Demon in My View

'You should try,' Caryn answered. 'It will help clear your mind.'

Instead, Jessica began to pace.

Caryn caught her arm, and only a few seconds later, sleep enveloped her. Later the thought occurred to her that despite Caryn's usual passivity, she was still a strong witch. She had easily induced sleep in Jessica's strained mind.

Jazlyn said no. Immortality was not what she wanted. She wanted to be left alone and given time to grieve. Even this was denied her.

A week after Carl's death, Jazlyn learned that she was pregnant. Looking at her, no one would have been able to tell, but the tests had returned positive.

Why would the universe not leave her alone? She was only twenty-five, and she was a widow. How could she raise a child by herself? Carl's child deserved better than what she, who was still in mourning, could provide.

A cruel God gave her this life.

The next time Siete visited, Jazlyn did not say no. She knew that whatever life she woke up in would not be the life she was leaving.

But any decision made out of desperation is later regretted. The world of eternal night and lawlessness was no better than the human world she had fled, yet Jazlyn had no more choices.

The years passed and faded, meaningless and empty. Often Jazlyn found herself remembering things like the beach on which Carl had proposed. She remembered being married outdoors and honeymooning in France.

Tears came frequently. This was not what she had wanted at all.

Just past Valentine's Day 1983, Jazlyn visited Carl's grave for the first time since his funeral. She brushed off the thin layer of snow and read the stone for the first time: 'Carl Raisa, 1932-1960. 'I shall smile from Heaven upon those I love. My death is not my end, and in Heaven shall I meet my beloved again.''

But he wouldn't, because she was never going to reach Heaven. Her kind was evil; she had killed so many times to sate the bloodlust that she would never be forgiven.

Jazlyn lay weeping in the snowy graveyard that Valentine's night, wondering why the world had chosen her to torment.

That was where the witch who called herself Monica Smoke had found her— weeping there for the one she loved. Monica was the first one in more than twenty years who offered her a shoulder to cry on. Then she heard the story and gave Jazlyn the one thing she had thought could never be returned: her life.

CHAPTER 23

As SOON AS SHE WOKE, Jessica sought out her hostesses. Avoiding Dominique Vida, she quickly found Caryn in her room.

'Do you know of anyone in your line called Monica? ' she demanded, closing the door behind her.

'Yes,' Caryn said after a moment of hesitation. 'She was my aunt, my mother's sister.'

'Was?'

'She died. Mother never told me how.' Caryn frowned. 'Why, Jessica. What's wrong?”

Jessica didn't answer, her mind focused on her own questions. 'Have you ever heard of someone called Jazlyn Raisa?' Jessica was determined to understand her own birth, even if that was the only part of her life she did understand.

'Jazlyn Raisa…No. But maybe my mother would.'

Jessica nodded quickly.

'Jessica, what is this about? '

She shook off the question, impatient to find Hasana and hear the truth.

As Jessica entered the kitchen, Hasana looked up from whatever she was cooking. She seemed to sense Jessica's urgency.

'Jessica, do you need something?'

'Jazlyn Raisa,' Jessica answered without prelude. 'I want to know about her.'

Hasana s face betrayed her mistrust. She paused, taking a breath, and then asked, 'What do you know about Raisa? '

'She was a vampire, a direct fledging of Siete,' Jessica answered. 'And your sister offered to give her back her life.'

Hasana's eyes narrowed. 'I didn't believe it was possible, but Monica insisted she could do it. She died trying, and I heard nothing more about it.'

'She succeeded,' Jessica filled in.

'Raisa didn't deserve it,' Hasana growled. 'If you know so much, why are you asking me?'

' Jazlyn was pregnant when Siete changed her,' Jessica explained, and she saw shock fill Hasana's expression. 'I want to know what would have happened to the child when Jazlyn became human again.'

The idea seemed far-fetched. Though Jessica knew plenty about her vampires, she knew nothing about anyone who had ever become human again besides what her dreams had told of Jazlyn. Only a witch would know if a baby carried in a vampiric womb would regain its life with its mother.

'I didn't know there was a child,' Hasana whispered. 'Now I understand. Monica wouldn't have risked her life to save a vampire. But a baby…Monica must have believed that it would survive.'

'What happened to the child? ' Jessica shouted. She had to force herself not to grab Hasana by the shoulders and try to shake the information from her.

'I didn't know there was one,' Hasana repeated, shaking her head apologetically. Jessica turned away and returned to the room she'd been given, needing to think.

Her mother. The term brought a moment of pain. The woman who had raised her was dead; now she had been replaced by a phantom who had never wanted Jessica. Jazlyn Raisa.

Jessica paced softly in her room, trying to organize her thoughts.

Siete was the first of the vampires. He was ancient, even compared to Fala and Jager and Silver, and his mind was powerful enough that he could easily know everything that Jessica had written. His blood ran through her veins as surely as it had run through her mother's, and her link to him was no doubt as strong as the link he had with his fledglings. The difference was that she was human and had no shields against his mind. So when she slept or simply drifted, she shared his dreams and his thoughts.

The puzzle had come together finally.

Jessica's gaze fell on her computer. Without making a conscious decision to do so, she sat down and booted it up, wanting to hear the comforting hum.

The familiar compulsion struck her. But ignoring the book she had been working on, she began another, though she had no idea how this one was going to end.

The night is full of mystery. Even when the moon is brightest, secrets hide everywhere. Then the sun rises and its rays cast so many shadows that the day creates more illusion than all the veiled truth of the night.

Several hours and many pages passed before the flow of thoughts ceased. Who, she wondered, would finish it if she died?

CHAPTER 24