All Just Glass

Kristopher nodded. “Sarah—”

“Go see how your sister is doing,” Sarah said. She had barely even thought about Nissa since they had first established that she was safe early that day. She hadn’t thought about the strain Nissa’s nonviolent friends must have been under. As a peace offering, she added, “What time would the show start?”

Suddenly, Kristopher’s smile was bright. “Most shows on Broadway open at eight. I’ll pick you up at seven- thirty?”

She was able only to nod. Kristopher looked like he wanted to say more, but he disappeared instead, leaving her staring at where he had been. At last, she turned to Nikolas and said, “Thanks.”

“Nissa needs the help.” He shrugged, and admitted, “But she probably would have let me provide it.”

“He just …” Her voice trailed off. She didn’t know what she could say to anyone, much less to Kristopher’s brother.

“Kristopher forgets,” Nikolas said, “that it was two years after our deaths before Kendra fairly literally dragged us to our first opera.”

The words surprised Sarah, as they cut deftly to the heart of her earlier anger. She had studied Kendra’s line, and knew what kind of magnificence most of its members had created even before they were changed. Sarah, who had never set foot in an art museum or been to so much as a high school play or a slam poetry recital, was now surrounded by immortals who had steeped themselves in the arts for years—centuries, even.

“I always assumed you were raised with all this,” she admitted to Nikolas.

“We couldn’t afford it,” he replied bluntly. “When Kaleo was courting Nissa, he would bring us art supplies. He would bring art books and describe some of the wonders of the world. But for some reason,” he said, his tone ironic, “Nissa wasn’t comfortable with the notion of his taking us into the city or around the world to actually go to a museum or a theater.”

“I still feel like I can’t afford it,” Sarah confided. “There is so much to deal with right now, it seems like a bad time to pick up hobbies.”

“I would argue,” Nikolas said thoughtfully, “that now is an excellent time to discover what beauty the world has to offer, but if you are not ready, then we may as well focus on the task at hand. Survival, right?”

She nodded. “The hunters—”

“Secondary,” Nikolas said with the same cool determination she had seen in his eyes when they had fought. He held out his hand to her. “Come with me.”

She hesitated. That expression made her nervous. “To where?”

“To deal with the primary problem that makes you a danger to yourself and others,” he answered, “so we can lessen some of your fear, and hopefully allow you to relax and see a marvel of voice and body and light and language this evening.”

Sarah cautiously reached out to take his hand. When their fingers touched, Nikolas willed them both away.

She found herself a moment later in some kind of club. The music wasn’t too loud, but the dim lights and the crowd made everything seem more overwhelming. The sudden, overpowering scent of humanity—their sweat and blood as the people mingled—didn’t help. She had to shut her eyes for a moment to block out the tapping of a hundred pulses against her brain.

“Where are we?” she asked once she had stabilized herself against the unanticipated smells and sounds of life around her.

“Phaethon. It’s a semi-exclusive Manhattan establishment catering to independent musicians,” he replied. “These are normally Kendra’s hunting grounds, but she won’t mind my bringing you here.”

Hunting grounds. She wondered how old the business was; she had never heard of it before, though as a Vida, she had of course made a point to keep track of such places. “You brought me out to hunt?”

“To feed,” he replied. “This is the kind of place where it is easy to find a willing donor. They know this establishment is Kendra’s, and that members of my line come here, and therefore know to seek us out here. I have trouble imagining your hunting down an innocent on the street, but somehow I suspect you will also have trouble asking those you already know, such as Christine, to bare their throats to you.”

Sarah had tensed, looking around her in an entirely new way. “Nikolas, I don’t think I’m ready for this.”

“I don’t think you have a choice,” he answered. “Christine told me what happened, though she did not fully understand how much danger she was in. I know that your fear of hurting her is what nearly drove you onto a hunter’s knife. It is my responsibility to make sure you are not a danger to my people. Kristopher isn’t hard enough to push you into this, but you do not have a choice. You need to learn to feed.”

“I won’t kill.”

There, she said it, and in saying it she acknowledged their major difference: Nikolas, for all his black and white charm and talk about being a protector, was a killer. He had been in jail for murder when Nissa had changed him to save his life, and then Kendra had taken him for his first hunt and taught him to kill as a vampire. He was known in the human world as a serial killer, and long before, he and Kristopher had killed Sarah’s ancestor, Elisabeth Vida.

Now he nodded. “I wouldn’t have taken you here if I thought you would kill,” he said. “You know Kristopher and I will never judge you if you pick up such habits, but you do want to be cautious about it. Before you ever feed, you should be aware of whose territory you are in. You must know that the mortal whose throat you bare is yours to take. Humans in this place are under Kendra’s protection.”

Sarah nodded warily. “We’re still left with me needing to pick up a complete stranger to assault.”

Nikolas shook his head. “No, we are left with you needing to be charming long enough to make the acquaintance of one of the many humans in this place who would be honored beyond belief to be chosen.”

That’s disgusting, she thought. She managed not to say it out loud, but knew that Nikolas could hear her thoughts, so it certainly wasn’t his sensibilities she was protecting.

“Better or worse than choosing an innocent, like a lion pulling down a gazelle?”

She glared at him, because his being right didn’t make this any easier. “I saw your expression earlier, when you talked about that girl in the photo. Even you thought it was pathetic. What makes these humans any different?”

“These humans,” Nikolas said, looking around, “have lives, and passions. Those that choose to bleed have their own reasons, ranging from the feeling of power they get from knowing we need them in order to survive, to the fact that the sensation itself is pleasant. The ones I pity are those who have given up everything else. They bleed because it’s the only way they can see to get through the day.”

Sarah shuddered. “And what causes that need?”

“If one of our kind takes a human without much to live for and rolls their mind too deeply, they’ll fight to keep that feeling,” Nikolas answered. “Most of them recover, in time, if they want to, unless someone like Jerome doesn’t give them a chance. I’ll be right beside you tonight, so you don’t need to worry about endangering your donors.”

“I wasn’t …” Okay, she was worried, but only because her experience as a hunter had made her believe that there really was only one kind of bleeder in the world: the pathetic bash-bunny who didn’t care if he or she woke up or not. “I believe you that you’ll keep them safe, so I’m trying. But I don’t know how to … you know.”

Nikolas shook his head, chuckling. “Shall I demonstrate?”

She wanted to say no. She wanted not to be here.

She wanted not to be a vampire, but permanent death was the only alternative to her current state, and she had chosen not to take that route.

“Please?” she managed to say softly.

Nikolas was right that she needed to do this, but she still wasn’t sure if she could. He could show her how to pick a donor or instruct her in whatever technique went into the feeding, but how could he teach her how to forget the last eighteen years?

CHAPTER 18