truth, and he would be able to leave her alone without getting hurt.
CHAPTER 7
SARAH, IS SOMETHING WRONG? Nissa asked the next day during sculpture. “Christopher told me you were avoiding him yesterday afternoon … he was sure he had done something to offend you.”
Christopher? Offend? She doubted he was capable of such a thing.
Sarah grasped at, and then lost, a handy lie. “Look, I … it’s nothing really, okay?” Sarah said awkwardly. “I can’t really explain.”
“That’s fine.” Nissa’s voice was soft, understanding. “If it’s none of my business, I’m not going to be a pain. But don’t just ditch Christopher — he’s a nice guy, and he deserves an explanation if you’re not interested.”
By the time Sarah saw Christopher at lunch, her resolve to break off the friendship had wavered. He greeted her with a smile and a hello, not asking about her efforts to ignore him the day before.
“Hey I’m sorry about yesterday —”
“No big deal,” Christopher answered easily. “I was kind of worried about you, but … well, if you’re talking to me again today, it can’t have been anything too awful.”
“I’m sorry anyway” But his light words and easy confidence made Sarah smile again. “Christopher —”
“Look, we’ve got to duck out soon to meet with our partners about that history project,” Nissa apologized before Sarah could finish her sentence. “Are you sure you aren’t going to the Halloween dance this weekend, Sarah? It’ll be a lot of fun.”
Sarah shook her head. Dominique would throw a fit if she missed the holiday celebrations. “I really can’t.” She debated asking them to meet up with her after the project, somewhere private where she could tell them and be done with it, but they were already on their way out before she could make up her mind.
Christopher touched Sarah’s shoulder as he walked by, a casual gesture that nevertheless made her flinch; physical contact with a vampire made her skin crawl, no matter how weak he was. If he noticed the withdrawal, Christopher did not react to it.
“Catch you later.”
“Yeah.”
A test kept them from talking in that afternoon’s calculus class, but Christopher caught Sarah afterward.
“How’d it go?”
The vampire rolled his eyes skyward. “Math is not my thing.” Changing the subject, he said, “I’ve got to run to a drama club meeting, so I can’t talk long now, but … well, since you can’t go to the dance, I was wondering if you might want to go for lunch on Saturday.”
“I don’t know.” She did know, actually, and the answer was “Absolutely not.” Spending time with vampires at school, where she had little else to do, was one thing; spending time with them otherwise, when she could be training or hunting, was twisting the laws further than even she could rationalize.
“Give me a call sometime, okay?” He jotted down his phone number on a piece of scrap paper, and then hurried away to his meeting.
Sarah skimmed the paper after Christopher left, and tucked it into her pocket.
Nine o’clock that evening found Sarah on the phone, trying without success to get through to Christopher or Nissa. Nissa was right — they both deserved more than to get a simple brush-off. She had decided to call, arrange a time when they could talk, and tell them everything.
Beep … beep … beep …
The sickly B-flat of the busy signal sliced through her yet again, as it had every time she had heard it over the last two hours.
She hung up the phone with a sigh, and pulled out the local yellow pages to find the Ravenas’ address. Her mind was made up, and she didn’t want to risk chickening out again. She patted the coat’s pocket to make sure her keys were in place, and instinctively checked for the knife on her back — a hunter never went anywhere without it — then slipped out to her car.
As she drove, she found herself hoping wildly that Christopher and Nissa would tell her they were part of SingleEarth. If they were, then even Dominique could not forbid Sarah to associate with them — it would be an insult against the witches who ran that organization. Dominique would be furious at her daughter, but she couldn’t kill them, or disown Sarah.
Considering how weak they both are, they’re probably part of SingleEarth, Sarah tried to reassure herself. Please, let them be in SingleEarth.
She jumped, swerving, as a squirrel darted in front of her car. Calm down, Sarah. Focus.
Try as she might, her strict control was shattered. She had been purely scatterbrained all evening, and was grateful that she wasn’t expecting a fight tonight.
As she parked in Christopher and Nissa’s driveway, she thought she heard faint music from the house, but it might have been her imagination. Bracing herself, she knocked on the door.
CHAPTER 8
SOMEONE SARAH DID NOT KNOW opened the door. Black eyes gave him away as a vampire, but his light aura showed him to be almost as weak as Nissa.
“Come on in,” the vampire greeted her. Sarah could only nod mutely as she realized what was going on. She had just walked in on a bash.
“Thanks,” she answered, dazed. The vampire gave her a strange look, but Sarah paid no heed to him, because her attention had just been drawn to a couple seated on the couch.
A more naïve guest might assume they were making out. One pale hand was wrapped around the back of the boy’s neck, and the girl’s long hair fell around her face, blocking from view the seam between her lips and the human boy’s throat. His eyes were half closed, and one hand twined absently in the vampire’s hair, holding her to his throat.
Sarah recognized the dark hair, the slender form, and she wished she did not. Nissa.
Forcing her attention to the rest of the room, her aura brushing over the others, Sarah picked out the vampires easily. This crowd was weak, not killers — and for that she thanked every god and goddess she had ever heard of — but she did not recognize any of
That meant there was some danger here for her. Even vampires who did not frequently kill would be nervous in the presence of a Vida, and entering a large group of them, barely armed and weakened by injury, seemed a bad idea.
She was about to leave, but the vampire who had opened the door was talking again. “I haven’t seen you around here before,” he said. “Who invited you?” Though his tone was not exactly suspicious, she could tell the vampire was uneasy around her. Having someone ask about her was unusual; at most of the bashes she had crashed, the vampires didn’t care who a guest was, so long as she could bleed.
“She’s with me.” Sarah turned, barely checking her instinct to draw her knife, as she sensed someone approach behind her.
The vampire who had been asking sighed. “I should have known.” He wandered off.
Christopher ran his hands through his short black hair, nervous. “Sarah … I would have invited you, but …” She could guess his thoughts. How do you explain something like this to someone you assume is human?
“You don’t have to explain,” Sarah offered in an attempt to save the vampire the unease of beginning the conversation. She could sense Christopher’s shock even through his midnight eyes.
“I don’t?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Sarah saw Nissa release the human she had been feeding on. He lay back, a bit dazed, but he looked like he would be fine; if there was anything a vampire knew, it was how much blood a human could afford to lose without being harmed.
The girl looked up, and her eyes widened as she saw Sarah standing with Christopher. She wiped her lips clear of blood with the back of her hand.
“I already know what you are.” The sentence had been directed at Christopher, though Sarah was busy reading Nissa’s features. Seeing blood on her friend’s mouth had unnerved her.
“Why don’t we go upstairs for a minute?” Christopher suggested, looking from his sister to his unexpected guest. Nissa nodded.
“That sounds good,” Sarah answered. Christopher led the way and Sarah saw Nissa quickly snatch a mint from a table next to the couch before the wall cut her off from view.
A few moments later, the three gathered in Nissa’s room, which was not open to guests. Sarah hesitated in the doorway as Nissa and Christopher made themselves comfortable.
The room was surprisingly normal. While Sarah had known better than to expect a coffin, bats, and bricked-over windows, it was still surprising to see the scattering of schoolbooks that littered the desk. A composition book had been tossed casually in a corner amidst a flurry of crumpled paper and pens, and the pastel blue walls were decorated with posters from musicals like Rent, Les Misérables, and West Side Story.
“Well, then,” Nissa breathed, and Sarah caught the scent of mint barely disguising the reek of fresh blood.
Sarah meant to speak instantly, telling them who she was, but Christopher forestalled it, asking hesitantly, “Are you part of SingleEarth? Or …”
She barely managed not to laugh at that question. Sarah Vida, a member of SingleEarth? Oh, Dominique would have a heart attack at the very suggestion.
Nevertheless, she was here, talking with two vampires, two friends who just happened to be bloodsucking fiends.
She was flattered at least that he thought of SingleEarth before the alternatives. He still thought she was human, and if she was tolerant of his kind, then it stood to reason that she was either part of SingleEarth, or one of those pathetic creatures who chased after the vampires in order to have her blood taken.
“No, I’m not,” she said slowly, trying to decide how best to tell the truth. She would rather have been somewhere else, anywhere but in the middle of a house full of vampires she did not know and whose behavior she could not predict. “I didn’t know you had a circuit,” she stalled.
“It’s Nissa’s,” Christopher answered, nodding to his sister. “She hosts. I just hang out.”
The vampire bashes that Sarah frequently crashed followed a pattern. The members of each party circuit alternated hosting, so as to keep the hunters guessing where the next one would be. All that Sarah had attended had been violent, deadly for any humans who attended, but she had heard about ones like this, where the human guests were simply that — guests, not a main course. They donated blood occasionally but not at risk to their lives.
“Do you go to bashes often?” Nissa asked from her perch on the bed.
“When I can,” Sarah answered truthfully wondering how — and if — she should ease into the topic she had come to discuss. The presence of several unknown vampires downstairs made her a little hesitant to reveal herself.
Christopher flinched, worry in his eyes. “Not all of them are as safe as Nissa’s group.”
“I know.”
“The worst is Kendra’s circuit,” Nissa warned. “If you stumble on one of theirs, they’ll probably kill you without a thought.” Softly, she added, “That’s the one Kaleo travels in.” The name seemed to strike a chord in both vampires, and Sarah remembered Nissa’s sculpture of the leech.
Stop stalling, Sarah, she ordered herself, even as she commented, “You were telling me about Kaleo in sculpture.”
“Kaleo … was the one who changed me,” Nissa said hesitantly She glanced at her brother, who just shrugged.
“If you want to tell it, it’s your story,” he pointed out.
“We grew up in the South, just before the Civil War,” Nissa began softly. “Our father worked at a nearby plantation and I took care of the owner’s two daughters, while my brothes worked as stable hands for one of the other wealthy families. We weren’t rich, but we were happy. My mother died when Christopher and his twin brother were both very young, and I more or less raised them.”
With a sigh, she continued, “We were an artistic family. I was the singer, though both of my brothers had talent in that area too. Christopher would write songs and poetry. Even when he said grace at night, his words could bring you to tears.
“That’s what damned us — music and art,” Nissa went on. “Because it drew Kaleo to me. He was also an artist. If he hadn’t learned about my talent, he never would have given me more than a passing glance. As it was, he fell in love with me … and I with him.” That admission sounded painful. “I was seventeen, a romantic and an optimist, and Kaleo was — is — very handsome, and very charming, especially when he has it in his mind to win someone over.” Nissa paused in her story.
When she continued, her voice was barely more than a whisper. “For a while our relationship was wonderful, but I learned what he was when I caught him feeding on the woman I worked for.” With difficulty, Nissa explained, “He did not have time to hurt her before I interrupted. She woke up later, unharmed, and I stupidly assumed that Kaleo wasn’t dangerous, that he would not have hurt her even if I had not interfered.”
Her voice wavered as she confessed, “I forgave him, and even came to love him more. Then he offered me immortality and I said no.” Nissa took a deep breath to keep herself composed. A hint of anger entered her voice, overlaid with sorrow.
“I thought for a while that we could continue as before, but Kaleo doesn’t take no for an answer. Eventually he became so insistent that we argued every time we were together, and finally I told him to leave me alone.” A moment of silence passed before she continued. “My brothers were twelve and I was barely nineteen when Kaleo killed our father. I could have stopped him, had I been home a minute earlier, but instead I ran in moments after he died. Christopher’s twin was there, and he saw everything. Kaleo made it very clear that he would not hesitate to snap my brother’s neck if I refused again.
“So I agreed.” The words seemed to catch, as Nissa choked back the memory. “I stayed with my brothers for a few years, but my kind does not exist easily in the human world. There was … an incident. I changed my brother, and he changed Christopher the next night. And now we’re here.”
“What happened to your other brother?” Sarah
“He doesn’t run with us,” Nissa answered quietly. It was clear she didn’t want to go into the topic, and Sarah decided not to press.
The silence hung heavy, both vampires obviously contemplating their painful history. Sarah’s mind drifted back to her purpose here, but she couldn’t tell them now. Not when they had just opened their hearts to her. She couldn’t betray a trust like that, even if she hadn’t asked for it.
No one seemed to know exactly how to get over the conversation, so Sarah got up and walked around the room a bit. Once again she noticed the school textbooks.
“Why do you go to school?” she asked. “If you’re … that old, then why bother?” She did not want to do the math to figure out exactly how old.
“If you spend too much time away from humans, you forget your own humanity,” Nissa said, her voice distant. “It gets harder to remember that you used to be one of them, and easier to think of them like … cattle,” she finished apologetically “Most of our kind is like that. They don’t see anything wrong with killing humans. Christopher and I decided we needed a reminder.” Sarah remembered with unease Adianna’s comment about the vampire blood slowly destroying the last shreds of humanity, and was glad she was not immediately called on to speak. Nissa continued with what sounded like forced brightness, “It’s nice to actually be part of the human world for a bit, though I suppose I could imagine places more glamorous than high school.” With a brief glance to some flyer on her desk, she added, “Speaking of, are you sure you won’t come to the Halloween dance? It will be a lot of fun.”
Sarah started to argue, but instead just shrugged. What the hell, she thought, I can do this one last thing, can’t I? Dominique would be furious, but the dance would be over early enough for her to make the ceremony at midnight. As Nissa had said, sometimes it was nice to just be a part of the human crowd for a while.
She heard herself answer, “Sure. I’ll find a way to come.”