All Just Glass (5 page)

Though Sarah was also surprised that he would
expect
their help, she didn’t share Nikolas’s shock at the request. She knew what the hunters might do to Heather if Heather refused to give them information.

“She is surrounded by witches waiting for some fool to step in to pick her up,” Kaleo said. “I’m not about to be the only fool there. As for why you should help, if Heather hadn’t distracted the hunters, they would have taken Nissa instead. And finally, I was in the same place you were:
not
in SingleEarth, where I am very much not welcome, and
not
policing my people in a place where they are supposed to be safe from exactly this kind of assault. Since when has that rule changed?”

Both brothers answered the question by looking to Sarah for explanation. “Sarah?” Kristopher asked.

“SingleEarth’s autonomy is a high law among all witch-kin—”

“Which is why I was a little surprised they seem to be
ignoring
it,” Kaleo interjected.

Sarah stepped back. It didn’t make any
sense
 … but Caryn had acted like it did.
My mother says if I cross them, it could endanger everyone at SingleEarth
. “Oh, goddess,” Sarah whispered as the answer struck her like lightning. Her stomach plummeted. Her chest constricted.

“Sarah?”

She wasn’t sure who had spoken. She felt blind. But she remembered the ancient words she had spent many hours studying as a child. A Vida was only given a true blade, crafted by the witches of old and imbued with generations of power, after she had recited and then sworn to all the laws of their line. She could have said the words in her sleep, but the only law applicable in that moment was so ancient she would never have thought anyone would invoke it.

When witch-kin is slain, there shall be no safe haven, no higher law to protect the guilty. Every hunter shall turn her blade to the task, and there shall be no rest until those responsible have been slain
.

The Rights of Kin hadn’t been called upon since the death of Smoke Madder, thousands of years earlier. The conflict had led to the schism that split the witches into separate lines for the first time, with some obeying the Rights and some swearing a vow of nonviolence and giving up the title of hunter for themselves and all their descendants.

Hunters’ deaths were avenged when they could be, but most of the time it was simply accepted that hunters eventually
lost their lives, usually to their prey. No one had called on the Rights when the Light line had been extinguished three centuries before, and the Vida line had nearly been forced to the same fate. No one had called on the Rights when Nikolas and Kristopher had killed Elisabeth Vida in the 1850s, or when Zachary’s sister Jacqueline had been slaughtered, or when Sarah’s father had been bled and dumped on their front step.

Sarah was sitting. When had she sat down?

Kristopher was by her side. Nikolas was still standing close to Kaleo, defensive, and Christine was hovering in the doorway at the opposite side of the room. Her face was tight with fear, but she stood solid, eyes only occasionally flickering back to Kaleo from Sarah.

Sarah recognized the posture. It was loyalty that held her when terror made her want to run. It had to be hard for her to stay in the same room with Kaleo, but she did it anyway.

Sarah wanted to say to her,
Just run. Loyalty isn’t worth so much sometimes
.

“The Rights of Kin are ancient,
ancient
Vida law,” Sarah said. “Older than the other lines’ existences. Older than any living vampires, or recorded civilization, for that matter. They were passed down verbally for centuries, because humanity hadn’t yet invented written language.”

“Get to the
point,
” Kaleo growled.

“Back off!” Kristopher shouted. “Can’t you see she’s in shock?”

Sarah shook herself. She wasn’t in shock; a daughter of Vida didn’t have that luxury. She pushed herself to her feet.

“The Rights of Kin can be called upon by any descendant of
Macht—any Vida, Smoke, Arun or Marinitch witch—when their kin is slain. The law requires any other child of Macht to set aside all allegiances and obligations to assist with hunting down the killer. The healers don’t have to fight, but they can’t offer sanctuary or assistance, either. What Caryn did,” she said, thinking out loud as her gaze went to the bag the witch had hastily passed her, “would be enough to get her disowned if anyone learned about it.”

“Focus, Vida,” Kaleo snapped. “What does this mean, right now, to us?”

Kristopher looked ready to murder him, but the sharp words brought Sarah back to herself. They reminded her of the many times she had reported to Dominique, ignoring fatigue or agony after a particularly grueling fight. She had to be practical and keep her mind on what needed to be done. She couldn’t dwell on the lump in her stomach when she wondered why now, of all times, Dominique had called upon this ancient law.

“It means that all witches who hunt will turn their full attention on the ones Dominique considers responsible for my murder. They will call on their allies. They will track down anyone they have ever known to have a connection to the killers, without worrying about messy treaties with SingleEarth or other normally respected neutral havens.”

“I don’t suppose they care that you are not, in fact, dead,” Nikolas said.

Sarah shook her head. “In their eyes, I am.”

“And we’re your killers,” Kristopher added. “That means we need to warn our people. Everyone who wears our marks, or is normally allied with us.”

“Is Nissa safe?” Kaleo asked.

“She already had her run-in with the hunters—”

“Yes, I’m aware of that,” the Roman interrupted. “I assume she came to you after. Is she safe?”

“Yes,” Nikolas replied. “We’re not stupid. We didn’t know about the Rights, but the hunters threatened to kill her. It wasn’t subtle. She’s gone to ground.”

Kaleo nodded and then looked back at Sarah. “What will these hunters do to a bloodbond who might have information?”

“Normally, most hunters won’t hurt humans, even bloodbonds, but all bets are off now. They’ll want information, and they won’t show a lot of mercy getting it. Thank goddess Nissa got away.”

“I, too, am relieved that Nissa is safe,” Kaleo said, “but Nissa got away because Heather threw herself at the hunters, probably assuming they wouldn’t bother with a bloodbond, and certainly knowing that I would expect her to protect Nissa in any way she could. If she is now in danger, it is your fault, and I expect your help to retrieve her.”

Sarah closed her eyes and let herself go completely still, visualizing calm and centered attention.

By the time she opened her eyes again, she had come to a decision. There was one difference between this and all the deaths before. As Nikolas had pointed out, even if Sarah was dead by Vida standards, she wasn’t
dead
. Her family would be horrified at the notion of a vampire—a monster—walking around in the skin of someone who had once been one of them. Vidas didn’t believe that vampires could ever be good. They would be thinking not about
if
Sarah went bad, but
when
, and
would consider it a mark of respect for who she had been to destroy what she now was.

“It isn’t right of me to put you all in this much danger. Dominique called on the Rights, but what she really wants is me.” There was a feeling that was almost one of freedom, of relief, as she said, “If I turn myself in—”

Shouting from the two brothers interrupted her chilled determination, but Kaleo’s words were what cut through to her: “Don’t be absurd.”

“Once they have me, they’ll release Heather.”

“So?”

She had expected anything other than blunt indifference from Kaleo. He had seemed to want to rescue his bloodbond, but Sarah realized she had misjudged him.

“I’m sorry if you can’t understand this,” she snapped, “but even if her life doesn’t matter to you, it matters to me. I won’t let her be hurt, possibly even killed, on my behalf.”

“On the contrary, Heather means a great deal to me,” Kaleo argued, “and I have no intention of letting her be killed. But neither do I intend to let them have you.”

“Why do you care?” Christine interrupted, fury in her voice. “Or is it just that you don’t share your victims?”

Kaleo looked at her with a long, considering gaze before saying, “I think Sarah would object to being thought of as a victim.”

“And her opinion matters so much to
you,
” the human spat.

“Do you think, little girl, that the fact that she has been my enemy negates the fact that she has my blood?”

“Doesn’t it?” Christine said challengingly, but more softly now.

The reminder that Sarah was in any way related to Kaleo was not welcome to her. Yes, he had changed Nissa, who had changed Nikolas, who had changed Kristopher, and so it was—distantly—his blood that now made Sarah a vampire. But she wasn’t going to call him family.

Sarah was about to protest Kaleo’s claiming her as anything, but he turned from her to Nikolas to say, “And speaking of blood, Sarah needs to feed.”

The words jolted Sarah into immediacy.

“I’m fine,” she said. She could function fine for now. Her eating habits were not the immediate issue.

“You are
not
fine.” While Kaleo argued with her, she could tell that Nikolas and Kristopher were examining her closely. “I can see the bloodlust in your eyes.”

“I fed a few hours ago.”

“On Kristopher, I know,” Kaleo replied dismissively. “It was enough to keep you alive, but it won’t be enough to hold you long, not when you’re this young and under stress. You need live blood to sustain you.”

Sarah knew she was in trouble when Kristopher agreed, saying, “If you don’t feed soon, willingly, then you’ll feed in a frenzy, and you’ll probably kill someone. You don’t want that.”

She wasn’t ready. There was too much else going on. She hadn’t had time to take in any of it or figure out what she wanted or needed to do. She was supposed to have been at SingleEarth, where they could teach her how vampires survived without hurting anyone, not with Nikolas and Kristopher, who for all
their protectiveness were admitted killers. Kristopher hadn’t killed for the past fifty years, but he had stopped in an effort to support Nissa, not because he’d had a change of heart. Sarah doubted he would keep to his new ways now that he was back with his brother.

And she
really
didn’t want to have this conversation in front of Kaleo, who she still very much wanted to kill. Maybe the vampire blood didn’t make a person evil, but it obviously hadn’t made him
good
.

“The longer we bicker here, the more trouble we court,” Kaleo said. “Sarah, deal with your own needs. We can’t hold your hand right now. Nikolas, Kristopher, I advise you to warn your people. If Heather is a valid target, then any human who attends our circuits is probably in danger. There is no point in rescuing one while others are picked off. Once our people are safe, we can decide how to remove the threat itself.”

He disappeared, leaving them with yet another subject she wasn’t ready for. Nikolas and Kristopher turned to her, but what was she supposed to say? The threat Kaleo had referred to was Sarah’s family and oldest friends. Her mother, her sister and her cousin Zachary were the last of the Vida witches. They would be joined by hunters from other lines, like Michael, who had been Sarah’s best friend before Dominique had decided they were getting too close and put her foot down.

Sarah would have to be a monster to fight them—no, not just fight, but kill, since that was the only way to stop them.

Or was it? There had to be another way. She just didn’t know what it was.

Z
ACHARY PUT HIS
head down while Adia drove. His power had been wrapped up in the vampire’s when the bloodbond had jumped at him, so it had been much harder to incapacitate the girl now in their backseat. He had done what was necessary, but was paying for it with a pounding head and a rolling stomach.

He looked up long enough to assure himself that she was completely out. Trapped in a moving vehicle with someone whose strength, speed and healing might be almost vampiric, and who probably wouldn’t hesitate to leap out a door or fight for the steering wheel at eighty miles an hour, would be a bad time to make a mistake. It had been stupid of him not to track her as a threat in the first place.

When they got home, he could tell that Adia was trying to be careful, but the jerking motion the car made upon stopping still nearly made him heave. He shoved the nausea back, though, forcing it out of his frame of awareness as he pushed open the door and stood on legs that didn’t want to hold him.

“Do you need help?” Adia asked.

“I can handle it.” His mind was buzzing with a kind of white noise. The pain had pushed all coherent thoughts away, and for the moment, that was kind of nice despite the agony. It wasn’t so intense that he couldn’t do his job, though.

He checked around to make sure no neighbors had gone out for an early-morning walk before he lifted Heather onto his shoulder again and carried her toward the house, where Dominique was standing in the front doorway. She wasn’t tapping her foot; such a display of impatience would be a shocking loss of control for the Vida matriarch. He couldn’t have said what it was about her expression that made him certain she was watching him with frustration.

He just knew she was. He had always been able to sense her moods, ever since she had taken him in. He had always been able to recognize the times when she’d looked at him and seen his mother, or his sister, and wondered why he alone had survived and when the fatal flaw that had ended each of their lives would manifest in him.

He had hoped she would be sleeping, as she had said to Adia, but perhaps like the rest of them she was too restless. She must have stayed up to see what they would discover at SingleEarth.

“What’s this?” Dominique asked as they approached.