Prologue

Jayson lie in his bed for hours at night, unable to sleep. He tried to clear his mind, not to think about anything. Images kept on coming into his mind as he was almost asleep, each time shattering his fatigue. He couldn’t help but think. And he hated himself for it.

He thought about Mariah mostly, but other things as well. Like how staying in his room and never eating, rarely sleeping, was affecting him. It was driving him mad. I have to leave. I can’t stay here; I’ll go insane…again. The first time was bad enough, it’s not really one of those things I really care to repeat. It wasn’t a very fun experience, as one may imagine.

They’re driving me to the edge.

I have to leave or the memories of what’s happened here will drive me insane. Especially in this room. We had a lot of fun in this room; seen a lot, done some things that I still haven’t told her father about. The morning, I’ll leave then. I’m too tired right now. Maybe this time I can actually sleep for more than an hour at a time.

When he finally did turn his light out to get some sleep, he dreamed of that morning, and of the last time he had ever seen her.

Derek talked as he handed out weapons. “So, what exactly are we fighting?” he asked Jayson, who was sharpening a sword.

“Well, all the old books that I have refer to it as ‘the first living embodiment of evil’ which is probably a fancy term for a really fucking old demon. Maybe even the first original full-blooded race. In this case, it happens to be so old that it doesn’t have a physical form anymore, least not one that any of us has ever seen. That’s why it’s starting a war using the vampires. Vampires are so powerful because they were the original vampires, pureblooded.”

“Other possibilities?” Darek set the whetstone down.

“It’s a living breathing demon with a body that we can kill that’s trying to make us turn on each other before we get that close. Probably a better theory.”

“How can there be a pureblooded vampire?” Mariah asked, picking up a knife on the opposite side of the desk and testing its sharpness.

“Vampires can breed, same way you can,” Jayson said, placing a sword on the desk behind him.

“They can?” she asked, wiping the blood off her finger and putting the knife down where she had found it.

“You read too much and don’t ask enough questions. Yes, vampires can breed.”

“Oh…” she said, biting her lip, but not continuing farther.

Jayson knew why, but he also knew that he couldn’t say anything about it. They were about to go into war; they didn’t have time then to worry about her safety, as much as he and Derek both wanted to. In a few hours she would be in danger no matter where she was.

Before they left the library he stopped her. “What did you want to ask me?” he whispered into her ear.

“Nothing, I…”

Right. If you didn’t have anything to ask you wouldn’t have started speaking. What did you want to ask me?”

“Am I…?”

Jayson bit his lip before reluctantly nodding. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. I‘ll be watching out for you. I won‘t let anything happen to you. Or that thing,” he pointed to her belly.

“I promise.”

He hadn’t seen or sensed the vampire coming up behind him, but Mariah had. He had been too busy trying to keep his head attached. He heard her say something to him, but in all the fighting and killing and commotion he couldn’t hear exactly what. As he killed the vampire he was fighting, he was thrown against the wall, stunning him for a moment. But a moment was all these vampires needed. It had sliced open his neck and was about to go for the kill. Almost before it could move, it had fallen dead, and Mariah was standing in front of him. He didn’t have time to warn her before the crescent shaped knife had sliced her almost completely in half and sprayed her blood across the room and all over him.

He snapped awake and looked out the window, expecting to still see the moon in the sky. He pushed aside the curtains and immediately regretted it when sunlight shone directly into his eyes. He shut his eyes and quickly shut the drapes to the harsh sunlight. He blinked a few times trying to make the spots in his vision disappear.

He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to block out the memories that somehow pushed themselves into the front of his mind, and he turned around to take one last look at his room before he started packing.

He didn’t have much, just a few shirts, some pants, shorts, and some boots he had stolen from an army surplus a few years ago. They fit into his bag leaving plenty of room for his weapons. Those he had many of, and had to choose wisely. He took some knives, some words, arrows, manual and cross bows, and a few handguns, just in case. But he couldn’t find the one he was looking for. He thought for a moment, then remembered that he had left it in the training room at the library. He would have to head over there before leaving.

He headed to the library in a car that he had stolen solely for the occasion of leaving. He parked, but didn’t bother to lock it. He didn’t have a key, and he would have a hell of a time explaining why he was breaking into a car if it was supposedly his own.

He entered the library and immediately headed for the back room. Derek saw him, he knew that, but he didn’t care. Jayson had already told him that he was more than likely going to leave sometime soon. Derek didn’t blame him, he wanted to leave town himself, except he had a library to run and too many strings to sever.

He headed out the door with a sheathed sword and several other weapons. He had debated going up to the attic to see her room one last time, to smell her scent one last time, but that would bring back even more memories that he didn’t want to have to deal with right then.

ª

He stopped driving at sunset and looked at where he was. The sign behind him said that he was just outside L.A., and already the air looked and smelled cleaner. He would find a place to stay for the night, and continue in the morning. He was still amazed at how much driving took out of a person.

He walked for a while first, though, looking at the town, seeing how normal it seemed. He almost wished that he had done this earlier, and taken Mariah with him, that way that had been safe from the war with the vampires that she had died in. He didn’t want it to, and tried to stop it, but his mind drifted back to that day once more.

As Mariah’s ward blazed along the city destroying anything supernatural in the city, Jayson had no choice but to come along for the escape in a long since abandoned van. He stared out a window, watching the white glow absorb the city. To Jayson they seemed almost like an ant, scampering away from a hand or foot that threatened to crush them.

They stopped ten miles outside the city and exited the van to see who they had lost. Of the twenty they had started with, only eleven survived, and six of them were in critical condition. There was Derek, his brothers, the witch, the slayer, the god, Jayson, and a few others he didn’t know the names of. Derek seemed to stop dead in his tracks when he noticed that his daughter wasn’t among the survivors. He entered the van to see the only person who was with her when it happened. “What happened?” he asked Jayson, for the first time accusation was free from his voice.

“It should have been me,” Jayson answered distantly, quietly, not even bothering to look away from the window he absently stared out of.

“But what happened?” Darek asked, still not clear on the details.

“Vampire…snuck up on me, didn’t see it in time.” He looked down to see the blood on his shirt from the wound on his neck that was still open and seeping blood, and the blood splattered on his hands that wasn‘t his. “She killed it…saved my life…then…another one that neither of us saw…not ‘til it was too late…” Jayson stopped and took a deep breath and leaned his head against the van for support. Tears of blood fell from his eyes as all he could say was, “It should have been me…”

Running into a tree stopped his traumatic memory. “Fucker…” he said, then rubbed his forehead. He looked at his surroundings and noticed that he was in someone’s backyard. He would have turned and walked away right there if he hadn’t thought he smelled something familiar. He stepped slowly closer to the house, and the scent grew stronger. He could also hear someone yelling. A man, probably shouting at his wife, nothing of his concern. Then he heard a child crying, and the scent getting stronger still. He looked into one of the windows, and saw exactly what he had suspected. What amazed him was the scent that had brought him here had been the scent of neither of the shouting spouses, but of the screaming baby behind the woman.

He gasped as shock and realization hit him like a blow to the gut. He recognized whose scent it was that had led him here. Violets and lilacs.

Mariah.