All Just Glass

“Anna,” she replied. “Was that one of your friends looking for a place to stay?”

“More like a friend of a vague acquaintance, who only shows up when he needs a favor,” Jerome answered.

“Oh?” She wasn’t expecting him to tell the truth to the human he thought she was, but most people included nuggets of reality in their lies. She could sift for those.

Before Jerome could answer, someone else—a girl this time, with no hint of a bloodbond that Adia could make out—tapped him on the shoulder.

Jerome sighed. “I think it’s going to be one of those mornings,” he said as he glanced up at the girl trying to get his attention and gave her a halfhearted glare. Jerome jotted down a couple of words on a napkin—an address, Adia was almost certain—and passed it off. Adia watched out of the corner of her eye as the human read the address, presumably memorized it, and tucked the napkin into a not-quite-empty coffee cup before she tossed them both into the trash. The liquid would destroy the writing, which kept people like Adia from stealing the napkin to get the address.

“You’re popular,” Adia observed.

“I’m more like an information center,” he answered with a self-deprecating chuckle.

Adia glanced at the clock behind the counter and sighed dramatically. “I hate to caffeinate and run, but you seem pretty busy, and I should probably get home sometime.”

Walking away was a gamble. She was betting on the reaction the person he was pretending to be would have to the person she was pretending to be. She couldn’t take him on in a place this public, and she couldn’t wander into the back room with him and become dinner. That meant she needed to leave but give him a reason to keep in touch after she left so she didn’t lose her only contact.

“Anna.” He said her name as she started to turn away.

She felt a brief moment of triumph, and then her cell phone rang. A wave of dread passed through her before she even saw Zachary’s number on the screen.

“Sorry,” she said to Jerome before she answered the phone. “Hey, Bill.” To Jerome, she added, “My brother,” just loudly enough that Zachary would hear it. He would know she was with someone with sensitive enough hearing to eavesdrop on anything he said on the phone. Someone who didn’t know who or what she was.

Zachary’s voice was light and perfectly cheerful as he said, “Good, I caught you. I never know what kind of hours you keep.” He chuckled. “Mom wanted me to ask if you think you’re going to be able to make it for Thanksgiving this year. It looks like Liz is planning to come home, and it would be great to have the whole family.”

It was a struggle to keep herself composed in front of Jerome. Were his vampiric senses enough for him to hear the twist in her guts or feel the cold pit that developed in her stomach? Zachary was telling her that Sarah was there … or was possibly on her way.

“I’m not sure I can get off work in time to make it,” she said. She was nearly an hour away from home, and she didn’t have a vampire’s ability to instantly transport from place to place. Even if she drove as fast as she very well knew her car could handle, it was likely to be over before she got home. “How definite is Liz?”

“She’s going to hang out a little while, but I don’t know yet if she’ll actually be at dinner,” he answered.

Sarah had to be near enough that Zachary could sense her, but she hadn’t declared her intention. She could just be lurking, observing, looking at her once family or trying to see what kind of guard they had on Heather. She could be intending to turn herself over, and hadn’t yet found the courage, or she could have come to try to fight.

“I want to be there,” Adia said. “I’ll do my best.”

“I’ll let her know,” Zachary answered. “Take care of yourself. Get some sleep.”

“You too,” she answered.

They were all such liars.

“You don’t look happy at the idea of going home,” Jerome observed when Adia ended the call and tucked the phone into her pocket.

She hadn’t expected him not to notice her obvious reaction to the news, so she had an answer ready. “I have a difficult relationship with my family.”

“Don’t we all?” Jerome answered with a laugh. “If you end up wanting turkey without the complications, the Makeshift hosts Thanksgiving for anyone who wants to show up.” He went behind the counter for a few minutes, looked around and came back with a small flyer. “I just got these printed, and wasn’t planning to put them out until this weekend, but you’re welcome to one.”

Vampire Thanksgiving.

That was sure to be a hoot.

“Thanks,” she said. Strangely, her smile felt genuine. Thanksgiving at home normally meant pizza. Now, if she was looking for an easy kill and some pumpkin pie, she would have somewhere to go. “You know, I should get going, but how about you give me your number, and I’ll give you a call sometime?” she asked. If Sarah was turning herself in, they probably wouldn’t need the lead, but it would be stupid to break the connection before determining how useful it might be.

Jerome obliged, giving her a different number than the one that went directly to the shop. It looked like a cell phone exchange, but there were so many these days that it was always hard to tell.

“Call anytime,” he said. “I tend to stay up late.”

“Me too.”

She managed to keep her heartbeat from ringing in her ears until she made it back to her car. While she had been inside, dawn had transformed into full day—one of those bitter mornings when the sky was so perfectly blue it was hard to believe that the wind could have such a bite to it. At least that meant there wouldn’t be any morning joggers or bikers to get in her way as she pushed as much speed into the car as it could handle. She trusted her reflexes to keep her from a collision. Worst-case scenario, she could sweet-talk any cop, add a push of power and make a possible ticket disappear. There were more important things at stake.

Absently, she wondered why she felt such a need to hurry. Did she really want to get there in time? Was it selfish to hope in some ways that Zachary would do what she hadn’t been able to and end all this before she even stepped through the door?

CHAPTER 9

SATURDAY, 7:31 A.M.

SARAH STOOD ACROSS the street from where she had once lived, well aware that the witches inside the house would sense her, but trying to get her thoughts and the scraping of the vampiric hunger under control enough to make a plan. The early-morning sun was a worse slap in the face than the winter wind. It illuminated a peaceful neighborhood, where some houses still boasted decorations not yet taken in from Halloween, and some were already prepared for Thanksgiving. A few brightly colored leaves still fluttered on the trees.

It was a pretty day to die.

For a little while, she had been too dazed to think past Nikolas’s, Kristopher’s and Kaleo’s vehement responses to her statement that she had to turn herself in. She had let them wrap her up in their insistence that she had a right to go on, but she didn’t. As a hunter she had accepted the possibility of her own death. She had never wanted to wake as a vampire. She didn’t want to die, but she had no right to endanger so many others with her continued existence when her time had come and gone.

Her arrogance had almost gotten Christine hurt—or worse. She had to fix this mess before it was too late and she lost the will to do what needed to be done, and there was only one sure way to do that. Dominique had invoked the Rights of Kin because her daughter had been transformed into a vampire. She would declare satisfaction once she knew that her daughter was … at rest.

The only hitch was Heather. The bloodbond was already in Vida custody, and they were unlikely to give her up just because the Rights of Kin were dropped. However, Sarah was the more valuable target, which meant an