Dayhunter

TWELVE

Any reprieve I thought I might have earned after nights of running and fighting to stay alive had been adequately crushed. Now I just wanted a few minutes of quiet in which to think and try to anticipate Jabari’s next move. A sigh knocked against the back of my teeth but never managed to escape as Danaus and I stepped into our suite at the Cipriani. Instead of being faced with the sweet, cuddly scene of Sadira and Tristan, the rooms were empty. I hadn’t left explicit orders for them to remain in the rooms, but I didn’t sense them out hunting in the streets when I scanned the hotel area before leaving Torcello.

A heavy tension hung bloated and ugly in the air, pressing against my chest. Standing in the middle of the black and gray parlor, I struggled to keep from clenching my fists. The beautiful room with its elegant furniture and shiny marble floors was untouched—indicating that they walked out on their own.

I started slowly, hesitant. My powers spread from my body in a circle, reaching outward until I had covered the main islands of Venice. There was no Tristan or Sadira. Reluctantly, I pushed out across the Lagoon to San Clemente, where I found Sadira in the Great Hall. She wasn’t alone.

Her emotions were clear. She was calm, but sad. I still didn’t sense Tristan, but I knew he was there too. Someone was blocking my ability to sense him, and there was only one person who could do that: Tristan’s beloved maker, Sadira. A nightwalker could keep other nightwalkers from sensing him and his children as a type of defense mechanism. Only the older ones like Jabari could keep it up for nights on end. At best, Sadira could maintain the barrier for a couple of nights, but she didn’t need to hide him for long. She was only buying the others some time. And maybe so had Nicolai. Jabari might not have truly believed that the werewolf could kill me, but he knew that Nicolai could stall me for a time.

“Can you go inside a church? A still functioning church?” I asked Danaus. My low voice crept through the tense silence that filled the suite. Standing next to the sofa, I leaned down so my right hand tightly gripped the corner of one of the dark end tables, causing my newly mended forearm to ache. Danaus stood behind my left shoulder near the double doors to the suite. I didn’t bother to try to hide my frustration and anger. What was the point? He could sense my emotions if he wanted to.

“Yes,” he said. “What’s going on?” His heavy footsteps crossed the room to stop before his bag of weapons, which sat near the sofa. Placing the worn duffel bag on the coffee table, he unzipped it without looking up at me and started rummaging around for the one appropriate item that would destroy his enemy

My lips parted but my voice couldn’t quite push past the lump in my throat. I licked my lips and tried again, forcing my fingers to loosen their death grip on the table because they were starting to throb and I didn’t want to shatter the wood. “There’s something I need to take care of.” The words came out flat and emotionless despite the turmoil in my chest. I had to go back to San Clemente.

Looking over my shoulder at my dark companion, I found that his hard gaze never wavered from the flash of steel and leather as he dug through his bag of goodies. “Where’s Sadira and Tristan?”

I ignored the question and stood erect again as I finally pried my fingers loose from the table. Silently, I removed the necklace and earrings I had been wearing, shoving them into my front pockets. They would only get in the way. “There’s a small church just a couple blocks south of here. Go there and stay inside until dawn,” I directed, staring straight ahead instead of at him.

“I’m going with you.”

I spun around to face Danaus, standing a few feet away now. His black brows were drawn together over his nose, and his jaw muscles hardened as he clenched his teeth. His fingers deftly attached his leather knife sheath over his belt as he prepared for the coming fight. He had made his decision to follow me into whatever battle I now faced. My own frown eased from my lips and something light swelled in my chest, pushing aside the anger and fear that had been weighing me down during the past few nights. He didn’t know what we faced or how bad our odds, but he was willing to follow me.

Unfortunately, he could not come with me this time. “That’s not an option,” I said with a slight shake of my head. “Our business is getting rid of the naturi.” My voice had grown as cold and unyielding as the Russian tundra. I couldn’t let him accompany me; both for Tristan’s sake and my own. “This is nightwalker business. You’re not going. Go to a church. I don’t want to worry about someone coming after you while I’m gone.”

He refused to be put off by my tone, and roughly grabbed my wrist when I tried to walk away from him. “What’s going on, Mira? First Nicolai, and now this. Where are Tristan and Sadira?”

My gaze met his narrow blue eyes and for a moment I longed to sink into their cool depths. I wanted to forget about it all and go back to playing cat and mouse with him through the historical district of Savannah. I knew he would willingly walk in the main hall and protect me with his last breath.

Of course, his protection of me had nothing to do with me per se, but with the protection of the human race. I was the key—the weapon that would beat back the naturi. For half a breath I wondered if he hated me all the more for it. A creature he perceived as completely evil, now the savior of mankind. A vampire hunter forced to protect his chosen prey.

“Sadira has taken Tristan to the Coven,” I whispered.

“Why?” His deep voice had also dropped to hushed tones, as if we were sharing secrets. But we had already done that tonight, and most of what we’d said shouted at the top of our lungs for all the heavens to hear.

“Punishment,” I murmured, forcing the word past a clog in my throat. “I stole Tristan from her, so she must strike back at me.” My gaze wavered and darted across the room to stare out the windows that overlooked San Marco Piazza. The warm yellow light glowed in the square, beckoning the late night revelers.

“Will they kill him?”

“Yes, but not until I get there.” My voice hardened and my hands balled into fists as I stared blindly out the bank of windows. “She’ll want me to see it; to know that I failed to protect him.”

Danaus’s thumb rubbed the inside of my wrist in a light caress, drawing my gaze back to his face. “Will they try to kill you?”

A half smirk tweaked the right corner of my mouth, pushing aside the concern that had undoubtedly drifted across my features. “They can try, but I doubt it. It’s time for the Coven to bring me to heel. They will try to break me and remind me that I serve them.”

“I can’t go,” Danaus whispered, releasing my wrist. His hand fell limp back at his side. He finally understood that I had to prove my strength. It was a test. If he walked in and guarded my back, it would be taken as a sign of weakness on my part. Any help he gave me would cause more damage than good.

“No.” I walked toward the door, refusing to look back at my partner in crime. They were going to hurt me. They were going to make me wish I was dead, but they wouldn’t kill me. Tonight was just a bit of fun. If I somehow managed to survive the next few nights and stop Rowe’s plan to free the naturi, then it would be open season on my head.

With one hand on the open door, I looked over at my shoulder into the room, suddenly hating its opulence. My eyes still refused to find his face. “It’ll be over before dawn.”

I wasn’t exactly sure what “it” was, but I was sure that before the dawn came, someone was going to be dead. I had known Sadira would strike back at me. Beyond the fact that it was her way, it was the way of all nightwalkers. I had stolen something that belonged to her in front of a member of the court. It would have been no different if I’d walked up to her and spat in her face. Of course, word of my theft spread like wildfire through the nightwalker legions.

But, stupidly, I had thought I would have more time. Sadira was usually an extremely patient creature. She toyed with her prey over decades if time permitted, letting them dangle on a thin strand of hope for years before finally crushing them. I thought she would wait until after we finally defeated Rowe. Apparently she didn’t think she’d get another shot at me so she rushed things. That, or someone else was pulling the strings.

I shot across the Lagoon in record time. I knew these waters. Maybe not as well as the streets of my beloved Savannah, but enough that I could push the little boat to her limits as I sped to the island. Circling around to a small, attractive stone landing closer to the main hall, I eased the tiny speed boat to the dock. It was crowded with boats of different shapes and sizes, but there was still one spot open. They were waiting for me.

Still in the boat, before stepping onto the stone pier I scanned the island one last time. Everyone was pulled back to the Great Hall of the Coven. I could vaguely pick out Elizabeth in the lower levels that served as the daylight chambers. Macaire was also there, but he was moving, heading for the lower levels. Jabari, of course, was nowhere to be found. It had been years since I was last able to sense him. He kept his protective cloak up constantly now, hiding from something.

As I was pulling back, a scream of pain tore through my brain, sending me to my knees. Searing pain ripped along my flesh as if the claws of a thousand cats were using me as a scratching post. Muscles trembled and my stomach clenched and unclenched, quivering under the onslaught of pain with no source. I tightly clutched the steering wheel, trying to regain my balance as the last wave of pain and terror swept through me. I had found Tristan.

A knot of fear twisted in my chest, but it was melting under the heat of the rage building in my veins. Sadira had pulled back the veil blocking Tristan from my senses. They had been torturing him, waiting for my eminent arrival. I could feel the pain as it coursed through his lean frame and the crippling exhaustion as his body strained to heal the assortment of wounds that had been inflicted. I hopped off the boat and walked briskly up to the main hall. There was no need to rush. The assembled vampires had stopped their amusements as they waited for me.

The same pair of humans from earlier in the evening pulled the massive front doors open, their muscles jumping under the effort it required to move the thick combination of wood and iron. A nervous look danced in their dark eyes, which darted only briefly to me before returning to intently stare at the ground. They knew something was happening inside, something gruesome. They had heard Tristan’s screams even through the thick doors and were simply grateful they weren’t the focus of these grim activities. Yet, there were still several hours before the night finally withered away, plenty of time for them to fill in.

The chandeliers dangling overhead had been extinguished, the long hallway sparsely lit with a scattering of iron candelabras holding thick yellow candles. Even after living in the glory of the electronic age, there were certain things that would not be shed, particularly in the Great Hall. The little flames danced on their precarious perches, throwing long shadows that congregated in the deep corners, plotting their own secret schemes.

Before me the doors to the main audience chamber swung soundlessly open, pushed from the inside. I couldn’t see who had opened them, but it didn’t matter. My gaze didn’t stray from Tristan, who knelt in the middle of the room. Naked and bleeding, he had a large manacle clamped around his neck, with a heavy chain running from it to a thick iron ring in the floor. His arms and legs were not chained, so he could fight back, but the chain running to his neck was so short that he could not fully stand up.

Tristan raised his head when he heard my footsteps echoing heavily across the marble floor, his body cringing at the sound as if the vibrations added to his pain. His beautiful face was covered in blood and his nose was broken. I could see the bite marks on his neck and on the inside of one of his arms. They had taken the time to drain him before beating him so his body wouldn’t be able to heal from the wounds.

However, it was his eyes that finally drew an angry hiss out of me. Those haunted blue orbs would chase me for the rest of my existence. He wasn’t pleading to be saved, but for me to finally end his pain. The physical pain was minor compared to what they most likely had done to his mind. I had a feeling Macaire had had some fun with him before he handed the young nightwalker over to the rest of the court.

Movement finally drew my eyes from Tristan and I caught sight of Sadira. She was sitting on the stairs before the chair Macaire had sat in earlier in the evening. Her face was expressionless and still, as if she carved out of white marble. Gritting my teeth, I dragged my eyes from her slender form and looked around the room. Nearly a dozen other nightwalkers were gathered. High-back wooden chairs and a couple chaise lounges now lined the walls; a little comfort while they watched the show.

Tristan was the warm-up act, and I was the main attraction. Turning my attention back to Tristan, I forced the anger to coil up in the pit of my stomach as I stood before him. I would deal with them. I would teach them to fear me. My days of facing the members of the court for my survival were centuries ago during my time with Sadira. Most of these vampires had not been reborn yet. To them I was a myth, a fanciful tale based on very little fact. I would remind them that I was a nightmare.

With my hands resting limply on my hips, I stared down at Tristan. The cold marble floor around him was smeared with his blood. I somehow swallowed my rage and revulsion, lightening my voice to one of irritated boredom. “What are you doing here?”

“I was told to come,” he rasped. His beautiful voice was raw from his screams.

“By whom?”

“Sadira.”

“I am your mistress now,” I said, amazed at how steady my voice sounded. On the inside, my muscles were trembling and my throat had constricted. I had been half his age when I made my first appearance as the evening entertainment and I’d had to be carried out. Sleep dominated my nights for more than a week as my body struggled to recover. I never forgave Sadira for my time with the Coven. Many believed playing the part of the court’s entertainment was supposed to be a rite of passage. It was not only supposed to make a nightwalker stronger, but it also taught obedience. It had taught me to hate.

Looking at Tristan, I knew he was just chum. He wasn’t meant to live a long existence and grow to be strong. Sadira had made him weak and kept him weak by chaining him to her side. I had slaughtered those stronger than him because they’d grown careless and could not take care of themselves. Without Sadira, he would become one of those nightwalkers, and it would be me hounding his steps one night like some dark angel of death. But I wouldn’t let it happen to Tristan. He belonged to me now.

Maybe it was because there was something in his eyes that reminded me of Michael. It might have been the fact that in two nights I had failed to protect both Thorne and Michael. Or maybe it was that I saw too much of myself in those pain-filled eyes. I knew the horrors he had faced and the pain that still awaited him. But reasons why weren’t important.

For once, I wanted to save someone instead of destroying them. I wasn’t going to let these monsters have Tristan. But, unfortunately, we all had a part to play, a little pretense to portray before we could all go our separate ways. And I had to be sure I had Tristan’s absolute obedience.

“I told you not to come here,” I said. My hands slid from my hips to hang limp at my sides, even as tension hummed like an electric current through my taut body. “I should leave you here as punishment for your disobedience.”

“Please, no! Mira, please! She’s my maker. I had to obey,” he pleaded. His soft voice barely jumped above a whisper. He lurched forward, grabbing my legs, a cry escaping his parted lips. When he leaned forward, I saw that his back was a bloody mess of tissue. They had peeled the skin from his body.

I leaned down and placed my hand gently under his chin, forcing him to look up at me. “After tonight, she is nothing to you. After tonight, I am your whole world,” I said coldly.

“Yes, Mistress,” he choked out past the throb of pain.

Cupping his face with both of my hands, I wiped the bloody tears away with my thumbs as they streaked down his cheeks. “Now tell me who touched you.”

I slowly raised my eyes to sweep over the assembled masses as Tristan remained silent. No names left Tristan’s cracked and trembling lips, but I hadn’t expected him to tell me who his tormentors were. We all knew that I could pick the faces from his memories at any time. But I wouldn’t even need to do that.

I didn’t bother to look at Sadira. She hadn’t touched him. It didn’t matter if she had. It was enough that she handed him over to the court for its fun. Skimming over the faces, I noticed Valerio slumping in one of the high-backed chairs, his long pale fingers laced together over his stomach. One corner of his handsome mouth lifted in a smirk, daring me to challenge him, but his clothes were spotless, unlike some of his companions. He had watched the show. It was a neutral stance, not challenging, but he also wasn’t on my side. It was the best I was going to get at the moment.

“I thought he was quite delicious,” Gwen announced, rising gracefully from one of the chairs off to my left, near the dais at the end of the room. Her pale blue shirt and little white shorts were splattered with Tristan’s blood. She would have looked like a tourist on vacation if not for the blood stains and the glow in her narrowed eyes.

“I was so hoping you would say that,” I said, the words held in the embrace of a dark laugh. I stepped around Tristan so I was between him and Gwen. “I believe I said that he was not to be touched.”

“The Elders promised him to us,” she said. Her smile was triumphant, lighting up her blood-smeared face.

“I warned you,” I carefully enunciated in Italian. The Italian came without thought as my mind slipped easily back into seemingly ancient memories of fights fought as the Elders watched. The violence, the brutality, the feral need to rend and shred had built in the air until it became a living, breathing creature.

As I spoke, candles around the room flared to life. The little teardrops of fire popped into existence, sending the shadows scrambling to the far corners.

“The Coven’s word is law!” Gwen shouted, her gaze darting away from me as she noted the increased firelight. Lines of strain stretched from the corners of her mouth as she struggled to keep from frowning. “You’re not above them, Fire Starter.”

“A mistress has the right to deny the use of her pets if she so chooses,” I said, quoting old law.

“His maker handed him over,” Gwen argued, pointing at Sadira. Her smile had faded somewhat and there was no mistaking the trembling in her extended index finger. No one ever denied the use of his or her pet when an Elder wanted to use the poor soul as entertainment. If a master did, he would have to defend him against all comers. In all my years, I had heard of it being done only once. Jabari had denied Macaire when he made the request of me, driving the wedge even further between them. It also didn’t help that during that time I was neither a Companion of Jabari nor was he technically recognized as my master.

“I am his mistress. I warned you,” I repeated. My words were low and even, deceiving in their calm, but Gwen was not fooled.

“You’re nothing!” she screamed, her hands balled into fists at her sides.

I chuckled, my voice sinking into lower, sultry depths. The sound stretched strangely across the room, echoing off the walls as I darted toward her. My fist collided with her jaw before I even stopped moving. She tried to dodge it but her reactions were a hair slower. I felt bone breaking beneath my hand as her head snapped back, the force of the blow throwing her backward into the wall.

Gwen tried to quickly push back to her feet, blood spilling from the corner of her mouth, but I was already there. Grabbing her by the throat, I lifted her off her feet. It was easy considering that she was several inches shorter than me. Her long nails clawed at my hand and down my arms as she struggled to get loose. Little rivers of blood rose to the surface and briefly streaked down my white skin. I smiled at her, pulling back my lips enough to expose my fangs before tossing her across the large room.

With a bone-crunching thud, she landed not far from the center of the room, near the foot of the dais. The sound of her collarbone shattering when she landed split the air, followed by the low squeal of her skin sliding a couple feet across the shiny marble floor.

I paused and looked down the line of vampires who stood watching the struggle. They had risen from their chairs and were eyeing me intently, trying to decide whether I would jump at them next or finish off my current prey. I growled low in the back of my throat, warning them to stay back. A couple hissed in return but backed off a few steps, giving me ample room. Valerio watched me with intent questioning eyes from his chair.

“Elizabeth will destroy you!” Gwen shrieked hysterically. Her jaw had healed enough for her to curse me.

“Where is she, Gwen?” I inquired, strolling back toward her as she struggled to sit up. The pain in her left shoulder from where she had hit the floor slowed her movements. Nightwalkers had the ability to heal with amazing speed, but that didn’t mean we didn’t feel excruciating pain just like every other creature. “She must know by now that you’re in pain. I’ll wait while you call to her.”

I stood over her and pretended to inspect my nails. With a howl of pure rage, she pushed off the floor with her right hand, launching herself into me. She moved faster than I’d anticipated, knocking me to the floor with her on top. Her long nails raked down my face and tore a large hunk of flesh from my throat. I backhanded her with my right fist, throwing her off so I could roll to my knees.

“She’s abandoned you to your fate,” I taunted, easily rising to my feet as she struggled. She had fed on Tristan, but his blood wasn’t strong enough to heal her. She should have fed on a human or two before facing me, not wasted her night with him. Broken bones slowed her down, and I’d dislocated her jaw when I backhanded her.

I kept my left hand pressed to my neck as I walked back to her side. The blood seeped through my fingers and trickled down my chest to soak into my shirt. “I warned you.”

With no hesitation, I knelt before her and punched her in the chest. My hand tore through skin and muscle, shattering her sternum. It took only a second to open my hand in her chest and wrap my fingers around her motionless heart. She had enough time to mouth the word No before I yanked it from her chest. Her body slumped lifeless to the floor, the remnants of her soul brushing against me as it floated into the ether.

Clutching her heart tightly in my right hand, her blood ran down my arm and dripped from my elbow. The lukewarm muscle squished in my fist, pushing between my fingers. A wide smile split my pale face as I laid the heart on Elizabeth’s chair, a gift from me to the Coven.