“You believe me now, do you?” Jerome asked.
She shook her head but said, “I’m willing to entertain a conversation about the possibility.”
Jerome nodded. “That’s about as much as I can expect. In short, the world needs hunters. Immortals need the possibility of their own deaths. And, as I’ve said before, I am uncomfortable with the concept of wholesale slaughter. But now we have a problem. Dominique has called on the Rights of Kin. So long as that law is in play, it almost guarantees the death of your line, and every other witch line alive.”
“A little arrogant, don’t you think?” Adia said with a bravado she didn’t really feel.
“Think about it. If you slay either brother, the other will avenge it. Those two are closer than human twins. They have twined their powers together for more than a century. As a witch, you would be able to see that when you look at them. Neither survives well in separation, and I fear that if one died, the other would simply succumb to madness, and that madness would demand vengeance. And, since both brothers are protected by Kaleo, and Nikolas is one of Kendra’s favorites, they would have powerful allies. They would bring most of our line into the fray, and though other lines have tried to rule our kind, Kendra’s line has always been the deciding factor. The result would be a war, and your stupid, stupid kin would keep fighting it because of a law written by a scared little girl who had just witnessed her mother’s murder thousands of years before either of us was born.”
Adia had been so wrapped up in his words she was startled when he fell silent and she suddenly realized he was much closer than he should have been. She moved to raise her knife, and he shoved her backward, sending her off balance—but only long enough for him to step back again, keeping her from attacking.
“What option do we have?” she asked. “Should we just forget all the deaths this generation?”
“Do you want to survive?” he snapped.
“Sacrificing all we believe in to preserve some semblance of our flesh would destroy our line as surely as any of your kind could.” She had already accepted that this might be the end. If their line had to die, she would rather die with dignity than beg for leniency and fade into obscurity.
“I’ve seen enough genocide in my time, witch,” he said. “You don’t want to choose that path. Find an option. Be creative. Use some of the wit and intelligence I know your line possesses and come up with something.” She started to object, but he spoke over her. “And don’t give me that line about how Vidas don’t compromise or make deals. It’s crap. There is no such thing as perfection.”
“Maybe not,” she admitted, thinking of the many mistakes she had made in the past day alone. “But that doesn’t mean we stop trying.”
Jerome shook his head. “Would you like to see what perfection looks like in reality, Adia?” he asked.
There was a challenging light in his eyes, along with a hint of anger. Part of her wanted to rise to that challenge, but part of her sensed that if she did so, she would regret it.
Refusing, however, had never been a choice.
CHAPTER 17
SATURDAY, 4:50 P.M.
SARAH GAPED AT Kristopher, struggling to control her anger and the bloodlust that seemed to rise and tangle with it, like the two were feeding on each other.
Her family was trying to kill her. As if that weren’t sufficient, she had dreamed Kristopher’s memories of his dead first crush and then heard from Kaleo’s favorite bloodbond that she would be a good little vampire, before having a short discussion about how vampires occasionally utterly ruined human lives for fun. Then she had a flashback to Nissa’s committing murder, and now Kristopher thought he could fix it all up with a Broadway musical?
Kristopher seemed taken aback by her response. “I thought it would be nice to spend an evening focused on something other than a situation we have no power to change right now.” Though he didn’t say it out loud, and tried to squash it before she heard it, another thought sneaked through to her: I want to show you there are still things in the world worth living for. “If you don’t want to see a show, we could do something else, anywhere we want. Have you ever wanted to visit the Louvre? It’s past ten o’clock in Paris right now, but I could call Kendra, and she could have it opened for us.”
The words felt like a blow. She was on the verge of tears and had no idea why.
“Damn it, Kristopher!” Sarah shouted. “You nearly died today. I nearly killed my cousin. We are being made top priority by every hunter my mother has ever met—including everyone I ever called family. Your people are in danger, mostly because you and I showed absolutely no common sense or self-control—”
“You chose to live your own life,” Kristopher said challengingly.
“I didn’t choose anything. You chose for both of us, remember?”
Kristopher had waited, perfectly mellow, through most of the tirade, his expression clearly asking, So? It was only then that he flinched. “Then let me do something right this time. Let me show you something beautiful. Do you like—”
“Kristopher, please,” she begged before he could finish the question. “I know you’re scared for me.” His anxiety and guilt were pummeling her, no matter how he tried to suppress them. “I know you think this will make me feel better. But this isn’t what I need right now.”
He nodded slowly, but she knew he was humoring her more than agreeing. He was so sure that if only he could show her his world, she would be able to accept it as fully as he did.
Nikolas cleared his throat, alerting them both to his presence. Sarah turned, wondering how long he had been standing there and how he would respond. She hadn’t needed to read Kristopher’s mind to see that she had hurt him. But Nikolas’s expression was strangely shuttered, impossible to read.
“Kristopher, I checked in with Nissa while I was out,” Nikolas said. “A lot of her people normally rely on SingleEarth, and she’s having trouble finding them all safe havens. Her people tend to trust you more than me, so I thought you might be in a better position to help. I’m sure you could do so and still get back in plenty of time to make curtain on Broadway.” Had he been standing there long enough to hear the idea, or had he known ahead of time what Kristopher had planned? Or did he just hear Sarah’s reeling reaction in her mind?
Kristopher nodded. “Sarah—”
“Go see how your sister is doing,” Sarah said. She had barely even thought about Nissa since they had first established that she was safe early that day. She hadn’t thought about the strain Nissa’s nonviolent friends must have been under. As a peace offering, she added, “What time would the show start?”
Suddenly, Kristopher’s smile was bright. “Most shows on Broadway open at eight. I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty?”
She was able only to nod. Kristopher looked like he wanted to say more, but he disappeared instead, leaving her staring at where he had been. At last, she turned to Nikolas and said, “Thanks.”
“Nissa needs the help.” He shrugged, and admitted, “But she probably would have let me provide it.”
“He just …” Her voice trailed off. She didn’t know what she could say to anyone, much less to Kristopher’s brother.
“Kristopher forgets,” Nikolas said, “that it was two years after our deaths before Kendra fairly literally dragged us to our first opera.”
The words surprised Sarah, as they cut deftly to the heart of her earlier anger. She had studied Kendra’s line, and knew what kind of magnificence most of its members had created even before they were changed. Sarah, who had never set foot in an art museum or been to so much as a high school play or a slam poetry recital, was now surrounded by immortals who had steeped themselves in the arts for years—centuries, even.
“I always assumed you were raised with all this,” she admitted to Nikolas.
“We couldn’t afford it,” he replied bluntly. “When Kaleo was courting Nissa, he would bring us art supplies. He would bring art books and describe some of the wonders of the
world. But for some reason,” he said, his tone ironic, “Nissa wasn’t comfortable with the notion of his taking us into the city or around the world to actually go to a museum or a theater.”
“I still feel like I can’t afford it,” Sarah confided. “There is so much to deal with right now, it seems like a bad time to pick up hobbies.”
“I would argue,” Nikolas said thoughtfully, “that now is an excellent time to discover what beauty the world has to offer, but if you are not ready, then we may as well focus on the task at hand. Survival, right?”
She nodded. “The hunters—”
“Secondary,” Nikolas said with the same cool determination she had seen in his eyes when they had fought. He held out his hand to her. “Come with me.”
She hesitated. That expression made her nervous. “To where?”
“To deal with the primary problem that makes you a danger to yourself and others,” he answered, “so we can lessen some of your fear, and hopefully allow you to relax and see a marvel of voice and body and light and language this evening.”
Sarah cautiously reached out to take his hand. When their fingers touched, Nikolas willed them both away.
She found herself a moment later in some kind of club. The music wasn’t too loud, but the dim lights and the crowd made everything seem more overwhelming. The sudden, overpowering scent of humanity—their sweat and blood as the people mingled—didn’t help. She had to shut her eyes for a moment to block out the tapping of a hundred pulses against her brain.
“Where are we?” she asked once she had stabilized herself against the unanticipated smells and sounds of life around her.
“Phaethon. It’s a semi-exclusive Manhattan establishment catering to independent musicians,” he replied. “These are normally Kendra’s hunting grounds, but she won’t mind my bringing you here.”
Hunting grounds. She wondered how old the business was; she had never heard of it before, though as a Vida, she had of course made a point to keep track of such places. “You brought me out to hunt?”
“To feed,” he replied. “This is the kind of place where it is easy to find a willing donor. They know this establishment is Kendra’s, and that members of my line come here, and therefore know to seek us out here. I have trouble imagining your hunting down an innocent on the street, but somehow I suspect you will also have trouble asking those you already know, such as Christine, to bare their throats to you.”
Sarah had tensed, looking around her in an entirely new way. “Nikolas, I don’t think I’m ready for this.”
“I don’t think you have a choice,” he answered. “Christine told me what happened, though she did not fully understand how much danger she was in. I know that your fear of hurting her is what nearly drove you onto a hunter’s knife. It is my responsibility to make sure you are not a danger to my people. Kristopher isn’t hard enough to push you into this, but you do not have a choice. You need to learn to feed.”
“I won’t kill.”
There, she said it, and in saying it she acknowledged their major difference: Nikolas, for all his black and white charm and talk about being a protector, was a killer. He had been in jail for murder when Nissa had changed him to save his life, and then Kendra had taken him for his first hunt and taught him to kill as a vampire. He was known in the human world as a serial killer, and long before, he and Kristopher had killed Sarah’s ancestor, Elisabeth Vida.
Now he nodded. “I wouldn’t have taken you here if I thought you would kill,” he said. “You know Kristopher and I will never judge you if you pick up such habits, but you do want to be cautious about it. Before you ever feed, you should be aware of whose territory you are in. You must know that the mortal whose throat you bare is yours to take. Humans in this place are under Kendra’s protection.”
Sarah nodded warily. “We’re still left with me needing to pick up a complete stranger to assault.”
Nikolas shook his head. “No, we are left with you needing to be charming long enough to make the acquaintance of one of the many humans in this place who would be honored beyond belief to be chosen.”
That’s disgusting, she thought. She managed not to say it out loud, but knew that Nikolas could hear her thoughts, so it certainly wasn’t his sensibilities she was protecting.
“Better or worse than choosing an innocent, like a lion pulling down a gazelle?”
She glared at him, because his being right didn’t make this any easier. “I saw your expression earlier, when you talked about that girl in the photo. Even you thought it was pathetic. What makes these humans any different?”
“These humans,” Nikolas said, looking around, “have lives, and passions. Those that choose to bleed have their own reasons, ranging from the feeling of power they get from knowing we need them in order to survive, to the fact that the sensation itself is pleasant. The ones I pity are those who have given up everything else. They bleed because it’s the only way they can see to get through the day.”
Sarah shuddered. “And what causes that need?”
“If one of our kind takes a human without much to live for and rolls their mind too deeply, they’ll fight to keep that feeling,” Nikolas answered. “Most of them recover, in time, if they want to, unless someone like Jerome doesn’t give them a chance. I’ll be right beside you tonight, so you don’t need to worry about endangering your donors.”
“I wasn’t …” Okay, she was worried, but only because her experience as a hunter had made her believe that there really was only one kind of bleeder in the world: the pathetic bash-bunny who didn’t care if he or she woke up or not. “I believe you that you’ll keep them safe, so I’m trying. But I don’t know how to … you know.”
Nikolas shook his head, chuckling. “Shall I demonstrate?”
She wanted to say no. She wanted not to be here.
She wanted not to be a vampire, but permanent death was the only alternative to her current state, and she had chosen not to take that route.
“Please?” she managed to say softly.
Nikolas was right that she needed to do this, but she still wasn’t sure if she could. He could show her how to pick a donor or instruct her in whatever technique went into the feeding, but how could he teach her how to forget the last eighteen years?
CHAPTER 18
SATURDAY, 4:57 P.M.
SARAH WATCHED NIKOLAS sweep the room with his black eyes. He narrated his thinking and his conclusions as he did so.
“There are people here who have no idea what we are, and others who come here specifically to meet us. The first trick is to figure out which is which.” His expression as he sized up the individuals in the crowd was serene, not predatory, despite his purpose. “There are a few obvious signs. The girl in the turtleneck sweater is probably not seeking one of us. Same for the Goth boy in the corner with the spiked dog collar. Most mortals who come here seeking each other look around. They examine other people, send flirtatious smiles, buy each other drinks. Some of them come here just for the atmosphere, in which case they are usually either attentive to the music or have brought something that clearly tells other humans they are not here to be picked up.”
He nodded to individuals as he spoke, drawing Sarah’s attention to the courtship rituals going on around her, as well as the obvious not interested signals some individuals were sending out.
Nikolas offered little further instruction. He focused on a young woman who was sitting in a corner booth, sipping a coffee and doodling in a notepad in front of her. Every now and then she looked around her, but she didn’t seem to focus on anyone or anything.
When Nikolas first approached, her expression was wary, which was unusual. Nikolas was handsome enough to turn heads in most situations. However, as he moved closer and she got a better look at him, it was as if she relaxed. She smiled a little shyly, and Sarah heard the human’s heart begin to beat faster.
Nikolas slid into the booth next to the girl as she moved aside to let him in. He ran fingers through her h
air, and without any pressure from him she tilted her head to the side, baring her throat. There had been no words exchanged between them. As Nikolas had said, this girl already knew what she was seeking, and what Nikolas was seeking.
Sarah looked around, concerned. Wasn’t anyone else seeing this?
But no one else was looking. No one cared. Sarah had seen it a hundred times at the parties she had crashed; one human bled, and the rest were completely blind to it.
As she turned away she found a young man, no more than a year or two older than her, watching her. The instant Sarah looked toward him, he dropped his gaze. Then, when he realized she was still looking at him, he raised his eyes again. He stood but then hesitated, as if not certain whether to approach her.
He was attractive in a clean but scruffy way, with hair that was a little long—not as if it was intentionally styled that way, but as if he hadn’t had time for a haircut lately—and skin that would probably have benefited from spending more time in the sun. His eyes were a warm brown, questioning as he looked at her.
He looked like he was someone’s son or brother, the kind of person she used to try to save when she went out hunting. She wondered what he did when he wasn’t here hoping someone would come to use him. Was he in school? Did he have a job? Did he have dreams, beyond the wish that sometimes an immortal would have him bare his throat and drink?
She couldn’t see him as prey, as food. She simply couldn’t. She knew she needed to feed; she had resolved herself to that truth, and it wasn’t that she was refusing now, but she didn’t know how to see this obviously willing young man as a source of sustenance instead of as a human being.
She approached him, trying to fake more confidence than she felt. He smiled as she appeared to make up her mind, and then he seemed confused when she sat across from him instead of next to him as Nikolas had done with his chosen prey.