Dayhunter (40 page)

“You can’t forgive them for wanting to survive?” I demanded, my hand reflexively tightening around the gun as my other hand balled into a fist in the dirt.

“I can’t forgive them for killing innocent people,” he said. What sympathy and compassion he may have felt drained from his voice, leaving it cold and hard like Siberian permafrost.

“But you have no problem with him dying for these people that you protect,” I said, gritting my teeth as I sat up. “We’re allowed to fight for them and die for them, but we’re not allowed to do anything that might save our own lives.”

“It’s not like that,” he said, hesitant. He took an unsteady step backward with one foot then shifted it forward again.

“Yes, it is.” I rose to my feet in a boneless manner, using my powers instead of my muscles for the sole purpose of unnerving him and underscoring my otherness. I did nothing to hide the act of putting the gun back in the holster at my lower back. “You and I work great together so long as you forget what I am. When it’s just you and me against the world with sword in hand, we work great together. But if I need to feed or give you some other small reminder that I’m a nightwalker, then you freak out. You can’t understand that I’m something beyond
what
I am.”

“Forget?” he said in a louder voice. “How could I ever possibly forget what you are? I sense you more clearly than I have ever sensed any vampire. When you’re hungry, the feeling burns through me like a fire in my veins. When you use your powers, it’s like a cool breeze on a hot summer day. You’re in my head and I’m in yours. Do you think I didn’t feel your horror and disappointment tonight? What am I supposed to do? I’m a hunter! I’m supposed to protect humanity from threats like nightwalkers.”

“Maybe it’s time to get a new job,” I said, feeling myself softening toward him. I hadn’t realized how strong our connection had been for him. I didn’t want to forgive him. I didn’t want to understand his point of view. I wanted to hold onto the anger so I could easily walk away from him when we finally finished our business with the naturi.

“Enough, Mira,” he said in disgust. I had given him similar advice in the past, but this time I was serious.

“Do you believe in fate?”

“What?”

“Fate. That great cosmic force that leads us down particular paths during our existence to—”

“Yes, I know what fate is. No, I don’t believe in it.”

“Maybe you should,” I suggested, sliding my hands into the back pockets of my leather pants. “I’m beginning to wonder myself. Maybe fate brought you to this point not to be a nightwalker hunter but a hunter of naturi. You have the strength, the speed, and the ability to sense them. You have an edge over every nightwalker in existence. Maybe it’s time to stop saving humanity from my kind and start saving them for the naturi.”

“And who will protect mankind from you?” he demanded, shaking his head at me.

A weak smile twisted one corner of my mouth as I looked up at him. His hair fell forward around his face, hiding his features in dark shadows. “Nightwalkers? No one will need to. It looks like we’re on the path to extinction without your help at all.”

In fact, my people were on the fast track to extinction. Just on the off chance that we did succeed in stopping the naturi from opening the door and flooding the world with their kind so they could start a massive war, there was still Our Liege’s plan. Pushing the Great Awakening ahead of schedule was going to start a war with every lycanthrope, warlock, and witch on the planet. The war would leak out and humans would discover us ahead of schedule in the darkest light. They would join Danaus in the hunt for nightwalkers. Our nights were numbered.

Danaus shocked me when he reached up and gently moved some hair from where it had fallen in front of my face. I looked up to find him faintly smiling down at me as two of his fingers rubbed a lock of my hair as if memorizing the feel. “Rowe won’t get you. Remember, we still have to finish our dance. I won’t let some dirty naturi kill you when I’ve promised myself that honor.”

“We’re overdue for that dance,” I said, smiling back up at him.

He shrugged his large shoulders and dropped my hair, letting his hand fall limply back at his side. “Things have gotten in the way. There’s still time.”

“Is there? What have you told Ryan about the bargain?” I asked, abruptly changing topics. I knew this might have been my only chance to question the hunter while we were completely alone. I had to know if the warlock was looking for a way to stick a knife in my back at the first opportunity.

“Against my better judgment, I’ve said nothing to him.”

“Really?” There was no hiding my surprise. I couldn’t begin to fathom Danaus. He did trust me in some strange fashion, just not when it came to controlling the baser needs of my kind. I was beginning to wonder exactly what he felt when he sensed my hunger.

Danaus shoved both of his hands through his hair as he paced a few steps away from me. “I thought you might have a plan to stop this from turning into a war among the races. Ryan is viewed very highly among the warlocks. If he says one word about what is going on in Venice, there will be no stopping the war.”

“I have been thinking about it, and no matter what we do, we’re screwed. If we let the door open, so we can get our shot at Aurora, the naturi will spill out. There’s going to be no hiding them or the war they start. The Great Awakening will happen regardless of anyone’s wishes.” I leaned back against the small crypt, folding my arms over my chest.

“And if we break the bargain?”

“Assuming we can, we stop the sacrifice and kill Rowe. Once that’s done, I imagine that Macaire will hunt me down and cut my head off after he’s done torturing me. The Great Awakening will happen within the next year and there will be war among the races, but then, I think we’re building toward that already, considering we saw a witch and a lycan traveling with a Coalition member.”

“One war or two. That’s what we face. Fighting a war on one front or on two.”

My head snapped up and I stared silently at him. I didn’t need to read his mind to know that he was thinking of the same thing I was. At some point that war was going to put us on opposite sides. He would fight with my kind against the naturi, but he would fight against nightwalkers if it meant protecting humans from us.

We had gotten accustomed to being on the same side. We fought well together, like two dancers in an intricate tango.

“We break the bargain,” I said at last, shattering the growing silence. “No bargain should be made with the naturi. We may still find a way to stop Our Liege from pulling back the veil so early. The only problem is, how do we convince the naturi faction that the bargain has been broken?”

“Besides stopping them from breaking the seal?” Danaus said, walking back toward me.

I shook my head, shifting from one foot to the other. Night was wasting away and I was exhausted. I had fed enough, but I needed my rest. Unfortunately, we needed to have this settled before we went into battle tomorrow. “It needs to be more than that. There has to be no doubt in their mind that we are the enemy and they are not going to be permitted to open the door for any reason. They need to know that we won’t allow anything to happen to Our Liege.”

“You could kill the naturi we saw in Venice,” Danaus suggested. “That could be pretty convincing.”

“A little late for that now that we’re in Crete. I can’t go running back—”

“She’s here,” Danaus interrupted. “I saw her tonight and I noticed that she wasn’t among the dead. She’s here with Rowe. Apparently, she’s making sure everything goes according to plan.”

“Sounds like a good plan to me.” I nodded, then moved my head to one side, cracking my neck. “Now get out of here so I can get some rest. We’ll come up with a more definite plan tomorrow when we have Ryan with us.”

“Hugo?” he asked hesitantly.

“Resting for now. If he’s lucky, he’ll make it through the day, but he won’t be with us tomorrow.”

Danaus nodded but didn’t move from where he stood staring at me. “I can stay.”

And a part of me desperately wished he would stay. While trapped at Themis, he’d sat outside the room where I slept helplessly throughout the day while surrounded by his brethren. He had hovered close on so many occasions while I slept that I now hated the idea of him not being there when the sun broke above the horizon. Danaus was my only sense of security in this world that was changing too fast. He threatened to destroy everything that I believed in and everything that I protected. But at the same time, he seemed to be the only one left trying to protect me.

“Get out of here. You’ll attract too much attention. I’ll be fine,” I said, waving him off.

He hesitated a moment before turning around and wandering out of the cemetery back the way he had come in. I concentrated on him with my powers until I felt him just on the edge of the city, well away from the graveyard.

My whole body ached and felt like a giant bruise. I needed some rest, but even now with the approaching dawn, I wasn’t tired. In fact, I was wide-awake with a new frightening thought. Killing the naturi wasn’t going to be enough to convince the faction that some rogue nightwalker had the power to break a promise made by the Coven. I knew what had to be done. The only problem was, I needed either Jabari or Macaire’s help to accomplish it.

TWENTY-FOUR

I
didn’t want the sun to set. The dawn had finally brought on a blissful peace, sweeping me away from death, Danaus’s betrayal, and the wars that were brewing. By the time I had settled into the windowless crypt, I was trembling from exhaustion that reached down to my very core.

Lying in the stone crypt at nightfall, ignoring the sound of bugs crawling around me, I tried to focus my thoughts. I needed to know how old the night was. I needed a plan for how to deal with the naturi. But instead I got the feeling I wasn’t alone in my tiny mausoleum. I scanned the immediate area but didn’t sense anyone—not human, vampire, or warlock. Regardless, I still couldn’t shake the feeling.

My right hand tightened around the gun I’d left on my stomach while I slept. With the other hand, I pushed back the heavy stone lid to the crypt that had protected me from the sun. It was not the first time I’d slept in a cemetery, and no matter how distasteful I found it, I doubted that it would be the last. When desperate, it proved to be one of the safest places to hide without fear of being exposed to the sun.

Sitting up, I pointed the gun directly in front of me, swinging it back and forth, trying to find the creature my instincts were screaming was close. Fear and anger swelled in my stomach and I clenched my teeth. The sight of the gun wavered when my gaze fell on Jabari leaning against the wall near the door. I still couldn’t sense him, but I had known he was there. All I could figure was that he had appeared the moment I awoke for the night, and I sensed the shift of energy in the air.

“You can lower the weapon now,” he said, his dark eyes locked onto my face.

“Really? That doesn’t seem like such a good idea to me,” I sneered, more irritated with the fact that I couldn’t get my hand to stop trembling than with him.

Jabari arched one eyebrow at me in mocking question as his gaze shifted to the gun. He didn’t have to say anything. We both knew he could make me drop the gun at any time. Or if he was feeling particularly evil, he could make me raise the gun to my temple and pull the trigger.

With a growl I couldn’t stop, I returned the gun to the holster at my lower back and climbed out of the crypt. “What are you doing here? I thought no one else was coming.”

“I came to check on your progress,” he said. “Things don’t seem to be going so well. Hugo is barely clinging to life.”

“He made it through the day?” I demanded before I could stop myself. Jabari’s presence surprised me so much that I had forgotten to scan the cemetery to see if I could still sense the big nightwalker.

“Yes, but he will be of no use to you tonight. He will need to feed and sleep for a couple more nights and days before he will be of use to anyone.” He paused as I slid the lid of the crypt back into place and leaned against the stone coffin. “And I can no longer sense the other nightwalker that was sent with you…”

“Penelope,” I murmured. My head fell and I shoved one hand through my hair. I still had to face the nightmare that played through my head like a broken record. “She was killed. Danaus killed her. To stop her from killing two humans.”

I waited for the Ancient to strike me, to break me in some horrible, painful way because I had failed to control the hunter. But it never came. After a few seconds I looked up to find him still watching me from where he stood near the door.

“I can’t control him,” I started, talking simply to fill the growing silence. “I never claimed to be able to control him, but we need him alive. Regardless of how we all feel about him, we need him.”

“But you feel betrayed by him,” Jabari said, taking a step forward. I took a quick step back, my spine slamming into the stone crypt that ran horizontally along the back wall of the mausoleum. Only a few feet of open, thick blackness separated Jabari and me. The Elder closed the distance as I remained trapped. “I can feel the pain rolling off you. He betrayed you. You trusted him and you thought he trusted you.”

A bitter smile twisted my lips as I looked up at one of my three makers. “You’d think I would have learned not to trust powerful creatures.”

Jabari leaned close, his eyes glowing faintly in the absolute darkness like a cat’s eyes catching a car’s headlights. There was no hiding my fear from him. My stomach clenched and my hands trembled despite tightly gripping the edge of the crypt. He might need me alive, but he could cause me severe amounts of pain.

“You still trust me,” he whispered, his voice low and hypnotic.

I closed my eyes for a second, trying to quell the shaking that had gone from my hands to encompass my entire body. He couldn’t be right. I wouldn’t let him be. Clenching that thought between my gritted teeth, I opened my eyes to find him standing by the door on the opposite side of the tiny room. I hadn’t even heard him move.