Demon in my View
CHAPTER 2
"HOW WAS YOUR FIRST DAY of school?" Caryn's mother asked as soon as the girl entered the kitchen.
Caryn's mother, Hasana Rashida, was a slightly plump, attractive woman with hair of a rich brown, cropped in a serious yet flattering style. She was obviously tired from her day at the bookstore, of which she was the new manager, so Caryn decided not to bother her with details of the icy putdowns she had received that morning.
"It wasn't awful," she answered instead as she fished a spoon from the silverware drawer and went to serve herself some ice cream.
The thought of Jessica made her uneasy. There was something in Jessica's aura that she hadn't been able to identify-something darker than normal. At first, it had almost kept Caryn from approaching. After only one day, she could see that it also kept other students away.
Of course, that was logical. Caryn wouldn't have been in this town if Jessica had been a normal high-school student.
Caryn had tried despite her unease to get to know Jessica, more because the girl had seemed so alone than because Caryn had been asked to do so.
Prompted by these thoughts, she asked, "Where's Dominique?"
Hasana sighed. "She left to deal with some trouble involving her daughters, but she should be back soon."
Dominique Vida was one of the few people who could give Caryn the chills just by entering the room. She was the leader of the oldest living line of witches, and her power was impressive. She was the one who had tracked down Jessica's address and maneuvered Caryn and Hasana into this town, finding a house for them and employment for Hasana in less than two weeks.
Either despite this power or because of it, the woman was emotionally cold as ice in almost any situation. She needed to be: Dominique Vida was a vampire hunter. She could not allow emotion to cause hesitation in a fight.
If anyone else had asked Caryn to move into this town, where she could barely breathe for the aura of vampires, she would have refused. But Dominique was the leader of all four lines of witches, including the Smoke line - Caryn's own.
Dominique could order Caryn to go into the vampires' lairs alone, and Caryn would do so or risk losing her title as a witch. As antisocial as Jessica seemed to be, at least watching the writer didn't seem dangerous.
Following the same train of thought as her daughter, Hasana asked, "Did you meet Jessica? "
"Yes. She hated me on sight," Caryn answered gloomily. "And considering how she's treated, I'm not surprised."
Caryn had been shocked at the way Jessica's classmates seemed to view her-as if she was a poisonous spider. One of them, an athletic senior who'd been flirting with Caryn only a few minutes before, had called Jessica a witch. Hurt by his words, Caryn had needed to swallow an argument; Jessica was further from being a witch than the boy who had made the accusation.
Caryn glanced down at her bowl, her appetite gone. Her ice cream was melting.
