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1994

Cassandra McLaughton unlocked the front door of her apartment and was hit with the pungent odor of cheap beer and cheap sex.

At fifteen Cassandra was not oblivious to her mother’s habit of bringing her work home. Cassandra lived in the real world. By the time she was six she’d known about things most normal kids couldn’t even imagine. Her mother had never bothered to keep it a secret that Cassandra’s birth was a mistake. She reminded her on a daily basis that she was never meant to be born, and she should thank the powers that be that she was even alive to ruin her mother’s life. “If it was up to me,” Selene McLaughton often said, “your sorry ass would never have even been a thought, let alone a nightmare.”

A nightmare, Cassandra thought. So I’m a nightmare, am I? She made up her mind early on that it was best not to deny your true nature, and set about fulfilling her mother’s words. She became a nightmare.

Sneaking around at night, stalking in shadows, scaring the living mess out of poor, helpless humans and Night People alike. Sometimes she crept into people’s homes, only to stand in a dark corner, delighting in their frightened gasps and laughing lustily in the black light of midnight when they wondered aloud at how she had disappeared so quickly. She was nothing but a pale wraith, appearing and disappearing in the shadows, her long, wavy blond tresses an ashen-yellow aura around her. One minute she was there, at the foot of the bed, staring at you while you slept. But the moment your eyes opened and focused enough to notice the ethereally beautiful girl with the huge, deep blue eyes, high cheekbones, and smooth, flawless skin, she was gone, faster and more soundless than a ghost.

That was what she liked to call herself. Ghost. It suited her more than anything else did.

I am the ghost of darkness, she would think as she roamed the streets looking for prey. No one can touch me; I am intangible. The darkness is my home. I belong to it, and it is mine to command.

Her mother was little concern to her. Cassandra could handle Selene. And as long as Selene had her men and her beer, she was content. As long as Cassandra wasn’t around at the same time as her mother’s “customers,” she was fine, too. It was all right when they left her alone. She didn’t care about those bastards, whose loving wives and children waited for them to return from “working overtime at the office.” It was when they started noticing her, and what she looked like, when things got messy. Selene didn’t like having her clients attacked. Cassandra didn’t like having to attack them. Attacking them was no problem, as long as there was no reason for it. It was when they gave her a reason that she got mad.

“They’re your customers,” she’d tell her mother. “Keep them away from me. You can have them! I don’t want anything to do with you or them!”

On a good night her mother would start crying and moan about what an ungrateful bitch she had for a daughter. On a bad night she would crack a beer bottle over Cassandra’s head and slash her with the broken remains, all the while screaming about how she was just jealous and stupid and if she were really as smart as she liked to think she was she’d follow in her footsteps and work the streets, rather than stalk them.

Cassandra grew to like the dark. Because Selene was a vampire, Cassandra could never use it to hide completely from her, but it made it easier to keep the clients from noticing her. And for the most part, all the drinks dulled her mother’s vision until she only saw as well as a human. That’s when Cassandra would hide in a corner with her headphones on low. She learned to block out all other sounds but the music pumping into her ears. She lost herself in the rhythm of the music, and would often fall asleep curled up between the wall and the couch. The music played on until the batteries died, or she woke up, whichever came first. She had a Sony Discman that she had stolen from a kid who thought he was being cool by walking around after dark in a bad neighborhood. He didn’t think it was so cool to have a girl who he outweighed by at least fifty pounds steal his CDs, though.

Every evening at seven o’clock Cassandra attended a tae kwon do class. She’d heard about it when she was eight, and had enrolled immediately. She didn’t need parental consent, and it was only fifteen dollars a month. She could get that easily by pick pocketing.

Now, at fifteen, Cassandra was extremely skilled and was often asked by the sensei to help teach the class. She would take over when Sensei couldn’t make it, and the other students found that their strict teacher was nowhere near as severe and inflexible as Cassandra was. Her vampire agility, strength, and speed made her nearly perfect, and she soon began practicing with weapons.

Boys in the class often tried to talk into her, but one look into her cold, depthless eyes and they backed off. Cassandra stayed away from boys. The last thing she wanted was to become like her mother.

Cassandra entered her apartment and picked her way around the dirty clothes and beer cans that littered the floor. Her mother was sprawled out on the couch, sleeping like the dead. Too bad that wasn’t closer to the truth.

In the closet that passed for her bedroom, Cassandra stretched out on the mattress that sat on the floor. She lay still for a minute, then reached for a shoebox that was taped at every edge to prevent it from falling apart. There was so much packing tape around it that the name of whatever shoe had originally come in it was no longer visible.

Cassandra opened the box and pulled out a palette with little depressions filled with colorful, dried paint. She picked up an old plastic Evian water bottle from beside her bed and poured some water into a cup she had taken out of the box. She set it on the floor and closed the bottle.

She worked a flat piece of cardboard from underneath the mattress and taped a sheet of thick, textured paper to it. Choosing a medium-sized sable paintbrush from the shoebox, she dipped it into the water, wet one of the wells on the palette that was filled with green watercolor paint, and began to lose herself in the art.

She let herself go, spreading paint across the paper and watching it bleed, forming a beautiful mountain landscape. She mixed different greens to get the exact color she envisioned the trees of the Scottish highlands to be. It was probably magnificent, she thought. She wished she’d be able to see it someday, but that was most likely out of the question.

Three hours later Cassandra sat back. Her hands were cramping from the exacting task of manipulating the watercolors, but the painting was finished, and it was great. She gave a satisfied sigh.

“That’s really good,” an unfamiliar voice said.

Cassandra whirled around and saw a tall boy sitting on the fire escape outside her window. He was studying her painting with his head cocked to one side. A knee poked out of a large rip in his jeans, and his arm was wrapped around it. He looked very comfortable sitting there, almost as if her belonged there.

Jumping up and spilling the cup of water in the process, Cassandra grabbed a wooden baseball bat from the corner. She held the Louisville Slugger at shoulder level, ready to swing, if necessary.

“Oh, come on.” The boy shook his head at her. “I’ve seen you in action. You hardly need any weapons, Cassandra.”

“Who are you,” she growled. “And how do you know me?”

The boy merely looked at her. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?” he asked.

“Of course not.” She glared at him, narrowing her dark blue eyes until they were slits. She put the bat on the floor and sank into a fighting stance instead. “Explain how you know me. Now.”

He laughed. He actually had the nerve to laugh at her. Cassandra didn’t see anything funny about the situation. It annoyed her greatly that he found it so amusing. All that stood between them was the screen on her window. This guy was a vampire, she could tell. And a powerful one, at that, having been able to sneak up on her and watch her for quite a while without her realizing it.

“My name is Trax Romero,” the boy said. His green eyes traveled over her, but not in the “hey, you look good” sort of way. More in the “your stance is perfect” way. It was the same way Sensei looked at her when she was fighting. Approving and looking for faults at the same time. “I’m starting a gang, and I want you to be in it. I’ve watched you, Cassandra McLaughton, and I want you in my group.” His eyes met hers when he said her name, catching the shock that ran through them. She couldn’t help but notice how…interesting his eyes were. They were huge, bigger than hers, and a bright, brilliant sea green. They were fringed with thick, dark lashes. The planes of his face were soft, and slightly babyish, making him look almost too pretty for a boy. He would be very tall when standing up, Cassandra noticed. His limbs were long, and he seemed too big to be lounging on the small fire escape. His black hair was sorta spiky, as thought it had a tendency to wave but he controlled it with a bit of gel and made it stand up instead. She felt the sudden urge to paint his face. He was so unusual looking that he was beautiful.

“Where have you watched me?” she asked, when what she really wanted to say was “Can I paint you?”

Trax shrugged. “From right here. At the dojo. In the streets. I’ve picked you for my gang, Cassandra. This gang is going to rule St. Louis. I’m not asking just anybody to be in it.”

“So, should I feel special?” she sneered.

“Yeah.” He was serious. She almost rolled her eyes but kept them trained on him instead.

“Why are you starting a gang?” she wanted to know.

His glowing green eyes took on a faraway look, and she reasoned right then that he was a made vampire. They often got that look in their eyes, remembering things that had happened many years ago, before they were vampires.

“I was in a gang a long time ago,” he said, staring into space and looking very human. “When I was part of that group I was happier than I’d ever been. They were like a family to me, more like family than my real family ever was. They cared about me, and we took care of each other.” He abruptly turned to stare at her. “I want to offer what I was given to those who need it. I want to recreate the Rebels.”

Cassandra bit her lower lip in thought. “How long have you been alive?” she asked.

He answered without hesitation. “Four hundred and thirty-six years.”

Cassandra blinked, and then blinked again. That was a really long time to be wandering around. And he looked so…lonely. Cassandra felt something inside her that she had never felt before – pity.

“Okay,” she told him. “I’ll join your Rebels.”