Dark Angel; The Chosen; Soulmate (60 page)

With her whole weight behind the thrust, she lunged at Maya. Stake first.

The sharp wooden point went in just under Maya's shoulder blade. She staggered, off balance, her throw ruined. The black stake went skittering across the rough stone floor.

Hannah was off balance, too. She was falling. Maya was falling. But it all seemed to be happening in slow motion.

I've killed her.

There was no triumph in the thought. Only a sort of hushed certainty.

When the slow-motion feeling ended, she found herself the way anybody finds themself after a fall. On the ground and surprised. Except that Maya was underneath her, with a stake protruding from her back.

Hannah's first frantic thought was to get a doctor. She'd never seen someone this badly hurt before—not in this life. There was blood seeping out of Maya's back around the makeshift stake. It had gone in very deep, the wood piercing vampire flesh like razor-sharp steel through a human.

Thierry was beside her. Kneeling, pulling Hannah slightly away from Maya's prone form, as if she might still be dangerous.

Hannah reached for him at the same time, and their hands met, intertwined. She held on tight, feeling a rush of warmth and comfort from his presence.

Then Thierry gently turned Maya onto her side.

Hair was falling across Maya's face like a black waterfall. Her skin was chalky white and her eyes were wide open. But she was laughing.

Laughing.

She looked at Hannah and laughed. In a thick choking voice, she gasped. “You had guts—after all.”

Hannah whispered, “Can we do anything for her?”

Thierry shook his head.

Then it was terrible. Maya's laugh turned into a gurgle. A trickle of blood ran out of the side of her mouth. Her body jerked. Her eyes stared. And then, finally, she was still.

Hannah felt her own breath sigh out.

She's dead. I killed her. I killed someone.

Every creature has the right to fight for its life—or its loved ones.

Thierry said softly, “The cycle is broken.”

Then he let Maya's shoulder go and her body slumped down again. She seemed smaller now, shrunken. After a moment Hannah realized it wasn't an illusion. Maya was doing what all vampires do in the movies. She was falling in on herself, her tissues collapsing, muscle and flesh shriveling. The one hand Hannah could see seemed to be wasting away and hardening at the same time. The skin became yellow and leathery, showing the form of the tendons underneath.

In the end, Maya was just a leather sack full of bones.

Hannah swallowed and shut her eyes.

“Are you all right? Let me look at you.” Thierry was holding her, examining her. Then when Hannah met his eyes, he looked at her long and searchingly and said with a different meaning, “Are you all right?”

Hannah understood. She looked at Maya and then back at him.

“I'm not proud of it,” she said slowly. “But I'm not sorry, either. It just—had to be done.” She thought another moment, then said, getting out each word separately, “I refuse to be… a victim… anymore.”

Thierry tightened his arm around her. “
I'm
proud of you,” he said. Then he added, “Let's go. We need to get you to a healer.”

They walked back through the narrow passageway, which was no longer dark because Thierry's people had placed lanterns every few feet. At the end of the passage, in the room with the vertical shaft, they had set up some sort of rope and pulley.

Lupe was there, and Nilsson, and the rest of the CIA group. So were Rashel and Quinn. The fighters, Hannah thought. Everyone called and laughed and patted her when she came in with Thierry.

“It's over,” Thierry said briefly. “She's dead.”

Everyone looked at him and then at Hannah. And somehow they knew. They all cheered and patted her again. Hannah didn't feel like Cinderella anymore; she felt like Dorothy after killing the Wicked Witch.

And she didn't like it.

Lupe took her by the shoulders and said excitedly, “Do you know what you've done?”

Hannah said, “Yes. But I don't want to think about it any more right now.”

It wasn't until they'd hauled her up the vertical shaft that it occurred to her to ask Thierry how he'd found her. She was standing on an inconspicuous hillside with no buildings or landmarks around. Maya had picked a very good hiding place.

“One of her own people sold her out,” Thierry said. “He got to the house about the same time I did this evening, and he said he had information to sell. He was a werewolf who wasn't happy with how she'd treated him.”

A werewolf with black hair? Hannah wondered. But she was too sleepy suddenly to ask more questions.

“Home, sir?” Nilsson said, a little breathlessly because he'd just come up the shaft.

Thierry looked at him, laughed, and started to help Hannah down the hill. “That's right. Home, Nilsson.”

“I need to call my mom,” Hannah said.

Thierry nodded. “But maybe wait until she's up. It's not dawn yet.”

They were at Thierry's house, in the elegant bedroom with the softly burnished gold walls. The window had just begun to turn gray.

It was so good to rest, to let go of tension, to feel her battered body relax. It was so good to be
alive.
She felt as if she'd been reborn and was looking at the world with wide new eyes. Even the smallest comforts—a hot drink, a fire in the fireplace—were immeasurably precious.

And it was good to be with Thierry.

He was sitting on the bed, holding her hand, watching her as if he couldn't believe she was real.

The healer had come and gone, and now it was just the two of them. They sat together quietly, not needing words.
They looked into each other's eyes, and then they were reaching for each other, holding each other. Resting like weary travelers in each other's arms.

Hannah leaned her forehead against Thierry's lips.

It's over, she thought. I was right when I told Paul the apocalypse was coming—but it's over now.

Thierry stirred, kissing the hair on her forehead. Then he spoke, not out loud but with his mental voice. As soon as Hannah heard it, she knew he was trying to say something serious and important.

You know, you came very close to becoming a vampire. You're going to be sick for a few days while your body shifts back to human.

Hannah nodded without pulling away to look at him. The healer had told her all that. She sensed that there was something more Thierry wanted to say.

And… well, you still have a choice, you know.

There was a silence. Then Hannah did pull away to look at him. “What do you mean?”

He took a deep breath, then said out loud, “I mean, you can still choose to be a vampire. You're right on the edge. If you want, we can make you change over.”

Hannah took a long breath of her own.

She hadn't thought about this—but she was thinking now. As a vampire, she'd be immortal; she could stay with Thierry continuously for who knew how many thousands of years? She would be stronger than a human, faster, telepathic.

And perfect physically. Involuntarily, her hand went to her left cheek, to her birthmark.

The doctors couldn't take it away. But becoming a vampire would.

She looked directly at Thierry. “Is that what you want? For me to become a vampire?”

He was looking at her cheek, too. Then he met her eyes.

“I want what
you
want. I want you to be happy. Nothing else matters to me.”

Hannah took her hand away.

“Then,” she said very softly, “if you don't mind, I'll stay human. I don't mind the birthmark. It's just—part of me, now. It doesn't bring up any bad memories.” After a moment, she added, “All humans are imperfect, I guess.”

She could see tears in Thierry's eyes. He gently lifted her hand and kissed it. He didn't say anything, but something about his expression made Hannah's throat and chest fill with love.

Then he took her in his arms.

And Hannah was happy. So happy that she was crying a little, too.

She was with her flying companion—her playmate. The one who was sacred to her, who was the other half of the mysteries of life for her. The one who would always be there for her, helping her, watching her back, picking her up when she fell down, listening to her stories—no matter how many times
she told them. Loving her even when she was stupid. Understanding her without words. Being inside the innermost circle in her mind.

Her soulmate.

Things are going to be all right now, she thought.

Suddenly it was as if she could see the corridor of time again, but this time looking forward, not back.

She would go to college and become a paleontologist. And she and Thierry would work with Circle Daybreak and the Old Powers that were rising. They would be happy together, and they would help the world through the enormous changes that were coming.

The sadness would go out of Thierry's eyes.

They would love and discover and learn and explore. And Hannah would grow up and get older, and Thierry would love her just the same. And then one day, being human, she would go back to Mother Earth, like a wave going out to the ocean. Thierry would grieve for her—and wait for her.

And then they would start all over again.

One lifetime with him was enough, but Hannah sensed that there would be many. There would always be something new to learn.

Thierry moved, his breath warming her hair. “I almost forgot,” he whispered. “You're seventeen today. Congratulations.”

That's right, Hannah thought. She looked toward the
window, startled and overwhelmed. The sky was turning pink now. She was seeing the dawn of her seventeenth birthday—something that had never happened before.

I've changed my destiny.

“I love you,” she whispered to Thierry.

And then they just sat together, holding each other as the room filled with light.

The Old Powers are rising. And the apocalypse is drawing near. With the millennium approaching, the new Night People are determined to destroy the human world. But four children have been born, four Wild Powers who can stop the darkness—if they and their soulmates can survive.

Don't miss:

NIGHT WORLD 3

Includes:

HUNTRESS

BLACK DAWN

WITCHLIGHT

“It's simple,” Jez said on the night of the last hunt of her life. “You run. We chase. If we catch you, you die. We'll give you three minutes head start.”

The skinhead gang leader in front of her didn't move. He had a pasty face and shark eyes. He was standing tensely, trying to look tough, but Jez could see the little quiver in his leg muscles.

Jez flashed him a smile.

“Pick a weapon,” she said. Her toe nudged the pile at her feet. There was a lot of stuff there—guns, knives, baseball bats, even a few spears. “Hey, take
more
than one. Take as many as you want. My treat.”

There was a stifled giggle from behind her and Jez made a sharp gesture to stop it. Then there was silence. The two gangs stood facing each other, six skinhead thugs on one side and Jez's gang on the other. Except that Jez's people weren't exactly normal gang members.

The skinhead leader's eyes shifted to the pile. Then he made a sudden lunge and came up with something in his hand.

A gun, of course. They always picked guns. This particular gun was the kind it was illegal to buy in California these days, a large caliber semiautomatic assault weapon. The skinhead whipped it up and held it pointed straight at Jez.

Jez threw back her head and laughed.

Everyone was staring at her—and that was fine. She looked great and she knew it.

Hands on her hips, red hair tumbling over her shoulders and down her back, fine-boned face tipped to the sky—yeah, she looked good. Tall and proud and fierce… and very beautiful. She was Jez Redfern, the huntress.

She lowered her chin and fixed the gang leader with eyes that were neither silver nor blue but some color in between. A color he never could have seen before, because no human had eyes like that.

He didn't get the clue. He didn't seem like the brightest.

“Chase this,” he said, and he fired the gun.

Jez moved at the last instant. Not that metal through the chest would have seriously hurt her, but it might have knocked her backward and she didn't want that. She'd just taken over the leadership of the gang from Morgead, and she didn't want to show any weakness.

The bullet passed through her left arm. There was a little explosion of blood and a sharp flash of pain as it fractured the
bone before passing on through. Jez narrowed her eyes, but held on to her smile.

Then she glanced down at her arm and lost the smile, hissing. She hadn't considered the damage to her sleeve. Now there was a bloody hole in it. Why didn't she ever think about these things?