Dayhunter

TWENTY-TWO

Penelope and I stumbled across the clearing, weaving through the crumbling remains of the ruins until we reached the far eastern edge of the Palace of Knossos. We could still sense the nightwalker’s soul, but it was weak and thready. He wasn’t going to last much longer if he didn’t receive help very soon. The rain had slowed to a light drizzle, more annoying than anything, as it added a chill to the air we shouldn’t have felt for a late summer evening.

Slipping in a patch of mud, I finally located Hugo lying under a couple of trees, covered in blood. I hadn’t liked leaving him alone to face the naturi, but I was short on help. I had hoped that his enormous size would add some menace to his figure and deter the naturi without him needing to raise a sword or gun. Instead they had taken advantage of the fact that he was alone and overwhelmed him.

I knelt beside the wounded nightwalker. His eyelids fluttered as he attempted to open his eyes. I hadn’t made a noise in my approach, but he could sense me. I laid a hand on his barrel chest and he flinched at my touch. There was a long cut on his throat and another across his middle. Shallow cuts covered his arms and legs. His face was bruised, with his left eye nearly swollen shut. Hugo was lucky they hadn’t cut off his head or carved out his heart. They had left him to suffer as pints of blood slowly poured from his body. He was losing blood too fast for his body to heal the wounds and hold in the blood.

Looking over my shoulder at Penelope, who was staring white-faced down at Hugo, I ordered her to fetch a car. We needed to move the giant vampire. If we were going to be lucky enough to save him, we couldn’t do it here.

“What should we do?” Ryan inquired, taking Penelope’s place behind me.

I gritted my teeth, catching a whiff of his blood on the slight breeze. It wouldn’t help Hugo. Ryan wasn’t a candidate for a donation. Warlock blood didn’t always go well with every nightwalker, and I didn’t see Danaus allowing it even if Ryan agreed.

“Go gather up all the dead naturi,” I said, putting my hand over the wound on Hugo’s stomach in a desperate attempt to slow some of the bleeding. He let out a low moan as I applied pressure, sending a fresh wave of pain through his body. “Put them in one spot. I have to dispose of them before we leave.”

I waited until the sound of Danaus’s and Ryan’s footsteps faded in the distance before turning my attention entirely back to Hugo. His body was ice cold to the touch, and if I hadn’t felt the actual presence of his soul in the large body before me, I would have assumed he was dead.

I dipped into his mind and immediately got sucked into a swirling maelstrom of pain. Not that I could actually feel his pain. It came through to me as black chaos that permeated every thought and memory. It was difficult to locate Hugo within the chaos, and it didn’t help that everything was coming through in German.

Can you tell me what happened? I asked, finally finding Hugo within the haze of pain and hunger.

Naturi…everywhere. There was a long pause and I could feel him pushing against the pain, fighting to focus his thoughts. I heard something. Rocks shifting. I turned and they were beside me. Too many. Too close.

It’s okay, I murmured in his head, wishing I could lend him some of my strength.

They came from…southwest…I thought they killed you before reaching me.

No. We didn’t see them. I closed my eyes, trying to ignore the scent of his blood. It was everywhere, coating my hands, filling the air with its oh-so-sweet smell. I was still achy and tired from our encounter with the naturi. I needed to feed myself, but it would have to wait.

My mind drifted. I didn’t know how I was going to save Hugo. We needed to get him some blood, lots of it. We would need to keep pumping it into him until the wounds finally closed and he could hold it within his body. The wounds had to close before the sun rose or the blood would drain out of him during the day and he wouldn’t reawaken with the setting of the sun.

The sound of a car motor approaching the ruins jerked me from my thoughts. A quick check revealed that it was Penelope and she wasn’t alone. She was bringing two humans with her. I hadn’t thought to ask her to round up a quick bite for Hugo, just something to buy him a little more time. Of course, no matter what my condition, I tended to be somewhat selective in my meals. Looking back down at Hugo and his gray pallor, I doubted I’d be picky if I was in the same state as he was.

Penelope parked the car not far from Hugo’s location and made her way toward us as quickly as possible. A dark frown tugged at the corners of my lips when I saw the elderly couple preceding her to the site. They wouldn’t survive a substantial blood loss, but I was willing to bet she’d simply grabbed the owners of the car. There was no time to go hunting down a pair of strapping young men who could stand to lose a couple pints of blood each.

The hiss of a sword being pulled from its scabbard sent a chill up my spine. With my hand still pressed to Hugo’s stomach, I twisted around to see Danaus pointing the sword at Penelope, who had taken a step in front of the two humans as if to protect them from the hunter.

“Mira!” Danaus’s hard voice landed heavy on my shoulders.

“Danaus, wait!”

“Hugo needs blood,” Penelope argued, lifting her upper lip in a snarl that revealed a pair of perfect fangs. It was a warning.

“Hugo won’t last much longer if we don’t get some blood back into his system,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm and even. The sound of Danaus’s and Ryan’s hearts pounding seemed to echo through the tree-lined area, rising above the rustling of the leaves. Everyone was tense from the fight with the naturi and tempers were short. I couldn’t afford to have someone snap.

“She means for him to kill the humans,” Danaus said, taking a step closer. The hunter lifted the point of his sword to the level of Penelope’s throat. “Release the humans.”

“No! Hugo needs them!” Penelope shouted. “Mira, control him! Hugo needs blood.”

“Danaus! Stand down!”

“I won’t let you kill humans,” Danaus said. His grip on the sword shifted, tightening. It was my last warning.

Time slowed down and I sat on the ground, one hand on Hugo, frozen. Danaus swung his sword twice; first plunging it into Penelope’s chest, then removing it and swinging it in a wide arc, slicing off her head. I watched it happen, unable to bring a single word of protest from my throat as he moved in a flawless, fluid swing. Shock halted any useful thoughts. In a span of just a few seconds everything had spiraled completely out of control.

The spray of Penelope’s blood washed over all of us. With her death, the humans woke up from the trance she had been holding them under to keep them calm and quiet. Their screams rang through the valley, bouncing off the nearby mountains and waking me from my own morbid thoughts. The old man and woman stared down at their blood-covered hands and clothes, screaming and shaking. They had woken up to find themselves standing outside with two blood-covered bodies on the ground and three soaked, scary figures looming before them. Looking into their wide, horrified eyes, I briefly wondered what Our Liege was thinking when he decided to move up the Great Awakening. It was madness.

“Ryan!” I shouted, my voice shaking. Hugo was stirring, a new moaning rumbling through his brain. Danaus was denying him his only chance at survival. Fear had gripped the nightwalker, and I didn’t want him to try to move, reopening wounds that had begun to heal.

“I’ve got it.” The warlock’s voice was remarkably calm despite the insanity reigning around us. With a wave of his hand, the two humans grew instantly silent. A dull, unfocused stare returned to their faces. They were no longer aware of where they were or what was going on. I had thought Ryan would know such a trick. We all had to learn to hide in the open and control the minds of others if we were going to survive in a world that demanded we keep such a big secret.

With a growl, I finally turned my attention to Danaus, who was putting his sword back to the scabbard on his back. “What the hell were you thinking? She was only trying to save Hugo. How could you kill her, you heartless bastard?” My voice was choked and broken, struggling to push past the lump in my throat.

“She was going to let him kill both the humans,” Danaus said. “You know she was. She was going to sacrifice two humans in hopes of saving him.” I looked up again to find him staring down at me, his blue eyes narrowed on my face. “I won’t let you kill humans to save yourself.”

“Yes she was! But did you ask me what I was planning? Did you ever wonder if I would allow such a thing to happen?” I had to close my eyes to keep the tears from falling. I felt so betrayed. Not until that moment did I realize how much I’d come to depend on Danaus. I had wrongly thought that he’d started to trust me, that he believed in me to do the right thing.

But even the idea of the right thing had begun to blur. Was sacrificing two humans such a bad thing when it came to trying to save the entire human race from the naturi? Keeping Hugo alive would give us one more fighter against the naturi. As it stood now, Penelope was dead and it was highly unlikely that Hugo would last the rest of the night. Any other nightwalker wouldn’t have thought twice about draining those two humans dry, but I’d hesitated. No longer sure.

“I don’t kill humans when feeding,” I said in a voice that sounded broken and beaten. “And I won’t allow those around me to do it either. I thought you knew that. You didn’t think and you’ve damned us all.” Shaking my head, I looked up at Ryan, who was standing next to the humans. “You and Danaus take the humans. Wipe their memories and send them home. Leave me the car. I’ll take care of Hugo.”

“But—”

“Just go,” I interrupted Ryan before he could argue further. “I’ll clean up here.”

I sat still on the ground next to Hugo, my hand still pressed to his stomach as if it was my only anchor to sanity in this world. For the first time since becoming a nightwalker, I could feel the night pull in around me and a deep emptiness filled my chest. Even when I was being held captive by the naturi, I didn’t give up hope that Sadira or another nightwalker would come to my rescue. But with one nightwalker dead by the hand of a man I had come to rely on, and another dying in my arms, I couldn’t find any hope to cling to. The naturi would crush us all.