SAt.u.r.dAY, 7:31 A.M. A.M.
SARAH STOOD ACROSS the street from where she had once lived, well aware that the witches inside the house would sense her, but trying to get her thoughts and the sc.r.a.ping of the vampiric hunger under control enough to make a plan. The early-morning sun was a worse slap in the face than the winter wind. It illuminated a peaceful neighborhood, where some houses still boasted decorations not yet taken in from Halloween, and some were already prepared for Thanksgiving. A few brightly colored leaves still fluttered on the trees. the street from where she had once lived, well aware that the witches inside the house would sense her, but trying to get her thoughts and the sc.r.a.ping of the vampiric hunger under control enough to make a plan. The early-morning sun was a worse slap in the face than the winter wind. It illuminated a peaceful neighborhood, where some houses still boasted decorations not yet taken in from Halloween, and some were already prepared for Thanksgiving. A few brightly colored leaves still fluttered on the trees.
It was a pretty day to die.
For a little while, she had been too dazed to think past Nikolas"s, Kristopher"s and Kaleo"s vehement responses to her statement that she had to turn herself in. She had let them wrap her up in their insistence that she had a right to go on, but she didn"t didn"t. As a hunter she had accepted the possibility of her own death. She had never wanted to wake as a vampire. She didn"t want want to die, but she had no right to endanger so many others with her continued existence when her time had come and gone. to die, but she had no right to endanger so many others with her continued existence when her time had come and gone.
Her arrogance had almost gotten Christine hurt-or worse. She had to fix this mess before it was too late and she lost the will to do what needed to be done, and there was only one sure way to do that. Dominique had invoked the Rights of Kin because her daughter had been transformed into a vampire. She would declare satisfaction once she knew that her daughter was...at rest.
The only hitch was Heather. The bloodbond was already in Vida custody, and they were unlikely to give her up just because the Rights of Kin were dropped. However, Sarah was the more valuable target, which meant an exchange that would ensure Heather"s safety once this was all over might be possible.
Unless the witches inside held to the law of never making deals with vampires.
Once she was certain she was reasonably well under control, she crossed the street. She was not surprised to see the front door open. Zachary stepped onto the front porch, and Sarah stopped on the sidewalk. They should have been somewhere in the old west, with tumbleweeds and a saloon to mosey into, not in peaceful suburbia, surrounded by rotting pumpkins and straw turkeys.
Zachary"s expression was as impossible to read as ever. He wore a slight smile that she had seen often enough when they had hunted together to know it was meaningless, and had his hands tucked into his back pockets. The position looked casual, but Sarah knew that it meant he had a knife sheathed at the small of his back. The only reason he hadn"t drawn it yet, she was sure, was the possibility of nosy neighbors peering out their windows. He would try to take the fight inside if he could.
His heartbeat was perfectly even. It wasn"t like the flawless Zachary to lose control in such a silly situation as preparing to murder his cousin. heartbeat was perfectly even. It wasn"t like the flawless Zachary to lose control in such a silly situation as preparing to murder his cousin.
"I"m not here to fight," she said, lifting her voice enough that he would hear it, but hoping the words wouldn"t travel to the neighbors. "I"m here to..." Her voice trailed off. Would it kill him to look human human once in a while? She shook her head and reached for her knife, which she had strapped to her wrist. It was warm to the touch these days, even uncomfortably hot. once in a while? She shook her head and reached for her knife, which she had strapped to her wrist. It was warm to the touch these days, even uncomfortably hot.
Zachary tensed slightly, one arm shifting as he went for his own blade, but when he realized she was undoing the straps that held the sheath in place, he returned to his prepared but relaxed posture.
She set the knife, still securely sheathed, on the gra.s.s.
"I came to return this, and to turn myself in," she said. The words were a little more tight, and a little louder, than she had intended, but she had never had Zachary"s perfect control.
At least she didn"t have to face Adia this way.
"All I want," she said, taking a step away from where she had left the knife, "is for Heather to go free before I turn myself in. She"s human, just a bloodbond. Once you have me, you don"t need her."
She could see somewhere in Zachary"s glacier blue eyes the exact moment that he decided she was trying to play him.
"Turn yourself in, and I"ll give you my word that she will be let free."
Sarah"s laugh sounded a little like a snarl. "I grew up up with you, Zachary! Trust me, d.a.m.n you." with you, Zachary! Trust me, d.a.m.n you."
"You did not grow up with me. did not grow up with me. Sarah Sarah grew up with me," he replied. "Do we have a deal?" grew up with me," he replied. "Do we have a deal?"
"If I"m not Sarah to you, then I know for a fact that your word means nothing," she said. "If I"m just a vampire, then you can swear on your mother"s grave and it"s all meaningless."
Stalemate. There had to be a way to get past this.
Zachary had long been an enigma to her. She had hazy memories of his being around when she was young, but the one that stood out most in her mind was the resigned expression on his face as he watched Dominique bind her powers and set her broken fingers after her father"s death. He had apologized to her later, though she had never been sure why.
Had they been closer before then? She remembered that he had moved out the next day, and that his visits after then had always been purely business, either to work on a hunt or to help her and Adia train. He had never played "nice" when training. She had liked that as a kid. It meant that by the time she was strong enough to beat him, she never doubted that she had done it fairly.
She moved closer. He couldn"t hold her here as long as she stayed out of his reach. Zachary had the finest control over his raw magic and was able to do things with it that Sarah had never quite grasped, but for the past few years she had almost always been able to take him down in a plain old-fashioned physical fight. If he grabbed for her, she trusted herself to get out of his grip.
"Bring Heather to the door," she said. "Then we can decide our next step."
He nodded slowly and then glanced behind him. He didn"t need to speak.
Robert and Michael escorted Heather onto the porch. Christine"s brother looked pale and shaken. He stared at Sarah with first relief, then confusion and finally blatant horror. Michael"s face was flushed, and his anxiety was clear in all his features. He refused to look in Sarah"s direction, which was at least less of a stab in the gut than Zachary"s calm and even gaze. Heather"s expression was hard to read past the duct-tape gag. Her feet were free, but her hands were bound in some way behind her back.
Sarah took a few more steps forward. She trusted Robert and Michael more than she trusted Zachary, but Zachary was the one in charge.
"Robert, if you will walk Heather out to the street and untie her, I will go inside with Zachary and Michael."
Robert looked from Zachary to Sarah as if begging someone to stop this madness.
I"m trying to, Sarah thought in response.
Michael shadowed Robert and Heather until they were even with Sarah on the front walk.
"I didn"t know," Robert said to Sarah. His gaze held confusion, guilt, fear and indecision. She recognized it because it was the same tangle of emotions she had felt not long before. Whose side do I fight on? Whose side do I fight on?
"It"s okay," she replied. The human couldn"t help her now, but he could be hurt if he tried. "Get Heather to safety. Don"t worry about me."
She stepped back, giving them a clear path and keeping herself well away from any of the hunters. Once Robert was a fair distance away, she looked back at Zachary.
"Let"s do this inside, shall we?" she asked.
He nodded.
She heard Michael swallow thickly as he leaned down to retrieve her knife from the ground. As Zachary turned back toward the house, Michael whispered, "Sarah-"
She interrupted. "I can"t go on like this, Michael. I can"t stand to have innocent people in danger because of me." She left him at her back as she ascended the front steps. "Dominique and Adianna aren"t here?"
"Why do you ask?" was Zachary"s response.
Maybe I just wanted to see if Dominique could look me in the eye and tell me I"m a monster, the way you can, Sarah thought.
Okay. She had done her duty. She had made sure Heather was safe. Robert was a good guy, in addition to his sister"s being one of Kaleo"s bloodbonds. He would make sure Heather was properly untied and knew which direction to go to get to safety.
The wards protecting the house from vampires seemed to sc.r.a.pe across her skin as she crossed the threshold.
"Hi, Sarah."
She looked up at the unexpected greeting, which came from a hunter she only vaguely knew, as they all reached the living room. She had seen Jay at major events, when all the lines gathered, but she wasn"t certain they had been officially introduced.
"Hi," she replied.
"This is awkward," he said.
Michael giggled, the sound almost hysterical.
They were still all standing just out of striking distance from each other. She was pretty sure Michael and Jay had absolutely no intention of attacking her. Neither even looked inclined to draw a weapon. Zachary was probably waiting for a clear shot or a solid indication from her of whether she planned to fight.
She decided she was grateful that Zachary was the one there. She put her hands behind her back, clasping them together, sure that he wouldn"t hesitate. He would make it quick, and she would never see in his eyes the betrayal she imagined she would have seen in Adia"s.
The sound of shattering gla.s.s from the next room interrupted them an instant before she sensed Kristopher. Sarah instinctively fell back, unsure how to respond immediately. Michael"s eyes widened, and a look of betrayal crossed his face as he set Sarah"s knife down and drew his own. A hunter"s magic was twined to his primary blade; Michael would risk the low likelihood of Sarah"s retrieving the Vida knife, rather than try to fight with a weapon tied to someone else.
How dare Kristopher come here? Sarah thought. Sarah thought. Doesn"t he know how hard this already is? Doesn"t he know how hard this already is?
Zachary said to the other hunters, "Check on it."
Jay and Michael obeyed instantly, any disagreement between the three men now forgotten in the face of a threat.
If Kristopher was here, was Nikolas? The hunger had made her too unfocused to sense clearly. Had Heather somehow called them? How could she have had time? If he was here alone, Michael and Jay would kill him. He didn"t stand a chance. Those thoughts whipped through Sarah"s mind, and she moved toward the kitchen, intending to cut off Michael and Jay, as she shouted mentally at Kristopher, Get out of here! Get out of here!
The answer that slapped her with its intensity was, unequivocally, No! No!
She didn"t have time for anything more. Seeing her move, Zachary reacted; she barely managed to dodge the knife she should have known was coming.
They had fought countless times. They knew each other"s weaknesses. His power was more of a danger to her now that she was a vampire; her strength and speed, however, were greater than they had been when she had been a witch.
On the other hand, she had one serious handicap: she didn"t want to kill him. She wanted to incapacitate him quickly quickly, without doing permanent damage. Even if she no longer agreed with everything she had been taught growing up, the world needed hunters-and she would never kill someone who had been her family. Zachary might have been able to sever the connections in his heart, but she didn"t think she would ever be able to do the same.
It was very hard to be careful when she had been trained all her life to kill. She didn"t dare try to reach her knife. A blade would only remind her body of deadly habits.
Behind Zachary, she saw two figures move past the doorway. She wasn"t close enough or sufficiently focused to tell if it was Nikolas or Kristopher who Michael had just dragged through her line of sight, one arm around the vampire"s neck as if in a stranglehold. It was impossible to tell from the glimpse if Michael had a knife in play, or if it had been lost, and she had no idea what Jay was doing.
In her moment of distraction, Zachary lunged. She dodged but not quite quickly enough; his knife tore a gash deep into her shoulder. The wound cut through the rose scar as if striking it out, and the poisonous magic in the blade sent agony down to her fingertips and then swirling toward her core.
She had been trained for many years to experience pain and push it out of her mind until she had the chance to deal with it. She had been taught to focus no matter what other stimuli were around.
Something went wrong.
The pain and anxiety and frustration and fear all mingled in the spot where her heart now sat silent and unused except by the parasite that gave her life, and suddenly she beheld the world through a haze. Her mind stopped tracking details and intentions, like protecting Kristopher without killing Zachary. She moved. They fought in a whirlwind. When Jay tried to join on Zachary"s side, she managed to get just enough of a grip on his arm to throw him into the wall, hard. She paid only enough attention to see someone else engage him before returning her focus to the more dangerous witch.
Zachary got past her guard. She twisted just enough for the knife to miss her heart, but it cut into her stomach and sliced upward. Her eyes widened with shock, her body frozen for the moment with the pain. For the first time, Zachary"s eyes met hers, and in them she saw regret.
"I"m sorry, Cousin," he whispered.
He hesitated.
She didn"t.
Snarling, mindless beyond the pain and the predator screaming in her head, she grabbed his wrist and squeezed until she felt it splinter. He shuddered, but he was a Vida. He didn"t cry out.
He had what she needed. She locked her prey"s wrists together in one hand, so slight and delicate but possessing a vampire"s terrible strength, and then with the other hand she pinned him in place and leaned his head to the side.
As if sensing his defeat, he went limp. In that last second, he didn"t fight her at all.
Warmth where she had been cold. Peaceful satisfaction where there had been gnawing hunger. She wasn"t fighting anymore. She was feeding, and the predator within her purred with triumph.
The voice seemed very far away, even though she knew it was screaming: "Sarah!"
She growled without lifting herself away from her prey.
"Sarah, you have to let him go," the voice pleaded. Hands tried to pull her back. "Sarah, he"s your cousin. You won"t be able to live with yourself if you kill him."
CHAPTER 10
SAt.u.r.dAY, 7:36 A.M. A.M.
ZACHARY WAS AWARE of nothing beyond the waves of need and satisfaction so deep they felt like love. His mind wandered, his memories skipping through events that he and Sarah had both experienced-moments of exhilaration, when they had fought together and known they were on top of the world. of nothing beyond the waves of need and satisfaction so deep they felt like love. His mind wandered, his memories skipping through events that he and Sarah had both experienced-moments of exhilaration, when they had fought together and known they were on top of the world.
At least, he thought, I"ll be dying with family I"ll be dying with family.
When it stopped, he wanted to weep.
"You take her," a familiar voice said. "Your brother needs her help. I will take care of this one."
"Don"t kill him," another voice said. "We came here to stop Sarah from doing something stupid, not to destroy everyone she once called family."
"I won"t kill him. I"ll even call a healer, once the three of you are gone. Now go go!"
Zachary managed to open his eyes just in time to feel himself lifted. He couldn"t raise a hand to defend himself, much less to shove the vampire carrying him away.
He couldn"t even raise any mental shields, so when the vampire looked at him and said, "Get some rest," with a tiny nudge of power to go along with the command, Zachary fell into deep black sleep.
He woke on the couch with Caryn Smoke leaning over him, putting st.i.tches into his side where Sarah had shoved his own knife back at him. It looked like she had already wrapped his wrist with a compression bandage. It had felt like Sarah had fractured his wrist, but it must have been minor enough for Caryn to mostly heal it before he woke.
"Don"t try to sit up yet," she said, tying off the last st.i.tch and taping a bandage over it. "There"s juice on the end table. You lost a lot of blood, but you"ll be fine." She stood up and shook her head. "I"m going to head out, before I break an ancient vow of nonviolence by beating your head in. It"s your stupid Vida pride that led to all this."
She stormed out. Zachary ignored the healer"s brief tirade as he had many times in the past, rubbed his neck and reached to take a large gulp of orange juice. He could afford to lose more blood than most humans, since his body, especially his heart, was strong enough to keep his systems going on very limited resources, but this had been a close call despite that.
He had been sure that this would be the last fight.
He looked up at Michael, who was stretched out with his eyes closed on the love seat, his feet up on the arm, his skin as pale as Zachary"s.
"Where"s Jay?" Zachary asked. When he had last seen the Marinitch, Sarah had just flung Jay across the room and into the wall.
"Here."
It took far too much effort to turn his head, but when he did, he found Jay sitting on an end table. His arm was in a cast, but otherwise he looked better than Zachary or Michael.
The door burst open, and Zachary cringed, expecting Dominique. Instead, the eyes that swept the room, obviously taking in every detail of the wreckage and injuries, were Adia"s. Her voice was barely audible as she asked, "What happened?"