Dawnbreaker

Twenty-Three

Stefan’s long cool fingers slipped around mine in a slow caress before he pulled me back to my feet. He stood holding my hand in silence for just a breath of time before releasing me. “Preparations need to be made,” he said. “The perimeter needs to be walked. The—”

“It will be handled.” I suddenly cut him off, fully aware of all that needed to be completed in an exceedingly short period of time. “Danaus, go find Shelly. Tell her to put Cynnia into another sleep spell. It’s the only way we’ll be able to protect her.” The hunter seemed to hesitate and I didn’t blame him. The naturi were lingering just beyond the protective wall of blue flames, the sun would soon rise, and I was attempting a strange spell with a nightwalker I wasn’t particularly fond of. But in the end Danaus disappeared inside the lodge to find the earth witch and the naturi princess.

Turning to my left, I let the fingers of my right hand dance through the flames as if I were running them through falling water. At the same time, Stefan took my left hand in his hand as we strolled together around the perimeter of the flame-enclosed area. Naturi fighters paced us as we completed our walk. If someone drew too close, the fire between us would flare and snap at the adversary until they backed off again.

As we walked, we trampled the fragile orchids and thick ferns that filled the garden area. We walked everywhere that the fire touched, our individual power from blood magic filling the air as we established a perimeter we hoped the naturi would not be able to cross when the sun finally slipped back above the horizon.

“You realize what this entails, don’t you?” Stefan asked as we neared our starting point.

“The spell will leave a marker on my soul,” I said with nod of my head.

“A stain for all the bori to see,” he said in an ominous tone.

I flashed him the smile that he was trying so hard to win from me with his dramatic tone. The spell we were attempting was technically called a Soul Sucker. It had been created centuries ago by nightwalkers to protect their daytime lair from any naturi that might happen by. Any creature that moved within the set perimeter had the energy drained from its soul until it finally died. The spell fed upon itself—the more souls it took, the stronger it became. In this case, we were counting on that, considering we had a number of naturi waiting to attack the moment the sun rose.

The spell had garnered the nickname the Stain back when there were bori still on the planet. The more that were killed by the spell, the more souls drained, the darker the stain left on your own soul, marking you to the deadly bori as a powerful nightwalker. There was also the theory that the originator of the Stain spell also got a boost of power from the souls of the dead. The creator of the spell became a storehouse for the soul energy, something the bori not only craved, but survived on.

When the bori roamed the earth, the Stain was a spell of last resort. It was cast when you were completely desperate, fearing discovery during the daylight hours. Because while you might protect yourself during the day, at night you could find yourself under the dark gaze of the bori, and that was something no nightwalker wanted. No one wanted to be faced with their creator and the leash they held.

But then, it had been a long time since it was last used. We stopped when both the bori and naturi were locked away and we could find more adequate and safer means of protecting ourselves during the daylight hours. There was also a danger to the Stain spell—it wasn’t particular to the soul it attacked. It attacked anything that happened within the perimeter—naturi, animal, or human.

Now, when we closed the perimeter, Bertha stepped over, with George hanging just behind her shoulder. “They say you’re performing a Soul Sucking spell,” she said, her eyes slipping down to our joined hands for a second.

“It’s the only way to protect us during the day. We can’t leave here now. Sunrise is less than an hour away.”

“What if they set fire to the place?” George demanded.

“I’ve got something for that too,” I replied, catching sight of Shelly coming out of the front of the lodge, with Danaus following behind her. “Can I leave you to prepare?” I asked, looking up at Stefan. “I have a couple of things that need to be taken care of.”

“I don’t understand what you’re going to do with him,” Stefan said, sliding his hand out from mine. “Drain them both and pray they don’t move until sunrise?”

“Not quite,” I sneered, then walked toward the lodge where the others waited.

The tension in the air grew thicker with each passing moment. The sun was creeping close to the horizon, and all of the nightwalkers could feel the coming death of the night. Naturally, those that survived the initial attack of the naturi had begun to wander closer to the lodge, as it offered cover from the rays of the sun, even if it was a deathtrap in itself.

At the same time, the naturi had pulled back their ranks around Rowe, who stood several yards away from the flickering blue flames. His eyes never wavered from me as I moved about the small enclosed area. I wondered if he knew what I was planning. Had he ever seen a Soul Sucking spell? Even if he had, was he willing to throw every naturi he had at us in hopes of killing us when we were at our most vulnerable? I prayed he wasn’t. The kind of power created by the spell would undoubtedly shine like a beacon to something dark and scary that lingered on the earth.

Shelly was pale and trembling in the cold night air when I finally reached her side. The nightwalkers that passed her watched the earth witch with slitted, hungry eyes. It had been a long night, a long battle already, and she represented a quick, warm meal.

“Cynnia is safely asleep in the basement,” Shelly said. “I thought it best if we put her as far from their reach as possible.”

I shot her a wry smile and nodded, resisting the urge to pat the witch on the shoulder. Between the fight at Ollantaytambo and now the war zone that surrounded her at the Sanctuary Lodge, I was willing to bet that she was already on overload. “Good. Don’t worry. Your job is almost done. I just need you to complete a couple more tasks for me.”

“And then what?” she demanded, taking a step back, so she was partially hidden behind the hulking figure of Danaus.

“And then you get to sleep. Just sleep. It’s been a long night and you’ve earned a little sleep,” I soothingly said. My voice dipped down into hypnotic tones, embedding the thought of sleep into the deepest reaches of her brain. I knew I would need to call on that suggestion later that night.

“Oh.” The single word escaped her in a whisper, but I noticed that she still didn’t move out from behind Danaus’s form.

“I need you to do a protection spell over the entire Sanctuary Lodge. I need you to make sure that it won’t burn,” I said. “I’m assuming you know that spell.”

“Of course.” Shelly stepped closer again, her chin raised a little higher at the idea that she might not be familiar with one of the most basic of spells. It was simply a couple of magic words and a symbol written in ash over the place you didn’t want to burn. It was so basic that even I knew how to perform it. All nightwalkers did. The spell wouldn’t allow a structure to burn.

“Good. Go over the entire lodge, from top to bottom. Get a few nightwalkers to help you. We need this done quickly,” I said, raising my voice a little so I would be heard by any nightwalker within a few feet. “Don’t worry. No one will touch you.” At least, they wouldn’t now that I’d thrown that promise into the air with an edge of a threat.

Shelly nervously nodded to me, then turned and went back into the dim light of the lodge.

“Will it be enough?” Danaus asked as we stood together in silence for nearly a minute outside the lodge. “The spells you’re working?”

“The fire spell will keep them from setting the place on fire, which I honestly think will be their last resort,” I slowly said. The growing lightness was starting to wear on me, and I suddenly found myself longing for my own bed back in Savannah. “Their first desire will be to try to acquire Cynnia alive, which will mean getting past the Soul Sucking spell Stefan and I are creating.”

“The Stain?” he said.

I nodded, then motioned for him to follow me into the lodge. “The Soul Sucking spell will drain the energy from any creature that enters the perimeter Stefan and I have created with the fire. When the sun rises, the fire will die, but the perimeter will remain.”

“Will it be able to handle this many naturi?” he asked, following me as I led him down into the basement.

“It will. It grows in power with each one that it kills. After a while Rowe will catch on and stop sending naturi after us. I figure he’ll have no choice then but to try to burn the lodge to the ground, which Shelly is now protecting us against.”

I paused in front of Cynnia, who lay curled into the fetal position on the cold concrete floor. Shelly had sketched out a circle around her and made the appropriate symbols in blue chalk. A matching blue dome rose over the naturi, protecting her, keeping her from moving until we finally released her.

“I didn’t think that nightwalkers were magic users,” Danaus said, standing beside me.

“We typically aren’t. We have enough special skills like speed, strength, and night vision to keep us ahead of our enemies. However, we’ve found it in our best interest to learn some more defensive magic. Most of us know how to protect ourselves from being set on fire during the day or maybe to erect a defensive barrier like the one Cynnia and Shelly taught me the other night. We don’t bother to learn magic that is used for attacking.”

“Why?”

“Because the magic drains from our souls. It weakens us. Defensive magic is less draining to maintain than an offensive spell. Besides, don’t you think a nightwalker has enough of an edge in a fight?”

“Not against a warlock.”

“That’s why we don’t go picking fights with witches and warlocks,” I said with a smirk as I gazed up at him.

“Where do you want me?” Danaus asked, his right hand resting heavily on the handle of a knife strapped to his hip. He was ready to take on any of the naturi he believed might get through the Soul Sucking spell. What he failed to realize was that they wouldn’t. It was impossible. Oh, the first few might actually get past the perimeter and onto the steps of the lodge, but I seriously doubted that any would actually make it inside. Particularly after the first five or six died, their souls sucked straight from their bodies.

I took a deep breath and slowly released it. With my right hand, I motioned to an empty space on the floor not far from where Cynnia was sleeping. “I need you to be right there,” I slowly said, dreading every word as it left my lips.

“You want me to protect the naturi?” His brow furrowed. “Is Shelly going to be down here as well? Are you?”

“Yes, Shelly is going to be down here with you. Most of us are going to be crammed down here, I imagine,” I said. My gaze darted away from Danaus for a moment and I licked my lips. I had to just come out and say it.

“The spell won’t discriminate between naturi and human. It will attack anything that moves,” I explained, looking back up at the man that didn’t trust my kind, and yet I was asking him for the ultimate moment of trust. “I want Shelly to put you in a sleep spell like Cynnia.”

Danaus’s face twisted with horror and rage. “No! Absolutely not!” he shouted, pacing away from me. The sound of his boots hitting the concrete floor rebounded off the walls, filling the room with his anger. “There has to be another way. I will not be helpless during the day!”

“Welcome to my world,” I said with a tinge of bitterness. “I’ve been helpless during the daylight hours for more than six centuries and yet I’ve survived. I’m asking one day of you.”

“I’m not a vampire!” he snarled at me. He undid the safety strap on the knife handle he had been holding and drew the knife. I was grateful that we were alone down there, or this could have become an even uglier stand-off. “I’ve been a hunter my entire existence. I won’t lie side by side with my enemy while the naturi come to kill us all.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that he had been a hunter for too long, but then that was for another fight and another time. “We have no choice.”

“That’s your answer for everything!” He took a step closer to me with the knife drawn, but I didn’t move. I wasn’t going to do anything to give him the fight that he was currently aching for out of fear. “We’re trapped. We’re surrounded. The naturi have us beaten at every turn. Let’s combine our powers and destroy their souls!” he shouted at me.

“Well, then you should be happy that we’ve got an alternative this time,” I calmly stated. “This spell will only kill them. Their souls are set free to go on to their afterlife the moment the spell has been ended. From my understanding, it’s not a particularly painful death either. It’s just a need to sleep that can’t be overcome.”

“How nice! A humane death,” he sarcastically snapped.

“Do you have an alternative?” I growled, finally reaching the end of my patience. “We tried to kill them our way and it didn’t work. You may get your wish, and it may never work again after what Cynnia did to me. I still don’t know. All I do know is that the moment the sun rises above the horizon, all the naturi waiting just beyond the fire are going to come flooding into the lodge with the simple goal of beheading every nightwalker within its confines. You are a master swordsman and a warrior whose equal I have not seen, but you cannot win against that many naturi.”

“I won’t be left helpless during the day.”

“We’ll be protected from the naturi,” I said, finally taking a step closer to him.

“I’m not completely human. You know that. Maybe the spell won’t affect me,” he suddenly countered. It was an angle I had thought of and didn’t like. There was something else that could happen because of his bori background that I wasn’t too thrilled about either. Putting him to sleep was the safest solution.

“You’re human enough,” I sighed heavily. “It just means that it might take a few minutes longer to kill you, and the more you move, the faster the spell will work. It comes down to this, Danaus. You either let Shelly put you into a sleep spell so you can be protected here, or you try to sneak away from the lodge as it is surrounded by naturi. Your odds of survival are higher if you stay here.”

“I won’t be helpless!” he repeated, but some of the venom had left his tone.

I closed the distance between us and laid my hand over the hand that was still tightly clenching the knife. When I touched him, I could feel fear radiating through him, similar to the terror I had felt the first few nights I spent alone as a nightwalker. Helpless during the daylight hours, at the mercy of anything that happened to stumble across you while you slept. “We will all be protected from the naturi.”

“And what about when the sun rises?” he inquired, his grip on the knife loosening somewhat under my hand.

“Then you’ll awaken,” I reassured him.

“Not like you will. I’ll be trapped within a sleep spell. Someone will have to wake me up.”

“No one will touch you!” I snarled suddenly, finally getting to the root of his problem. It wasn’t just that he was afraid of being surrounded by naturi while he slept during the day, but that he feared being helpless against the nightwalker enemy when we awoke the following night. I reached up and cupped his face with both my cold hands, threading my finger through his thick black hair. “No one will touch you! I forbid it. You belong to me and me alone. I will be among the first to awaken and I will wake you. No nightwalker or naturi will touch you, I vow it.”

As I spoke, a dark, feral need rose up in me. I needed to pull him down to me and drain some of the blood from his neck. I needed to feel his blood coursing through my veins, marking him as mine. I needed for all in the nightwalker world to realize that none should lay a hand on the hunter. He was mine.

Biting the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste blood, I released my hold and took a couple steps away from him. I shoved my hand through my wind-blown hair and drew in a sharp breath through my nose, pushing those feelings deep down inside of me. Danaus didn’t need to know about such desires. It was a nightwalker thing—this strange need to possess and control. But he didn’t belong to me; not as a friend anyway. He was simply my enemy put on hold.

“Will you let Shelly put you into a sleep spell?” I asked when I was back in control of my emotions.

“You make it sound as if I have a choice in this matter,” he calmly said.

I smiled at him. “You do. You can agree to do this and we go about it calmly and quietly. Or, we fight it out until I knock your sorry ass unconscious and then Shelly completes the spell.”

“But the sun is rising. There’s only time for one thing.”

“Please, Danaus, don’t commit suicide out of fear. That’s all this would amount to. You’d die because you were afraid to sleep for a few hours.”

“I’m going to be helpless.”

“But protected.”

After a moment of tense silence as he turned the knife over in one hand, I knew he was drawing closer to his decision, though I wasn’t completely sure that I would like it.

“Do it,” he bit out abruptly, surprising me. I had thought he was going to force me to knock him out.

“You need me now?” Shelly asked, softly coming down the stone steps that led to the basement.

“Yes,” I murmured, looking back at Danaus. “I need another sleep spell.”

No one spoke as Danaus placed his knife back in the sheath on his belt and sat on the concrete ground next to Cynnia. He crossed his arms over his chest and stretched out his legs before him. His dark blue gaze never left me as I stood before him. My attention was torn between the hunter and watching Shelly as she pulled out her blue chunk of chalk and drew a circle around the hunter. It was outlined with a set of symbols I didn’t understand and probably never would.

“You’ll be safe,” I said just before Shelly murmured the final word of the spell. Danaus’s brilliant blue eyes slid shut and his head fell forward so his chin rested against his chest. His breathing was even, and I could feel a deep peace drift over him. A part of me wanted to reach over and push aside the dark locks of hair that had fallen across his face, but I couldn’t break the seal. Something inside of me ached to see him like that, vulnerable to the world, vulnerable to my world.

“What do you want me to do now?” Shelly asked, drawing my attention back away from the hunter. She nervously turned the chalk over in her hand, waiting for the next spell that she was to perform. The tips of her fingers were a mix of black and pale blue from the ash and chalk she had been using around the lodge to protect us while we slept during the daylight hours.

“I’m guessing that you can’t perform the same spell on yourself,” I said with a frown. She shook her head and shoved the chalk into the pocket of her now worn and dirty jeans. “And there isn’t enough time to teach me how to do it properly.”

“What are you going to do with me?”

I sighed. I knew it was going to come to this, but we were left with little choice. I felt bad putting her in this dangerous position considering all she had done to protect us, but it was all I could think of.

“You have to sleep during the day with the others,” I said. When she opened her mouth to possibly counter what I planned to say next, I held up my hand. “You have to sleep the entire day without moving or you could die. It’s why you’ve put both Cynnia and Danaus in sleep spells. I need you to do the same, and the only way I can accomplish that is to hypnotize you.”

“Why didn’t you do that with Danaus?” she asked, taking a step back away from me.

“Because I seriously doubt that it would work on Danaus,” I said, leaving out the part that I would not drink his blood. I might want to mark him, but his background with the bori meant that it was best if I avoided his blood altogether. Of course, it was highly unlikely that the hunter would allow me to drink from him anyway.

Shelly took a step backward again, holding up one hand to ward me off. “How do I know you’re not just trying to kill me? I failed you on the island. Your people could have been killed because of me. I haven’t been as useful as I should be. I’m a burden. This could just be your way of finishing me off.” She edged farther away from me.

I matched her step for step, finally grabbing her outstretched hand with mine. Her fingers trembled in my grasp. “If I wanted you dead, I’d leave you alive to fuel the spell that Stefan and I are creating. I’d use your life to save us all. Instead, I’m trying to keep you alive because I’m going to need you to help me protect Cynnia for as long as possible tomorrow night. I’m not trying to kill you.”

“Oh,” she whispered. “Will it hurt?”

“You won’t feel or remember a thing, I promise.”

Before she could give me any further argument, I pulled her into my arms at the same time as I entered her mind in a single, quick thrust. She had left her thoughts a wide-open door to me in her confusion and fear, easily allowing me to take over. As my fangs sank into her slender throat, I was already sending through her body feelings of safety and serenity. I sent her images of being at home in her own bed, wrapped in a thick warm quilt. Shelly curled against me and softly sighed as her blood flowed down my throat in wonderful waves. I’d needed to feed again before I could complete the Stain with Stefan.

I drank as deep as I dared. I needed her to remain weak throughout the day, helping her to remain in the deep hypnotic state I was about to place her into. However, I didn’t need her so weak that she couldn’t function properly the next night.

Sleep deep, Shelly. I command you to sleep deep this day, I repeated within her brain, burrowing the thought into her mind so it was the only thing there. You will sleep through the entire day until the sun sets on the horizon. You will remain asleep until I summon you. You will not move. You will not stir. You will not dream. You will sleep until I summon you.

Quickly healing the wound on her neck, I gathered her up in my arms and carried her over to lay on the other side of Cynnia and Danaus. Around them, boxes of hotel supplies of different sorts rose up, obscuring them from view, protecting them in a type of cardboard fortress. It was the best I could do for now. Before the last of the night was through, I would join them in this little niche of the basement and offer up my own body as protection against the naturi.

Somewhat rejuvenated by Shelly’s blood, I bounded up the stairs to find Stefan waiting on the front stairs leading from the lodge. The blue wall of flames was beginning to flicker and thin in places. The night was nearly gone, and my hold on both the blood and earth magic was failing. We needed to finish the Stain now if we were going to be able to complete it at all.

“Have your little ones been taken care of?” Stefan asked snidely.

“All of mine have been seen to. Have George and Bertha gotten everyone into the lodge?”

“Everyone has been settled.”

“What about the humans?” I demanded, suddenly remembering the human guardians that were supposed to be arriving in the morning. If they came to the lodge, they’d all be killed just like the naturi.

“I’ve reached a few of them telepathically,” Stefan blandly commented with an indifferent wave of his hand. “They’ve been told to remain at Aguas Calientes until after the sun sets. They are supposed to spread the word to the rest of the humans.”

I was surprised that he had bothered at all, but then I was willing to guess he had a human or two within the group that he was partial to. As the old saying goes, good help is hard to find. And finding a human that you could trust to properly take care of your daylight needs took more than a few years of training.

“Then let’s do this,” I said, extending my hand to him.

Stefan smiled down at me as he took my hand and led me out into the open yard just in front of the lodge. “You make this sound so dire. Do you honestly fear the Stain on your soul?”

“We never expected the naturi to walk the earth in force again,” I said when we stopped walking. “Do you not wonder if there are bori here as well? I have no desire to become a beacon to such a creature.”

Stefan turned to face me and took my other hand in his. “Yes, I’d say you’ve attracted more than your share of attention already.”

There was nothing to say after that. He was right. I was already a beacon to every dark and/or pathetic creature that crawled out of the night. I didn’t need to draw the attention of anything else, much less the bori.

A creature that seemed more myth than reality now, the bori were the guardians of the soul. They gained their powers from anything that had a soul, and considering the number of humans that now occupied the earth, any remaining bori would be extremely powerful. While the lycanthropes had the dubious honor of being created by the naturi, according to legend, any nightwalker that wasn’t in total denial was fully aware of the fact that the bori had created nightwalkers as a type of servant. We had freed ourselves from our masters centuries ago with the help of the lycanthropes, and were in no hurry to return to such servitude. The bori might be locked away, but the naturi had already proven that such a thing could be a temporary arrangement. I had no desire to have a Stain on my soul calling to them should the bori ever return. I had enough masters pulling my strings already.

With our hands clasped, I closed my eyes and opened my mind so I could easily hear Stefan’s thoughts. I could feel his worry and his deep-seated frustration at being forced to protect me when he would much rather kill me for my seat on the Coven. I could also feel his confusion over Danaus, his curiosity over what he truly was and over what my fascination with the hunter.

There were no words for the spell. It didn’t need them. After we both relaxed and opened our minds, the tendrils of our souls were free to wander and merge. The energy rose up between us and blanketed the area from one edge of the perimeter to the other, circling us completely. In unison, we drew in a breath of the cold night air, drawing our souls back into our bodies, creating the first step of the spell. Anything with a soul would have the energy immediately drained from its body if it stepped within the perimeter. Stefan and I then slowly released the breath, forming an invisible bubble between our two bodies. There, the energy would be stored until we released it the next night—the souls set free again to go to their respective afterlife.

I frowned as I slowly opened my eyes to meet Stefan’s gaze. He was frowning as well because he felt the same thing that I did. When we started the spell, our souls had mingled together, and when we pulled our souls back into our bodies, they had not completely separated as we expected. I could still feel the cold touch of his soul within my body, and I had no doubt that he felt mine as well.

“It’s like a fire burning inside of my chest,” he whispered as he stared at me.

“And I now have a chunk of ice in mine,” I replied.

“Interesting.”

“Will it cause problems with the Stain?”

Stefan shook his head as he lead us back into the lodge, both of our hands still joined. “I would expect it to strengthen the spell. I have never done the Soul Sucking spell with another. I had not expected…this.”

I paused at the doorway and looked back at the blue flames that ringed us. With a blink of my eyes and a smile, the fire died just as I kicked the door to the lodge shut with my foot. The spell was set. Let them come.

Stefan and I continued to hold hands until we reached the basement. There, our fingers slowly slid apart, releasing the invisible bubble so it was now housed in the relative safety of the underground room. I could feel its presence hanging in the air, but there was nothing else to indicate that it was there.

With my focus off the spell, I wavered on my feet and stumbled backward into the waiting arms of another nightwalker. The basement was crowded with bodies. I could feel a few on the upper floor, guessing they had preferred to find a hiding place in the closet of a darkened room or in the bathtub of a windowless bathroom. But most were in the basement with Stefan and me. If a fire started, the hope was that it would reach us last, buying us as much time as possible.

Exhaustion was starting to take its toll on me and everyone else. The nightwalkers around me settled on the floor, mindless of the dirt and the dust. They curled into balls like cats and hid behind piles of boxes. I didn’t see where Stefan settled as I headed over to the corner that had been seemingly avoided by all the other nightwalkers—the corner that held Danaus, Cynnia, and Shelly. I settled on the floor directly across from Danaus. With my back against the wall and my ankles crossed, I stared at him, waiting for the sun to finally rise.

I could feel a tugging on my soul from the bubble in the center of the room. The naturi were close by, testing the perimeter burned into the ground by the fire. I doubted they would cross the line until after the sun officially rose, approaching at the safest moment for them. As my eyes drifted shut, a sleepy smile nudged the corners of my mouth. For a moment I wondered if Rowe would be among those to try to venture into the lodge to secure his lost princess. I honestly couldn’t decide if I wished he would.

And then it no longer mattered. The sun cracked above the horizon and I was no more. At the last second, I felt a sharp tug on my soul as the spell was finally tripped. The naturi were coming, and there was nothing more I could do to protect myself or Danaus.