Nightwalker

Six

My plan for the rest of the night was simple. I would return home, shower, and then hunt. I could even hunt first, and then return home to shower. I was flexible. But those plans were pitched out the window. The acrid smell of smoke tainted the air a couple blocks away, along with a rising wave of fear. This was worse than a random house fire in the early morning hours that claims the lives of the unwary. Something had stirred up the natives in an ugly way.

I ran the last blocks to the fire, to find a trio of bright red fire trucks positioned outside the Docks. Firefighters were pouring water on the flames, which were still jumping out the front door. The hoard of people standing beyond the trucks was covered in smoke and soot and blood. Women were weeping hysterically, while more than a few men were pacing, pulling at their hair in a sort of impotent rage. And others stood still, eyes staring blindly forward in numb shock, their minds refusing any further information.

This was more than just a fire cause by a carelessly dropped cigarette. I dipped into one scarred mind after another to find that several people had been murdered. Someone had come among this hardened, jaded group, cutting down people at random before setting fire to the place.

Turning my attention to the fire, I closed my eyes and quickly extinguished the flames. In a matter of a couple minutes the last tongues of fire were completely gone. It would have looked a little odd to the experienced firefighters, but no one would question their sudden good luck. I needed to get in there to find out what happened, and the fire was destroying evidence.

Pulling aside one stunned man, I convinced him to give me his shirt. Without his eyes ever drifting from the blackened building, he pulled the T-shirt over his head and handed it to me. I wiped off the naturi blood that still covered me and scanned the crowd for a familiar face. Off to one side stood Jonathan, surrounded by a small contingent of friends. His black tights were torn and his plaid skirt and white button-up blouse blackened with soot and splashed with blood. His blond wig was missing and his face was streaked with mascara-tinged tears. He would have made an attractive woman if he weren’t built like a linebacker.

With the man’s shirt waded up in my left hand, I walked over to Jonathan, who had been attending the Docks for years and knew all the regulars. His friends stepped aside at my approach, their lost gaze seeming to hold me for only a moment before drifting back to the building.

“Hey, Little John,” I said when he looked up at me. “What happened here?”

“Oh, MiMi,” he sighed, rubbing his left eye with the heel of his left hand. “There you are. They just started killing us.” His voice was surprisingly soft despite his large barrel chest, but it held a mountain of sorrow.

“Who? Who did this?”

“I—I don’t know,” he said with a shake of his head. “I had never seen them before. Two men came in. No, it was two teenagers with long brown hair and green eyes. They were…they were…” Jonathan paused and stared straight ahead, blinking rapidly for a moment as if trying to clear his vision, or maybe just his memory. “They were looking for someone. Nathan somebody, I think. We didn’t know this person, so they started—”

“It’s okay,” I said, taking his large hand in mine as his voice cracked. I could guess at what happened, but there was no way a pair of teenagers could cause this kind of damage and create this level of fear. Not even if they walked in with Uzis, and not once had I picked up the image of gunfire in anyone’s thoughts.

There was more to this tale. I didn’t think Jonathan was lying to me. His mind was just struggling to make sense of what he’d seen. Carefully, I slipped into his thoughts, reviewing his memories. Two slim, graceful figures waltzed in. Their longish blondish-brown hair fell around their faces, but I could see their almond-shaped green eyes and catch glimpses of high cheekbones. It was a safe bet that Jonathan’s mind had already blurred the sight of anything else that didn’t quite make sense to him. Naturi, possibly from the wind clan, from their graceful movements. However, their use of fire to consume the place made me wonder if one of them was from the light clan. If members from either of the two upper clans were out searching, this was serious.

“Nerian,” I whispered.

Jonathan’s hand jerked in my grasp and his gaze jumped back to my face. His brown eyes widened. “Yes, that’s it. Nerian. Do you know him?”

“He’s dead.”

Jonathan took a step away from me, pulling his hand from my grasp. “They’ll be pissed, Mira!”

“I’ll handle them.”

As I slipped away from Jonathan, I raised the enchantment back around me and wiped his memory of our conversation. Weaving through the crowd of onlookers, firefighters, medical workers, and police, I slipped unnoticed into the Docks. The walls and ceiling in the main bar were blackened by the fire, but the worst of it appeared to be toward the back.

Around me, bodies were strewn about, their limbs lying at strange angles. Some had died quickly with their necks broken. Others had been stabbed and left to bleed to death. More than a dozen were killed. It appeared that after the naturi failed to get the information they wanted, they set fire to the room that held the dance floor, and several had died in the chaos and ensuing stampede.

Walking back toward the dance floor, I paused at the table Danaus and I had sat at only an hour ago. It was blackened but unburned. Around the scar in the wood from the naturi dagger, several symbols were written in blood. More symbols from the naturi language. I was willing to bet they were tracking down Nerian through the blade.

By now they would know that he was dead. If Danaus was as good as he seemed, he would be able to take care of a couple of naturi. Besides, the naturi had been gone for a while now, and the night was wasting away. The hunter was on his own.

Turning away from the table, I slowly gazed around the room. Faces I had seen on a regular basis during the past few years were being covered with white sheets. For so many, I didn’t know their names or histories, but they had been a part of my domain, a part of my home. The naturi had stolen them from me.

Destruction, death, and fear; that was all the naturi had to offer both nightwalkers and humans. I knew vampires weren’t a great alternative, but at least we had learned to coexist. If the seal was broken and the door opened, the naturi would reduce the world to a blackened shell much like the Docks. From that, they would build their world, one exclusively for the naturi.

As I walked back toward the front door, the table burst into flames. No evidence could be left behind of their existence. When I returned home, I would burn the T-shirt I’d used to wipe off the naturi blood. Things were beginning to spiral out of control and it was all starting in my domain—this I would not allow. I had to make plans fast if I was going to crush the naturi once again.