Sarafina had her driver drop her at one of her favorite places, a little bar on the lower east side. It wasn't quite lowbrow enough to be called seedy, but it was hardly uppercrust. She spent hours in this place, or places like it, when she was in the city. And she was in the city often.
Stupid, perhaps. It wasn't as if that imaginary lover had been real. It wasn't as if his words, about being an ordinary man, living in New York in the early years of the twenty-first century, were anything more than a dream created by her broken psyche as a trick to give her reason to go on.
He wasn't real. He hadn't come to her in a hundred years. He wouldn't appear now.
She spent hours in the bar that night, sitting in a dark, secluded booth, watching people, in between writing in her journal. She was trying to remember the exact details, to get them down on paper in a way that was true to what she had been feeling at the time.
What she had been feeling at the time was rage. Oh, not at first, not right away. There had been confusion, and there had been fear that night of her rebirth into a strange, new life. But when she returned to the camp, when she faced her sister, pretending to weep for her in Andre's arms, claiming to the tribe that the vampire had come to claim her sister at last, she had known only rage.
She had summoned every ounce of Shuvani magic in her blood, and she'd screamed her curse from the darkness for all those warmed by the firelight to hear. Andre would not live out the decade. But Katerina would-she would live long enough to see one of her own offspring, or theirs, become what Sarafina was. That was her curse.
And it had come to pass just that way.
At length Sarafina leaned back in the padded seat, setting her pen down and closing the velvet cover of the book. The journals she had chosen were not antique, nor leather bound, like her precious Dante's had been. They were new. She had made a quest out of finding just the right ones to fill with her memories, the tales of many lifetimes, and she had settled on these. The covers were coated in purple velvet. The pages were heavy, cream-colored velum, and each volume had a violet satin ribbon with a silver cradle moon dangling from the end, to keep one's place.
She liked to do her remembering in places like this one, though she hadn't analyzed her motives too closely and had no desire to do so. She found the smoke-filled bar comforting. She liked the smell and taste of tobacco, and sometimes indulged in it herself, not being likely to die of lung cancer anytime soon. She enjoyed the taste of vodka, as well, the burn of it on her tongue, and though her system could not digest the alcohol, she would often order a shot, just to swirl it around in her mouth for a while. She liked the din here. So many people lingering about, interested only in themselves and what they could get from each other. And the music, with the bass so loud it reverberated in her chest and behind her eyes with every pulse.
She liked this bar. No one knew what she was here. No one cared. And if they interrupted her work by hitting on her, it took only a look to send them scurrying away.
Something had happened to her, she supposed. Seeing Dante's story brought to life on the screen, seeing the way his life had become truly immortal, had made her long to share her own. But of course she had no one with whom to share it. Nor did she want anyone. Writing it down was an acceptable substitute. Though even if some future writer found her journals and shared them with the world, that wouldn't make Sarafina truly immortal. None of them were truly immortal, not really.
Some went mad and had to be destroyed. Others went mad and destroyed themselves. Like her dear Bartrone. So strong, so wise, so ancient. Even he had succumbed to the inevitability of death in the end. Others-far too many others-were killed by the vampire hunters. Stiles and his thugs had built up an impressive organization over the past several years.
Dante's journals had become fodder for films, and though it had nearly been disastrous for him, Sarafina had begun keeping her own journals almost immediately after he turned his back on her, the woman who had borne him into darkness. He'd chosen his kitten-weak fledgling over her.
Her journals, Sarafina vowed, would be well guarded. She wouldn't leave them to molder in some dusty attic, and she wouldn't trust their well-being to anyone else. They represented her thoughts, her life, her history.
Someday, she would leave this body. And when she did, her stories would remain. Perhaps, if she were very lucky, she would find someone worthy of taking charge of the tales. Or she would bury them somewhere to be found in a few generations.
Closing the journal, she knew she was finished for tonight. Time to find an amusing diversion. She was hungry.
Tucking the journal into her shoulder bag, Sarafina slid from the booth and got to her feet. She came here often enough that she knew all the regulars. And she knew it would spoil her fun were she to hunt here. Should someone come up missing, the others would notice, questions would be asked.
She wore silk, burgundy silk pants with legs that draped as elegantly as any skirt. The blouse matched, and it was tiny, with spaghetti-thin straps. She wore diamonds at her throat and wrists. The coat was Arctic wolf-it had been a pet.
She took it from the back of her chair and slid her arms into it, and then she walked slowly through the crowded bar, feeling the eyes on her, the appreciation, the interest. She ignored it.
Outside, rain had speckled the sidewalks and glittered from the cars. It still fell, a light, fine mist. She walked a block, then two, then three, enjoying the kiss of the rain on her face. She felt the night's dampness and chill, felt it more intensely than any mortal would, but she didn't shiver or feel in any way uncomfortable with it.
She kept walking. It wasn't a great neighborhood to begin with, and it got steadily worse in this direction. Garbage, rats, crumbling bricks, broken fire escapes and streetlights that didn't function were the scenery here.
It was one of her favorite places to prey, when she was in the mood to prey. She didn't have to. She had a pair of perfectly willing slaves at her house, who would feed her any time she commanded it. But sometimes you just needed a fresh kill.
The streets were dead tonight, she thought. Where was her next meal hiding?
"Hey, baby, that's some coat you got on."
She stopped in her tracks, smiling, turning to face the young tough who had come up behind her. "There you are," she said, looking up at him, since he was a good deal taller than she.
"Here I am," he said, grinning. He had a knife in his hand. "I'll take the coat. And that sparkly necklace, too."
"You think so?" she asked. She shot her hand forward far too fast for him to observe and gripped his wrist-hard. A bone cracked, and she eased off just a little as the blade clattered to the broken sidewalk.
"What? Jesus, what the hell...?"
"Shhhhh.'' She put a finger to her lips, still holding his wrist. "I'd like you on your knees. I think that would please me very much." She squeezed, and he fell to his knees.
Then she stood, looking down at him. He had skin like bronze, deep brown eyes with thick, pretty lashes. A scar crossed the bridge of his nose, and a ring pierced his eyebrow. He had full, thick lips. He was young, strong.
"What are you doing, lady? Come on, I'm sorry, okay? I was only joking around, you know? Come on, let go of my wrist, man. You're killing me."
"Oh, I don't know, maybe not. God, you're going to be good," she whispered. She put her free hand on one side of his head, tipped it sideways, then bent low and put her mouth to his neck.
He shivered, tipped his head farther. She tasted his skin, felt the blood rushing just beneath the surface. Her stomach clenched in anticipation as she bit down.
He yelped, and then he relaxed. She released his wrist, knowing he wouldn't fight her now. No. He loved this. She drank, and he was as good as she had known he would be. Sweet and young and just bad enough to give the blood a luscious kick.
She drank while he melted against her, and when she finally stood up, he fell over sideways and lay there on the concrete, his eyes open, staring at her. He was too weak to move.
"You've been a very good boy," she told him. "Now Fina's gonna give you a little reward, hmm?" She drew a tiny blade from her pocket, slit her forefinger just a little and watched the blood well up in the cut, warm and red. Then she reached down and slid the finger between his lips.
When the blood touched his tongue, his entire body jolted in reaction to its power. He blinked, shocked, and began sucking, as hungry for the force as she had been. But she withdrew the finger before he'd taken more than a few eager sips. "Ah ah ah, that's all for now. More later, though, hmm?"
He was quivering, craving her already. It was so easy with some. Others took longer. But eventually she could reduce any of them to mindless drones, living only to please her, utterly addicted to the few precious drops she gave them when she felt like it. Enough to keep them alive, relatively healthy and utterly addicted.
"Can you get up?" she asked him.
He struggled to his feet, even as the limo pulled to a stop at the roadside. Edward got out, came around the car and opened the rear door for her.
Sarafina rewarded him with a kiss that let him taste the blood on her lips.
"Are we to keep this one, my lady?" he asked.
She glanced at her new acquisition as he stood swaying, weak. He was drooling. How utterly unbecoming. She sighed in stark disappointment. "No, Edward, I suppose not. He's not even a slight challenge, and I think I'd tire of him far too quickly."
"To the hospital then?"
"Why? Do you think I took too much?" Again she looked at the man. He was supporting himself by leaning on the car door. His skin was very white, and his eyelids tinted blue. "Oh, my. Yes, the hospital, I suppose." She rolled her eyes, gripped the young man by the front of his shirt and pushed him into the back seat. Then she got in beside him. "You're not to steal or use weapons against the innocent. Not ever again. Do you understand?"
He smiled at her, his lips wet "Anything you say."
"No drugs, either. I've allowed you to live, and I won't have you wasting that gift. You're to get a job, support yourself through legal means, make something of your life."
"Yes, yes..." He reached weakly for her hand.
She pulled it free and turned her attention to the sidewalks they were driving past. Searching every face, a habit she couldn't seem to break. Her spirit lover had told her once that he was just a man. Had he died, then, as men were prone to do? Or had he simply abandoned her, the way everyone else she'd ever loved had done?
She sighed softly. It didn't matter. No one would abandon her again, because she wouldn't let them.
Her only companions were her servants-and she owned them, body and soul. They were incapable of leaving her. The very thought of it would be more than they could bear.
It was better that way, she thought as she silently scanned the faces they passed. At least she knew she could trust them. It was the only way she could imagine ever trusting anyone.
"Mom, come on, will you talk to him?" The eighteen-year-old pleaded with her mother but didn't expect it to help her case.
Angelica lowered her eyes and shook her head slowly. "I'm sorry, hon. Your father is right. It's far too dangerous."
"I'm eighteen!'
"If you want to see New York, you can see it with us," Jameson insisted. "And if you'd rather not be chaperoned by your parents, then I have no doubt Rhiannon or Tamara would be more than happy to-"
Amber Lily closed her eyes, clenched her hands into fists at her sides and stomped one foot. A vase flew from its stand, straight across the room, smashing into the wall on the opposite side.
"That will be enough of that, young lady," her mother said.
"Young lady," Amber repeated. "God, Mom, do you realize that you don't look a day older than I do?"
"Neither does your aunt Rhiannon, but she's several centuries older than you. And what does that have to do with it, anyway?"
Amber rolled her eyes. "Everything! I'm an adult. I can do what I want, and I will-with or without your permission!"
Her parents sent startled glances to each other, and Amber fully suspected they were exchanging more than a look. It frustrated her to no end that she couldn't hear their thoughts unless they wanted her to. Who the hell had parents like this? Why couldn't she just be a normal teenager, with a nice, normal, middle-class family in the 'burbs?
"Look, I've lived my entire life under your over-protective, smothering rules. I'm an adult now, and I've made up my mind. High school is over, college starts in the fall. I'm going to have some fun this summer. Alicia and I are going to New York City for two weeks. We're going to stay in a nice hotel, and we're going to see a show and we're going to shop and tour, and do things that normal teenagers would do. For once in my life, I just want to be normal."
Tears gathered in her eyes with the last sentence, but she turned away, so her parents wouldn't see them. Better they keep on thinking she was angry and spoiled than to know the truth.
Too late. "Amber," her mother whispered, coming closer. Then she hugged Amber close, stroking her hair. "Oh, baby, I'm sorry. I know it hasn't been easy on you."
"It's not that...."
"Of course it is. You're the daughter of two vampires. You're the only one of your kind, as far as anyone seems to know. And we don't even know the full extent of your-your-"
"Mutations," Amber filled in. "Let's face it, Mom, I'm a freak. I can hear people's thoughts, if they don't know enough to guard them. I can move things with my mind. I'm ten times stronger than a normal person. And God only knows what other latent freakishness is lurking, just waiting to make itself known. I'm not human, but I'm not a vampire, either. Unlike you, I age, but I don't know if that means I'm mortal. No one does."
"You're different, Amber. You're special. And those things you call mutations are gifts."
"Gifts? Mom, in all my life I've only had one true friend. Alicia. And she's had to live just as sheltered an existence as I have, because of her mother's loyalty to us. It's not fair to her, either."
Angelica glanced toward Jameson. "It's true. Susan's been with us ever since you girls were infants. Moving when we moved, never revealing our secrets. We couldn't have raised you without her help, Amber."
"Have you ever heard me complain?" a woman's voice asked.
They looked toward the door, where Susan Jennings had just walked in. Unlike Jameson or Angelica, Susan had aged with the years. She had laugh lines around her eyes, and a broadness to her hips that Amber found comforting. She was the sort of mother all the other students her age had at home.
"Amber," Susan went on, "your parents pay me an extremely generous wage to help care for you. They provide Alicia and me with a home and an income, and they're even going to put her through college." She glanced at Jameson, her eyes beaming. "But even if none of that were true, they'd still have my loyalty. And maybe it's time you knew why."
"Maybe it's time you knew a lot of things," Jameson said softly. "Sit down, Amber."
"Dad, do we have to do all this? It's a simple request. It doesn't require a family meeting."
"Sit. Down."
Sighing, Amber sat. She took the very center of the velvet-covered fainting couch, and her mother sat on one curving arm beside her. Susan took a rocker to the left, and Amber's father paced.
Jameson finally came to a stop, turned and looked his daughter in the eye. "When you were born, you were taken from us."
Amber blinked, glancing from him to her mother, and back again. "Taken?"
"By the Division of Paranormal Investigations. You've heard us speak of the DPI, haven't you?"
She nodded slowly as a cold little lead ball formed in her stomach. "They were some sort of shady government agency that harassed vampires."
"They did a little more than harass us. They hunted us. Captured us. Kept us locked in cells and used us as guinea pigs in their endless experiments to learn more about our kind and how to annihilate us."
"Jamey, you're frightening her," Angelica said.
Amber put her hand over her mother's. "No. I want to hear this."
"But I don't think-"
Jamey interrupted his wife's objections. "Your mother was kept in one of those cells throughout her entire pregnancy, and that is where you were born."
Amber pressed her fingers to her lips unconsciously.
"The DPI couldn't resist the chance to get their filthy hands on the only child ever known to have been born to a vampire. You were to be their prize lab rat, Amber. And by the time I learned all that and went to get you out, they had already taken you away and left your mother sealed in a concrete box to die."
Amber's heart lurched, and her stomach clenched tight as she turned, wide-eyed, to her mother. "They did that to you?"
She lowered her gaze from her daughter's. "You shouldn't be telling her this, Jameson."
Amber sniffed, searching her mother's face. "You're still kind of claustrophobic. Is that why?"
"Yes," she admitted after a slight hesitation, finally meeting Amber's eyes and holding them.
"But Dad got you out. Right? And somehow you found me."
"He got me out. And we went looking for you."
"Your mother could sense you," Jameson said. "The bond between the two of you has been stunning, even from the very start."
Angelica nodded softly. "It still is. I always know when you're near, or when you're in trouble. Unless you're asleep, and only very deeply asleep at that."
"So you came after me."
"And it was lucky for me they did," Susan said, taking up the tale now, as she rocked. "Because on the way, they came upon the scene of a car accident. My car had overturned and caught fire. I'd been thrown clear, but my baby was still inside."
"Alicia?" Amber asked, her eyes widening even farther.
"Yes. Your father went to the car, even though it was blazing, and somehow he got her out. He was burned pretty badly in the process, and knowing what I know now, it makes it even more amazing that he did what he did. But he did it all the same."
Amber lowered her head, shaking it slowly. She knew, as Susan did, that a vampire's flesh was one of the most flammable substances imaginable. He could easily have been destroyed.
"Later, I had the opportunity to care for you, to keep you hidden and safe, until your parents came for you. And we've all been together ever since," she said, smiling toward Angelica and Jameson.
"I...I didn't know. I didn't know any of this." Looking up at her father, Amber smiled. "You're incredible, Dad. And you, too, Mom. To have survived so much and come through it so well. But-" She broke off, bit her lower lip.
"But?" Jameson asked.
"But I still don't see what this has to do with my trip to New York."
Jameson closed his eyes, while Angelica rolled hers. Susan only shook her head.
"Well, come on. I mean, the DPI's long gone. I may not have heard the rest, but everyone knows the story of the day the vampires stormed DPI headquarters and burned it to the ground. It's legend. So you tell me how the threat of an agency that no longer exists has any bearing whatsoever on my having two weeks in New York."
"Baby, just because the DPI is gone, that doesn't mean there are no threats out there," Angelica said softly.
"Mom, there would be threats out there no matter what I was. Normal teenagers have to live with those same threats every day, but they don't become housebound because of it. And I'm not like them. I mean, I'm way stronger than any normal girl. It's not like I'd be mugged or something." She sighed. "Come on, you guys, it's just two weeks."
Again her parents exchanged a glance. Aloud, her father said, "One week."
Amber tried not to grin from ear to ear. "Really?"
"Jamey, I don't know-" Angelica began.
"There are conditions," Jameson went on. "We book the hotel, and we have a full itinerary. You phone us every single night. In fact, you'll be carrying a cell phone with you at all times, turned on, so that we can call you. There will be no bars, no nightclubs, no drinking."
"Of course not," Amber agreed, nodding hard.
He held up a hand. "I'm not finished yet. This is only going to happen if this plan meets with Susan's approval. Alicia's going along, after all."
Susan frowned. "I suppose, if you think it's safe..."
"Oh, it will be," Amber said quickly. "We'll be so good you wouldn't believe it, and so totally safe. We'll call constantly. I swear. Oh, God, I gotta go tell Alicia!"
Amber ran from the room. Alicia had preferred hiding out in her bedroom while Amber had this particular discussion with her parents. She was nowhere near as assertive as Amber was. In fact, Alicia was shy and timid. She hated confrontation of any kind.
Oh, but they were going to New York City. Two eighteen-year-olds on the loose in the Big Apple. Without a single parent supervising them. What a blast this was going to be!
Angelica glared at him, springing to her feet the moment Amber left the room, and Jamey knew he was in trouble, but he held up his hands. "I know, I know, but I have a plan. I wouldn't have given in if I didn't."
She crossed her arms over her chest. "This had better be good, vampire. Very good."
"It is. I think." He went to the magazine rack in the corner, hunkered down to begin flipping through issues. "All we need to do is set someone up to watch her from a distance."
"Amber would know if there were another vampire around," Angelica reminded him.
"That's why we can't get a vampire for the job. Listen, I know this man, this really talented mortal, who happens to be living in New York City right now."
"So?"
"So we simply employ him as her bodyguard. We pay him enough to watch over her 24/7, and he contacts us the instant anything seems the least bit off-kilter."
"Hmmph." Angel tossed her hair. "Just who is this man who impressed you so much that you'd trust him with our daughter's life?"
"Ah, here he is now." Jameson pulled out the magazine and showed it to her. It was an issue of TIME, and the cover held the granite hard face of a man, with an American flag waving as a backdrop. The headline read: They Couldn't Make Him Talk. And in smaller letters, "The amazing story of Colonel Willem Stone, captured, tortured, unbroken, he escaped his captors and lived to tell the tale."
"What makes you think this man will agree to take on the job?" Angelica asked.
"He helped me out of a tight spot once before," Jameson said. "When we were visiting Eric and Tam in Virginia, and I, uh, went to Bethesda for some takeout. He was there. He knew what I was in a glance, and he covered for me when I was nearly caught."
She frowned. "And what did he expect in return?"
Jamey shrugged. "He said he had some questions. I promised I'd touch base with him at a later date to answer them. But, uh, well, I never did. Now, though..."
"Now you need his help again. So you'll tell him what he wants to know."
"As long as it's nothing with the potential to be used against us, yes. He's a good man, Angelica. You need only a glance at him to know that."
"I suppose...Rhiannon's place is nearby. I'll make sure Amber has a key, and the address. Will Roland and Rhiannon be back from their trip by then?"
Jameson shrugged.
"Do you think this... Stone will agree to do this for us?"
"He will," Jameson promised. "I really think he will."
