But her mother...
What did she know about her mother's family? Nothing. Uncle Bracken always just said that they'd come from the East Coast.
Something inside Jez was trembling. She didn't want to frame the next question, but the words came into her mind anyway, blunt and inescapable.
What if her mother had been human?
That would make Jez...
No. It wasn't possible. It wasn't just that Night World law forbade vampires to fall in love with humans. It was that there was no such thing as a vampire-human hybrid. It couldn't be done; it had never been done in twenty thousand years. Anybody like that would be a freak....
The trembling inside her was getting worse.
She stood up slowly and only vaguely noticed when the skinhead made a sound of fear. She couldn't focus on him. She was staring between the redwood trees.
If it were true ... it couldn't be true, but if it were true... she would have to leave everything. Uncle Bracken. The gang.
And Morgead. She'd have to leave Morgead. For some reason that made her throat close convulsively. And she would go ... where? What kind of a place was there for a half-human half-vampire freak?
Nowhere in the Night World. That was certain. The Night People would have to kill any creature like that.
The skinhead made another sound, a little whimper. Jez bunked and looked at him.
It couldn't be true, but all of a sudden she didn't care about killing him anymore. In fact, she had a feeling like slow horror creeping over her, as if something in her brain was tallying up all the humans she'd hurt and killed over the years. Something was taking over her legs, making her knees rubbery. Something was crushing her chest, making her feel as if she were going to be sick.
"Get out of here," she whispered to the skinhead.
He shut his eyes. When he spoke it was in a kind of moan. "You'll just chase me."
"No." But she understood his fear. She was a huntress. She'd chased so many people. So many humans ...
Jez shuddered violently and shut her eyes. It was as if she had suddenly seen herself in a mirror and the image was unbearable. It wasn't Jez the proud and fierce and beautiful. It was Jez the murderer.
I have to stop the others.
The telepathic call she sent out was almost a scream. Everybody! This is Jez. Come to me, right now! Drop what you're doing and come!
She knew they'd obey-they were her gang, after all. But none of them except Morgead had enough telepathic power to answer across the distance.
What's wrong? he said.
Jez stood very still. She couldn't tell him the truth. Morgead hated humans. If he even knew what she suspected... the way he would look at her...
He would be sickened. Not to mention that he'd undoubtedly have to kill her.
I'll explain later, she told him, feeling numb. I just found out-that it's not safe to feed here. Then she cut the telepathic link short. She was afraid he'd sense too much of what was going on inside her.
She stood with her arms wrapped around herself, staring between the trees. Then she glanced at the skinhead, who was still huddled in the sword fern.
There was one last thing she had to do with him.
Ignoring his wild flinching, she stretched out her hand. Touched him, once, on the forehead with an extended finger. A gentle, precise contact.
"Remember... nothing," she said. "Now go."
She felt the power flow out of her, wrapping itself around the skinhead's brain, changing its chemistry, rearranging his thoughts. It was something she was very good at.
The skinhead's eyes went blank. Jez didn't watch him as he began to crawl away.
All she could think of now was getting to Uncle Bracken. He would answer her questions; he would explain. He would prove to her that none of it was true.
He'd make everything all right.
Chapter 3
Jez burst through the door and turned immediately into the small library off the front hall. Her uncle was sitting there at his desk, surrounded by built-in bookcases. He looked up in surprise.
"Uncle Bracken, who was my mother? How did my parents die?" It all came out in a single rush of breath. And then Jez wanted to say, "Tell me the truth," but instead she heard herself saving wildly, "Tell me it's not true. It's not possible, is it? Uncle Bracken, I'm so scared."
Her uncle stared at her for a moment. There was shock and despair in his face. Then he bent his head and shut his eyes.
"But how is it possible?" Jez whispered. "How am I here?" It was hours later. Dawn was tinting the window. She was sitting on the floor, back
against a bookcase, where she'd collapsed, staring emptily into the distance. "You mean, how can a vampire-human halfbreed exist? I don't know. Your parents never knew. They never expected to have children." Uncle Bracken ran both hands through his hair, head down. "They didn't even realize you could live as a vampire. Your father brought you to me because he was dying and I was the only person he could trust. He knew I wouldn't turn you over to the Night World elders."
"Maybe you should have," Jez whispered. Uncle Bracken went on as if he hadn't heard her. "You lived without blood then. You looked like a human child. I don't know what made me try to see if you could learn how to feed. I brought you a rabbit and bit it for you and let you smell the blood." He gave a short laugh of reminiscence. "And your little teeth sharpened right up and you knew what to do. That was when I knew you were a true Redfern."
"But I'm not." Jez heard the words as if someone else was speaking them from a distance. "I'm not even a Night Person. I'm vermin."
Uncle Bracken let go of his hair and looked at her. His eyes, normally the same silvery-blue as Jez's, were burning with a pure silver flame. "Your mother was a good woman," he said harshly. "Your father gave up everything to be with her. She wasn't vermin." Jez looked away, but she wasn't ashamed. She was numb. She felt nothing except a vast emptiness inside her, stretching infinitely in all directions.
And that was good. She never wanted to feel again. Everything she'd felt in her life-everything she could remember-had been a lie.
She wasn't a huntress, a predator fulfilling her place in the scheme of things by chasing down her lawful prey. She was a murderer. She was a monster.
"I can't stay here anymore," she said.
Uncle Bracken winced. "Where will you go?"