Dayhunter

THREE

I hesitated at the bottom of the stairs leading up to my little jet. Instead of winging me back across the ocean toward home, it was carrying me into the dark heart of the nightwalker empire, the Coven. Jabari would claim it was for my own protection; I had no doubt that the Elders had some other dark scheme in mind. Of course, I had no say in the matter. Running would only make it worse. And I still had to figure out a way to protect Danaus and Tristan.

With a grimace, I climbed on and came face-to-face with the young nightwalker. Tristan stood in the middle of the plane, his hands resting on his slender hips as he looked around the pristine white interior. His eyes settled on me after a moment, with one brow arched in question.

“White?” he inquired, amusement cavorting through his voice. I swept past him, ignoring his comment. What could I say? I thought the black clothes were enough of a stereotype.

“Contact Sadira,” I snapped, noticing the way his smile slipped at the mention of our maker. Neither of us was in any great hurry to see her again. I had escaped her “tender care” nearly five centuries ago only to find myself faced with the controlling vampire once again. Tristan had recently escaped, but was recaptured by me as I’d been unwittingly manipulated by her.

“Tell her to have a taxi waiting when we arrive,” I ordered as I dropped my bag on the floor. “We’re going to be cutting it that close.” Lounging on one of the long benches that lined the interior of the plane, I tried to keep up the appearance of being completely unconcerned with the fact that we were flying to Venice, with sunrise only four hours away.

“Anything else, Mistress?” he asked with an elegant bow. I frowned at the nightwalker. Get him away from Sadira and he turns into a sarcastic ass, I thought. Just what I needed. I already had my hands full with Danaus, the Coven, and the naturi; I didn’t need to worry about a young nightwalker now that he was away from his master. But I also had a sickening feeling in my stomach that he was confident I would find a way to free him from Sadira’s grasp. Desperation made me promise to help him. At the time, I’d been sure that one of us wouldn’t survive the encounter. I was wrong, and now I was stuck.

“Go to the back and take a nap,” I grumbled.

I watched him as he took a couple steps toward the back of the jet, where a tiny bedroom lay behind a door. But he paused before reaching the door, seeming to hesitate.

“Go ahead,” I called. “Say it.”

“Why go?” Tristan’s voice was barely over a whisper when he finally spoke, as if fearful of some kind of punishment for questioning me. He turned and his eyes held that same haunted look they had just a couple nights ago in that London alley. Fearful. Hopeless. “We’ve got a jet. Let’s go west. As far from the Coven as we can get.”

“And spend an eternity running from the Coven? From the naturi?” I rose to my feet and slowly approached him. His narrow shoulders curled inward, his body tensing for an expected blow. “There is nowhere to run. Jabari will hunt us down. The naturi will hunt us down. If we go to the Coven now, they can raise an army and we can finally stop the naturi from freeing their queen.”

“What about the Coven?”

I smiled at him and brushed the tips of my fingers along the side of his face. “Others have survived facing the Coven. It just takes a little finesse.”

“The Coven needs you alive.”

“And I promised to keep to you,” I said with a shrug. “So, if I live, you live.”

A cynical smile twisted on Tristan’s lips, failing to lift any of the doubt from his eyes. But he nodded once before turning and disappearing in the tiny back bedroom. He knew there was no escaping our destination. We would go before the Coven. If we were to defeat the naturi, we would need their assistance.

I bit back a sigh as I returned to the bench I had been sitting on. It wasn’t a great plan, but at least it was something. As I stretched out my legs and tried to relax, Danaus stepped onto the jet.

A surprised smile tweaked the corners of my mouth as he sat on the bench across from me. It was only a few days ago since we boarded the jet together for the first time. He had been tense and uneasy as we headed off to search for clues as to how the naturi were attempting to break free of their cage. Now he seemed almost relaxed. I was no longer a threat. At this point we both had darker things to worry about than what we could do to each other.

“What?” he asked in a wary, near growl.

“You’re still here,” I replied. His blue eyes narrowed. I waved one hand at him, brushing off his dark look. “I didn’t mean it quite like that. I thought we would have parted ways by now, whether through your death or not.”

One thick dark brow quirked at me. “I’ve thought the same.” I think he was taunting me. It was hard to tell. His thoughts and emotions had grown distant and hazy again, while his expression retreated to its usual unreadable stone. The link we had established through our combined powers had faded to almost nothingness. My awareness of him was now obscured by the cloak of energy that wrapped around him.

“So I’ve heard. Ryan said you’ve been itching to cut my heart out. Do you plan to keep it as a trophy?” That finally earned me a frown while my own smile widened. “Regardless of your plans for my various body parts, we’ll have to keep working together if we hope to survive the next few nights. Trust me, I’m not pleased. You’re giving me a bad reputation.”

Danaus chuckled quietly, and for a brief moment his features softened. Through that slim window of time, I glimpsed sight of a beautiful man. His weariness and shadow of worry melted away. Normally, with his glares and frowns, he was a virile creature exuding strength and power. Yet when he smiled and laughed, his humanity shone through a break in the clouds. It was a strange combination. Danaus had somehow found a way to be human without all the usual human frailty.

And then I realized I no longer wanted to kill him. Lurching to my feet with none of my usual grace, I paced to the back of the jet, a curse on the tip of my tongue. Was I going soft? Had I lost my edge?

But just because I didn’t want to kill him didn’t automatically mean I saw him as a comrade in arms. He was a strong fighter, and it was nice having someone at my back who could take care of himself. Danaus wasn’t as frail as my beloved angels, but he also didn’t have their warmth and compassion.

Stretching my arms above my head as best as I could in the jet, I shook off the strange realization. Danaus was probably still in my head, mucking up my thoughts. It would pass, I tried to reassure myself. So he wasn’t on my to-kill list anymore. That could change easily enough, and probably would during our stay in Venice.

“Can he hear us?” Danaus suddenly inquired, motioning with his head toward the closed door at the opposite end of the jet.

I paused as I paced back toward the bench opposite him, my brows bunched over the bridge of my nose in confusion. “Why?”

“We need to talk.” Those ominous words rumbled in his chest before finally finding an exit from his lips. I could guess at what he wanted to talk about and I was in no rush, but it had to be done. Mentally reaching out, I brushed Tristan’s mind and found him stretched out on the bed in the back of the jet. With a little shove, I pushed him deeper into sleep, where he would stay until the jet landed.

“Tristan is asleep. He can’t hear us,” I said, sitting on the bench across from Danaus. I stretched out my legs and crossed them at the ankle, trying my best to affect a relaxed posture when all the muscles in my body seemed to be tense and waiting. “What is it that we’re keeping quiet?”

“What happened. Have you ever done that before?”

I didn’t have to ask what he was talking about. Hours ago Danaus, Tristan, Jabari, Sadira, and I had been at the Themis Compound, surrounded by naturi. It seemed that we were dead. There was no escape, nothing to swoop in and save us. In a last desperate attempt, Danaus and I agreed to use our powers: boiling blood and fire. If we survived, we’d be exhausted and at the mercy of our “comrades.” Instead Danaus somehow pushed his powers into me, his deep voice echoing through my brain as I destroyed them all. And not just the ones at Themis. I had killed every member of the naturi within several miles of the Compound.

“Incinerated someone? Yes,” I said, purposefully vague. I wanted to hear him say the words. I needed to know that I wasn’t alone in what I felt.

“That’s not what happened and you know it,” Danaus snarled. He flinched at the loudness of his voice as if afraid he would wake Tristan. He couldn’t, but I wasn’t about to disillusion him. I didn’t need him yelling at me. I had enough on my mind without an irate vampire hunter to worry about. “We destroyed their souls,” he continued in a low, heavy voice.

I remained silent. Was there anything I could say that wouldn’t sound lame? Not really. Maybe a part of me was hoping I’d been wrong. But I wasn’t. Danaus had felt the same thing.

“I’m assuming you couldn’t do that before,” I finally said.

“No!” he shouted, lurching to his feet. His hands opened and closed restlessly at his sides twice before he finally returned to his seat, his emotions once again under control. “No, I haven’t. I can’t do that. I’ve never heard of any creature doing that.” His voice was a little calmer than before, but it was a forced calm. Panicking would solve nothing, not that I wouldn’t have enjoyed the brief luxury.

“Then why did you force me to do it?” My own voice turned even harder and colder than I meant it to. I hated the naturi with every ounce of my being, but even so, destroying another creature’s soul? It…it was an unspeakable act, something that smacked of true evil.

“I didn’t force you to do anything!” he said, jerking his eyes back to my face.

“I heard your voice in my head. You told me to kill them. You told me to kill them all.”

“Not like that.”

“I tried to crush their hearts or set them on fire but you wouldn’t let me.” I shifted uncomfortably, placing both of my feet flat on the floor as I moved to the edge of my seat.

“I didn’t stop you from doing anything.” Danaus shoved one hand through his thick black hair, pushing some strands away from his exquisite blue eyes. I could almost sense the frustration humming through his muscular frame, building in him as he recalled events from earlier in the evening. “The moment I touched your hand, it felt like my powers had been amplified. Considering we were outnumbered and about to die, I didn’t think this was a bad thing.”

“And that’s all?” I asked, failing to keep the skepticism from my voice.

Danaus took another deep breath and held it for a moment. “I could hear your thoughts,” he finally admitted, his voice near a whisper. His eyes moved away from my face, dropping down to his hands, which rested half open on his thighs. “You were scared and in pain. I just kept thinking, ‘kill them. Kill them and the pain will stop.’” He paused and I could feel his anger starting to ebb. The faint smell of the sea filled the cabin, seeming to cleanse the air. Danaus’s unique scent. My eyes drifted closed, letting his voice brush against my cheek. “I didn’t tell you to destroy their souls. I didn’t think such a thing was possible and I would never have asked that.”

“I didn’t think so, but this is all new to me. I wanted to be sure.” My head fell back against the bench. I didn’t want to think about this anymore. There were no answers for what had happened or for what I knew would happen again.

Danaus let a deep, heavy silence slip back into the little jet, holding us together in the gathering darkness. It was several minutes later before he bothered to speak again. Neither of us wanted to think about this anymore, but certain questions had to be answered before we reached Venice and the Coven.

“How is it that I can…”

“Control me?” I finished the statement that seemed to get stuck in his throat; whether because he had a sudden concern for my feelings or just a distaste for the ability, I didn’t know. Despite my own carefully crafted facade, I couldn’t keep the bitterness from my tone. Jabari could control me. Sadira could. While he lived, so could Tabor. The original three members of the triad, and my makers. And now Danaus.

“I’ve been around enough vampires throughout my life. What I felt when I touched you…” Again his voice died, and I let the sentence wither away before I spoke.

“I can answer only part of that question. Jabari and Sadira and potentially other nightwalkers can control me because I was…made differently.” I paused, nearly choking on the word. This story was not supposed to go this way. All the popular tales told of a chosen one, a child born under a particular star that was supposed to rise up and lead the downtrodden to redemption and victory. Well, this so-called “chosen one” was a tool, a weapon, a nightmare that could just as easily destroy my kind as lead them to salvation, and I hated it.

Frowning, my eyes darted around the interior of the plane as I tried to frame my explanation. “There are two ways to make a nightwalker. The first is quick, easy, obviously the most common. A nightwalker drains a human of his blood and replaces it with the nightwalker’s blood at the exact second of death. The next night the human rises a nightwalker. It takes a few centuries for these vampires to gain any significant powers. These humans are reborn as nightwalkers to serve as a form of entertainment for their master. They’re not expected to live long existences and rarely outlast their masters.”

“Why?”

A grim smile skipped unchecked across my face, causing the hunter to stiffen. “Because many of our entertainments are lethal, even for nightwalkers. Among my kind, these quickly made nightwalkers are commonly referred to as chum.”

“Is Tristan…chum?” Danaus asked, the term falling from his lips like something distasteful.

“Yes, but I wouldn’t call him that to his face.”

“I guessed as much,” he murmured under his breath.

“Most nightwalkers are made this way. It takes little effort and dedication to the task.”

“Have you ever…?”

“No.” My hands gripped the edge of my seat for a moment as I sat straight up. “I have never made a nightwalker, nor will I.” With a shake of my head, I relaxed again and sat back. There were enough of us roaming the earth.

Closing my eyes, I listened to the steady rhythm of Danaus’s heartbeat, the sound barely rising about the dulled roar of the jet engine. The beat was soothing, wiping away my momentary anxiety. I didn’t create nightwalkers.

“But I wasn’t made that way, and up until a couple nights ago I thought that Sadira was my only creator.” I paused again, licking my lips as I searched for the words. “There are three stages of death. The first is that the body stops breathing, then the heart stops, and then finally the soul leaves the body. When I was made, the transformation was started before my soul had left my body. Sadira worked slowly and carefully to make sure my soul never escaped from my body.

“The process takes years—sometimes decades—to complete, but when the nightwalker finally awakens, he is stronger and more powerful than those newly born chum. Some believe that by retaining the soul throughout the whole process, the nightwalker attains a higher level of power. In general, those made this way are stronger, more powerful, and harder to kill. They are called First Bloods.”

“So Tristan doesn’t have a soul?”

“He does,” I growled, lurching to my feet. I didn’t like to hear those words uttered. It was a very old myth that vampires were soulless creatures, a myth that many humans still believed. And they would use that archaic belief to hunt us down when they discovered we existed.

Staring down at a tired Danaus, I forced myself to relax. He had meant nothing by the question and I knew I’d overreacted. My nerves were growing rawer the closer we got to Venice. Flopping back down, I bit off a sigh. “When the body is reanimated with the vampire blood, the soul is called back to the body. But when the sun rises, he dies again and the soul leaves. Of course, this is all theory.”

“And you?”

“They speculate that I don’t technically die like the rest at sunrise. Sadira thinks it’s why I’m able to dream when the others cannot,” I said with a shake of my head.

“Why did she make you like that?”

“If she is to be believed, it was what Jabari wanted,” I replied. “I was kidnapped centuries ago because of my ability to control fire. When they feared the plague would take my human life, they decided to make me a nightwalker. However, Jabari wanted to see if I could retain my ability, and the best chance of that was to make me a First Blood.”

“Jabari’s blood is in your veins.”

“And Sadira’s. And Tabor’s. The original members of the triad.” And two of the four members of the Coven. Some of the most powerful nightwalkers in existence, then and now. “They believe they and some of their progeny can control me because their blood is a part of me.”

“But I’m not a nightwalker. Never have been, never will be,” Danaus said.

I bit back a comment about how there was still time. There was nothing to be gained by antagonizing him right now. He had enough problems in the form of the Coven and every vampire in Venice wanting a piece of his nightwalker-hunting hide. “You? I have no idea. Since you refuse to tell me what you are, I can only guess you’re a freak of nature like me and that must give you some kind of strange edge.”

“Do the others know what really happened?” Danaus demanded, deftly changing the subject. He wasn’t going to tell me yet, but I liked to think I would have the truth out of him before his last breath.

“I don’t think so,” I said with a sigh on my lips. “If they had, I don’t think we would have made it out of Themis alive; naturi or not. It would be best if we kept the full extent of what we can do to ourselves. We are about to head into the heart of the nightwalker hierarchy. It might be a good idea not to give them any more reasons to crush us into the dirt.”

“You don’t think they will when we arrive in Venice?”

“At the moment, they might be kind enough to wait until after we stop the naturi,” I said with a frail chuckle, lifting my head to look at him.

“Lucky us,” Danaus grimly said. “You expect to survive the next few nights?”

“Not really.” A carefree shrug lifted my slim shoulders. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try.”

“Then you have a plan for when we hit Venice,” he prodded.

I smiled back at him, extending my legs out in front of me with my ankles crossed. The leather seat crinkled and crackled beneath me. “I have some ideas, but no specific plan. I work better off the cuff,” I said, causing his expression to grow even darker. I couldn’t blame him. We were in yet another situation in which he would have to trust me to protect him from my kind. Not a comfortable position, considering he had killed many of us during his extremely long career as a hunter.

“You’re going to try to talk your way out of death?” Danaus guessed, sounding incredulous as he sat forward on the edge of the bench.

“I plan to bluff, cajole, grandstand, and outright lie if necessary to save my skin,” I said, and laughed, throwing open my arms. One of the most powerful nightwalkers in existence wanted me dead. I had nothing to lose any longer.

“And sacrifice me when the opportunity presents itself,” Danaus finished, shoving to his feet. I rose as well and stepped closer so only a couple of feet of empty space were separating us. It felt odd being that close without weapons drawn.

“I bear the Elders no love,” I said. “Jabari was the only one who once resided in my heart and he crushed that before departing Themis. “On the other hand, you’ve saved my life on more than one occasion. I don’t know your rationale behind it and at the moment I don’t care,” I quickly finished, holding up my hand before he could interject any of his reasons for prolonging my life, which I’m sure were on the tip of his tongue. It didn’t look good for a hunter of his caliber to go around saving nightwalkers. “We will walk into Venice together and we will walk out together, I promise.” I held out my hand to him. Danaus stared into my eyes for a long time, weighing my words before he finally took my hand and shook it, sealing the bargain.

“And after?” he demanded, his hand still tightly gripping mine.

“After Venice? Assuming we both actually survive, we get back to the business of trying to kill each other like nature intended,” I mocked, releasing his rough, callused hand. A half smile briefly lifted one corner of his mouth as he sat back down.

“All I ask is that you keep your mouth shut and trust me,” I said, looking down at him. “It’s not an impossible task. You’re a hunter. I have no doubt that you’ve slaughtered countless nightwalkers. You’re not exactly winning over many friends.”

“It’s not my goal in life,” he said, sounding grumpy.

“I believe that,” I muttered as I returned to my seat. Draping my body over the bench, I listened to the roar of the engines. Even if I did live long enough to finally gain the ability to fly, I would still use my pretty little jet. Besides the obvious comfort, I liked listening to the moan of the air rushing past the windows and the roar of the engine.

As the plane carried us closer to Italy, Danaus bent down and started digging around in the large black duffel bag near his feet. I could hear the clang and ping of metal striking metal as he sifted around in his trusty bag of weapons. I was sorry that I’d left the sword I used at Themis behind, but my hands were full of Tristan at the time. My mind hadn’t been on proper weaponry for our trip to Venice. Lucky for me, Danaus remembered to grab his bag of tricks from the hotel. He might have even made a pit stop for extra toys at the Themis town house where we met James Parker.

After a moment he sat back with a gun in his hand. He quickly checked the magazine before standing and walking over to me. My eyes briefly flit from the gun he was holding out to me and back to his face questioningly.

“Guns seem to be effective against the naturi,” he said when I had yet to move. I stared at the gun for a second, frowning. I didn’t like guns. They were so impersonal. They were also ineffective when dealing with nightwalkers. Being shot just pissed vampires off and didn’t slow them down much. We also hadn’t fought the naturi on a regular basis in several centuries, so most of us never bothered to learn how to use a gun.

With a frown, I finally took the weapon from him, holding the grip between two fingers away from my body like a piece of rotting garbage. Growling in frustration, Danaus took the gun back and sat down next to me. “It’s a Browning Hi-Power loaded with 9mm bullets,” he explained, letting it rest in the palm of his hand. “The magazine holds fifteen bullets.” With a couple of deft motions with his fingers, he showed me how to load the magazine and turn off the safety. My knowledge of guns didn’t extend much further than pointing and squeezing the trigger. I had no desire to learn any more than that, but if I was faced with another naturi, the Browning was going to feel a whole lot better in my hand than a knife.

“I’m guessing you can manage that,” Danaus taunted, trying to get a rise out of me.

“I’ll manage,” I almost growled, the two words squeezing between my clenched teeth. “Holster?”

He returned to the opposite bench and pulled a leather double shoulder holster out of his bag. He tossed it across the jet and I caught it with my empty hand. It was made of a supple, dark brown leather and was adjustable so I didn’t have to worry about it being too bulky. Unfortunately I wasn’t wearing a belt so I wouldn’t be able to use the belt-securing ties. While I was strapping on the shoulder holster, Danaus brought over a second gun.

“It’s a Glock 17 with 9mm rounds,” he said as I accepted the gun and placed it in the right holster. The Browning went in the left. I looked down at myself and frowned. A nightwalker carrying guns. It seemed almost sacrilegious, if that was possible. We were graceful creatures from the Old World. When we killed, it was either with our bare hands or a blade.

“Is it wrong that the refrain from ‘Janie’s Got a Gun’ keeps running through my head?” I moaned. Danaus made a noise in the back of his throat as he quickly looked away, but not before I saw his lips quirk in a half smile. “What? You don’t like Aerosmith?” I asked.

“No! I—” He halted and shook his head, no longer fighting the smile. “Aerosmith is fine. I was thinking of another song.”

“Which one?”

When he looked up at me, his smile was gone, but laughter danced in his eyes. “‘Sympathy for the Devil,’” he answered.

“Ha ha. Real funny, hunter,” I said snidely. “At least it’s the Stones.”

“Nope. Guns N’ Roses,” he corrected, one corner of his mouth quirked in a grin. I snorted in disgust but couldn’t stop the smile that settled on my lips. However, when I looked back down at the guns hugging my frame, a sigh escaped my lips and the smile disintegrated.

“It’s not that bad,” Danaus said, interrupting my thoughts.

I just glared at him. He had no idea how bad it was.

His weary sigh seemed more show than exasperation as he returned to his bag one last time and quickly withdrew a long sword and scabbard. With a deep chuckle, I snatched the weapon from his hand and clutched it against my chest. The hilt and grip were of simple design, with an onion pommel and slightly curved cross guard with a flat ricasso. I pulled it out of the scabbard a little and discovered that it was a double-edged broadsword in exquisite condition. Actually, it was a sort of hybrid, with an elongated hilt common to a hand-and-a-half sword. The strap on the scabbard was designed so I could secure it across my chest and draw the sword from over my shoulder. I looked up to find him shaking his head, a smiling haunting his lips.

“I’m not the only one who prefers the old ways.” A smirk twisted my mouth and I raised both eyebrows at him. Danaus rarely used a gun, and the way he held a sword made me think he’d been born with one in his hand.

“But to survive, you learn to adapt,” he said grimly.

“True,” I whispered, looking back down at the pistols resting on either side of my chest. I didn’t like them, but they would stop a member of the naturi faster than I could cut them into pieces with my sword. “Thanks.”

Danaus grunted and returned to the white leather bench. I carefully removed the shoulder holster and laid it on one of the empty seats with the sword. I stretched out on the leather sofa again, grateful to be rid of the guns.

A deep silence settled in the jet. Only the sound of the screaming wind could be heard. I relaxed against the upholstery with my eyes closed, both of us lost in our own worlds. I blotted out thoughts of my wounded Gabriel, reassuring myself that he was safe with Ryan and James. I tried not to think about the Coven, Jabari, or the naturi. I tried not to think about the fact that I had lived with Jabari in Egypt for nearly a century. For almost one hundred years he ran his little experiments, letting other nightwalkers try to control me, and I couldn’t remember a moment of it. The years were a blur, but they weren’t a gaping black hole in my past. I remembered nights in Jabari’s home near Karnak where we would sit talking about the things we had seen. We discussed what it meant to be a nightwalker and others who had come before both of us. The Ancient nightwalker had given me a sense of history and a philosophy. He’d been a mentor and guide in the night.

I pushed those thoughts away, plunging deeper into the blackness of my mind, only to have images of Michael swim to the surface. His soft, golden locks rose up before me, and I ached to touch the smoothness of his skin as it stretched over miles of thick muscle. I remembered his wonderful smile and how it was always unsure and crooked when he struggled to read my moods. Yet tainting those good memories was the feel of his body in my arms as he died, a lead weight pressing down on my legs and awkward in my arms. The brush of his soul still chilled my skin. It beat against his chest, battling for freedom when I desperately wanted him to stay. I left him when consciousness abandoned him at last, unable to bear the final moments when his soul broke free and left me forever.

Leaning my head back, I rested one elbow on the back of the bench and threaded my fingers through my hair. A lump rose in my throat and my eyes burned with tears fighting to slip down my cool cheeks. I had killed Michael as surely as if I plunged the blade in his back myself. I had seen him slowly sliding deeper into my world, slipping further away from his own kind. The descent was slow and I had convinced myself that he could handle it. Gabriel had, after all. My remaining angel had served me as a bodyguard for more than a decade with no ill effects.

But Gabriel was always careful to maintain a normal life away from me. I had dipped into his mind on numerous occasions and saw the things he enjoyed. Gabriel looked forward to watching football on Sunday and drinking with friends at a local bar. He dated and kept lovers. I never saw such things in Michael’s mind. There had been only me.

Humans did not last when they became involved with my kind. For a while it was fun, but after a time there were only two paths for their fragile minds and bodies: death or rebirth. I could have saved my guardian angel at any time from his fate, but I could not bring myself to release him. A naturi may have wielded the blade that freed Michael’s soul, but I had set the trap and baited it with myself.