CHAPTER 16

JESSICA SPRAWLED across her bed with mindless noise blaring in her ears and tried to reason things out.

Caryn was playing with her. She knew the Rashidas and Alex had some relationship; they hated each other too much to be perfect strangers. For all she knew, Alex and Caryn used to date. Now they had ganged up to play a game of “let’s mess with the author’s mind.”

It was cleverly done, she admitted reluctantly. Alex’s portrayal of Aubrey was perfect. She wondered who Caryn was trying to be. If it was a game, it was well practiced and planned between them.

There is no if, she scolded herself. Vampires do not exist!

Jessica had no love of mind games, especially ones played by childish idiots like Caryn. She wondered if Caryn realized just how little sense of humor Jessica had when it came to her books.

Frustrated, she opened the letter that Caryn had handed her and scanned it quickly.

Then she read it again, more slowly, and then a third time.

I am signing with my true name now. I don’t wish to lie to you as all the others would.

“What is going on here?” Jessica asked the black walls. They said nothing — they rarely did, though when she was dead tired they sometimes made an exception.

Everyone who had read Ash Night’s first book knew who Aubrey was — what he looked like, where he was from, how he spoke, and how he thought. The two books that had gone through her editor’s office revealed the dark corners of Aubrey’s past and his present, and had reached into the wider vampiric world to show its customs and politics.

Never once had these books mentioned the Smoke line of witches or their immortal mother, Macht, whom Caryn had so casually referenced in her letter.

Without conscious thought, Jessica picked up one of the manuscripts that had been sitting on her shelf for months now. Though she hadn’t read the novel since she had written it, she remembered the characters inside. The story was set years earlier; the witches mentioned in it would be Caryn’s distant ancestors. Jessica knew, through the eyes of her vampiric characters, all about the Smoke line. But only she should have known, because the manuscript had been read by no one else. The fine layer of dust on the binder was proof that no one had picked it up recently. There was no way Caryn could ever have read it.

The girl’s words echoed in Jessica’s mind: What if it was all real? If Ash Night’s vampires actually existed?

And more recently: I wanted to ask if you knew they were true.

Though Jessica hadn’t delved too far into the world of the Smoke witches, simply because they were of little interest to her vampires, she knew their basic beliefs. If a Smoke witch was aware that someone was in danger, it was that witch’s duty to protect him or her.

If it was true, Jessica was certainly in danger.

If they were all real …

If Aubrey existed, and Jessica had met him, then why was she still alive? He had no scruples about killing, and she had shown the world every weak moment of his past. Yet when she mentally replayed her conversations with him, there was no sense of threat. He seemed more to be flirting with her than hunting her.

She needed to know if it was true. She knew these characters better than she knew even Anne. They had been her thoughts and life for years. If there was the slightest chance that they were real, she needed to know.

She needed proof, and to get that, she needed to see for herself.