• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Fala’s eyes narrowed in response, but she made no immediate comment. Aubrey knew that Fala could tell as well as he could how strong Jessica would be once she had fed.

“However,” Jessica continued, just as controlled, “if you ever harm anyone I care about, or come anywhere near me, you will very quickly learn just how many interesting stories about your past I still have to share.”

She didn’t wait for Fala to react. Instead, she disappeared, presumably to feed.

CHAPTER 33

JESSICA RETURNED SHORTLY to Aubrey’s home in New Mayhem, her fair skin flushed with the blood meal she had taken in a sleazy corner of New York City only minutes before.

Aubrey was lounging on one of the couches in the living room when she entered. He stood and approached her. “Caryn went home, but she left this for you,” he said, handing her a letter.

Jessica scanned Caryn’s letter — a long, rambling, maudlin farewell. She made a point to hide her own emotions as she silently said her goodbyes to the person who had probably been her last tie to the mortal world.

“And,” Aubrey added reluctantly, glancing toward the table, where Jessica’s computer now sat, “she had me bring that here.”

Jessica smiled wickedly How harmless the contraption appeared — plain black plastic without a single scratch or mark to show how much tumult it had helped her cause. She wandered to the table and brushed the laptop’s case affectionately.

Aubrey had followed her. “Do you really need that?” he asked.

“I can’t write without it,” she answered, assuming the closest she could manage to an innocent expression before the underlying mischief showed through.

“You live to make trouble, don’t you?”

“Life is nothing without a little chaos to make it interesting.” She turned to face him and playfully raised her gaze to meet his, challenging. “What do you want to do about it?”

SHATTERED

MIRROR

Dedicated to Carolyn Barnes, who knows these characters as well as I do, understands all my vague references and odd humor, and can push me on when I’ve all but given up. Carolyn, I owe you.

As always I must mention my family, especially my sister Gretchen. Thank you for believing in me, for listening to my dreams.

My love to Indigo of the Round Table. Carolyn, Sydney, Irene, and Valerie, where would I be without you all? You — and Alexandre, and TSB, and Londra, and Hawk, and Ysterath, and even the evil fairy (whom I never liked even if he was a good guy) — are the people who make my life interesting.

More thanks go to the members of the Rikai Group for all their encouragement and support while I was editing Shattered Mirror. My deepest gratitude goes to Kyle Bladow, who believed in me even when I didn’t, and to Darrin Kuykendall, who showed me how to put water on my cereal while I waited for the milk.

Last but not least, thanks to my editor, Diana. Without her suggestions and comments, this book would never have become what it is today.

The Two Trees

Beloved, gaze in thine own heart.

Gaze no more in the bitter glass

The demons, with their subtle guile.

Lift up before us when they pass,

Or only gaze a little while;

For there a fatal image grows

That the stormy night receives,

Roots half hidden under snows,

Broken boughs and blackened leaves.

For ill things turn to barrenness

In the dim glass the demons hold,

The glass of outer weariness,

Made when God slept in times of old.

There, through the broken branches, go

The ravens of unresting thought;

Flying, crying, to and fro,

Cruel claw and hungry throat,

Or else they stand and sniff the wind,

And shake their ragged wings; alas!

Thy tender eyes grow all unkind:

Gaze no more in the bitter glass.

W. B. Yeats

CHAPTER 1

SARAH VIDA SHIVERED. The aura of vampires seeping from the house in front of her was nearly overwhelming. She drove around the block once, then stopped her car a couple of yards away from the white Volvo she had been following. Her sapphire Jaguar was flashy and she hadn’t had time to change the plates.