Caryn was playing with her. She knew the Rashidas and Alex had some relationship; they hated each other too much to be perfect strangers. For all she knew, Alex and Caryn used to date. Now they had ganged up to play a game of “let’s mess with the author’s mind.”
It was cleverly done, she admitted reluctantly. Alex’s portrayal of Aubrey was perfect. She wondered who Caryn was trying to be. If it was a game, it was well practiced and planned between them.
There is no if, she scolded herself. Vampires do not exist!
Jessica had no love of mind games, especially ones played by childish idiots like Caryn. She wondered if Caryn realized just how little sense of humor Jessica had when it came to her books.
Frustrated, she opened the letter that Caryn had handed her and scanned it quickly.
Then she read it again, more slowly, and then a third time.
Jessica —
I realize how confused you must be now. I don’t know how to explain to you that everything you are thinking right now is true. I can’t imagine how you got involved in this world; all I know is that what you write puts you in danger.
With your permission, I will try to help you, but I can’t do anything unless you ask me to. I’m not a fighter, but I know others who are. If you will let me, I will ask them for help.
Stay away from Aubrey, away from all of them. Stop writing your books about them. Maybe then they will not see the need to destroy you. You well know how dangerous they are. Please, be careful.
Blessed be,
Caryn Smoke
Daughter of Macht
I am signing with my true name now. I don’t wish to lie to you as all the others would.
“What is going on here?” Jessica asked the black walls. They said nothing — they rarely did, though when she was dead tired they sometimes made an exception.
Everyone who had read Ash Night’s first book knew who Aubrey was — what he looked like, where he was from, how he spoke, and how he thought. The two books that had gone through her editor’s office revealed the dark corners of Aubrey’s past and his present, and had reached into the wider vampiric world to show its customs and politics.
Never once had these books mentioned the Smoke line of witches or their immortal mother, Macht, whom Caryn had so casually referenced in her letter.
Without conscious thought, Jessica picked up one of the manuscripts that had been sitting on her shelf for months now. Though she hadn’t read the novel since she had written it, she remembered the characters inside. The story was set years earlier; the witches mentioned in it would be Caryn’s distant ancestors. Jessica knew, through the eyes of her vampiric characters, all about the Smoke line. But only she should have known, because the manuscript had been read by no one else. The fine layer of dust on the binder was proof that no one had picked it up recently. There was no way Caryn could ever have read it.
The girl’s words echoed in Jessica’s mind: What if it was all real? If Ash Night’s vampires actually existed?
And more recently: I wanted to ask if you knew they were true.
Though Jessica hadn’t delved too far into the world of the Smoke witches, simply because they were of little interest to her vampires, she knew their basic beliefs. If a Smoke witch was aware that someone was in danger, it was that witch’s duty to protect him or her.
If it was true, Jessica was certainly in danger.
If they were all real …
If Aubrey existed, and Jessica had met him, then why was she still alive? He had no scruples about killing, and she had shown the world every weak moment of his past. Yet when she mentally replayed her conversations with him, there was no sense of threat. He seemed more to be flirting with her than hunting her.
She needed to know if it was true. She knew these characters better than she knew even Anne. They had been her thoughts and life for years. If there was the slightest chance that they were real, she needed to know.
She needed proof, and to get that, she needed to see for herself.
CHAPTER 17
IN JESSICA’S NOVELS, New Mayhem was the base of vampiric power in the United States. The town, which was hidden from the human world, was home to the ruling class of vampires — Silver’s line, including Aubrey. Their presence had given it a flavor of darkness that Jessica knew she would recognize if she saw it.
She searched through her manuscripts and found various clues to the location of New Mayhem, which was Ramsa’s secret neighbor. She had always assumed that she had located New Mayhem near Ramsa out of familiarity but perhaps instead some trick of the vampiric world had caused her to be located here.
One of her manuscripts, at this point untitled, caught her eye. The story was that of Kaei, the mostly human bartender at the vampire nightclub Las Noches. Kaei had been born and raised in the original town of Mayhem. She had been responsible for the fire that had nearly leveled the town three hundred years earlier, and in punishment had been blood-bonded to Jager. Kaei was not a vampire, but she would not age as long as Jager was alive.
After that episode, the witches had mostly believed that Mayhem was gone forever. When New Mayhem was built, the mortal Macht witches and the immortal Tristes had not been informed. The vampire hunters had not known about New Mayhem.
Until Tiger, Tiger had revealed its existence. Jessica silently contemplated this latest realization as she walked down the darkened road toward the town that might or might not be there.
The walk was longer than she would have liked, but not painfully so. Perhaps three miles went by before Jessica noticed a narrow, unnamed path off to the side of the road. Normally she would not have given the path a second glance after all the nearly identical driveways she had passed, but tonight she saw beside it the sign she had been looking for: a rosebush, which climbed the base of an oak tree.
The last of the blooms was still on the bush, and when she stepped near it, Jessica saw that the flower was black. For more than five hundred years, the vampires had used a black rose as their symbol.
She knelt for a moment, her fingers resting on the silky petals of the rose as she tried to calm her breathing. She no longer needed to see the town to convince herself that everything was true; though her mind might still protest, she believed despite it. Now there was a more compelling reason for her to follow the path. It would lead her home. She had seen New Mayhem through dozens of views but had never even glimpsed it with her own eyes, yet as she walked, she had the strangest sensation that she was finally heading home.
The path went on for what seemed an interminable time. Walking down that path was a test of courage that most people would have failed. The darkness was oppressive, and the forest was unnaturally silent. The isolation pressed against her like a physical weight. Yet, unafraid, she welcomed the night and the loneliness like old friends.
The woods began to thin so gradually that Jessica hardly noticed the change until she saw the first building in New Mayhem. It was Nyeusigrube, which meant “den of shadows.” Jessica knew the name well.
She leaned against the side of the building, her legs suddenly weak as the truth slugged her in the gut.
She was all but numb from shock, but not from denial. She believed; she had no choice but to believe.
The black rose had been the symbol of the vampires for more than five hundred years; that alone was daunting. But five hundred years might have been the blink of an eye to some of Ash Night’s characters, and for a moment Jessica felt the weight of all the lives she had juggled in her books. Thousands of years’ worth of love and hate and pain and pleasure had somehow been compressed into Jessica’s subconscious mortal mind.
For a moment she wondered if she should just stay here instead of returning to her human world. She could disappear, as Mayhem had disappeared three hundred years before.
But as tempting as the world of Ash Night might be, Jessica knew that a human in New Mayhem was seen as a lower being. In comparison to the vampires, mortals were weak, foolish children. Jessi
ca’s pride would not allow her to be submissive to these characters whose every weakness she had written about.
However, there was no way for her to simply turn back and ignore what she knew. Instead, she had an irrational desire — no, a need — to see the creatures of her novels.
In a daze, she made her way to the heart of New Mayhem, not hesitating to push open the door and enter the chaos known as Las Noches.
Jessica couldn’t tell if it was the room or her head that was spinning. Her reflection was distorted wildly by the shattered mirrors, and the black wooden furniture seemed to dance in the moving lights.
As she stood just inside the door, she was hit by such a strong sense of recognition that she reeled back a step. She knew almost everyone in the room.
A slender, dark-skinned woman leaned against the bar. She lifted the crystal glass she held and sipped from it a viscous red liquid that Jessica had no desire to identify. She did recognize the vampire, though: it was Fala.
Fala looked up, and her black eyes immediately fell on the human author with distaste.
Welcome to my world. Fala’s icy voice echoed through Jessica’s mind, sending a chill down her spine. Or is it your world?
Jessica knew she was being tested, but she only shook her head. It isn’t mine, she thought in answer, knowing Fala would hear her.
Damn right. The ancient vampire lifted her glass as if to propose a toast. To knowledge, and to pain.
Understanding the threat, Jessica turned away and left quickly. She had no wish to engage in any kind of confrontation with Fala.
Outside Las Noches she stopped and leaned against the cool wall, waiting for her dizziness to subside. But after a minute or so, she forced herself to move. Though vampires were not allowed to kill humans inside New Mayhem, Jessica doubted that anyone would object to Fala’s making an exception in the case of the author Ash Night.
CHAPTER 18
JESSICA WAS BARELY OUT of New Mayhem, still in the woods that surrounded the single path back to the human world, when she heard the rustle of leaves behind her.
Spinning to face the potential threat, she let out a tight breath as she saw Aubrey.
He had murdered any illusion of the human Alex Remington. The golden pendant had been replaced by a spiked dog collar, and he was wearing a black T-shirt that hugged his form and showed off the many designs on his arms: Fenris on the right wrist, and Echidna, the Greek mother of all monsters, high on his left arm. The Norse world serpent was wrapped around his left wrist, and a new design had recently been added: Cerberus, the three-headed dog who guarded the gates of Hades. The World Serpent was partially covered by a black leather knife sheath, which held the silver knife Aubrey had taken from a vampire hunter a few thousand years earlier.
His hair was slightly tousled, as if he’d been running, and a few strands fell across his face.
Looking at him now, Jessica couldn’t imagine how she had ever mistaken him for a human. But illusion was Aubrey’s art. And it was simple to fool people who expected nothing else.
For the moment, Aubrey appeared to be exactly what he was: stunning, mischievous, and completely deadly all at once. She could feel the aura of power that hung about him, a tangible sensation like a cool pocket in the still night air. Here, outside the confines of the sunlit world, Aubrey was every inch the dark, seductive vampire of popular myth.
“Leaving so soon?” he asked, glancing for a moment back at New Mayhem.
Jessica’s thoughts turned to Fala. “I might have stayed longer, but the threats were a bit discouraging.” Her tone was light, despite the truth in her words. She had always preferred sarcasm and jokes to fear and pleading.
“Many are calling for your blood,” Aubrey answered seriously, “but there are actually very few of my kind who would dare to kill you.”
She could not read the emotion in his face as he spoke those words, but there was something there, just beneath the surface — a meaning she was missing. However, she knew the danger of holding a vampire’s gaze, so she didn’t try to read the truth in his eyes as she otherwise might have done.
Instead she stepped forward, on the offensive. She was tired of this guessing. “I suppose you’re one of the few,” she said, but somehow the words didn’t ring true.
Aubrey’s voice when he answered was soft. “I’m one of the reasons they wouldn’t dare.”
“And why is that?” she pressed, moving still closer.
He didn’t respond, but instead watched her, the look in his eyes disconcertingly intense.
“I don’t like being toyed with, Aubrey,” Jessica announced, forcing her thoughts back into focus. “If you or anyone else is planning to kill me, then get on with it. I have better things to do than wait for you to act.”
Aubrey looked vaguely amused, but at the same time she could tell he was becoming defensive. She knew he wasn’t used to hearing any human speak to him boldly. Still, he raised an eyebrow, inviting her to continue.
She answered by slapping him, hard enough that his head snapped to the side and her palm stung.
The act had not been planned. Impatience and anger and confusion had been rising in her system for too long and had simply reached their zenith.
She had wanted him to take her seriously, and now he would. The expression on his face had changed to pure shock. Jessica knew that he would kill most humans for less, but right now she was too stirred up to feel afraid.
CHAPTER 19
AUBREYS AGITATION rivaled Jessica’s. He had never been more surprised by a human than he was at this moment. Despite the fact that she had just committed a shockingly reckless act, the expression on her face was utterly fearless.
She stepped forward again, aggressive. Her ebony hair tumbled down past her shoulders like a waterfall of midnight.
“Well? What does your kind want with me?” she demanded. “Why am I not dead already?”
“That seems to be a point of dispute,” he answered, trying to keep his voice nonchalant.
“You’re the only one here. What’s stopping you?” she challenged, meeting his gaze without the slightest hesitation.
She stood in front of him, arms across her chest, head held high as if she was looking down at him, black hair shaken back from her face, green eyes strong and defiant. Her entire stance screamed “predator.”
A predatory mind-set was something one was or was not born with. Even some vampires still acted like prey. Jessica acted as if she was afraid of nothing.
“Well?” she said, stepping forward again. She was intentionally invading his space, forcing him to react.
“What do you want from me?” Aubrey asked finally. Her mind was a blank to him at the moment. Despite all the years he had spent learning to manipulate every situation, he had no idea what she wanted him to do.
“I know as much about your kind as you do,” Jessica said. “Probably more. I’ve written it all down and allowed other humans to read it. I’ve even told them about the only fight you’ve ever really lost in your life. And I’m not going to stop writing, no matter how many times your kind threatens me with death. I’m not afraid of the inevitable.” She took one more step forward so that she was all but spitting her words in his face. “What do you want to do about it?”
Jessica looked into his eyes fearlessly. She stood so close that he could feel her breath, but he held his ground, his arms motionless at his sides. They were locked into a challenge that was like a confrontation between two wild cats, each refusing to be the first to look away.
Aubrey was struck by the color of her eyes: a perfect green he had never before seen in any human — somehow impossibly deep. For a moment he experienced the disorientation that he knew his own gaze had so often caused.
His shock was now complete. Jessica had looked into his eyes brazenly, and he had been the one caught.
He blinked once, trying to clear his mind, and his thoughts returned to her question.
Over the past few days, he had occasionally
wanted to throttle her for her unrealized knowledge and stubborn innocence, and he had once or twice entertained the idea of simply sinking his teeth into that fair and tender throat, which the outfit she wore tonight displayed so well. Most often, though, he had had the urge to do exactly what he wanted to do right now.
“What do I want to do about it?” he mused aloud.
Jessica gasped as he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her forward to close the few remaining inches between them. Before she could react, he caught her lips with his own. The kiss was strong but over quickly, and then he willed himself away.
CHAPTER 20
JESSICA STOOD STUNNED for a few minutes after Aubrey had disappeared; then she flopped back against a tree and tried to make sense of the world.
She had thought she was facing death tonight. She had resolved to face it unflinchingly. Instead …
The scene replayed in her mind, frame by frame. The stillness while she had waited for Aubrey to answer her challenge. The vision of him standing there like a creature formed from the very breath of night.
Finally there had been the brief sensation of his lips on hers, over before she could respond, but potent enough to make every thought in her mind lose its cohesiveness.
If he had simply killed her, she would have understood. But this … this she could not explain.
The night air did nothing to cool her thoughts as she headed home, finally slipping into the house at nearly one in the morning.
Sleep eluded her, so she paced in her room for nearly an hour before turning on the computer with the hope of losing herself in her writing. Sometime shortly before sunrise, exhaustion finally claimed her restless mind. She dreamed.
For a few moments, Jazlyn didn’t know what had happened or who she was. She had vague memories of meeting a witch who called herself Monica Smoke, a witch who offered to give her back her hard-lost humanity.