Wait for Dusk (42 page)

“Where is he?” I growled as I marched across the enormous hall. Overhead, the candles in the crystal and gold chandelier exploded into life. The bright light reflected in the black marble floor under my feet and sent shadows scurrying into the far corners of the room. Around me, I could sense more than two dozen nightwalkers gathered along the walls, watching my long march into the room, but I didn’t see them. My narrowed gaze never wavered from Macaire.

“And who are you referring to, my dear?” he inquired.

I mounted the stairs and grabbed the front of his suit jacket. I started to fling him out of his chair, hoping to throw him onto the floor, but the bastard disappeared from my hands. He instantly reappeared behind me, straightening his jacket.

“You know who I want,” I snarled, starting to come back down the stairs. “Where is Tristan?”

“Oh, that young one,” Macaire replied, his smile returning. He waved his hand and a pair of nightwalkers slipped through a door at the side of the hall. I was sorely tempted to follow, but I forced myself to remain standing in the hall. I wasn’t about to let Macaire out of my sight for a second if I could help it.

“You know, considering your struggles with the nightwalkers, warlock, and naturi, I grew concerned that you weren’t going to make it out alive, so I thought it would be best if I went to fetch the boy. Sadira had been so concerned about him. She was sure that he wouldn’t be able to survive on his own.”

As he spoke, the fire in the candles overhead increased. Wax rained down, creating a sickening sound as it hit the marble floor. Flags that hung from the ceiling erupted into flames and nightwalkers screamed in terror as they scrambled frantically away from the fire.

Close the doors! No one leaves,
I directed Valerio, knowing he could use his powers to hold the doors shut. I didn’t know who was responsible for Tristan’s torture beyond Macaire, but I would be sure that everyone witnessed this fight. I wanted to be sure that everyone understood that I was a force that was not to be messed with.

The side door opened again and two nightwalkers dragged a limp Tristan between them. His brown hair was matted and knotted and his clothes were in disarray. I scanned over him as I ran to his side. I could find no physical injuries beyond a handful of scratches. Of course, it wasn’t bodily harm that had me concerned. The two nightwalkers dropped him near the center of the room and retreated again to the side, putting as much distance between me and them as possible.

Sliding to my knees before Tristan, I helped him sit up, cupping his face in both of my shaking hands. “Tristan, look at me,” I said, pushing the words past the lump in my throat. His gaze continued to dance around the room as if he were struggling to process his surroundings. “Please, Tristan, I need you to look at me.”

After another couple of seconds I finally got him to look at me, but his gaze was vacant and lost, as if he weren’t truly seeing me. Lines of pain and horror were etched deeply into his face, scarring and aging him by nearly countless years. My handsome, young Tristan looked as if he were trapped in a perpetual nightmare from which there was no escape.

“Tristan, it’s Mira,” I said, forcing my voice to firm. “Please, look at me and tell me you recognize me. Talk to me, Tristan. I’m going to take you home.”

“No!” he screamed, jerking out of my grasp. He crawled across the floor a few feet before curling up in the fetal position in the middle of the floor. I heard someone snicker, and she immediately erupted into flames. Her screams of pain faded into the background as I crawled over to Tristan and pulled him into my lap as best I could. My heart was breaking into a million jagged pieces as I held my wounded Tristan.

“Why don’t you want to go home?”

“She’s there. She’s waiting for me. She’s going to kill me,” he said in a trembling voice.

“Who?”

“The Fire Starter,” he whimpered. “She’s going to kill me.”

“I’m not going to kill you, Tristan. I want you to come home with me. I will keep you safe. Macaire will never touch you again.”

Tristan violently shook his head from side to side. “No, Macaire will protect me. The Fire Starter is going to kill me.”

“No, Tristan. I won’t hurt you,” I said, forcing back a swelling of tears. I wasn’t reaching him. He didn’t see me. He was lost in his fear of the Fire Starter, his mind locked in the horrible world that Macaire had created for him.

“Fire Starter is going to kill me. Fire Starter. Killed her daughter. Killed little Lily,” he murmured as tears streaked down his pale face.

“No, Tristan. It wasn’t your fault,” I argued as tears started to slip down my own face. “Lily’s death wasn’t your fault. You know that. I would never harm you.” I carefully maneuvered him so he was seated on the floor again with his face in my hands. I tried to get him to look me directly in the face, but it was as if I wasn’t really there. But in truth, he was the one that wasn’t there. He wasn’t truly in the Main Hall. He was locked in a never-ending nightmare surrounding Lily’s death.

Closing my eyes, I plunged into Tristan’s mind. His thoughts were a swirling chaos of fragmented memories. Nothing flowed in a natural order. The only constant was the vision of Lily’s death running over and over again in his mind like a broken record. I could find no sliver of Tristan’s conscious mind left. His sense of identity had been completely shattered, and that all that was left was a shell of fear and pain.

I pulled out of his mind and wrapped my arms around him in a fierce hug. I had failed him. I had promised to protect him and keep him safe from nightwalkers like Macaire. “I’m so sorry,” I cried, choking on the words as they crashed over the silence of the hall. “I am so sorry.”

There was no way to save him. There was nothing left of Tristan to save. He was trapped for the rest of his existence in a world of pain and horror. He believed that the one person that would defend him was going to kill him. He believed that Macaire was going to protect him, when the Elder was only going to add to his terror at every turn. I couldn’t save him.

Roughly wiping away the tears with the heel of my palm, I pulled Tristan away from where he was curled against me. I forced him to face me again and gave him a hard shake in frustration. “Tristan, look at me!” I ordered in a rough voice. “It’s Mira. Look at me. It’s Mira and I want to take you home.”

Tristan just shook his head, looking anywhere but at me as he whimpered softly in pain. A flicker of recognition would have stopped me. Just a glimmer of the old Tristan that would have indicated I might have been able to draw him out again. But there was nothing left.

Shoving to my feet again, I stalked toward Macaire drawing knives from my sides. With amazing speed I flung them at him, hoping that at least one would hit its mark before the bastard disappeared. I just needed to score a minor hit. Something to slow him down a bit so I could get a tiny edge.

“No!” Tristan screamed to my surprise. I watched as the spinning knives came to a sharp halt a mere inches away from Macaire as he stood before his chair. The blades hovered in the air, reflecting the shifting candlelight.

I turned around to find Tristan kneeling on the ground with one hand extended out toward Macaire. He was holding the knives steady in the air, his face twisted with fear. “You cannot harm him. He is my only protection from the Fire Starter!”

“He’s trying to destroy you,” I screamed in frustration as I grabbed more knives. I threw them at Macaire as well, but they hit the same invisible barrier. I was stunned that Tristan could stop any of them, considering how weak and fragile he was, but I could feel the fear radiating off him in sickening waves. It was enough to give him the strength to push on.

“He is my savior,” Tristan said. He waved his hand once and I turned toward Macaire in time to see the knives shooting back across the room at me. Running a few steps, I dove forward and rolled into a kneeling position. Three of the knives clattered against the floor while the fourth embedded itself in my back.

Macaire’s laughter echoed through the hall, pushing me past any rational thought. Not only had he tortured Tristan, shattering the poor creature’s mind, but he had turned him against me. Still kneeling on the ground, I twisted around and threw out my right arm, sending out three fireballs hurling toward the Elder.

Again Tristan’s desperate, terrified scream tore at the air. Pushing off the ground, he ran across the room and threw his body in front of the fireballs in an effort to protect Macaire. I didn’t have enough time to stop it. The flames pounded him square in the chest, engulfing him for a full second before I could extinguish them. He flopped to the ground, twitching and writhing in pain as all his exposed flesh was scorched by the flames.

I pulled the knife out of my back as I rose to my feet and walked over to where Tristan lay on the ground. His wide eyes stared up at the ceiling as tears ran down his burned cheeks. He didn’t see me any longer. He didn’t recognize the love I felt for him. There was only the pain and the horror that Macaire had manufactured in his mind. Tristan was locked in that world now.

The only thing I could give him was release from the pain. I could give him peace. Gritting my teeth, I placed my left hand on his right shoulder and plunged my right fist into his chest. I pulled his heart out as quickly as I possibly could so I wouldn’t cause him any more pain than he was already suffering. He slumped against me as I cradled his heart against my chest. His cool blood ran down my arm and dripped from the edge of my elbow onto the hard marble floor. I bowed my head and rubbed my lips against his soft hair as fresh tears rained down my cheeks. I had lost my dear, sweet Tristan, and Macaire had forced me to kill him in an effort to spare him from any more pain. I had lost my sweet Tristan and it was my fault because I hadn’t been there to protect him.

Danaus walked over and knelt beside us. He gently laid Tristan down on the floor, straightening out his legs and folding his arms over his chest. I slipped his heart under his folded hands. I wiped away my tears, smearing his blood across my cheeks. I was ready to kill Macaire now. I was ready to kill them all.

Chapter Thirty-One

M
acaire smirked at me. I rose from the floor as if pushed up my some invisible force and stood between him and Tristan’s body. The hall was completely silent except for the crackle of fire and the steady thud of Danaus’s heartbeat. My temper had reached the boiling over point. I simply wanted him dead. I didn’t care how.

The Elder took a single step toward me and I threw my right arm out. Flames erupted from the floor around him. But before I could catch him, the nightwalker disappeared from sight. I hissed, twisting around to find where he had reappeared. I tapped into the energies around me, feeling him out. He was hovering just on the outskirts of the hall, close so he could watch, but safely out of my reach.

My head snapped over to Jabari, who was relaxing back in his chair. He waved his left hand at me as if to say that it was beyond his ability to help me. Like hell it was. If the Elder wasn’t going to aid me in the disposal of our common enemy, then I was going to use his powers to trap me an Ancient. I could feel Jabari’s powers curling around the room, mixing with Danaus’s and my own. I knew I could wrap my hand around them the same way I could use Danaus’s. I had no doubt that the Ancient was going to balk at being controlled by a pathetic creature such as myself, but I wasn’t going to give him any choice. Jabari had drawn me into this mess, he had made me Macaire’s enemy.

Waving my hand through the air in a sharp slicing motion, I extinguished the flames and stood perfectly still, waiting. Macaire reappeared by the dais, standing with one foot on the lower stair, his body partially turned toward me as if he had paused in the middle of climbing back up to his chair. “Do you blame me for your killing Tristan?”

“You destroyed his mind,” I snarled.

“I’ll admit that there wasn’t much there to destroy when I found him. It seems that he had a run-in with a bori,” Macaire said as he resumed his seat. There was an audible gasp that coursed through the room when he made that statement. I didn’t cringe away from the new censor that was coming from Jabari and Elizabeth.

“We had some problems. The bori has been recaged,” I said shortly. “Did you take care of the naturi problem you were assigned to?”

Macaire’s smile faded and his face twisted into an expression of extreme distaste. “The naturi were exterminated. How was your luck?”

“The naturi were killed, but it seems that something else was waiting for me. Did you have a conversation with Veyron before I arrived? Directed him to dispose of me and my companions?”

“Why would I do such a thing?” Macaire asked smoothly, but there was a warning glint in his eyes.

“Because you’re a fucking bastard that thinks of no one but himself. But I have to thank you. I needed a European territory, and now I am keeper of Budapest and Savannah.”

My only warning was a low snarl from the nightwalker as he launched himself from his chair and streaked across the vast distance that separated us. I didn’t hesitate. I wrapped Jabari’s powers around me and instincts alone helped me to disappear from that spot a half second before Macaire arrived. I hovered for a heartbeat in the swirling darkness, watching Macaire twist about as he desperately searched the room for me.

I reappeared right beside him and slammed my fist into his jaw before he realized I was even standing there. The nightwalker was thrown across the room, sliding several feet over the marble floor before coming to a stop directly in front of a group of nightwalkers that stared at me in utter shock. It was well known that I didn’t have the ability to appear and disappear at will, and yet I just had, making me ten times more dangerous than I already was.

Fear filled Macaire’s face for only a moment before it was replaced with rage. He had underestimated me, and that was only the beginning. I needed him to fear me. With Jabari’s powers firmly in my grasp, I telepathically grabbed Macaire by the legs and tossed him across the room, slamming him into the far wall with enough force to crack the stones. I casually crossed the distance between us before once again grabbing him with magic and tossing him around the room.