Dawnbreaker

Twenty-Four

I awoke with a fresh scream lodged in my chest. Lurching upright, I dragged a deep breath into my empty lungs, preparing to set the scream free. As my mouth fell open, a pair of strong arms wrapped around me, pulling me tightly against a large chest. Blinking, I struggled for only a moment before the scent of the dried leaves wafted to my nose. I opened my eyes to find Stefan holding me. Never before had I noticed that he reminded me of fall itself.

“Are you all right?” he asked, slowly releasing me from his grasp when I finally stopped struggling and relaxed the tension from my arms.

I nodded, rubbing my forehead with the heel of my palm as he eased away from me. As I woke, I’d heard the sound of dozens of voices screaming, crying out in terror and pain. Now that I was completely awake I realized that it was the sound of the souls of the dead, trapped in the Soul Sucking bubble that was linked to my soul.

“Can you tell how many died?” I asked, sitting back against the wall. My thoughts seemed to blur and there was a strange buzzing in my head, as if something were trying to invade my thoughts but couldn’t quite find the key to unlock the door.

“No, but there were a lot of them,” Stefan said, shaking his head. He seemed to be suffering from the same mental distraction as I was. I looked around to find that none of the other nightwalkers in the basement had begun to move yet.

Putting my hand against the wall, I pushed slowly to my feet. “Let’s pop this bubble and set their souls free so we can get back to the business of protecting the door.”

“Agreed.” Stefan rose as well and walked over to the nearly invisible bubble that hung in the air—a white mist that swirled and swam in an oval shape in the center of the basement; the souls of the dead.

Taking a deep breath, we both reached out a hand and ran our nails over the sensitive bubble, like a cat scratching the furniture. There was an audible pop, and a cool breeze swept through the stagnant basement as the souls of the dead finally ran free. I felt them push through and around me, carrying with them fear and anger and, for a rare few, relief.

Energy burned in my chest, filling me so that all the remaining aches, hunger pangs, and tendrils of fatigue were washed away. I looked up to find Stefan’s blue eyes burning with a bright light. His head fell back as he drank in the power coming from the souls of the dead. He reveled in the power, while I felt only a tremble of fear. While the energy filled me, it felt as if a mark had been permanently tattooed onto my soul, a mark calling out to the bori to come and find me. Stefan believed there were no bori left to threaten us, but I knew better.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the blue dome that covered Danaus shiver, but then nothing more. Something ominous twisted in my stomach as I slowly walked over to the hunter. He had not moved an inch from where I had left him the moment the sleep spell took hold. His hair hung down around his face, and his chin rested against his chest, rising evenly with each deep breath. He was still asleep. But something was wrong.

“Is everyone awake?” I asked, glancing over my shoulder at Stefan as I continued to face the hunter.

“Yes. Why?”

“Have them go upstairs or outside. Check the area for any living naturi. See how far they got into the lodge before the Stain finally claimed them. I will wake these three.”

“Why—”

“Just do it!” I shouted, including everyone in the vicinity, as well as Stefan, not caring how irrational I sounded. “Secure the area!”

There was a faint scurry of sound as the nightwalkers in the basement rushed to do my bidding. I might not have been well liked among my kind, but I was a member of the Coven and an able killer. They would follow and obey me out of fear.

I waited until I was totally alone in the basement before forcing myself to take those final few steps over to where Danaus slept against the wall. When I had chosen this path, I was afraid he wouldn’t survive the day, that the sleep spell would not be enough to protect him from the Stain. Now I was afraid to awaken him, fearful of how the Stain might affect the bori part of his soul.

With the toe of my shoe, I smeared the pale blue chalk line that surrounded the hunter, popping the blue bubble that had protected him during the day. For a moment I thought everything was going to be okay. Danaus drew in a slow, deep breath, completely filling his lungs with air as he awoke from his deep slumber.

“Time to get up, sleepyhead,” I forced myself to say in a lighthearted voice, still waiting anxiously to see that everything was truly all right.

But it wasn’t. His second breath wasn’t a breath of air at all. He had caught the scent of something and now he was sniffing for it. Suddenly, the hunter’s head snapped up and his blue eyes glowed at me in the darkness. They had never glowed before. I took a couple steps back, away from him, but it was too late.

Pressing both hands against the wall, he launched himself at me. I never saw him get to his feet. In the blink of an eye he was across the room, one massive hand wrapped around my throat while the other hand was pressed to my chest as he held me pinned against the wall.

“I can smell them,” he growled in a low, grating voice. He lowered his head so his nose was nearly between my breasts. “You’ve been killing naturi. Lots and lots of naturi.”

“Danaus—” I tried to cry out, but his hand continued to squeeze my throat, making it difficult to talk.

“You’ve been killing humans too,” he continued. He lifted his face so he was looking at me again. There was no recognition in his gaze, as if he wasn’t seeing me, and I don’t think he truly was. The bori inside of Danaus was attracted to the Stain that now shone so brightly on my soul. “Call them back for me before they wander off too far.”

He pressed his hand harder against my chest, and I could feel an energy press through me, pulling all the souls that had escaped the bubble back in toward my body. Back toward Danaus and the bori that possessed a part of his soul.

A scream was lodged in my throat as I clawed at the hand pressed against my chest, but it wouldn’t budge. The souls came slipping back into me one after another, and then into Danaus, where dark energy gathered and grew.

“Stefan!” I shouted both with my voice and my mind. I pushed and shoved against Danaus, but the hunter was suddenly stronger than me. He wouldn’t budge from where he held me pinned to the wall. He was out of control and hungry for the power we had set loose.

I never heard Stefan approach, but he was suddenly there beside me. He wretched Danaus loose, throwing him to the opposite side of the tiny room, the hunter’s large foot narrowly missing Shelly’s head. The earth witch had yet to stir, and I was hoping she would stay that way until I got Danaus back under control, if that was at all possible.

“What’s going on?” Stefan demanded, but any other comment was quickly buried under the low growl that emanated from Danaus.

“You’ve been killing naturi too,” he said, an evil grin lifting the corners of his mouth. I had never seen that look on the hunter’s handsome face, and it sent a shiver of fear down my spine. What had I set loose? “My children, you have done good work, but we need to call the souls back to me.”

“Danaus, you have to fight this!”

“Fight what? What’s going on?” Stefan demanded, his bright gaze darting from me to the hunter.

I didn’t have time to answer, not that I knew what words to use even if I could have answered. Danaus reached out again, extending a hand toward my chest and Stefan’s. The pulling sensation returned, and I could feel the souls of the dead rushing through my back and out my chest, being drawn back toward Danaus. Through our connection, I could feel the power growing within him, the darkness spreading across his own beautiful soul like a pestilence.

With a growl, I smacked his hand away and pushed him back into the opposite wall. Stefan quickly joined me when it became obvious that I wouldn’t be able to hold the hunter in place. Danaus swung his fist at me, connecting with my jaw so that I was tossed to the ground like a rag doll. Stefan dodged the first blow, but a second connected with his stomach, sending the nightwalker to his knees before the hunter.

“Mira?” Stefan snarled.

“It’s not his fault,” I cried, slowly pushing back to my feet. My knees wobbled as the energy continued to pour through me, throwing me off balance. “It’s the result of the Stain.”

“The Stain shouldn’t affect him!” Stefan shouted, pushing to his feet as well. We both attacked Danaus at the same time, throwing him back against the wall, pinning his arms beside his head. “It shouldn’t affect him unless…”

I didn’t look over at Stefan. I couldn’t. I had no doubt that I would see horror shining in his brilliant blue eyes. He knew now that somehow Danaus was linked to the bori and that I had known before we even cast the spell.

For now, I ignored the nightwalker and turned my full attention to the hunter, struggling before me.

Danaus! Listen to me! You have to fight this! I shouted in his brain, since I no longer had a chance of reaching him with my voice.

Mira? His voice came to me from a distance, sounding confused.

Danaus, the demon has control of your body. It’s destroying souls. You have to stop it.

Mira? Where are you? I can’t find you.

“You can’t have him back!” Danaus shouted at me. He pulled his one arm free and wrapped his large hand around my neck. His fingers squeezed impossibly tight on my throat until I was sure my neck would soon snap.

Follow the sound of my voice, I mentally said, ignoring the bori in control of him. Reach for me. Please, Danaus, save yourself. Save us.

There was a great roar that seemed to shake the boxes in the basement as the bori, Danaus, and I all screamed as we were ripped apart. Danaus was pressed into the wall, while both Stefan and I were thrown against the opposite wall. The hunter slumped into a sitting position, while I fell onto my hands and knees, heaving up blood into a pool between my hands as the last of the souls slipped back out of my frame and into the ether. Stefan knelt beside me, his trembling hand resting on my shoulder. The spell left more than a Stain on your soul. It served as a doorway for the bori to pull in the souls of the dead for energy.

Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I looked up to find Stefan hovering over me with a sword pointed at Danaus’s chest. The hunter was white-faced and horrified as his mind attempted to process everything that had just happened between us.

“Put your sword away,” I said in a rough, scratchy voice from where my throat had been crushed by Danaus’s large hand.

“How did he do that?” Stefan demanded, his sword not wavering from where it was pointed at Danaus’s chest.

“It was an accident. Some confusion from the sleep spell,” I hastily lied. “Everything is fine now.”

“I felt the souls too, Mira,” Stefan pointed out. He roughly grabbed my elbow and hauled me to my feet again. “Our souls are locked together from the spell. Now and forever. I felt the pull of the souls too. They were called.”

I pushed some hair out of my face, ignoring that some of it was now damp from the blood I had just vomited. “Part of Danaus’s soul must have gotten stuck with some of the other souls locked in the spell. Something in the sleep spell must have tripped it up. Everything is fine now.”

“Nothing is fine!” Stephan shouted, leaving me cringing under the weight of his anger. I didn’t want him shouting anything that could be heard by the nightwalkers lingering on the upper floors. “He’s a—”

“No, he’s not!” I shouted back, desperate to keep the word bori from entering the air and causing a panic.

With this many nightwalkers, there was no way I would be able to protect Danaus. Besides, we still had to take on the naturi tonight. I couldn’t waste my energy on this battle when another potentially waited for me.

“He’s not,” I repeated, lowering my voice. “One is tied to his soul. It reacted to the Stain. I had hoped it wouldn’t but I was wrong. He has it back under control now. Danaus is still human for the most part.”

“What have you brought into our midst?” Stefan whispered, the tip of his sword trembling as he stared at Danaus, who remained slumped on the floor. “Our greatest enemy sits before me and you want me to believe that everything is fine.”

“He’s not trying to control us. He’s not trying to use us as pets.”

“No, he just wants us dead!” Stefan snapped.

“But for tonight, he’s willing to risk his life to save us from the naturi. We still need him alive.”

“Let’s just hope he remembers that he needs us alive to protect him as well,” the nightwalker said through clenched teeth.

Stefan took a long look at my neck, which was undoubtedly red and bruised from where the hunter had grabbed me, then looked down at Danaus again. He slowly put his sword away as he released his grip on my elbow. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say a bori had called those souls back. But then, we both know such a thing is impossible,” he said, and then stomped back up the stone stairs, leaving me alone with a shaken Danaus.

“Just keep breathing,” I said. “Everything is going to be okay.” It was a lie. It was probably the biggest lie I had ever told. Stefan now knew that Danaus was part bori. If the nightwalker didn’t immediately go running back to the Coven with that interesting bit of news, then he was sure to hold it over my head for the rest of my pitiful existence. Which, with the naturi lurking at Machu Picchu, wasn’t going to be particularly long.

If the Coven discovered the truth of what was going on in Peru, I was so fried in the sun. Not only was the great Fire Starter toting around the younger sister of Aurora as some sort of prisoner/accomplice, but she was also protecting a bori. Or maybe just keeping him as a pet while she plotted to overthrow the Coven. Yes, I could hear those exact words leaving Stefan’s lips as soon as he could steal away to get an audience with the Coven. I was toast and I deserved it. I was working with both a naturi and a bori. One race wanted to kill us all, the other simply wanted to rule us like a human keeps a cat or a dog. Neither existence was acceptable. And the Coven was going to have my head when it found out.

“Mira…”

“We can’t talk here, Danaus, or now. The sun has set and the naturi will be preparing the sacrifice. We have to get to the top of Machu Picchu.”

You knew! The two accusatory words rattled through my head, stopping me from smearing the chalk line that would end the sleep spell wrapped around Cynnia.

Knew what would happen? That you would attack me? No, I can in all honesty say that I had no idea that would happen, I mentally snapped back at him. Before he could continue, I smeared the blue chalk line with the toe of my boot, causing the little dome of energy around Cynnia to pop. The naturi stretched and yawned while I turned my attention to the witch.

A part of me tensed as I knelt down beside her and lifted her arm. I had felt her alive before Danaus attacked me, so I knew she had survived the night, but I wasn’t entirely sure what kind of shape she’d be in. Beneath my fingers I found her pulse was strong and steady.

“Shelly, it’s time to wake up. The sun has set. It’s night. It’s time for you to wake up,” I repeated, resisting the urge to snap my fingers like some cheap magician. But I can’t say that I wasn’t more than a little relieved to find her stirring immediately. The hypnosis had worked.

Ignoring Danaus’s dark look, I quickly pulled both Cynnia and Shelly to their feet. We needed to get moving again. We needed a plan.

“Shelly, take Cynnia upstairs. Raid the kitchen and see if you can find something to eat,” I said, giving them a push in the direction of the stairs.

Shoving some hair out of my face, I turned to follow behind them, but Danaus stepped into my path. His large frame blocked the way through the boxes, and he kept walking toward me until I was backed against the wall.

“Not demon,” he said in a low voice.

I frowned at him, finally coming to rest my shoulders against the wall. We were going to do this now. We didn’t have time, but Danaus deserved an answer as to what he was, and I had been keeping things from him.

In Venice the hunter revealed to me that his mother had been a witch. While pregnant with him, she had made a deal with a demon for more power in an effort to extract revenge. For his entire existence, Danaus had thought his soul was tied to a demon. I knew better, but hadn’t bothered to set him straight because I didn’t think I had enough information. And because I was a coward.

“Not demon,” I repeated. Biting my lower lip, I stared down at his chest, anywhere but at his fierce gaze. “As far as I know, there is no such thing as a demon. There are bori, however. Years ago they used to toy with humans to get access to their souls, their energy. They are the source of the old angels and demons mythology.”

“So, I’m part—”

A scream rent the air, halting the words in his throat. We turned as one and went running across the basement. Danaus reached the staircase before I did and went charging up, with me following close on his heels. We found Cynnia standing at the top of the stairs, her shaking hands covering her face as she stared down at a naturi sprawled across the floor leading down to the basement. They had gotten close. Too close.

Grabbing Cynnia by the shoulders, I pulled her quickly through the lodge until we finally reached the kitchen toward the back. There were no dead bodies within the stainless steel retreat so I felt safe leaving her there for now, with Shelly to watch over her.

“So many dead. So many bodies,” she kept repeating. Those words haunted me as I wandered through the lodge. I counted more than two dozen within the sanctuary and another dozen on the front lawn and in the garden. Rowe had forced close to forty naturi to their death in an effort to kill me and free Cynnia before he finally gave up.

Standing outside, I looked up at the peak of the lodge. It was blackened and smoldering slightly, but Shelly’s protective spells had held. Amazingly, we had all survived the day, and it was now time to make plans for the night. I was beginning to believe that surviving thus far had been the easy part.