Of Shadow Born by Dianne Sylvan Page A

can’t always help it. Plus . . . after all that suicidal energy work you were doing on me, I think we’re linked for a while. You might want to keep an eye on your shields for a few days.”
    Stella bit her lip, then said, “I was twelve.”
    “I was fourteen when my mother died . . . but she had been lost to me for a long time before that.”
    “Lost, as in . . .”
    “As in, committed to a mental institution. It turns out we had the same gift, but no one ever recognized hers for what it was.”
    “Who recognized yours?”
    Miranda closed her eyes again. “David.”
    Stella immediately cursed herself for asking. “Sorry.”
    “It’s all right.”
    “Can I ask . . . I mean . . . how did you meet?”
    The Queen looked out over the darkened Hill Country, and her eyes were bright with tears, but her voice was steady enough as she said, “In line at the grocery store.”
    Stella laughed. “No, really?”
    She gave a flicker of a smile. “Yes. He was buying ice cream.”
    “So you can eat . . . other stuff?”
    A nod. “Some of us do. Too much can make us sick, though. Most of us stick to liquids.”
    “When you met, were you already a vampire?”
    “No. Not for about a year.”
    “Does it hurt—turning into one?”
    “Yes.” Miranda looked at her gravely. “It was my choice, but it was excruciatingly painful . . . and it’s not an easy life, or a kind one. So don’t get any ideas.”
    Stella laughed in spite of herself. “No freaking way. I’m not some goofy romantic teenager. I have no desire to be immortal.”
    “Really? Most people seem to think it’s one hell of a prize, at least until they get it.”
    “That’s because people are afraid of death.”
    “And you’re not?”
    Stella shrugged. “Maybe . . . I’m a Wiccan, though. We look at death as part of a greater cycle, not as an end. It’s a doorway to whatever’s next. Besides, I can’t imagine living forever, watching everything else die and change . . .” She trailed off, realizing that she really, really needed to change the subject, given what Miranda had just been through. “But . . . at least the clothes are cool.”
    Miranda raised an eyebrow, not fooled by her lame attempt at steering the conversation away from death, but said only, “Take the next left turn.”
    They were heading deeper into the hills, and the road wound around like a snake, guiding them farther and farther from the city. Stella began to feel a creeping sense of unreality pricking her spine. Out in the middle of nowhere in a car with a vampire . . . you are fucking brilliant, Stell.
    She would never have seen the odd little unmarked turnoff that Miranda pointed out to her. It was so dark and the trees so dense it felt like they were in another world . . .
    . . . until the trees opened out onto a wide valley cupped in the hands of the hills, and Stella caught sight of the magnificent house . . . no, mansion . . . no, that didn’t even cover it . . . at the end of the long, circular drive.
    “Holy shit,” Stella breathed. She heard Miranda chuckle.
    It was hard to really get an idea of what the place looked like. There were no lights anywhere, and the only real sense she got of its size was based on the enormity of the blackness where it blocked out the half moon’s light. It was gigantic, though, and she could see the edges of several other buildings behind it, all of them dark, like haunted houses, a ghost town.
    They pulled up to the massive double doors at the front entrance. Stella grabbed her bag and Pywacket, who complained loudly from inside the carrier until she shushed him.
    It was so quiet, and so dark. There was sound everywhere, crickets and night birds, but no traffic noise, no hum of the ever-wakeful city around them. The sky overhead seemed to go on forever.
    Miranda walked up the steps and off to one side of the doors; she obviously could see just fine, though Stella had to pick out each