All Just Glass

instrument.

She let him go, and he leaned back in his chair, dazed but unharmed.

Sarah blinked and realized there were tears in her eyes.

“Now you know why Kendra chose him,” Nikolas said.

Sarah nodded. “Thank you,” she whispered to the artist before her.

His eyes fluttered open just long enough to focus on her. “Come back and see a show sometime,” he said.

“I will,” she answered, and she meant it.

Once again, Nikolas waved to one of the passing waitresses. He gestured to Jake, and the woman nodded in return.

“They’ll take care of him,” Nikolas said. “We should move on.”

Sarah nodded again, mutely, and followed as Nikolas led her away. She felt like she was still sorting through the crescendo of thoughts she had encountered. Was this how Kristopher experienced the world? If so, she could understand why he had thought that even with the Rights of Kin hanging over her head, she would want to see a show or visit a museum.

“Don’t fight it,” Nikolas advised. “When they’re willing, and unafraid, they share so much of themselves with us. Let it stay with you awhile.”

“When you talked about Kristopher going to live with Nissa, and about your trying to learn to hunt without killing, you acted like it was hard to survive that way,” Sarah said, speaking carefully, hoping not to offend him but desperate for the answer. “Even before you pulled me away, I was going to stop. It seemed like it would have been a tragedy to harm him.”

“If you feed regularly,” Nikolas replied, equally exactingly, “on willing donors who have a firm sense of self, you will rarely be tempted to harm them. Over time, the instinct will arise, and it will take either death or stronger blood to sate your hunger. If you are careful from the start, there are options that do not involve death, but fledglings taught to kill early have fewer choices.”

He was standing tensely, but he had not looked away, as if he knew she needed these answers. The encounter with Jake had made her reevaluate everything she had ever thought about the humans who willingly shared their lifeblood with vampires, and everything she had ever thought about the creatures who accepted that gift, but she still needed to know: what would she become, and was it something she could abide?

Nikolas continued, “I believe the shape of the power itself changes from the moment of the first hunt. There are those among us who say fledglings should kill the first time they feed, and that those who do not permanently limit their power. Perhaps it is true. What I have seen in the past century, and heard from others of my kind, is that those who kill in their first nights among us are driven more often to kill in the nights after.”

“You didn’t think it would be good to tell me this before I fed?” Sarah asked.

Nikolas shrugged, in no way defensive. “Knowing wouldn’t have changed your decision, and you would have trusted me less tonight if you suspected I might have had any motive to encourage you to kill. I will answer questions you have, but I have no reason to volunteer information that will do nothing but make you uncomfortable.”

“What about Kristopher?” Why hadn’t he told her this, when he knew how afraid she was of turning into a killer?

“In my brother’s defense, these are only thoughts I started having after he left, when I began to wonder why it was so easy for Nissa to survive without killing, and why Kristopher was able to survive with her, but it seemed impossible for me to do the same. Kristopher probably never had reason to give it any thought.”

Sarah nodded slowly. Trying to rally her courage, she said, “I think … there may be a few things your brother hasn’t had a chance to give much thought.”

She remembered his reaction to her sharing his memories of Christine. It hadn’t been feelings of love that had washed over him right then, but obligation.

She had seen the way these brothers lived, the bonds they surrounded themselves with and the way women reacted to them in general. She had accepted that Kristopher had probably flirted with hundreds or thousands of pretty girls in his lifetime, without any thought of “forever.” The only thing that made her different was that she had ended up dead when he hadn’t intended it.

Nikolas looked like he was about to remark on the subject when another voice interrupted them, saying, “Hey there, stranger.”

The problem with hunting in Manhattan, Sarah realized suddenly, was that she used to hunt in Manhattan … or if not on the island, at least near it. Even if it had occured to her earlier, with almost twenty million people in the New York metropolitan area, Sarah would have been comfortable with the likelihood of not running into anyone she knew. Unfortunately, luck had not been working in her favor lately.

Now the familiar voice, with its cautiously friendly tone, caught her off guard. Habit told her to smile and return the greeting warmly. After all, she and the hunter who hailed her at that moment had always been close.

She turned to face the witch, with no idea what she would do next.

CHAPTER 19

SATURDAY, 5:03 P.M.

JEROME TURNED AWAY, but even though the vampire’s back was to her, Adia felt unable to move. She watched as he retrieved one of many small boxes from a closet on the other side of the room and set it down on the counter.

“Some of my favorite photos can’t go on the walls,” he said, as if making casual conversation. Given the photos that were on the walls, Adia wasn’t sure she wanted to contemplate what this vampire would find too objectionable for public display.

He opened the box and flipped through the stack of photographs therein before selecting three, which he presented to her, fanned out so she could see the images even without taking them from his hand.

She stared at his face for a moment, strangely unwilling to look down at what he was showing her. She had seen enough of the “art” he put on his walls to know he liked to immortalize his victims. Did she really want to look?

He stood there patiently for a moment and then put the photographs down on the table. “I hope you’ll leave them here when you go. I don’t have copies.” Then he disappeared, in one irritating blink of an eye.

At last, alone, Adia looked down at the three pictures he had decided to share.

The first one showed the same beautiful blond woman, in her bright indigo club dress, looking up at Jerome as he reached out a hand as if to pull her into a dance. The expression on her face was ambivalent, equal parts uncertainty and daring joy. The lights had caught a sparkle in her bright blue eyes.

Adia had never seen the girl in the photograph, but she recognized her. She knew exactly who she was.

The next image was of the same woman, now in casual clothes, stretched out on a couch, snuggling with Jerome but looking directly at the camera with a distressed, startled expression that was incongruous with the relaxed posture. Adia knew perfectly well why she hadn’t wanted her picture taken at that moment.

The last of the three photographs was of a different couple, but the tone and content were similar.

Adia gagged hard, shoving herself away from the table with the photographs as if they had a poisonous bite.

She stumbled out the door and nearly sprinted to her car. She had to … had to …

Behind the wheel, she nearly fishtailed as she U-turned out of her parallel parking space. She had to get home. No, not home; she didn’t really have a home right then, just the safe house. But she needed to get there. She needed to ask … needed someone to explain, to make things right …

How could they?