Jez came back to herself. She was in Muir Woods, kneeling in the ferns and moss, with the skinhead cowering in front of her. Everything was the same . . . but everything was different. She felt dazed and terrified.
What did it mean?
It was just some bizarre hallucination. It had to be. She knew how her parents had died. Her mother had been murdered outright by the vampire hunters. Her father had been mortally wounded, but he'd managed to carry the four-year-old Jez to his brother's house before he died. Uncle Bracken had raised her, and he'd told her the story over and over.
But that screaming . . .
It didn't mean anything. It couldn't. She was Jez Redfern, more of a vampire than anyone, even Morgead. Of all the lamia, the vampires who could have children, her family was the most important. Her uncle Bracken was a vampire, and so was his father, and his father's father, all the way back to Hunter Redfern.
But her mother . . .
What did she know about her mother's family? Nothing. Uncle Bracken always just said that they'd come from the East Coast.
Something inside Jez was trembling. She didn't want to frame the next question, but the words came into her mind anyway, blunt and inescapable.
What if her mother had been human?
That would make Jez . . .
No. It wasn't possible. It wasn't just that Night World law forbade vampires to fall in love with humans. It was that there was no such thing as a vampire-human hybrid. It couldn't be done; it had never been done in twenty thousand years. Anybody like that would be a freak. . . .
The trembling inside her was getting worse.
She stood up slowly and only vaguely noticed when the skinhead made a sound of fear. She couldn't focus on him. She was staring between the redwood trees.
If it were true ... it couldn't be true, but if it were true . . . she would have to leave everything. Uncle Bracken. The gang.
And Morgead. She'd have to leave Morgead. For some reason that made her throat close convulsively.