—too sharp, too long, they did not belong in a human mouth. I could feel the tips, vicious as a snake's, pressing into my lower lip.
I saw Ather walk toward the still screaming woman, who quieted and went limp, as if she had fallen asleep. Ather pulled back the woman's head, exposing the pulse in her neck. Ather's razor-sharp fangs neatly broke the woman's skin, and the scent of blood entered the room.
I lost all ideas of sin and murder then.
I lost all that had once made me Rachel.
I turned to the other woman, whose prayer had become a babble.
I fed.
I tasted her life as it flowed into me. Ather's blood had been cool and filled with the essence of immortality. This human's blood was thick and hot, boiling with pure life and energy. It wet my parched mouth and brought down my fever, and I drank it like a healing ambrosia.
Flashes of thought came to me, too fast for me to realize at first that they were not my own. After a moment I gained more control and discovered they were from my victim. I saw a laughing human child. It called to its mother to show her a flower. I saw a dinner cooking in a hearth. I saw a wedding. I saw morning services. My mind focused on this last image.
I could see this woman's mind clearly, and she was innocent of any form of witchcraft. This thought, more than any other, caused a complete change in me. This woman had been sent here to die as a witch, and she was innocent of the crime. Why had her own people accused her? How many more of the accused were innocent?
I tried to draw away quickly, but I moved as if under water. It was so tempting to drink for just a moment more, and a moment more than that, and just a moment more…
'And lead us not into temptation.' I had spoken those words without faith so many times. If true belief had backed my prayer, would the words have been rewarded? Or would I still have been in that cell, feasting on the blood of an innocent woman?
All I knew at that time was that I did not want to kill, and yet I could not draw away. Even as I heard her heart stop and felt the flow of blood slowing, even as she died, it was hard to stop feeding. My vision returned as her vision faded, and I looked at the innocent woman, now pale as chalk and empty of blood.
Beside me Ather licked her lips and dropped her prey to the stained, dirty floor of the cell. She looked as satisfied as a kitten with a bowl of cream. I was horrified, but not simply because of the killing. I had been unable to draw away as an innocent woman died, even though I could have saved her life.
'It is easy to kill, Risika,' Ather told me. 'And it gets easier the more you do it.'
'No,' I answered. How many times had I said that word in the past day? What meaning did it have anymore? I was not as sure as I wanted to be.
'You will learn,' she told me, taking the woman from my arms and dropping her to the ground with the other innocent. 'You are a predator now, and survival is the only rule of a predator's world.'
'I will not be a killer.'
'You will,' she said, walking behind me. I turned to keep her in my view. She sounded so sure, and I felt so unsure. 'You are above the humans now, Risika, above even most of our kind. Will you let them rule you because that is how the humans taught you?'
I did not answer, because I could not do so without agreeing with her.
'The law of the jungle says 'Be strong or be dominated.' The law of our world says 'Be strong or be killed.' '
'It is not my world!' I shouted. I did not want to belong to this fierce world of hunters who fed on the blood of innocents.
'Yes, it is, Risika, 'Ather insisted.
' I won't let it be.'
'You have no choice, child.'
'You're evil. I won't kill because you tell me to — '
'Then kill because it is your right.' She snapped each word off, impatient with my refusal. 'You are no longer human, Risika. Humans are your prey. You have never felt sorrow for the chickens you killed so that they could grace your plate. The animals you raised so that they could be killed. The creatures you put in pens so that you could own them. Why should you feel differently toward your meal now? '
She put it in a way I could not disagree with. 'But you can't just kill humans. It's — '
'Evil?' Ather finished for me. 'The world is evil, Risika. Wolves hunt the stragglers in a group of deer. Vultures devour the fallen. Hyenas destroy the weak. Humans kill that which they fear. Survive and be strong, or die, cornered by your prey, trembling because the night is dark.'
CHAPTER 11 NOW
I LEAVE THE COFFEE SHOP and return to my home before the sun rises too high for comfort.
I go to bed, fall into a deep sleep, and awaken that evening in a foul mood.
I allow myself to hide in fear. Even as I say I will not let Aubrey rule my life, I let him keep me from the one thing in this world that can still bring me joy: Tora, my tiger. My beautiful, pure-minded tiger, who was once free and is now caged.
Aubrey has stolen so much from me. I have sworn to avenge the lives he has taken, but every time I have been too much a coward to challenge him.
My mood is as dark as Aubrey's eyes, black without end, and I want to fight back. So I deliberately hunt in Aubrey's land—the dying heart of New York City, where the streets are darkened with shadows cast by the invisible world.
I see another of my kind, a young fledgling, in one of the alleys. She senses my strength and cowers, blinking away like a candle flame in the night.
She is weak and not a threat to Aubrey's claim on this dark corner of the city, so he tolerates her presence. Perhaps he shows off occasionally, simply to keep her afraid. But he knows she will never challenge him. I am Aubrey's own blood sister, created by the same dark mother. If he tolerates me I could be as much a threat to his position as a mongoose in a cobra's nest—not because I am stronger, which I am not, but because it will appear to others of our kind that he fears me, and his pride is too strong to allow that.
I hunt and leave my prey dying in the street. Perhaps it is foolish to bait Aubrey this way, but I have lived too long beneath his shadow and refuse to cower any longer. Aubrey himself does not challenge me as I feed, and my suspicions rise. Where is he, I wonder, that he does not know I am here? Or is it simply that he does not care? Is he that sure of his claim?
I return to my home in a dark mood, but as I enter my room my thoughts turn to ice.
I can sense the aura of one of my kind, one of my kin, and I recognize it very well. Aubrey. Aubrey with black hair and black eyes, Aubrey who saw the blood falling from my hand and smiled, Aubrey who laughed when he killed my brother.
Aubrey is the only vampire I know who prefers using a knife to using his mind, teeth, or hands. I touch the scar I bear on my left shoulder, the scar given to me only a few days after I died, created by the same blade that took my brother's life. The scar that I swore, on the day it was dealt, to avenge, along with my brother's death.
CHAPTER 12 1701
AFTER THE DAY when I lost my mortal soul, I never went back to my old home. I understood I no longer belonged there. I hated to think what my papa was going through, but I hated even more the idea of his learning what I had become. I wanted him to believe me dead, because it was better for him to think I had simply disappeared than for him to know he had lost his daughter to a demon.
