Disclaimer: I don't own In the Forests of the Night.

---

1701

The night arrived. As promised, Ather and I went to the Weatere home.

By now, Ather could see that Rachel had great potential—as much as Alexander. Her interest had grown even more when she found that they were twins who dearly loved each other. It was a fancy of hers that her new fledging should be like one of the two ancient beings, Siete and Triste. Long ago, the two had each gone their separate ways, and up to present time, their descendents were the deadliest of enemies. Rachel and Alexander seemed destined to follow that path. Their story was the stuff of legend, and Ather did so love to be able to boast of being the mother of legends.

Alexander confronted us in the backyard, by the well. He was young and weak then, no threat at all. I did not take him seriously and neither did Ather. I could have easily used my blade to stop his heart if I had wished it. It certainly would not pain me to do so, and Alexander knew it as well.

Yet, the heavens smiled on him that night. Pandora's intervention narrowly saved his life.

Unlike Alexander, Pandora was no fool, and she knew that sacrifices have to be made, especially when reasoning with vampires. The deal was made: the life of her student for that of his sister. It was a fair trade. She took Alexander away where he would not taint his mind with unclean sights.

I watched Rachel succumb to the darkness as she struggled futilely. I had known from the start that she would fight the change rather than embrace it. It would be that defiance that would make her strong, and I was proud to know that I was right. Morbidly so, but I was proud nonetheless.

Rachel fell back, exhausted. Ather's black blood had entered her body and very soon she would become one of us. I had gotten my wish. But I did not want to watch as Rachel woke as a newborn vampire. Would I be able to steel myself, or would her cries cut into my soul? I let Ather take her back to her house where she would coax her latest creation—Risika—into feeding and making her first kill.

Who would be her first victim?

Risika's decision would determine the rest of her existence, regardless of how long or short it may be. Either way, I had no illusions of her fate. Risika would be a killer, and if I had a warmer heart perhaps I would have pitied her enough to help. But pity is for the weak, and Risika was not so.

Later, I heard from Ather that Risika had taken the life of an accused witch.

"I think she's beginning to understand, Aubrey," Ather told me, quite satisfied with her handiwork. When I pointedly asked where my new blood sister was, she waved her hand delicately. "Even that sort of mercy killing was too difficult for her to bear, so she ran away from me," she said with a small, deliberate sigh. "But Risika is a sensible child. She will return to me sooner or later."

I did not comment. Risika was young, ignorant, and alone. Secretly, I feared that she would choose the noble path and starve. Even though I knew that the mentally weak should not be allowed to stay alive, I still hoped that Risika would survive.

Ather is a cold mother cares nothing for her children other than their strength. Risika quickly ceased to be interesting as her mind turned elsewhere the instant news about the vampiric base of Mayhem reached her. I had not visited Mayhem in a while, but they said that it had been razed to the ground. Jager, Ather's blood brother, was partially responsible for its burning since the culprit was one of his—Kaei. And rumors say that she was not alone.

Risika became old news in the face of the power struggle that would soon ensue. Ather barely paid attention when I asked if she had begun to search for her latest acquisition. Risika had become just another one of her many fledgings; there was no attachment whatsoever though Ather had even chosen her new name. Quite suddenly, I found that I was the only one who remembered how Rachel had become Risika.

Rachel was simply forgotten as time went on. Even Risika herself is reluctant to remember. Today, few of my kind know that Ather ever had a fledging by that name.

---

Now

Alexander is the least of my problems right now. Though the Triste gets on my nerves when he travels freely through my part of the city, he does not instigate trouble. Not like Risika does.

Risika sends my messenger away, and foolishly strays off her lands again. There is no more doubt in my mind that it is time to strike. I bring myself to Tora again, prepared for a slaughter. I do not enjoy killing this beast that deserves to be free, but Risika has to learn through pain.

Without making a sound, I knock out the guard on duty and near the cage. Bending the metal bars is almost effortless, and I step into the arena confidently. As I face Risika's tiger, I make myself harsh and single-minded. In the past, I have done many things for survival that were not things that I had wanted to do. These lessons never fade.

The two of us are combatants fighting for our lives. Sympathy for Tora means death for me, and I cannot have that. Any survivor would understand.

Tora fights valiantly, but it is in vain. I plant my knife in her heart and, leaving her body in the cage, go to taunt Risika. She has just returned to her home after hunting in my lands. Immediately, she knows that there is something dreadfully wrong. I remain cloaked in the darkness of night but she can sense me there.

"Tiger, tiger, burning bright," is all I say to her as she curses at me.

I feel her terror as she rushes to Tora's side. Her raw grief turns into fury. As I hear her screams, I know that I have started something that I cannot reverse even if I wished to.

Scars are curious things. The ones that remain on the flesh do not hurt half as much as the unseen ones borne inside the soul.

---

1701

Ather was content to let Risika hunt and journey as she pleased, but I did not let her out of my sight or my mind. I knew that Rachel was a survivor, but I was worried that her humane upbringing would spoil that predatory nature. Would she be willing to compromise her morals and kill humans for sustenance? The more I thought, the more uneasy I became.

When a few weeks had passed without a trace of Risika, I got tired of waiting. With a farewell to Ather—I did not say the reason I left—I set out to find her myself. It was not a habit to spoon-feed anyone, but I had not endeavored to have Rachel changed only to let her die within the first few weeks.

I was relieved when I found her in the Appalachian Mountains with her prey stowed under a tree. Risika had come to terms with her change. A smile flickered onto my face, and my mood lightened somewhat. Looking up at where she was lying comfortably in the treetop, I called her attention to me.

"Ather has been looking for you," I lied, conveniently finding a better reason for my presence. A vampire of my status does not broadcast his true thoughts unless he doesn't mind being seen as weak, which of course, is a taboo.

Risika jumped down and glared at me. Her hair had gotten tangled with brambles and had lost their silken quality. There was dirt smeared on her face that was twisted in her dark mood. "Tell Ather I do not want to see her." Her words were cutting and cold.

"Tell Ather yourself—I'm not your messenger boy," I retorted.

"No, you just take Ather's orders, like a good little lapdog," she said with the same condescending manner.

That statement prickled against my pride, and I drew myself to my full height. "No one orders me, child."

"Except Ather," Risika said venomously. "She snaps and you jump. Or search, or kill." Bitterness slipped in as she said the last word. She was thinking of Alexander and his murderer—me.

I laughed a mirthless laugh. She did not know that Alexander was alive, and I would not tell her knowing that she would just run off after him. "Not always…" I insisted, stretching my good humor to the limits. "I just didn't like your brother."

"You laugh?" Her voice had gotten louder in her grief. My attempt at lightness had convinced her that I was truly a cold-blooded killer. "You murdered my brother and you laugh about it?"

Unwilling to take her abuse, I matched her question for question. "Who was that carrion on the ground behind you, Risika?" I asked, taunting her. It is an instinct for me to pinpoint others' vulnerabilities and pounce on them without mercy. I accused Risika of the very crimes that she so judgmentally laid on me.

"Did you even bother to ask? Who loved him? To whom was he a brother? You stepped over his body without a care," I said, seeing the change in her expression. Her temper had been cooled momentarily on the realization. "Over the body—no respect, Risika," I chided mercilessly. "You would leave his body here without a prayer for the scavengers to eat. Who is the monster now, Risika?"

She opened her mouth to argue. "He—"

I halted her protest, asking with a laugh, "He deserved it? Are you a god now, Risika, deciding who is to live and who is to die?" She had hidden her face in the darkness, not wanting to meet my mocking. But you can't hide, I thought, smirking crookedly.

"The world has teeth and claws, Risika; you are either the predator or prey. No one deserves to die any more than they deserve to live. The weak die, the strong survive. There is nothing else," I concluded, my voice dropping at the end. Throw your morals away. They are only chains to hold you back. You've never truly believed in them, so don't keep fooling yourself. We will not judge you the way the humans do; you don't have to hide anymore.

For a moment, I thought that she might actually listen to me. Ather had told her similar things, and Risika was still unsure. Then I made my mistake. "Your brother was one of the weak," I told her, overconfident in my ability to bend her mind. I had gravely underestimated her love for Alexander. "It is his own fault if he is dead."

Risika moved faster than I had ever seen her move. Bringing her hand up, she hit me right across my face. Incredulously, I raised a hand to the place where my cheek was still stinging from force of the blow. Risika slapped me.

She was already coming into her strength, and she certainly had no lack of a temper. Those glaring eyes told me that much.

"Careful, Risika," I warned. The damage she had done had healed almost instantly, but it still didn't change the fact that she had had the gall to attack me. We vampires tend to be proud creatures, and I really am not an exception. She had struck me, and I was not going to let her off.

I could see that Risika was shaking. In fear, or in agitation? Perhaps both. "Do not speak of my brother that way," she commanded. "Ever."

I could not resist addressing the implied threat. "Or what?" I asked softly, dangerously.

"I will put that blade through your heart and you will never speak again."

Though I had received death threats countless times before, I shivered to hear the power in those words. Risika had always been so passionate. Instead of becoming angry, I made my face into a calm mask. Reaching for the knife that I always carried with me, I threw it to the ground.

It was a risky move, considering that magic was imbued in that witch blade. However, if I knew her well enough, Risika would not take advantage of a defenseless person no matter how evil she believed him to be.

It was such a human sentiment that I couldn't help trying to exploit it.

"Try it," I dared her. She moved slowly to withdraw the blade from the ground. But as I predicted, she did not use it. I spread my arms outward, making it easy for her to see her target—my heart. "Well, Risika?" I prompted. "You said you would—now do it. You hold the knife. I stand defenseless. Kill me."

Still, she did not move. It was like the air had frozen and nothing stirred within it.

"You can't," I said with a half-hearted laugh. How will you survive, Risika? "You can't kill me while I am defenseless because you still think like a human. Well, know this, Risika—that isn't how the world works."

I grabbed hold of her wrist and her throat, and a hoarse cry escaped her. "Ather talks about you as if you are so strong." My lip curled as my grip tightened. Though her life was in my hands, I still believed that she was strong. Why did she insist on dying like a fool? "You're just as weak as your brother is."

My callous statement struck a nerve deep inside her. Rachel had been a girl without skills or a reason to fight, but Risika attacked me with new ferocity that surpassed that of a practiced fighter. It had taken me by surprise, but I swiftly fought back in the way I know best. Anger is blinding, and it is easy to be used against you. Risika's strength meant nothing when she fought only with her heart and not her mind. That time, I did not check my power, striking at her mentally. She reeled from the pain and stumbled, providing me my chance to go in for the kill.

Pouncing forward, I forced her to the ground and held her there. Before she could react, I grasped the knife that she had dropped and brought it up against her neck. She hissed, but I did not let go.

Checkmate.

I could have slit her throat there and then, and she would have died and been released from her curse. If she had been anyone else, I would have done it without a thought. Risika had made me angry that night, but I still did not kill her.

When I looked into the depths of her eyes, coal black and infinitely passionate, I remembered Rachel. I had not been content to watch her from afar. No. Instead, I had harbored a jealous and spiteful love and wanted to taint her to my color— the one that steals away all others.

I could not complain because Risika was what I had made of her. In every aspect, I deserved the hate I saw in her being. All this I knew and understood in my cynical way.

Yet, there was a heaviness about it that I could not explain.

"Remember this, Risika—I have no love for you." I did not stop to think on the truth of that statement. "I think you are weak, and I don't care about your morals. If you challenge me again, you will lose."

Defiant to the end, Risika spat at me.

I was struck dumb. Really, somehow I had expected her to accept defeat and then agree to a reconciliation. I had never failed in anything before. The thought that my mapped out idea had just become completely unraveled threw me for a loop.

The two of us had met in a normal way, in a church, no less. It had started off innocently enough, and I believed that I had not meant to approach her for the sake of destroying.

Then how? I asked myself. How had things turned out this way, falling into a cycle of hate with no end?

I could only wonder. Perhaps it is because I can only destroy, and I do not protect the ones I love.

Risika and I, we are similar and yet very different. So parallel that we will never agree.

In our position, I was close enough to feel her blood pulsing in her veins. I could smell its rich scent, and if I had leaned down, my lips would have pressed against her slender neck. The idea was so tempting that I nearly dropped the knife to sink my fangs into her throat instead.

I wanted to get inside her head and erase the memories of Alexander, of Peter Weatere, of Lynette, of sin, and of evil. How I wanted to twist her mind into forgetting her hate for me! How I wanted to force her to love me!

Wildly, I believed that that was the answer. Surely there was some way I could wipe away her memory of the past. I thought that my wish for a fresh start was reasonable enough. But I had not heard the voices of the gods in many years, and they remained silent still. For a horrible moment, I despaired.

Because of our great power, it is extremely dangerous when vampires act on impulse. There's no telling what we will destroy in fits of passion. At that point, I did not care. A pathetic longing took hold of me, and biting back a howl, I drew the knife across her skin in a slashing line.

I came to my senses as soon as the blade left her flesh. Instantly, the hazing despair passed, and I remembered how that blade burns hotter than fire. She screamed. All illusions shattered and shame crashed down upon me when I realized that I had lost control.

Shaken by what I had done, I did not stay long. As I disappeared from her, the screams continued. I did not turn back, fearful of what I wold see. I shut off the image from my mind until I could face it, even then, the recollection of the madness, desire, and hope haunted me. They were things that I thought I gotten rid of long ago. I did not understand why they had resurfaced that night.

I swore that Risika should never know what had happened within the maze of my mind.

And so, it remains a sealed Pandora's Box.

---

Now

I watch Risika as she sleeps on her bed, scarlet comforter making me think that she is lying in a pool of blood. She looks as if she will not wake, but almost instantly after my arrival, she rises and calls me from my hiding place in the shadows. She knows my aura well.

Now that I have been discovered, I emerge and speak to her for a time. We chat as I toss my knife up and down, watching as Risika's eyes follow it. I am almost certain that she is willing it to slip and cut my evil heart out. Wishful thinking.

"Why are you here, Aubrey?" She does not rail at me. She has regained some composure since Tora's death.

"I just came to offer my condolences for the death of your poor, fragile kitten," I say breezily, smirking as she steps toward me. "Careful, Risika," I say, and it stops her in her tracks. "Remember what happened the last time you challenged me."

"I remember," she answers heavily. She sounds so very old even though her face is as youthful as it had been three centuries ago.

"You still wear the scar, Risika," I comment. The pearl white line on her skin is almost invisible, but I will always know that it is there. My tone is soft, as if my voice could reach it with a feather-light touch. That rending of her pale flesh marked her as one on whom I have trampled, and she wears it always as a reminder that she has sworn to avenge herself. "I can see it even from here."

"I have not forgotten, Aubrey," she says.

Risika does not hate Ather anymore. Instead, she has chosen to direct everything that went wrong in her life to me. I know that it is because she is afraid of what I did—can still do—to her. She is furious because I can turn her anger against her.

We exchange threats briefly before she grows weary of banter and commands me away. I oblige her, because I too, am tired. As soon as I depart, my good humor fades away like a whisper in the wind. And when my good humor fades, a restless anger fills the void. I go back to Las Noches.

"Hello, Aubrey," Jager greets mildly. He is sitting on the counter of the bar and beckons me over. "Risika was just here."

He knows about Tora, I realize. And he knows what Risika does not— that I do not take pleasure in destroying creatures so much weaker than me. That knowledge makes me all the more irritable. I storm up to him, my black mood creating a negative aura about me.

"She is afraid of you," Jager says, repeating a thought that I have had for the longest time.

"What else is new?" I mutter, rummaging through the stores of bottles looking for something to drink.

Jager observes me, bemused. "But I told her that she does not have to be, and she is beginning to see my point." I look up sharply.

"She wants to avenge that scar and everything you have taken from her, Aubrey," Jager continues. "You can only push her so far until she retaliates, and you have already done that. She does not intend to run. Look at the tiger stripes in her hair, and you will know that Risika will not lose to you."

I remembered those bold stripes. It is remarkable how a simple change in hairstyle can change a person. I pause only for a second before returning to my rummaging. "She's too weak. I'll crush her."

"Is that so?" Jager asks critically. As always, he has seen that my words are empty. "The way you have been acting, I would think that you were the one who fears her."

He does not flinch as I slam the cupboard shut, some of the bottles inside breaking from the force. "That's enough, Jager," I snap tersely as I stand up. His certainty unnerves me even more than his meddling bothers me.

"You will fight her then?" he prompts. Jager is never intimidated.

"Of course!" I reply in disgust. This conversation is not one that I wanted to have in the first place. I spin around and stalk away when Jager stops me with a hand on my arm. "What?" I literally shout.

His eyes twinkle with amusement at my expense. He loves seeing me sweat. "Just so you know, Aubrey, I will be rooting for Risika." I scowl at him and wrench my arm from his grip, cursing under my breath.

---