CHAPTER 12
CHRISTOPHER WAS NOT IN CLASSon Monday. The seat next to Sarah in history was painfully empty. No new poems showed up in her locker or in her backpack.
In sculpture class, she avoided Nissa. She knew that if she allowed herself to maintain even a casual in- school relationship with the vampires, she would never be able to keep the necessary distance that Vida law demanded.
By lunch she was surprised to realize she already missed them fiercely. She didn’t even go into the cafeteria, but brought her sandwich out to the courtyard and ate on the grass, alone.
In calculus, she began to worry about Christopher. Again he wasn’t in class. Vampires did not get sick, and it took a lot to even injure them. While it was possible that Christopher had just decided to avoid school—and her—she hoped that wasn’t the case. He had been genuinely enjoying playing human; she didn’t want to think that she had chased him away from it.
Of course, if he hadn’t planned to be absent, then she didn’t like to think about why he wasn’t here. While human myth often ascribed to vampires the title “immortal,” Sarah well knew they could be killed.
Sarah’s resolve not to talk to Nissa might have held, had she not run into the girl in the parking lot after school. She was hurrying to meet up with Caryn to have her cast removed when she nearly collided with Nissa.
Jumping back, she asked, “Is Christopher okay?” The words were out of her mouth before she had a chance to think them through.
Nissa hesitated, apparently surprised. “I think so. He . . . was upset after the dance, and went to visit his brother. He came home and crashed a little after sunrise this morning.”
“His brother?” Sarah parroted, her stomach plummeting. She leaned back against a nearby car, running her hands through her hair. They had made it clear earlier that Christopher’s twin had not decided to follow the same peaceful route as his siblings. “Look, Nissa—”
“Excuse me.” The voice was dry, and decidedly unhappy. Sarah turned to see Robert, standing sulkily a few feet back. “That’s my car you’re leaning against.”
Nissa grabbed Sarah’s arm and pulled her away from the car. Robert went around to the driver’s side and popped the trunk.
“I don’t know what to make of Robert,” Nissa said under her breath, softly so the human would not overhear. “Christopher stumbled across him last night at the bash when he went to help Marguerite.”
After that, Sarah stopped paying attention, because quite suddenly she realized where she had seen Robert before she had joined this school. Her barely healed arm was a testament to the night.
“Excuse me, Nissa.” No matter what happened, she was a hunter first. Robert had been at the bash where Sarah had run into one of Nikolas’s victims, as well as at the bash where Marguerite had been. If he was part of that circuit, then she had a chance to get back to it.
She turned her back on Nissa and hurried to Robert’s car, where he was just opening the driver-side door.
“Robert!” She closed the door with one flat palm, and the human jumped, moving his fingers in just enough time to avoid having them slammed in the door.
He tried to ignore her, reaching for the door handle, but he had not accounted for her strength. She wasn’t as strong as a vampire, but she could easily outmuscle a pureblood human.
“What do you want?” he finally asked.
Sarah glanced back to where Nissa had been, but the girl had disappeared. With no one to overhear, she answered Robert’s question honestly. “I want to know what you were doing at a bash on Halloween night.”
“I was invited,” Robert snapped.
“By who?”
“Can’t you just read my mind or something?” He shouldered her aside, and the mixture of his words and the movement forced her off balance enough that she let him.
He thought she was a vampire. Oh, that was rich. Nearly laughing, she caught the door before he had a chance to get in the car.
“Robert, you have no idea what you’re talking about—”
“Leave me
“I’m not a vampire.” Her mind was working quickly. He had seen her at the bash, and had made the obvious assumption. What she couldn’t figure out was why, if he thought she was a vampire, he had hated her almost on sight. Though there were always plenty of humans who were invited to a bash purely as entrees, most repeat guests attended because they
The only other humans who attended bashes were blood bonded, or thought themselves hunters. Sarah would have sensed a blood bond.
“Then what are you?” Robert pressed. “You sure as hell aren’t human.”
“I’m a witch.”
Robert snorted. “And pigs fly.”
He had just begun to slide into the seat when she added, “And I’m a vampire hunter.”
Finally the human paused, and again she sensed him sizing her up.
Technically, Sarah should have asked Dominique’s permission before telling any human she was a witch. Depending on how Robert handled her revelation, Sarah would either have to wipe his mind to make him forget she had said anything—something that was difficult, but possible—or she might be able to enlist his help.
Robert glanced around the parking lot, where other students were gathering in the postschool flurry of activity. “Get in the car,” he finally said. “Tell me what you know.”
He pulled out of the parking lot before Sarah could think how to begin. Her silence seemed to make him uneasy, so he spoke instead. “Look. Just because I’m listening to you doesn’t necessarily mean I believe you. But maybe if you tell me what you were doing at the bash . . .”
“You must have left early if you don’t know the answer to that one,” Sarah said, thinking of the disaster that night had turned into.
“About ten,” Robert answered, with a nod. “I couldn’t find the person I was looking for, so it made sense to ditch.”
“Who were you looking for?”
Robert had been driving aimlessly, apparently, but now he stopped at the side of the road. Voice cool and level despite the suspicion, he asked, “Why do you care?”
Sarah could see he wasn’t going to give away information for free, and unlike the vampires, she did not have the ability to reach into his mind and find what she needed to know. She had to tell him something. “I want someone dead, and you might be able to help me,” she explained.
Robert hesitated for only a fraction of a heartbeat. “You’re after Nikolas.” When Sarah nodded, he looked at her with absolute skepticism, sizing up her slender figure. “You really think you could get that . . . creature?”
“I’m going to try,” she snapped before she could catch herself. His implication had struck a chord, but Robert didn’t know what he was talking about; getting mad at him wouldn’t help things. She forced herself to control her tone the next time she spoke. “I’m not planning to arm wrestle him, Robert, and I’m not as helpless as you think. I’m not human; I’m stronger than your kind, and I have more power. And I’ve been trained to kill vampires my entire life. I know what I’m doing.”
“Well, good luck,” Robert answered sarcastically. “I’ve killed my share of vampires, but I’ve still been after this bastard for months.”
She had to restrain herself from snickering at his bravado as she noticed Robert hadn’t elaborated on the exact number of leeches he had put a knife through. She wasn’t surprised. He was only human, after all, and
