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I did. I moved forward, down one step and the next, my fingers trailing along the smooth wall. The tingling sensation washed over me even more deeply, with one very clearimpression.
Whatever was waiting for me below, it was only forme.
“I don’t think you can come with me,” I said to the guys and Kylie behindme.
“Nope,” Marco agreed. “Couldn’t even if we tried. That place doesn’t want us atall.”
“I’ve never felt anything like that before,” Aaron murmured, mostly to himself, with awedcuriosity.
“You just holler if you need us, then,” Kyliesaid.
I walked further, down into the room. The door clicked shut behind me. The air pressure thickened, as if to embrace me. My feet hit the tiled floor at the bottom, and a fresh breath rushed into my lungs with a cool, powderysmell.
I washere.
And where washere, exactly? I rotated slowly, taking in the wholeroom.
The space was lined with shelves, and each of them held a row of glinting slabs. I stepped closer. They were crystal tablets, like the one Mom had left for me in the abandoned subway tunnel that had led us to Sunridge—and to my new fiery power to get at thetruth.
The room was packed with them, all of them etched with one or more symbols, many of which didn’t mean anything to me. The only other objects the room contained were an armchair with a high arched back and a small rosewood sidetable.
The place felt like a library, if you could read crystals instead of books. But then, Mom had managed to leave me a message in that first crystal. The truth-seeking flames and a vision of my mother’s murder had been contained in a larger crystal. Who knew what any of these mighthold?
I had no idea where to start, so I grabbed one at random. A quiver of energy raced across my palms. The etching on this one showed what looked vaguely like a bear standing on its hind legs between a horse and a weasel.Interesting.
I sank into the chair. Instinct told me to press the crystal tablet to my chest. An odd warmth bled from its smooth surface into my skin. Then a clear, even voice started speaking in myhead.
“Dragon shifter Matilde, May 2, 1876. I record this history of a conflict resolved among the disparatekin.”
As the long-gone dragon shifter’s words rolled into my mind, a vision formed before my eyes, like the glimpse I’d gotten of my mother’s death. But I got the sense this one was more symbolic than any literal event. A tall woman with sleek black hair stood with a burly man next to her, in a yard I vaguely recognized from the disparate estate. Several shifters in animal form prowled on either side of thepair.
“For five years, my alphas and I have seen a growing hostility between the meat-eating and plant-eating members of the disparate kin. Accusations of wrong-doing have been thrown from both sides. A few skirmishes have resulted in many injured and four dead. The primary point of contention appeared tobe—”
I pulled the crystal away from my chest and set it on the side table, breaking the vision and the voice. With a couple of slow breaths, I settled back into the present. My gaze skimmed the shelvesagain.
So these were histories? Records committed to the crystals by the dragon shifters before me—reports they hoped later dragon shifters would finduseful?
I hadn’t seen any conflicts among the disparate kin while I’d been there, and Nate hadn’t mentioned any. That record might be worthwhile to listen to later, but for now, it wasn’t what Ineeded.
I stood up, slid that crystal back onto its shelf, and considered the others. There were hundreds in this room. Which one would give me something I could use against thevampires?
No way to find out but through trial anderror.
The tablets clinked softly as I flipped through several on the shelf at head height, peering at the images etched on them. Those clearly gave some idea as to the contents. How would you draw a vampire? A stick figure with little triangles jutting from itsmouth?
An artist I was not. God, would I be recording the trials I’d experienced over the last few weeks on one of these crystals when all this trouble wasover?
I pushed that thought aside and bent to look through the next shelf. My hand stilled over a tablet with a few sketchy human-ish figures on left and a wolf, lion, and eagle on the right. Those first figures could be vampires,maybe?
Worth a try. I picked it up and got comfy on the armchairagain.
The voice that spilled into my head when I held this tablet close was huskier, more abrupt. “Dragon shifter Geraldine, November 14, 1937. I chronicle the current state of shifter-human interactions. I’ve been watching this problem get worse since I was a little girl. The humans keep breeding, and more of them keep pouring in from across the ocean. Their cities are expanding. They set down new roots anywhere they please. Sometimes far too close to our shifter territories than is reallycomfortable.”
The image that swam up before my eyes showed a group of shifters watching houses being erected up the hillside from their village. It morphed into a scene of the same shifters loading up cars with boxes from their houses, then driving off down a winding road, deeper into thewilderness.
“We have preserved the lands around our estates for centuries, but those who want to live elsewhere are finding their options increasingly limited by the number and distribution of human communities. I’ll now go into detail about some of the strategies we’ve used to limit exposurebetween—”
I removed the tablet and gave my head a quick shake to clear it. The information my ancestor had been relating there was stuff I’d definitely want to come back to—but not right now, when vampires were causing us a hell of a lot more trouble than anyhumans.
