5. EDWINA
LEESA WAS NOT THE ONLY ONE making an important decision. Thirty-some miles to the south and west, in a gigantic underground grotto that was home to a coven of more than three score vampires, a tall, slender female vampire named Edwina had also reached a decision.
For hundreds of years, the vampires have used the perpetual night of this deep cavern to avoid the hated sun and to remain hidden from the ever-growing human population as well. Cut eons ago under the tree-covered hills on the eastern side of the Connecticut River by a now vanished underground waterway, the cavern was the perfect hideaway.
Until recently, Edwina had kept a captive feeder in the caverns, using him to slake her thirst for blood whenever she so desired. Bradley had been taken from her by Stefan, however. Edwina still seethed over the loss, especially with the growing Destiratu inflaming her thirst. Stefan was a member of the High Council, and she had been powerless to stop him. She burned to get back at him, but knew she must move carefully. Stefan was powerful, and he was a favorite of Ricard, Lord of the High Council, as well.
Edwina was one of the youngest vampires in the coven, and so among the more susceptible to the pull of Destiratu. But she also possessed a steely discipline that enabled her to resist the pull. She had been turned early in the Civil War, barely one hundred and fifty years ago. Those had been heady days—with so much death and carnage everywhere, vampires had been able to feed without worry, for what mattered a few more corpses mixed in among the thousands strewn about the land? She had hunted the hills and woods of Virginia with Vanina, the vampire who had turned her, learning from her and thrilling to her own newfound powers and the exquisite taste of fresh, hot blood. Vanina had fallen to an angry mob, though—beheaded by a soldier’s sword—shortly after the war’s end. Without her mentor and companion, Edwina drifted north. Still too new a vampire to turn a victim, she left a trail of bloodless bodies in her wake.
As the years passed and the human population grew, she learned to become more careful, for even a vampire could fall prey to a large enough mob, especially as the weapons of the humans became more deadly. Eventually, she had reached Connecticut and fallen in with her present coven.
Among the entire coven, Edwina was the one who blended in most easily among the humans. Her complexion was darker than those of her brethren, courtesy of her maternal grandmother, who had been a plantation slave. While her pale-skinned fellows needed to masquerade as goths or emos to mingle openly with humans, Edwina’s darker skin let her dress and act more or less as she wished. Her features were exotic—again, courtesy of her grandmother—but nothing that hinted at her true nature. She wore her long, straight black hair parted in the middle, letting it hang against her cheeks and down over her small but shapely breasts. Since she had been only twenty when she was turned, she fit in easily on college campuses. That was where she had met Bradley.
Edwina was different from most of her brethren in another way—she liked to play with her victims before taking them. Maybe it was because she fit in so easily among the humans, maybe it was just a quirk of her nature, but she enjoyed getting to know them and stoking their desire for her before finally claiming them. With Bradley, she had acted as his girlfriend for months, slowly drawing him away from his family and friends before turning him into her feeder.
The desire to “play” again was growing along with her thirst. She needed to venture out, despite the orders of the Council, which had decreed no member of the coven could leave the caverns alone without special permission. She thought a return to the Weston campus was in order. She wanted to seek out Leesa, to see what was so special about this human to make Stefan want her so badly. She also wanted to see if there was some way she could use Stefan’s interest in the girl to exact some much desired revenge. A sinister smile crept over her lips as she began formulating her plan.