Shattered Mirror

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.

She was lucky she had been planning on crashing a different party, or she would never have been ready for this one. She had come across the white Volvo's owner at a gas station and had tailed her here.

She cut the motor and ran her fingers through her long blond hair, which was windblown by the drive in the convertible. Flashing a killer smile at no one, she checked her appearance in the rearview mirror. The girl in the glass appeared attractive, wild and carefree. The core of stone was not visible in her reflection.

As she stood, Sarah smoothed down her blue tank top and cream jeans and automatically checked to make sure her knives were in place -- one in a spine sheath on her back and one tucked into each calf-high boot. Only then did she approach the house.

With blinds and shades pulled, the house appeared empty from the outside, but the illusion was quickly shattered. Before she even had a chance to knock, someone pulled open the door.

Leech, Sarah thought, disgusted, as she flashed a smile as practiced as the one she had given her rearview mirror at the vampire who had opened the door.

Whoa. Her smile did not waver, even though the vampiric aura in the house hit her like a sledgehammer to her gut. Her skin tingled at the sense of power, the feeling as unpleasant as sandpaper scraping across raw skin.

Unpleasant feeling or no, she began to mingle, looking always for the prey she was risking her neck to find -- Nikolas.

Nikolas was one of the most infamous of his kind, a vampire who had hunted blatantly since the 1800s. His first known prey had been a young mother named Elisabeth Vida. Elisabeth had been a witch, a vampire hunter, and incidentally, Sarah's ancestor. Her family had been hunting Nikolas ever since -- without success.