Burn the Night

Thirty-five

The Daylight Coalition was waiting for us as the nightwalkers turned their attention from the warring naturi to the scattering of humans positioned behind a grove of trees with guns. It was too late to try to cloak ourselves from view, as they had already seen us. However, we still had a few other tricks up our sleeves. On a silent count of three, we all ran at the coalition members in a blur of movement in the darkness. Gunfire exploded in the night as they desperately tried to hit us, but we easily dodged the bullets and fell onto our targets. Each man in the coalition force was paired up, in the hope that they would be better protected.

Sliding around one particularly massive live oak tree, I swung my blade so it sliced through the throat of one man before ripping a gun out of the hands of his partner. I tossed the weapon aside like a broken toy and sank my fangs into the jugular of my enemy. He squirmed beneath me, desperate to be free as I drained him of his life. I drank deeply, not bothering to push away his conscious thought. He wanted to fight nightwalkers. Well, then I was going to give him a good taste of what it meant to go up against a nightwalker and lose.

In the middle of my feast, I didn’t notice that he had palmed a large knife, but I felt it the moment he shoved it into the middle of my back. I released him, pushing him violently away as I reached around to pull the knife free. Quivering, he backed against the tree he’d been hiding behind and searched himself with trembling hands for another weapon. Blood continued to pour from his neck where I had bitten him. I sighed with relief when the weapon was finally free of my back. With a glow in my eyes, I surged forward, plunged his knife into his stomach and pulled upward, gutting him. He screamed once before passing out from the pain. It would be only seconds before he finally bled to death.

Standing with my hands on my hips, I turned to see my companions finishing up the last of the Daylight Coalition as if they were taking out a bit of trash to the waste bin. It had been a minor scrap compared to the fight with the naturi, which now appeared to be over. The sounds of battle no longer reached me, and on the hill I could see Cynnia standing with her sister’s head dangling from one bloody hand. A new reign had started.

For a breath, relief crept through my frame. Danaus stood at the edge of the woods with weapons drawn, waiting for me to join him. A number of nightwalkers were killed during the night, but many of my companions had survived. I could even sense a few lycanthropes out there among the naturi. We had done the impossible by taking on Aurora’s army, and not only survived the encounter, but triumphed.

My relief instantly disappeared when floodlights snapped on, blanketing the park with harsh white light from both sides. I stepped to the edge of the woods, shielding my eyes as best as I could to take a closer look at what surrounded us. My stomach twisted and a trembling started in my fingers as I saw not only signs of the Savannah police, but the National Guard as well. While we were engrossed in the battle with the naturi and the Daylight Coalition, the police had moved in to keep us trapped within the park.

To make matters worse, they were accompanied by the local TV channels as well as the press. Cameras were rolling, flashbulbs popping, and commentators were out, trying to make some sense of the carnage before them. No one had tried to stop us, because for the first few minutes no one understood what they were seeing. Humanlike creatures were flying through the air, balls of fire were spontaneously appearing and disappearing, and people were changing into animal form. Our world had been spread out for display at its worst possible moment, and now there was no taking it back. The Great Awakening was here.

I knew that everything as we knew it would be different from that moment on. Hiding would be more than a natural way of life to make feeding and sleeping easier, it would be an absolute necessity as humans who had never taken up arms before suddenly hunted creatures they didn’t understand and feared. Governments would quickly step in to calm the masses as they attempted to reestablish some type of order, which would mean, so far as they saw it, finding a way to rule over creatures that defied so many of their rules. They would demand blood samples and possible tagging so they knew where all the nightwalkers, lycanthropes, and other creatures were hiding each day. They would do it all in the name of protecting not only humans but also the supernatural world, but in the end, I knew if we were not extremely careful, the supernatural world was going to become the monster under the bed that had to be hunted.

We would have to proceed slowly, find ways to contact world leaders and reassure them—if not blackmail them—into believing that our peoples were not a threat to the human race. With the presence of the Daylight Coalition, no transition would be easy. Nightwalkers and lycanthropes were undoubtedly exposed, though the naturi might be able to sneak off into hiding for a while. I wondered if the witches and warlocks would stand with us and accept exposure, or wait in hiding for the worst of the chaos to blow over.

As the rain started to abate, I noticed a dark figure flying across the night sky toward me. I barely restrained the urge to pull a knife when I realized it was Rowe. The naturi landed lightly a few feet in front of me. His clothes were soaked in what appeared to be his own blood, and his neck had a fresh cut that had just crusted over with dried blood. Apparently, the battle against Aurora had been tough.

“The humans are here,” he needlessly announced. They were a little hard to miss on either side of us, with their bright lights and weapons. “Do we fight?”

“And make the situation even worse?” I cried, looking at him as if he had lost his mind. But that was Rowe, always out for a little—or a lot—of human blood. I could only hope that Nyx could change that.

“It’s too late. We’re exposed to the world.”

Rowe shrugged one shoulder, wincing at the motion as wounds still tried to mend. “I guess it was only a matter of time before they found out.”

“I would have preferred to handle it in a more civilized manner.”

“Why hide the truth?” he asked.

“Self-preservation,” I snapped. “They are going to be hunting us now to rein in the danger we present to them.”

As if on cue, a human barked out over a blow horn, “Everyone step out into the open with your hands behind your head! You are all under arrest.”

Rowe gave a snort as his hand fell on the hilt of the sword at his side. He was more than ready to jump into battle with a bunch of humans. To him, they were nothing more than vermin that needed to be exterminated. I gently laid a hand over his, stopping him from drawing the weapon.

“We can’t fight them,” I firmly said. “This is the Great Awakening. We have to face this mess and not make a bigger one.”

“Then what do you propose?”

I frowned, hating to utter the words. It was not something I was accustomed to. Like Rowe, I was a fighter, ready to face any situation head on, but now was not the time. “We run,” I said.

Rowe stared out at the gathering of humans around us, a dark look on his face. I think he was beginning to realize the futility of trying to fight this many humans at once. It would only bring more, and the humans outnumbered us, after all. It would be an endless battle that we couldn’t win. As Cynnia had suggested, we had to find a way to coexist, which wasn’t going to be easy or pretty.

“Okay,” he finally conceded.

“Can you get your people out of here and somewhere safe outside the city?” Danaus asked him. “Somewhere hidden?”

“Yes, we can get out of here. What about you?”

“What about us?” Knox demanded, coming up behind me. I thought that I’d sensed him alive earlier, but it was a relief to see him in person.

“I’ll provide a distraction for the nightwalkers and the lycanthropes,” I said, fighting back a relieved grin. “Spread the word. The distraction won’t last long, so they have to move fast. Tell everyone they need to lay low for the next few weeks. Find new hiding places outside the city if necessary. Wait for direction from me.”

Knox nodded once and then disappeared back into the shadows thrown by the massive trees, to spread the word to the rest of the nightwalkers in the area. I turned to Rowe, who gave me a little salute before launching back into the air. I held my breath as he streaked across the sky on massive black wings. Spotlights followed him as he moved, but not a single shot was fired. From the crowd of humans, I could hear exclamations of terror and shock. For now, however, they were too stunned and afraid to fire. I hoped that mind-set would last a little while longer.

Alone with Danaus, I found the hunter staring at me, waiting for my next move. I had one shot at this, and only one way of getting him out of there alive. I just prayed that I had enough strength left to pull off this little stunt. I was shaking with exhaustion, but still had to carry on, for both his protection and the protection of my people.

“I’m hoping you’ve got an escape plan for the both of us,” he said with a smirk. “I would really prefer not to spend the rest of the night and the next few centuries locked in a human prison while they try to figure out exactly what I am.”

“I’ve got a trick or two left up my sleeve. However, you’re just going to have to trust me on this one.” I extended my right hand toward him, with the palm open. Without hesitation, he threaded his fingers through mine as we slowly walked out into the opening that was littered with the dead bodies of both naturi and nightwalkers.

“Put your hands behind your heads!” ordered the same gruff human voice.

With a smile, I raised our entwined hands and pressed a kiss to the back of Danaus’s hand before I released it and placed both of my hands behind my head.

“Drama queen,” Danaus muttered under his breath as he did the same with his hands.

“You only wish you would have thought of it first,” I teased, squinting against the bright light.

Danaus gave a snort but said nothing more as I mentally contacted the other nightwalkers, warning them to be ready. Closing my eyes, I tapped into the powers that had been with me since birth, the power that had caught the attention of nightwalkers, naturi, bori, and even a god. All around the park a wall of fire sprang up, separating us from the humans. At different intervals I created breaks in the fire, allowing the lycanthropes, naturi, and nightwalkers to slip through while the humans focused on the unexpected fire.

To my surprise, Danaus’s hands were on either side of my face and he turned me to face him. I opened my eyes in time to see him lean down, and then my eyes fell shut again as he deeply kissed me. I tasted both his strength and his fear for what was to come. I tasted his dry sense of humor and his protectiveness in that kiss. But most of all, I tasted his love for me.

I dropped my hands so they rested on his shoulders and leaned my forehead against his. “Are you ready for this?”

“I’ll follow you anywhere,” he whispered, brushing a kiss against my cheek so that he caught a falling tear.

Extinguishing the flames in a sudden flash, I tapped into some of the powers Nick had blessed me with and we disappeared from the park in the blink of an eye, without a trace, leaving the humans with only the image of two creatures in a loving embrace.