Nightwalker

Twenty-Two

Blinking against the bright entrance, I tried to raise my hand to cover my eyes, but it was too heavy to move. Instead, I pressed my head into Tristan’s bare, blood-smeared chest as he carried me into the great manor. It seemed they had flicked on every light in the place, much like James had earlier in the evening, attempting to protect themselves against the dark creatures entering their sanctuary. Before closing my eyes, I caught a glimpse of the enormous marble and wood staircase that dominated the main hall. On both the left and right of the hall, doors were pulled open and footsteps scraped and echoed off the hardwood floors as people stepped out to inspect Tristan and me.

“Sadira,” I murmured softly against Tristan, my lips lightly brushing the cool skin of his chest. I wasn’t sure if anyone could actually hear me anymore. The world was fading away—the pain had dimmed and I could no longer feel Tristan’s arms holding me.

“Mira?” Tristan’s worried voice demanded an answer, but I simply didn’t have the energy to reply. “Sadira! Where is she? We’re losing Mira.”

The young nightwalker’s question was answered with a horrible sound, a mix of scream and snarl. It was Sadira. I knew her voice, its every tone, pitch, and nuance. For years it had echoed through my brain, a singsong chant I could never escape.

Soft hands touched my face, turning my head. “Mira! Open your eyes and look at me now!” Sadira commanded.

My eyelids fluttered for a brief moment before I finally gave up the attempt. Licking my lips, I drew in a slow breath. “We had…problems,” I whispered.

A snarl of low curses escaped Sadira in a rough voice, but she was very gentle when she pressed a kiss to my temple before resting my head against Tristan’s chest again. “I need somewhere to work undisturbed. There. In there.”

My thoughts drifted away for a while. I was vaguely aware of Tristan carrying me somewhere followed by a flurry of angry voices and some slamming doors. A soft whimper escaped me as Tristan set me down on a hard surface that I could only guess was a long tabletop. The bright lights were banked at last and I was able to force my eyes open a crack. Tall bookshelves lined the wall to my right, broken only by portraits of grim-faced men with gray and white hair.

“They found us…” I forced out as my eyes fell shut again. There was no more time. I had to tell Sadira what happened so she could tell Jabari. The Elder would fix it; he’d be able to stop the naturi. “They killed Thorne. N-Need another.”

“I know,” Sadira whispered. I could only guess that Tristan had caught her up on the evening’s events while I drifted in and out of consciousness. She was standing beside me. Her small hand swept over my forehead, pushed hair away from my face. “But we need to heal you now.”

“Triad—”

“None of that matters. None of that matters without you.” Sadira pressed a kiss to my cheek and then my forehead. “I need you to relax your mind.”

“Tired. So…tired.” I was exhausted. Tired of fighting, tired of the pain.

And then something stirred. Swamped within the pain, I felt something faint shift in my thoughts, but as I tried to focus on it, it slipped away, pulling back into the swirling mist that consumed my thoughts. I reached out again, searching for the movement, and then the pain was gone.

My eyes flew open and I screamed. My thoughts came to a screeching halt as I looked around me. The wall of books and stern-looking men was completely gone. The gleaming hardwood streaked with my blood was gone. Around me were cold stone walls and wooden torches held in wrought-iron sconces guttering with firelight in the large room. It was a dungeon. It was the dungeon below Sadira’s castle in Spain. It was the room where I’d been reborn.

Another scream of panic rose up in my throat as I sat up and twisted around to thoroughly scan the room. It couldn’t be the same place. When I closed my eyes, I’d been dying on a boardroom table in England. Sadira didn’t have the ability to instantly flit from place to place like Jabari. It couldn’t be real.

“It’s not real.” Her disembodied voice floated through the air for a moment before she came through the stone wall to my right and stood beside where I sat on the long stone slab. “The pain was taking you away from me. I needed to take you away from the pain so I could heal you. The damage is…extensive. Organs have been shredded and your heart has been punctured. You’re dying.”

“I guessed as much,” I sighed. Anxiety crawled up my spine, digging claws into my back. I could tell my brain that it wasn’t real, but rising panic wasn’t buying it. It looked real, it felt real, it smelled real. “But why here?”

“I need you to trust me,” Sadira said with a soft smile, tilting her head to one side. “This is the one time in your life you trusted me completely.”

A snort escaped me as I swung my legs over the side of the stone table and dropped to my feet, putting the table between us. “I have never trusted you.”

“That is an interesting lie,” she chided. “You lay helpless night after night for ten years, completely dependent upon me to keep you alive. I was in your mind; you never doubted that I would return each night to you.”

I stood with my left hip pressed against the stone slab, my arms crossed over my chest. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Sadira watching me, waiting for my response. I knew she was right. I had trusted her to bring me into her world, not to abandon me. But at that point my only other option was death.

For a moment Sadira’s image wavered, and I turned to face her, automatically reaching for her, but my hand passed through her. “So much damage…” Her voice whispered through the air, but her lips never moved. She was having troubling repairing the damage and maintaining the fantasy world. Pain cut through my chest, doubling me over, my forehead pressed against the stone table before me. I felt nothing but the pain for several seconds before it faded again like a wave pulling back out to sea.

When I stood again, Sadira was before me. Her face was strained and pale, but she was with me again. “There is so much damage. I wish I could reach Jabari,” she absently said. She wasn’t looking at me, but down at the table that stood between us. “But then he may use that as an excuse to take you back.”

Something twisted in my stomach that had nothing to do with the wound she was fighting to close. Jabari couldn’t help her. Only Sadira could heal me. She was the one that made me a nightwalker, and only her blood could repair the wounded flesh she’d helped to create. I hesitated to ask. Sadira was very careful with knowledge, well-aware that controlling the flow of information was the easiest way to control her children. Despite her distracted demeanor, she didn’t drop that information without a very good reason.

“Only you can save me.” Even if it was all an illusion, the words tasted bad on my tongue as I said them.

Laughter danced in Sadira’s eyes as she looked up at me. “How I wish that were true.” She chuckled even as the light seemed to die from her expression. “Jabari has watched you from the moment I found you in Greece. I was allowed to keep you only if I promised to bring you before him whenever he commanded. And when the time came to bring you into the darkness, it was agreed that you would be a First Blood.”

“What do you mean ‘agreed’?” The statement implied that others were involved in the discussion about my fate, but there was never anyone but Sadira and her children around. As a human, I was occasionally brought before the Coven and other Ancients as a form of amusement, but Jabari had never been around then.

“Jabari and Tabor discussed it.” Sadira reached across the table and took my right hand in both of her hands. Turning my arm over, she ran the fingers of her left hand down the inside of my arm. “My blood runs in your veins—shaped your organs and gave you an immortal life—but so does Jabari’s and Tabor’s.”

“No!” I jerked my arm out of her grasp and took a step back. “I don’t remember either of them.”

“You were barely alive. It was easier to manipulate your memories then.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, pacing away from the table. There was no sound in the room, not even my footsteps on the stone floor. There were only our voices, because that was the point of bringing me here, not helping me to escape the pain. There was something she needed to tell me regardless of whether I wanted to hear it. “Why?”

“You were different, Mira.” Sadira walked to the end of the table and started to come around it but stopped when I backpedaled, trying to keep some distance between us. “There was no human like you. It was more than your ability to control fire. We could sense an energy in your soul that we had never felt before. So, we decided to make you into a nightwalker, but we knew you would have to be a First Blood if we were to have any chance to preserve this energy.”

“So you made me into a First Blood. That was part of our agreement. What about Jabari and Tabor?”

“Do you think Jabari would allow me to make a creature that could potentially destroy him?” Sadira demanded, incredulous. “Of course not. But if his blood flowed in you, he was sure you would feel bound to him, protecting him from your temper. It would also enable him to know your location at any time.”

I turned my back on Sadira, a chill sweeping through me as a slight pain throbbed in my chest. It was nowhere near as intense as before, but was a subtle reminder that there was another world I had to return to. I stared down at my bare arm, my pale, white skin unmarred and unbroken. The reality of my raw and bruised wrists did not bleed into this illusion. It wasn’t important. My focus was on the blue veins below my skin. Jabari’s blood filled my veins in some way, had helped to give me this life.

“Yet things did not go how he had hoped.”

Sadira’s words jerked my head up. She had silently walked around the table and now leaned back against it. Her small slender hands were folded before her stomach.

“What happened?”

“You remained…you,” she said with a smile, while an odd glow grew in her eyes.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means he assumed that you would be easier to control as a vampire because you could be subjected to more intense forms of punishment without being killed due to your human frailties. But you refused to obey me. You refused to obey any Ancient that crossed your path. Also, I refused to give you up, so you were stolen.”

I forced out a sharp little laugh. This was where her little story took a wrong turn and I was no longer buying it. It was a good try up until then. “I was kidnapped by the naturi, and we both know it.”

A look of pity crossed her pale face as she shook her head. I longed to smack that look off her face but remained standing where I was, my fists clenched at my sides. “Think, my Mira. Before you were stolen, we were traveling west, heading back from Vienna. It was only you and me. We had gone to ground just before sunrise in a tiny village just west of the Pyrenees. No one knew where we were. The only ones who could have found you were those who made you.”

“No!” I shouted, flinching at the faint echo that seemed to bounce around in my brain. I knew what she was saying and it was impossible. Jabari could have handed me over to the naturi five centuries ago. And he could have done it now. After the battle at Machu Picchu, I collapsed in his arms for a century, leaning on his strength. Then, centuries later, the naturi found me in my own domain and again in Egypt, driving me into Jabari’s waiting arms.

The pieces fit, but I didn’t trust them. Jabari hated the naturi. He wouldn’t use them against another nightwalker. He didn’t have to. If he wanted something, he simply commanded and the nightwalker obeyed. Except for me. I didn’t accept a direct order from anyone…but Jabari, and that was only because he had saved me from the naturi.

Gritting my teeth, I shoved both my hands into my hair and paced away from Sadira. My thoughts were swirling in an endless circle. Was she telling the truth? I knew she couldn’t be trusted.

“Why are you telling me this?” I growled, refusing to look at her.

“Because he’s searching for a way to replace you,” she whispered.

I dropped my hands back to my sides as I turned back around to look at my maker. “How?”

“The same way we made you,” she said, shrugging her slim shoulders. “I have helped with ten others, and I know there have been some I was not a part of. Not one has survived beyond the first year.”

“Why? What happens?”

Sadira shook her head, her eyes dropping down to her folded hands. “That’s not important. The fear is that he may succeed one day.”

“And then you think he will have no further use for me.” My voice was dead. Was any of this true? I didn’t know what to believe anymore. My eyes wandered around the room that was my home for ten years. It had been my entire world and Sadira my only contact with life. She had been warmth, and compassion, and love for those years. Had that been a lie too? Or was it the only thing during those years that had been the truth?

“I know you feel no love for me, but you are my child, my beloved daughter. I do not want him to end your life because he feels you are no longer useful to him,” Sadira murmured.

I didn’t want him to end my life either, but I wasn’t about to seek shelter in Sadira’s open arms. It wasn’t exactly an enticing alternative. “Why have the others died?”

Sadira shook her head and her image wavered. At the same time, the pain in my chest increased. “It’s near sunrise. We will speak more later.”

Before I could stop her, pain stabbed through me and my eyes popped open. The library with its tall bookshelves and grim men surrounded me again. Candlelight flickered, casting shadows around the room. Sadira sat on the edge of the table beside my hip. She was using a delicate white lace handkerchief to wipe blood from her wrist. Her skin was so pale she was nearly translucent, and her eyes seemed more sunken and shadowed. I could taste her blood in my mouth, but it hadn’t been enough. The worst of my wounds had closed using her blood, but I still needed to replenish all that I’d lost.

Just the taste of Sadira’s blood sent up a dull roar inside my chest. The monster that wound itself around my soul was awake and screaming for blood. I clenched my teeth and tried to push it back. I would likely kill anyone I tried to feed from right now if I couldn’t get a handle on my hunger.

Gabriel.

I whispered his name in my mind, sending the soft plea out to his brain. A wave of his emotions pushed back through me; fear, relief, worry, and joy all came rushing back in the wave of my mental touch. I wrapped my mind and heart up in his concern, holding them close to me as he entered the room and pulled me into his arms. I used those emotions as a way of protecting him from me as I sank my fangs into his throat and drank deeply.

The monster roared and clawed at my soul until I was sure there were only jagged shreds left, but I refused to give in to its demands that I take it all. I drank only enough to get me through the day. When I awoke at sunset, I would have enough strength to hunt and replenish all that I’d lost.

Lifting my mouth from Gabriel’s neck, I instantly healed the wound and rested my head against his chest as he continued to hold me. His heartbeat was strong, seeming to vibrate through my weakened frame. He smelled of spice and cotton and steak. A smile teased at my lips and I relaxed in his arms. Themis had been kind enough to supply my angels with dinner. At least they’d been safe here.

“That was too close, boss,” Gabriel murmured, rubbing his chin against the top of my head. He tightened his arms around me, keeping me pressed close but still trying to be careful of my tender wounds.

Tipping my head back, I pressed a quick kiss to his cheek before gently pushing out of his arms. The room spun slowly and my limbs trembled. I was weak and my whole body hurt. Hunger still roared in the back of my brain, but I had pushed it down so it was now little more than low white noise mixing in with all my other aches and pains.

“Sunrise,” Sadira murmured, and I nodded as I swung my legs over the edge of the table. We were running out of time. Sunrise was less than fifteen minutes away and we needed to find a secure location to sleep.

I looked down at myself for the first time. My silk shirt was a mess. Both sleeves were shredded and the front was torn open from the waist down. What remained of the cloth was soaked in my blood, as were my leather pants. In fact, my blood was everywhere; my hands, face, the table, Sadira, and now Gabriel. It had been too close.

As my feet touched the ground, I felt my knees give out on me, but Gabriel grabbed my elbow, helping to steady me as he came to stand behind me. This was going to be tricky. I needed rest.

The sound of footsteps on the hardwood floor was my only warning before the door to the library swung open. Tristan stepped into the room, followed by Danaus, Michael, and James. Sadira extended her hand to Tristan. The young nightwalker hesitated a moment, his eyes darting to my face before he finally walked over to her, allowing Sadira to wrap her arms around him. Stiff, he stood with his arms lightly around her waist, his eyes closed. She was in his mind, not mine, but I knew she had already begun the task of drawing him back to her side. I had a promise to keep, but not now. I was in no shape to help anyone right now.

Michael stepped around Danaus to approach me. His handsome face was heavily lined and pale from worry. He wrapped his one good arm around me, pulling me as close as he possibly could to him. His large body shook slightly as I touched him, a shiver of relief running through him. Unfortunately, I was forced to release him almost as soon as he touched me. I was still too starved. I needed to feed, and his heartbeat combined with the sound of Gabriel’s was slowly driving me mad.

Stepping away from my two angels, but keeping one hand on the table for balance, I looked over at Danaus, who was watching the little reunion from the doorway. “Sunrise is close. We have no choice but to stay here. We need a windowless room, preferably in the basement with a door that locks from the inside.”

“I have something,” he said with a nod.

James stood just behind Danaus’s shoulder, his eyes dazed as he surveyed the room.

“James, could you fetch some food and drinks for my guardians?” I said to him. “They will be locked with us for the daylight hours. I don’t want them becoming weak.”

The Themis member nodded, snapping from his trance at the sound of his name. “I will go prepare something,” he said before hurrying from the room.

Sadira, Tristan, Gabriel, Michael, and I followed Danaus out of the library and down the hall toward the back of the manor. As we trooped slowly through the house, I was vaguely aware of the people lingering in doorways and down long hallways, watching our progress. My gaze swept over them, causing a frown to pull at the corners of my lips. Most were older gentlemen in their late forties and fifties, looking the same in their drab suits and neckties. There were a smattering of women, but they looked equally bookish, with their pale skin and pulled-back hair. I was beginning to wonder if these people saw the sunlight as infrequently as I did.

“You let me leave Sadira with a convention of librarians,” I groaned, shoving both my hands through my hair in frustration. I swallowed a whimper as the movement pulled on the newly mended tissue and skin that stretched around my stomach and chest. I had lost my mind.

“She was safe.” Danaus glared at me over his shoulder, his jaw clenched.

I looked back at the others, who remained in the doorways staring at me, their faces a mixture of fear and curiosity. “Don’t you people sleep?” I snarled, then stalked off down the hall after Danaus, trying to ignore the spots that passed before my eyes. I needed to go to sleep before I fell over.

But beyond the pain, an odd feeling crawled over my skin. I had never been gawked at like that before. These civilized British librarians were watching me like I was a sideshow curiosity, or a monster. Or an evil miracle, considering the slow dance with death I had just survived.

The basement was unlike most I had known—dry and lacking an overwhelming smell of mold. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves covered most of the walls, overflowing with books and ancient scrolls. I would have liked to linger down there, looking over the various stories these people had collected. Most of it was probably biased and terribly misguided, but it would have been interesting to see how humans viewed the other creatures surrounding them. I kept walking, my heels echoing off the tile floor as I followed Danaus.

At the end of the room was a wall with a thick, heavy wooden door held together with iron bands. The type of door that would lead to a dungeon. Danaus pulled the door open, the muscles in his arm jumping and dancing under the strain. Running his hand over the right wall on the inside, he flicked on the overhead light to reveal a single bare bulb glowing in the darkness. Inside, I saw several dusty crates and boxes, no doubt holding whatever strange artifacts these people valued. The room was used for storage and was obviously not visited often. Sadira stepped inside, frowning.

“It’s just for one day,” I wearily reminded her.

“Do you need blankets or anything?” Danaus asked awkwardly.

“No,” I said with a soft chuckle. For all purposes, Sadira, Tristan, and I would be dead when the sun rose. We had no need for such comforts, though they were always nice to wake up to. “Just the food for Michael and Gabriel; I would appreciate it. This isn’t the best way to spend the daylight hours.”

He stared at me for a long time, his eyes weighing me. “You actually care for them,” he murmured, as if his brain couldn’t comprehend the idea.

“Very much,” I half whispered, my gaze following my angels for a moment. “I’m not a monster from your nightmares. As you said, a part of me is still human.” I was too tired to pound my fists against his stubborn misconceptions about what a nightwalker was supposed to be.

James appeared then, scurrying to the door of the basement room, an enormous basket on his arms. I stepped out of the doorway and allowed Gabriel to take it from him. James stepped back, running one hand through his hair. It had grown somewhat disheveled from the long night’s adventure, and his tie was now missing.

“If you want, we can rotate in others so they can have a break,” Danaus offered, instantly regaining my attention.

“No!” I said sharply. The fresh surge of fear snapped me awake. “No one else comes in or out of here.” I turned my gaze over to Michael and Gabriel, who were inspecting the room. “And you do not open the door for anyone besides Danaus. No one!” Both gave me a slight nod before resuming their inspection.

I hesitantly stepped inside and turned to face Danaus, who had moved back out of the room. He pulled the heavy iron key out of the door and handed it to me so I could lock the room from the inside. I didn’t ask him if it was the only copy. I didn’t want to know the answer or to see him lie to me if it wasn’t.

“Sweet dreams,” I said. I tried to smile but knew it never reached my eyes.

Danaus reached up and slowly moved a lock of hair from where it had fallen in front of my eyes. His beautiful sapphire eyes caressed my face as if he were trying to memorize my features. “You too,” he finally said before closing the door.

My hand was trembling when I put the cold key into the lock and turned it, the metal grinding against metal. It had been a while since anyone bothered to lock this door. Moving into the room, I tossed Gabriel the key. In one corner, Michael was already sifting through the large basket of food. It had been a long night already, and I hoped they could catch a little sleep in shifts, having no idea what tomorrow would bring for any of us.

On the opposite wall, Sadira and Tristan lay on the dusty floor, wrapped in each other’s arms. Their eyes were closed, already giving over to the daylight sleep. We could sleep at any time but had no choice when the sun rose. It was the tradeoff we all had to face. During the long night hours, we were practically gods among the humans, with abilities beyond their comprehension. But as the sun touched the earth, we were reduced to helpless husks, completely unable to protect ourselves. I sat on a crate against the wall and stretched out my legs. With my arms crossed over my chest, I waited, staring at the opposite wall. I didn’t want to close my eyes regardless of how tired I was. I didn’t want the dawn to come and take away my ability to defend myself.

But it came despite my protests. I could feel the night give one last feeble gasp, clawing at the earth as it finally shriveled up and died. The light crept steadily toward the horizon, the gray sky giving way to the warm yellows and pinks that I had watched paint the clouds in my youth. Despite the fact that I had not been reborn until I was twenty-five, all my memories of the dawn came from my youth. I could recall walking down to the shore to watch the sun lifting into the sky, its delicate rays jumping and dancing on the waves. The cries of the gulls filled the air as they left their nighttime perch.

As the light broke across the sky, my body clenched, struggling to hold my powers locked within this poor frame. Yet, no matter how hard I tried, still it slipped through my skin and down into the earth. As my eyes fell shut, the last thing I recalled was the feeling of Danaus. Strong and powerful, his warmth washed through me, protecting me as he stood guard outside the door. I tried to reach out with the last bit of my powers to touch his warmth. The hunter was still protecting. He could have so easily left Tristan and me in the woods, allowing me to slowly die while he returned to Themis to destroy Sadira. Despite his angry protests about my kind being the root of all evil, he had saved me twice from Rowe and now stood guarding me from his own people during my weakest moment.