Pray for Dawn

FIFTEEN

The Telfair Conservatory was a large structure made almost entirely of glass and steel, housing some of the rarest flowers and plants in the world. Except for a couple of streetlamps at the top and bottom of the block, the area was completely black. Large trees and palms rose up around the conservatory like prehistoric beasts in the night, guarding the structure and its secrets.

Mira parked her car in front of the enormous greenhouse and stuffed her keys deep into her pants pocket so they wouldn’t jingle as she walked. For the first time in Savannah tonight, she looked tense. Her hands were balled into tight fists at her side and her face was carefully wiped of all expression.

Of course, I wasn’t feeling much better. There were six members of the naturi somewhere in the large structure, and I couldn’t begin to guess why. Could it have something to do with Abigail? Or had they been sent by their queen, Aurora, to collect a specific flower or plant for a spell? If so, why here? The Telfair Conservatory couldn’t be the only hothouse to have what Aurora needed. Why willingly go into Mira’s known domain unless it was with the sole purpose of taking on the Fire Starter?

Unfortunately, I hadn’t a clue as to what we were facing. I could only sense the naturi; I couldn’t tell exactly which clan we were dealing with.

“Open the trunk,” I said when Mira started to walk away from the car. With brow furrowed, the vampire pulled her keys out of her pocket and pushed a button on the remote. The latch gave a muffled click and the trunk popped open.

Lifting the lid higher, I dug through my duffel bag. In the faint yellow illumination cast by the tiny trunk lights, I quickly inspected my Browning, checking to see that the magazine was still full. Slipping it back into the holster, I clipped it to my belt at the small of my back. I shed my jacket, tossing it in the trunk. The cold night air bit through my cotton turtleneck.

“Need anything?” I asked, looking up at Mira. The nightwalker glanced over her shoulder for a second at the looming glass building then moved to stand beside me at the trunk, a dark frown pulling at her lips. She opened her own bag and withdrew what looked to be the Glock I gave her months ago when we flew to Venice. With more ease than I had expected, she slipped the magazine from her gun, briefly glanced at the bullets, and then easily replaced it. When I first gave her the weapon, she had held it like a piece of rotting garbage. Apparently, her view of guns had changed. While I had never been overly fond of guns, they were very effective when attempting to dispatch the naturi. For that reason, I adapted.

Mira shoved the gun into her jacket pocket and softly shut the trunk. The vampire led me around the side of the conservatory to a side entrance. I pulled my wallet out of my back pocket and withdrew a pair of tools to pick the lock, a skill I had picked up during my travels to the Far East and refined upon my arrival in London, though I was still struggling with some of the more sophisticated burglar alarm systems. I was about to kneel down before the door, with its curved steel handle, when Mira put a hand on my shoulder stopping me. Stepping in front of me, she pulled her wallet from her back pocket. I snorted derisively when she withdrew a credit card and returned the wallet back to her pocket.

“You’re kidding, right?” I whispered.

“Nope,” she murmured. She carefully worked the credit card into the slim crevice between the door and the doorjamb. “The conservatory is run and funded heavily by the local pack. Only idiots with a serious death wish break in.”

Yeah, idiots like us. I thought it, but didn’t say it. With Mira, it was always something.

After only a few seconds of shimmying the card, Mira had the door unlocked.

“You’ve done this before,” I said as she slipped the credit card back into her pocket.

“This is one of my favorite spots in the city, but it closes at five. I have no choice,” she hissed.

“I’m not judging you.” And I wasn’t. There were many things that Mira missed out on due to her extreme allergy to sunlight.

“Sounds like it,” she grumbled, releasing the door as she stepped inside. I barely managed to catch the heavy metal door before it could bang closed.

“Why don’t they just give you a key?” I whispered.

Mira looked over her shoulder at me, her brow furrowed in confusion. “Why? My method works just fine.”

I followed behind her, soundlessly closing the door as I inwardly cursed her grouchiness. Her sharp mood shift could be understood, though. The naturi put her on edge. Neither of us knew what we were facing. We could be entering a battle with anything from the five different clans, or even Aurora herself, though I found it doubtful that the queen of the naturi would come after Mira. After the nightwalker nearly carved out her heart, I was willing to bet that Aurora was going to give the Fire Starter a little room for now.

All moonlight was instantly blotted out by the thick overhead foliage. The air was warm and dense with the scent of plants. The faint sound of trickling water tripped from deep in the room. A dozen different floral scents assailed me, mixing with the lilac scent drifting off of the nightwalker standing before me.

Mira stopped just inside the doorway, her tense body and still as a statue. She reached back with her left hand until her fingertips brushed my arm.

Are they close? She shoved the question within my brain. With those three words came a tumble of emotions, some feelings I struggled to even put names to. But mostly, it was anger. The naturi were not only in her home, but also in the one place she regarded as a private sanctuary.

“No,” I whispered, batting her hand away. I didn’t want her in my head, cluttering up my thoughts. “Feels like at the other end of the building, larger room.”

“How many?”

“Six.”

“Can you see?”

“A little,” I hedged. I blinked my eyes a couple of times, waiting for my night vision to improve. It was better than most humans’, but from what I could tell, I still lagged behind vampires and most lycans.

Ahead of me, trees and large plants began to take shape. A break in the leaves revealed a glimpse of the windows that comprised the opposite wall. The room we were standing in wasn’t more than twenty feet across.

“The path is narrow and wraps around the room. Stick to your right or you’ll fall in the water in the center of the room,” Mira instructed.

“What room is this?” I asked, following behind her as she headed deeper into the darkness.

“Rain forest.”

That explained the overwhelming humidity. I half expected the ceiling to open up in a brief downpour. Ducking my head to miss a low-hanging palm leaf, I stumbled into Mira, who had halted in the middle of the path.

“Do you hear that?” she demanded in a harsh whisper. I paused, straining to hear anything, but there was nothing beyond the high-pitched laughter of running water and the faint brush of leaves.

“What?”

Mira gave her head a hard shake before slowly moving forward. “Nothing.” Yet even as she spoke the word, I felt her send out a wave of energy from her body. The cool pulse passed through me and rippled through the rest of the building. She was searching for something or someone, which was strange because she could not sense the naturi without me. The nightwalker had briefly gained the ability while in Peru, but from what I had gathered during our recent association, she had lost the power. The ability seemed dependent upon her having access to large amounts of energy from the earth.

“Anyone?” I inquired after a couple of seconds.

“No.” She sounded puzzled, which did not fill me with an abundance of confidence. Mira was a vampire with more than six centuries of experience. The only thing she couldn’t sense was the naturi, and the occasional Ancient vampire. I didn’t like that she sounded puzzled.

“But…?”

Mira paused before a set of doors, her hand resting on the pale silver handle. “I thought…I thought I heard a baby crying,” she hesitantly confessed, then shook her head. “But it was extremely faint. It could have been a car or something else.”

“Do you think…?” I started, but the words seemed to die in my throat. The stealing of human babies was one of the few tales that the old mythology actually got right about the naturi. Unfortunately, they weren’t grabbing the infants because they preferred them to their own sickly children. Theories ranged from ingredients for complex spells to attempting to weaken a generation of humans.

“Maybe, but…I don’t know. The sound is gone now. Let’s keep moving,” Mira said, jerking open one of the doors.

We entered the main lobby of the conservatory, with its ceiling now standing a good two stories above us. Moonlight poured down, glinting off the polished marble floors. In one closed-off room to our right stood a gift shop, while a small office rested on the opposite side of the lobby. The doors to both rooms were closed and they were dark.

Laying a hand on her shoulder, I dipped into Mira’s thoughts. The naturi are close. Do you know the layout?

Yes. Exactly across from us is the exhibit room, which leads to the bonsai exhibit and desert garden. To the left is another rain forest exhibit. There’s a set of stairs leading down to it.

They’re in the other rain forest. Beneath my hand, I felt Mira reach in her jacket pocket where she had her gun hidden. I pulled my own gun from its hiding place in the small of my back.

There are two entrances into the room. If we split up—

Her words were suddenly lost under a surge of fear that threatened to swallow us both. My hand tightened on her shoulder as I sucked in a sharp breath between my clenched teeth. Her fear started to pump through my veins, winding a sinuous course through my body until its claws dug into my muscles.

I lowered my head so that my lips were right next to her ear. “What?” I whispered. Her mind was still open to me, but I had no desire to dip into her thoughts just yet. I was still struggling to surface from the last tidal wave.

“Can’t you hear it?” Her words escaped her in a fractured breath. “The crying…”

“A baby? No.” This wasn’t good. My hearing was good, very good. In fact, I was willing to bet that I could give most lycans a run for their money, but I couldn’t hear anything beyond the sound of falling water. Was Mira’s hearing that much sharper than my own?

“It’s across the lobby. In the exhibit room or maybe the desert.”

“I don’t sense any naturi in that direction,” I whispered after another quick scan of the conservatory. Of course, the only other creatures that I could sense in the conservatory besides the naturi were Mira and I. I didn’t sense a human in the area. “You go check it out. I’ll take care of the naturi.”

Mira nodded and darted forward, slipping out of my grasp. I watched her for a moment, moving like she was just another shadow within a house of shadows. Silently, she pulled open a set of doors and disappeared into another room.

I remained in the thick shadows by the door, staring toward the deep, black pit in which the naturi were hiding. Trees stretched up to the ceiling, their leaves brushing against the windows, but all their color and detail was lost to the night. The only sound breaking the perfect silence was a torrent of rushing water coming from deep within the blackness. This was no little fountain. The water roared out of the darkness like a set of rapids in a narrow gully. I could only hope I would be able to use it to mask any sounds I made as I moved closer, because heaven knew I wouldn’t be able to see where I was going.

With my Browning cradled in both hands before me, I edged away from the door to the entrance into the open rain forest room on my left. My heart had begun to thud faster in my ears and a bead of sweat trickled down my spine. I needed this—to violently lash out at the world, proclaiming to all who could hear me that I lived and I would take back my soul. Even if it meant saving humanity by destroying one monster at a time.

In a rare stroke of luck, the left-hand entrance was a gently sloping ramp for wheelchairs. I easily sidled down it, my back pressed against the metal railing while I faced the center of the room. I kept the gun pointed up toward the tops of the trees. The naturi were up in the thick foliage somewhere deeper in the room. Shafts of moonlight intermittently broke through the leaves, giving the darkness shape and depth.

Reaching the path at the bottom of the ramp, I caught a flash of moonlight glinting off a shimmer of water. The center of the room contained a narrow pool that ran the length from the lobby to the source of the roaring water. Around me, trees and bushes rose up, hugging the little path in a warm, humid embrace. I edged down the smooth track, my back brushing against the rough rocks that comprised the wall, which hemmed in the man-made rain forest.

I paused when I was just a dozen feet away from where the naturi were hiding above me. Nothing moved. The sound of rushing water had grown louder and a cool breeze drifted toward me from the rear of the room. The leaves were still, refusing to reveal my prey. The six naturi were clustered tightly together at the top of a couple of large palm trees. I ransacked my brain for anything that could have been able to huddle tightly together at such a height.

With Mira hidden somewhere else within the conservatory, I was on my own and wasting moonlight. I had to get these things taken care of before my nightwalker escort needed to find sanctuary from the rising sun, or worse, feed.

Lifting my gun, I aimed at the spot where it felt like the little buggers were clustered and squeezed off a single round. Leaves fluttered as the bullet ripped through a thick layer of foliage and eventually buried itself in a tree trunk. Nothing moved. Nothing made a sound but the roar of water.

Moving the sight slightly to the left, I squeezed off another around. The bullet tore through a clump of leaves at the top of a tree before pinging off the metal window frame. There was a single, high-pitched scream, like a mouse might make if it were run over by a steamroller. Something larger and denser than a palm leaf fell from the top of the tree and splashed into the water below.

I couldn’t identify the little corpse as it fell, but I didn’t need to. Its companions had taken to the air and I could clearly identify them. The naturi were from the wind clan, similar to the ones we had seen in the forest outside of London, with their butterfly-like wings and small, lithe bodies. Sure, they weren’t a pack of angry air guardians with talons ready to disembowel me, but their poison-tipped darts were painful and frequently deadly. It also didn’t help that they had me outnumbered by five to one. Where the hell was Mira?

As they zipped through the air above my head, the wind naturi took on a slight glow in the overwhelming darkness like little balls of Christmas lights. Three were a brilliant blue while the other two were a bright orange. Two different families within the wind clan, I wondered. What the devil were they doing here in the conservatory? Hiding? Or nesting?

“Be gone from here,” ordered one of the naturi as it hovered overhead. “You’ve no business here.”

“And you’re not welcome in the Fire Starter’s domain,” I called back, lining up the gun’s sight with the creature’s heart.

“The Fire Starter does not know we are here. She does not need to know. We’ve killed none of her humans,” the naturi countered.

“She knows now.”

Another naturi zipped over to the one that was speaking to me, laying a hand on her slim shoulder. “He’s that hunter that travels with the Fire Starter,” she proclaimed. “He would have brought the Fire Starter here. She knows.” At once, the wind clan naturi started darting around the area, searching the immediate area for the nightwalker, causing me to lose my shot as they moved in and out of the trees.

“Where is she?” one demanded, pausing on the side of a tree. I took the opportunity to bury a bullet deep in the chest of a naturi with an orange glow.

“She’s busy looking into what other mischief you’ve been up to within her domain,” I said over the scream of the naturi as it plummeted from the tree to the hard cement sidewalk.

A dart whizzed by my head and thunked into a tree just behind me. It was a warning shot. “Why are you killing us? We’ve done nothing to you. We’ve harmed no one within the Fire Starter’s domain. We simply wish to exist here.”

“Coexist peacefully with humans? I doubt that,” I said, moving slightly to my left down the sidewalk, trying to get a better shot at the naturi that also had a wrist crossbow trained on me.

“True,” she admitted with a wide, evil grin. “It’s only a temporary arrangement, but for now we are willing to coexist in harmony with the earth killers. Can you not leave us in peace as well?”

“No,” I replied just before firing off two shots. The naturi dodged the bullets, dipping low as she also fired off another poison-tipped dart.

“So be it. We’ll kill you off first and then go looking for the nightwalker,” the naturi murmured as she flew back up into the thick, black foliage near the ceiling of the hothouse. I fired off another blind round, hoping to at least clip her wing, but I heard only the unmistakable sound of breaking glass. I cringed as a bullet broke through the window, shattering it. The large plate of glass flashed and almost seemed to chime as it crashed to the floor. I was trying to avoid creating any damage that might be difficult for the authorities to later explain. The broken window also provided the remaining four wind naturi with a quick exit. However, they seemed content to fire their little arrows at me for the time being.

I continued down the path toward the sound of the raging water as the three blue naturi darted in and out of the heavy swath of trees. Thick leaves made it difficult to get off another shot. The breeze intensified so that I could now feel it like a cool hand brushing against my face. Sweeping the gun around, scanning for my missing prey, I found that I was standing a few feet away from a two-story waterfall. The rushing water reflected the moonlight that poured down through a break in the trees, revealing a small, wooden bridge that crossed over the stream in the middle of the room.

A flicker of blue caught the corner of my eye, drawing my aim to my right. I was too slow. The tiny dart plunged into my shoulder, digging deep into the muscle. The stab of pain was instantly followed by an intense burning that slithered down my right arm and under my shoulder blade. The liquid fire stole through my limb, sapping my strength so that I was forced to slip the Browning into my left hand. I squeezed the trigger, but the naturi darted away just in time. Sucking in a sharp breath, I jerked to the left as I sighted the naturi again, ignoring the faint breeze created by the dart that just missed my neck.

I fired the gun again. The naturi didn’t even have a chance to scream, as the nine millimeter bullet tore through its throat, nearly severing its head. The creature flopped down in a bed of ferns and didn’t regain the air.

With my back pressed against the rock wall, I scanned the area, the gun raised in my left hand. My right arm hung limp at my side, fire pumping through my veins. The poison’s darkness closed in around me, crowding my vision. The naturi had disappeared, possibly hoping that the poison would work its magic and allow them to pick me apart when I finally fell unconscious at their feet.

Fighting the urge to lower my gun in frustration and rub my aching eyes, I reached out with my powers to search the room. I didn’t expect to locate the last three. A window was broken. They had an easy escape route.

I definitely didn’t expect to sense one directly behind me. Swinging around, I took a step backward toward the bridge. My heart pounded in my chest, increasing the throbbing in my arm, but also washing away some of the lethargy that had crept into my frame. For now, I just needed some time to fight this poison that was burning through my system. My own supernatural healing would fight it off and finally overcome its effects. It just needed a little time.

Something large and dark suddenly flew at my head. As I ducked, I fired off a shot at the blue monster. My aim was off and I heard the bullet tear through wood. The local pack wasn’t going to be pleased in the morning. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something flop and slap against the floor in a pale strip of moonlight. Looking down, I discovered what looked to be a gold and white koi. Great. The bastards were now throwing fish at me.

Gritting my teeth, I resumed my search of the room. I stepped toward the bridge, carefully avoiding the fish. The wood creaked and groaned under my weight. Another flash of blue darted out from behind a thick grouping of leaves. I lifted my gun, my finger putting pressure on the trigger as I tried to lead my target. Yet before I could squeeze the trigger, another fish was pitched at me in the darkness. This one looked to be the size of a large trout instead of the fist-sized koi I had encountered just moments ago. I tried to lift my right arm to block it, but it was slow to respond. Twisting, I felt a sharp stabbing pain biting into my left calf muscle.

With a curse on the tip of my tongue, I fell backward over the railing of the bridge into the water. The only positive was that I had the presence of mind to fire back at the naturi to my right before I hit the icy water. My back slammed into the rock floor, knocking the air from my lungs as my head went under the water. Despite being in a representation of the rain forest, the water that flowed through the room was ice cold. It seeped into my clothes and dug its sharp talons into my skin.

I shoved myself back to my feet, only to discover that the pool of water barely reached my knees. The falling water pounded the floor behind me, sending up a cool mist. My teeth were clenched in a desperate attempt to keep them from chattering as I scanned the area with both my eyes and my powers. There were only two naturi left. Apparently I had managed to get off a lucky shot before hitting the water.

Enough games. I was cold and wet. The pain in my arm and leg was throbbing, sending angry waves through my body. It was becoming a struggle to remain conscious as the poison flooded my systems and leaked into my brain. I had had less trouble with the damn naturi in Spain. Shoving the gun back in the holster at the small of my back, I stepped forward. With both hands on the railing, I slowly hauled myself over it and back onto the bridge.

The naturi chose that moment to attack, believing that I was helpless. Blue and orange glows shot from behind a tree and flew straight at me. Expelling a slow breath, I lifted my empty left hand and concentrated on the creatures about the size of a young child. At the same time, I reached down into the black shadowy core that existed deep in my chest. The hard ball of power roared with hellish joy as I touched it with my thoughts, summoning it. It flowed out, faster than the water falling behind me until it filled my entire frame. It blotted out the pain in my limbs and the chill that was eating away at my skin.

Suddenly, I could hear the naturi’s heartbeats, thudding faster than a hummingbird’s. I could hear the blood pumping through their nimble little bodies. I concentrated, struggling to control the rush of power that was swamping my brain. It wanted more than just these little naturi. The tiny creatures came to a sudden halt in midair, their voices raised in an ear-piercing scream before they fell back to the earth with a soft thud.

Lowering my hand, I reluctantly pushed the swell of power back down to the dark core. It shoved back with a frustrated roar in my head, demanding to be set free. It was intoxicating. A rush unlike any I had ever felt. But I would never let it rule me. Power such as that had only one purpose: to kill.

Slowly, the power drained from my limbs and I discovered I was trembling in my cold, wet clothes. I drew in a couple breaths through my nose, expelling them through my clenched teeth. Pushing away from the railing of the bridge, I walked over to where the last naturi had fallen. I couldn’t see it, but I could hear a faint pop and hiss of bubbling flesh. I had caused its blood to boil within its skin. I imagine its little heart had exploded or melted under the sudden intense heat.

A bori owned half of my soul. I could heal faster than normal humans, sense other creatures, and I didn’t age. But my true “gift” was my ability to cause another creature’s blood to boil. I was a bigger monster than Mira ever could be.

Leaning against the nearby wall, I drew in a steadying breath. My legs were like jelly and my arms were trembling. I was cold and exhausted. And I wasn’t alone. My only warning was the snapping of a branch. I didn’t have enough time before the naturi was on me. Slamming her small body into mine, she shoved a small blade deep into my stomach. I groaned as she pulled the knife free and held it to my throat, cutting through the thick fabric of the turtleneck to slice the tender flesh beneath there. I could smell her blood on the air and her arms trembled as she fought me.

I was a fool. I had managed to wound the naturi I shot before falling into the water, but I didn’t complete another scan of the area to be sure that I had actually killed her. She had been hiding in the shadows, waiting for me to relax so that she could finally strike.

“You may have killed my people, but you won’t leave here either,” she snarled. One of her hands bit into my shoulder, her nails digging through my shirt, while the other held the knife pressed against my throat. I gripped one wrist with both hands, fighting to keep the blade from digging deeper into my throat. She wasn’t that strong, but between the poison and the use of my powers, I was exhausted.

Gritting my teeth, I let my eyes fall shut as the knife edged another millimeter deeper into my flesh, hitting veins that released a fresh flow of blood. It didn’t take much to tap in to the powers that lingered just below the surface, demanding the life of this naturi. The release was like an explosion from my chest, causing me to cry out in surprise. I was too tired to keep it under tight control as usual. The naturi jerked as the energy swept through her in a flash, bringing her blood to an almost instant boil. She died so quickly she didn’t even have enough time to scream in pain.

I shoved her corpse off of me and collapsed to my knees, my breathing labored as stars spun before my eyes. The energy continued to flow from my soul, searching for other creatures to destroy. It was only a second before I sensed Mira close by. The monster within me chuckled with glee as it reached for her own energy. But instead of destroying her, I could feel it wanting to combine the two powers, creating an even bigger threat to the world.

“No!” I groaned, pressing both hands to the cold concrete walkway as I centered all of my attention on the powers that were running rampant from my body. I had never lost complete control like this. I was a danger to every living creature around me—human, nightwalker, or naturi. Race didn’t matter, only that the creature had a soul that I could possess.

Summoning up the last of the energy that I had within my trembling frame, I mentally wrapped my fingers around the power that was searching for its next victim and pulled it back into my body. I could feel it fighting me, jerking against my grasp. Muscles ached and my lungs burned as I stopped breathing for fear of losing my grip on the monster. After what felt like an eternity, I pulled the powers back into my body, tapping them back down into the core of my soul where none could reach it. For now, the world was a little safer from me.