She loved Muir Woods. Even though all the wood around her was deadly-or maybe because it was.
She liked taking risks. And the place was beautiful: the cathedral silence, the mossy greenness, the resinous smell.
Last week they'd hunted seven gang members throughGolden GatePark . It had been enjoyable, but not really private, and they couldn't let the humans fight back much. Gunshots in the park would attract attention. Muir Woods had been Jez's idea- they could kidnap the gang members and bring them here where nobody would disturb them. They would give them weapons. It would be a real hunt, with real danger.
Jez squatted on a branch to catch her breath. There just wasn't enough real danger in the world, she thought. Not like the old days, when there were still vampire hunters left in the Bay Area. Jez's parents had been killed by vampire hunters. But now that they'd all been eliminated, there wasn't anything really scary anymore....
She froze. There was an almost inaudible crunching in the pine needles ahead of her. Instantly she was on the move again, leaping fearlessly off the branch into space, landing on the spongy pine-needle carpet with her knees bent. She turned and stood face-to-face with the skinhead.
"Hey there," she said.
Chapter 2
The skinhead's face was contorted, his eyes huge. He stared at her, breathing hard like a hurt animal. "I know," Jez said. "You ran fast. You can't figure out how I ran faster."
"You're-not-human," the skinhead panted. Except that he threw in a lot of other words, the kind humans liked to use when they were upset.
"You guessed," Jez said cheerfully, ignoring the obscenities. "You're not as dumb as you look."
"What-the hell-are you?"
"Death." Jez smiled at him. "Are you going to fight? I hope so."
He fumbled the gun up again. His hands were shaking so hard he could scarcely aim it.
"I think you're out of ammo," Jez said. "But anyway a branch would be better. You want me to break one off for you?"
He pulled the trigger. The gun just clicked. He looked at it.
Jez smiled at him, showing her teeth. She could feel them grow as she went into feeding mode. Her canines lengthening and curving until they were as sharp and delicate and translucent as a cat's. She liked the feel of them lightly indenting her lower lip as she half-opened her mouth.
That wasn't the only change. She knew that her eyes were turning to liquid silver and her lips were getting redder and fuller as blood flowed into them in anticipation of feeding. Her whole body was taking on an indefinable charge of energy.
The skinhead watched as she became more and more beautiful, more and more inhuman. And then he seemed to fold in on himself. With his back against a tree, he slid down until he was sitting on the ground in the middle of some pale brown oyster fungus. He was staring straight ahead.
Jez's gaze was drawn to the double lightning bolt tattooed on his neck. Right. . . there, she thought. The skin seemed reasonably clean, and the smell of blood was enticing. It was running there, rich with adrenaline, in blue veins just under the surface. She was almost intoxicated just thinking about tapping it. Fear was good; it added that extra spice to the taste. Like Sweetarts. This was going to be good....
Then she heard a soft broken sound.
The skinhead was crying.
Not loud bawling. Not blubbering and begging. Just crying like a kid, slow tears trickling down his cheeks as he shook.
"I thought better of you," Jez said. She shook her hair out, tossed it in contempt. But something inside her seemed to tighten.
He didn't say anything. He just stared at her- no, through her-and cried. Jez knew what he was seeing. His own death.
"Oh, come on," Jez said. "So you don't want to die. Who does? But you've killed people before. Your gang killed that guy Juan last week. You can dish it out, but you can't take it."
He still didn't say anything. He wasn't pointing the gun at her anymore; he was clutching it with both hands to his chest as if it were a teddy bear or something. Or maybe as if he were going to kill himself to get away from her. The muzzle of the gun was under his chin.
The thing inside Jez tightened more. Tightened and twisted until she couldn't breathe. What was wrong with her? He was just a human, and a human of the worst kind. He deserved to die, and not just because she was hungry.
But the sound of that crying ... It seemed to pull at her. She had a feeling almost of deja vu, as if this had all happened before-but it hadn't. She knew it hadn't.
The skinhead spoke at last. "Do it quick," he whispered.
And Jez's mind was thrown into chaos.
With just those words she was suddenly not in the forest anymore. She was falling into nothingness, whirling and spinning, with nothing to grab hold of. She saw pictures in bright, disjointed flashes. Nothing made sense; she was plunging in darkness with scenes unreeling before her helpless eyes.
"Do it quickly," somebody whispered. A flash and Jez saw who: a woman with dark red hair and delicate, bony shoulders. She had a face like a medieval princess. "I won't fight you," the woman said.
"Kill me. But let my daughter live."
Mother...
These were her memories.
She wanted to see more of her mother-she didn't have any conscious memory of the woman who'd given birth to her. But instead there was another flash. A little girl was huddled in a corner, shaking. The child had flame-bright hair and eyes that were neither silver nor blue. And she was so frightened ...
Another flash. A tall man running to the child. Turning around, standing in front of her. "Leave her alone!
It's not her fault. She doesn't have to die!"
Daddy.