The Den of Shadows Quartet (11 page)

“It wasn’t awful,” she answered instead as she fished a spoon from the silverware drawer and went to serve herself some ice cream.

The thought of Jessica made her uneasy. There was something in Jessica’s aura that she hadn’t been able to identify — something darker than normal. At first, it had almost kept Caryn from approaching. After only one day, she could see that it also kept other students away.

Of course, that was logical. Caryn wouldn’t have
been in this town if Jessica had been a normal high-school student.

Caryn had tried despite her unease to get to know Jessica, more because the girl had seemed so alone than because Caryn had been asked to do so.

Prompted by these thoughts, she asked, “Where’s Dominique?”

Hasana sighed. “She left to deal with some trouble involving her daughters, but she should be back soon.”

Dominique Vida was one of the few people who could give Caryn the chills just by entering the room. She was the leader of the oldest living line of witches, and her power was impressive. She was the one who had tracked down Jessica’s address and maneuvered Caryn and Hasana into this town, finding a house for them and employment for Hasana in less than two weeks.

Either despite this power or because of it, the woman was emotionally cold as ice in almost any situation. She needed to be: Dominique Vida was a vampire hunter. She could not allow emotion to cause hesitation in a fight.

If anyone else had asked Caryn to move into this town, where she could barely breathe for the aura of vampires, she would have refused. But Dominique was the leader of all four lines of witches, including the Smoke line — Caryn’s own.

Dominique could order Caryn to go into the vampires’ lairs alone, and Caryn would do so or risk losing her title as a witch. As antisocial as Jessica seemed to be, at least watching the writer didn’t seem dangerous.

Following the same train of thought as her daughter, Hasana asked, “Did you meet Jessica?”

“Yes. She hated me on sight,” Caryn answered gloomily. “And considering how she’s treated, I’m not surprised.”

Caryn had been shocked at the way Jessica’s classmates seemed to view her — as if she was a poisonous spider. One of them, an athletic senior who’d been flirting with Caryn only a few minutes before, had called Jessica a witch. Hurt by his words, Caryn had needed to swallow an argument; Jessica was further from being a witch than the boy who had made the accusation.

Caryn glanced down at her bowl, her appetite gone. Her ice cream was melting.

A
NNE CONFRONTED
J
ESSICA
as soon as she walked in the front door. “You’re late.”

“Sorry,” Jessica answered sardonically. “They love me so much, they asked me to stay a bit longer.”

“Jessica … on the first day of school?” Anne’s voice was heavy with disappointment.

“Learn the art of sarcasm,” Jessica suggested. “I needed to walk off some energy, so I swung by the woods on my way home.”

“Thank god.” Anne smiled and started to fill out the forms that the school had mailed home. An awkward moment went by in silence.

“Anything interesting happen at school?” Anne asked eventually, though Jessica could tell that her mind was not on the question.

“Nope,” Jessica answered absently as she searched through her bag for a letter one of her teachers had given out for parents. She handed it to Anne.

After scanning the letter, Anne asked, “How are your teachers?”

“Fine.”

“That’s nice.”

As usual, their conversation was more of a mandatory social gesture than a method of communication. Anne and Jessica had learned long before that they had nothing in common and had little chance of ever engaging in a truly two-sided talk about anything. Occasionally one actually paid attention to what the other was saying, but such circumstances usually led to arguments.

Another moment of silence ensued.

“I’m going to my room,” Jessica announced finally. Leaving her backpack on the couch, she went upstairs and into the dimly lit cavern she had created for herself.

The windows were covered by heavy black curtains, and the shades were down. A small beam of light squeezed underneath the curtains, but that was all.

The bed, which was little more than a mattress on wheels, had been pushed into a corner. The sheets and comforter were black, as were all but one of the pillows. The exception was deep violet and made of fake suede. Anne had bought the pillow for Jessica several years ago, when she had still been attempting to influence the girl’s tastes. Besides the pillow and Jessica’s magenta Lava lamp, there was little else in the room that wasn’t black.

A laptop computer and printer stood out brightly against their dark surroundings. They sat atop a black wooden desk, which they shared with a strewn
assortment of floppy disks. The computer was one of the few things Jessica cherished. Here, in the shadowed niche she had created for herself, she churned out the novels that had been her escape from the world since she moved to Ramsa.

The twenty-nine manuscripts that she had written in the past five years, the brown envelopes that held her contracts for two of them, and a few copies of the published book
Tiger, Tiger
were the only other nonblack objects in the room.

It had been only two years earlier that she had first begun the search for a publisher; she could hardly believe how quickly things had gone since. Her first book,
Tiger, Tiger
, had been released about a week before, under the pen name Ash Night. The second one,
Dark Flame
, was presently sitting on her editor’s desk awaiting the woman’s comments.

Jessica flopped down onto her bed and looked up at the ceiling. Sometimes ideas for her books would strike as she lay like this, staring into oblivion, but usually they came from her dreams.

Even while she was writing, it was as if she was in a dream — one which her waking mind did not understand. She never quite knew what was happening in any of the numerous novels that she was working on at any given time. But she had learned not to read the manuscripts until they were finished. The only time she had broken that pattern, the flow of words had abruptly stopped. That had been the only story she disliked. The scenes written after she had read it seemed forced and unnatural. Trying to think them up had been a chore.

She didn’t realize that she had drifted into sleep until she was awakened by Anne’s knock on her door.

“Jessica?”

“What?” she asked tiredly.

“It’s dinnertime,” Anne announced. “Are you going to come down?”

Jessica closed her eyes for a moment more and then got up and turned on her computer.

“I’m not hungry,” she called to Anne. “Go ahead and eat without me.”

“Jessica —”

“I’ll eat later, Anne,” she snapped. Normally she would have at least joined Anne for dinner, just to maintain the illusion of a familial relationship. But when she was in the mood to write, that pull was stronger than her desire to get along with her adopted mother.

W
ITHIN FIVE MINUTES
Jessica was writing quickly, lost in the bubble of her imagination. The entire night passed as she typed. It was sunrise when the flow of words halted.

Exhausted, Jessica turned off the computer, stood to stretch, and fell into bed and a sleep filled with nightmares.

Jazlyn collapsed to her knees, unable to stand any longer. Her head pounded as her body fought the strange blood that was trying to overtake her system
.

She knew this sensation. She had felt it once before, on the day she had died, years ago. It had not hurt so much then. It had not hurt to die
.

It had not hurt to die …

Why did it hurt so much to live again?

Her vision went black as her heart beat for the first time in more than thirty years. She drew a slow, painful breath
.

The heart in her chest labored, unaccustomed to its task. Her
lungs burned with the constant intake of oxygen, which seemed to sear her throat. All the muscles of her torso cramped each time she inhaled
.

Finally she fell into blissful unconsciousness
.

Jessica woke, gasping for breath.

That same dream had frequented her sleep for years, but she had yet to become used to it. The pain was always so vivid.

She turned on the Lava lamp and let the glow of magenta light calm her. The clock read 6:13 A.M. Though it was less than an hour after she had fallen asleep, she was no longer tired. As always, that dream had forced fatigue far away.

After showering and dressing quickly, she paused to study herself in front of the full-length mirror in the bathroom. Jessica well knew she had a body and face to die for. At five feet, five inches tall, she was slender but not bony and had well-toned muscles despite the fact that she rarely worked out. Her skin was naturally fair and had been kept that way by her aversion to sunlight. Unlike those of many girls her age, Jessica’s complexion was flawless and always had been. Her long jet-black hair tumbled around a face with high cheekbones, full lips, and expressive green eyes.

Yet despite her attractive appearance, Jessica had never so much as had a date. Occasionally that fact bothered her, though she usually had plainer insults to deal with than oblique dismissals from the boys in her grade.

Annoyed, she finally turned away from her reflection. Again she’d been unable to find the flaw that made
people hesitate when they saw her on the street or in the hall.

Downstairs in the kitchen, Anne was finishing a batch of pancakes.

“Morning, Jessica,” Anne said as she slid two of the pancakes onto a plate. “Sit.”

Jessica sat. She was in no hurry this morning, and the pancakes smelled delicious. She realized that she had eaten very little the day before.

“Smells good,” she offered.

Anne smiled. “Thank you. I do try.”

By the time she left for school, Jessica was in a good mood. She even had the heart to smile at Mrs. Katherine when she saw her in front of the building, and the teacher returned her gesture with a nod. Then Caryn walked by, and Jessica’s cheer vanished.

A
S SHE ENTERED THE BUILDING
, Jessica came upon a group of girls who had gathered near the main office.

“Nice body,” she heard one of them whisper, referring to someone in the office.

“Who is he?” another girl asked.

“No idea,” the first one answered. “But you’ve got to admit he’s cute.”

“Cute?” a third girl repeated. “He is totally
hot
.”

Jessica couldn’t see the subject of this profound conversation.
Probably some handsome blond substitute who will turn out to be the most hated teacher in the school
, she thought pessimistically.

“Who are you looking at?” she asked the three gawking girls.

The quietest, a senior named Kathy looked over her shoulder, recognized Jessica, grabbed her friends’ arms, and pulled the girls away.

Jessica scowled as she watched them go. At least most people were
subtle
about moving away from her.

She quickly forgot the girls’ behavior, however, when she glanced into the office and saw the object of their admiration.

His face could have been modeled after the portrait on a Roman coin. Hair the color of raven feathers contrasted with his fair skin, and when he turned a bit she saw that a few strands had fallen across his eyes, shading them. He was dressed entirely in black, except for a gold chain around his neck. The pendant on the chain looked like a cross, but Jessica couldn’t be sure from where she was standing.

A shock of recognition struck her.
Aubrey
.

Aubrey was, without a doubt, her favorite character from the books she had written. He had been the villain in
Tiger, Tiger
and the main character in
Dark Flame
. Gorgeous, powerful, and somewhat mysterious, he was every teenage girl’s fantasy … or at least, he was hers. Considering her present status in the world of teenagers, she couldn’t pretend to speak for the rest of the female population.

Of course, Aubrey was a vampire.

Get a grip, Jessica. You write fiction
, she reminded herself.
Aubrey doesn’t exist
. She would hardly have minded if her vampire hero
had
existed, but such a thing was impossible. Vampires were not real.

Yet the resemblance between this new boy and Aubrey was uncanny, and the sense of familiarity lingered despite her efforts to shake it. She forced herself to turn away and walk to her homeroom before the boy could notice her watching him.

She sat in the back of the room once again, and this time no one came to talk to her. Caryn looked over once from the group she seemed to have been accepted into, but Jessica sent a fierce gaze her way and Caryn cringed, visibly shaken.

A few moments after attendance had been taken, the boy from the office walked in. He handed a form to Mrs. Katherine but didn’t bother to explain why he was late.

“Alex Remington?” Mrs. Katherine asked, reading the form.

He nodded, barely paying attention to the teacher as he sought out an empty seat.

Alex paused when he saw Caryn, who was watching him with wide eyes. Unlike most of the other females in the room, Caryn looked terrified.

When the bell rang, Jessica watched with curiosity as Caryn pulled on her backpack and slipped quickly through the crowd and out of the room. She was clearly being careful to stay as far from Alex Remington as she could.

Before Alex had even reached the door, a girl named Shannon caught up with him. Jessica could recognize Shannon’s methods of flirtation a mile away and shook her head in disgust. Shannon already had a boyfriend, but that had never stopped her when there was a drop-dead-gorgeous male in her line of vision.

Jessica was about to leave when Alex glanced up for a moment, meeting her gaze over Shannon’s shoulder. His eyes were jet-black and shadowed by dark lashes. Jessica smiled wryly in response to the amusement she saw in those eyes — no doubt a reaction to Shannon’s not-so-subtle advances.