Pray for Dawn

TWENTY-NINE

I hesitated outside of the town house, my hand on the doorknob, wondering how I was going to tell Mira that we were not only faced with a bori, but that it also planned to destroy her home and expose her. And in truth, I wasn’t sure how we could actually succeed in destroying this enemy. I couldn’t use my powers against it and I doubted Mira’s fire would make much of an impact on a creature that seemed to be pure spirit. Sure, we could destroy the body that it inhabited, but what would stop it from grabbing another human?

Before he passed out at Mira’s house, the man who had been briefly possessed spoke of encountering an angel with enormous white shining wings. Somehow the bori had convinced him that an angel needed access to his soul, which probably gave Gaizka access to the man’s body for possession. I delivered the bald man to the nearest hospital prior to driving to the town house. From his gray pallor and trembling, I didn’t think his odds of surviving the night were that good.

With a sigh, I opened the door and stepped into the house. Lily’s laughter hit me first as it drifted down the hall from the living room. I followed the sound to find the teenager looking over Mira’s shoulder as the nightwalker sat on the sofa holding something between both of her hands.

Lily turned at the sound of my footsteps, flashing me a broad smile. “Danaus!” she cried as she hooked a stray length of brown hair behind her left ear. “Look at what Mira bought me!”

Taking a step closer, I peered over Mira’s shoulder to find her holding a small electronic device with a flashing movie screen. “What is it?” I asked.

“It’s a PSP,” Lily said in a voice that clearly indicated that I should have recognized such a thing. “It’s a handheld gaming system,” she continued when I just looked blankly at her.

“Danaus prefers to live in the Dark Ages,” Mira coldly said, as she turned off the device and handed it back to Lily.

“I have a cell phone,” I countered.

“Yeah, but do you know how to use it?” Mira glanced over her shoulder at me, one corner of her mouth turning higher in a smirk. She had me there and we both knew it. James had had to program all the necessary phone numbers into the phone and teach me how to use its most basic functions. Technology and I didn’t always get along.

“Mira should have used her money to buy you some new clothes instead of toys,” I criticized, trying to redirect the conversation away from me.

“But she did! Look!” Lily commanded. She took a step away from the sofa and threw out her arms before spinning around in place. She had on a pair of worn-looking jeans and a faded T-shirt over a black turtleneck sweater.

“They don’t look new.”

Lily gave a little snort.

“It’s the style now,” Mira informed me. “It’s called distressed.”

“Sounds like a rip-off to me,” I muttered. Mira simply shrugged her shoulders as if to say “What did it matter?” And in truth, it didn’t. Lily was happy.

“I only had time to pick up a couple outfits,” Mira said. “I thought we could go shopping tonight for some more clothes and essentials.”

It was a peace offering. Between the distinct pallor to her cheeks and the fact that she had shopped for Lily, I knew the nightwalker had not hunted tonight. She had turned her focus to Lily, using the child as a way of distracting herself from the pain I had caused. I wasn’t sure if she had actually forgiven me, but she was at least willing to call a truce.

At that moment, nothing sounded more appealing than trailing after Mira and Lily as they went on an intense shopping expedition, where we would encounter nothing more stressful than choosing between which pair of shoes to buy. No naturi. No bori. No coven and no Ryan. We could even stop and have a cozy dinner together at a restaurant. A normal night. A normal life.

“We can’t tonight,” I said, tearing my eyes from Lily’s disappointed expression to Mira’s look of concern. “Mira and I have some things that we need to take care of.”

“It’s that thing, isn’t it?” Lily demanded, clutching her small gaming system to her chest as if I were threatening to take it away from her. “The monster I saw that killed that girl.”

“Lily, would you please go upstairs and play with your new…PSP?” I asked. “I would like to speak to Mira.”

“Hey, I saw this bastard first!” she said, raising her voice. “I should be involved in this. You can’t push me out.”

“Watch your language,” I calmly replied, not allowing myself to be swayed by her outburst. Lily had spent most of her life on the streets. She had experienced enough horrible things in her short existence. She didn’t need to be exposed to our world any more than she already had.

“No! I’m not going anywhere.”

Mira rose from the sofa in the boneless fashion that seemed to be unique to nightwalkers. She turned around and stared down at the teenager coldly. “Lily, go upstairs,” she said in a low, even voice. For a moment, I thought Mira was using her ability to control the girl’s mind, but Lily soon proved me wrong.

“This is bullshit!” the teenager shouted, stomping her foot. “I should be involved.”

“I promised that I would protect you,” I countered. “This is me protecting you. You will go upstairs. Mira and I will take care of it.”

Lily glared at Mira and me, then she whipped her gaze over to Tristan, sitting quietly in a chair in the corner with his own handheld gaming system. I flinched at the sight of him. My focus had been so trained on Mira and Lily that I hadn’t even noticed him in the room. I was seriously losing my touch. Such a slipup would get me killed.

“Can Tristan come up with me?” she asked.

“Tristan is staying down here with us,” Mira replied, surprising me. In most cases, she had not felt compelled to include the young nightwalker in our discussions. I had thought it was her decision to keep him protected against the growing threats in our world. Maybe she had realized that protecting was not helping him grow stronger. He wasn’t learning how to protect himself, which had always been her grand plan when it came to her blood brother.

Lily let out a growl before she spun on her heel and stomped her way up the stairs to the second floor. Along the way, she muttered every curse word she knew while complaining about our combined stupidity. It was all I could do not to laugh.

“She reminds me of you,” I murmured, looking over at Mira.

The nightwalker arched one brow at me as a slight smile lifted her full lips. “I can curse better.” The smile fell from her face almost as quickly as it had formed as she turned serious again. “You saw it, didn’t you?”

I let my eyes close as my mind replayed the vision of the mist pouring out of the man. This was the creature that had damned my soul for all eternity. “Yes, it appeared at your house. I—I don’t know how we’re going to fight it.”

“What do you mean?” Tristan asked, pushing to his feet.

I turned my gaze from Tristan to Mira, who was intently watching me. “Have you ever encountered a bori?”

“No, but it’s all spirit, isn’t it?” she said, with a shake of her head.

“How did you know?” I demanded.

Mira sat down on the edge of the coffee table so that she could easily look at both Tristan and me. “With the naturi escaping from their prison, I started to think that maybe the cage that held the bori could be diminishing as well. Time erodes all things, right? So, before meeting up with Ryan, I flew to Venice and spoke to Jabari. He loaned me several journals regarding the bori. They included a description of the creature.”

“The bori are the guardians of the soul?” Tristan asked.

“And our creators,” Mira added, turning her head to look over at him. “Nightwalkers were created by the bori centuries ago to fight in the wars against the naturi. It’s why we’re dependent upon soul magic for our survival.”

“What are they?” Tristan said, shaking his head. “You said it’s all spirit. What did you mean?”

“A bori appears to be pure soul magic,” I replied. “I don’t think it has a body of its own. It can shapeshift into different forms, but it’s at its physical strongest when it possesses the body of another creature. When Gaizka appeared at Mira’s, it possessed the body of this middle-aged man.”

“Gaizka?” Mira repeated.

“Yes, Gaizka. The part owner of my soul.”

“Oh,” she whispered, her shoulders slumping.

“What?” Tristan gasped, taking a step toward me.

“A bori owns part of my soul,” I admitted. Normally, I would never have uttered such a thing aloud, and never to a nightwalker, but oddly enough, I trusted Tristan because Mira trusted him. I knew the young nightwalker would never reveal my secret to the world, even under threat of death.

“Oh,” he murmured, sitting back down in his chair. “I guess that explains your…abilities.”

“When you saw it tonight, what did it want?” Mira asked, drawing us back to the problem at hand.

“It wants us to go back to killing naturi,” I replied.

Mira chuckled softly, flashing a brilliant smile up at me. “You make that sound like such a horrible thing.”

“It is!” I snapped. “When we combine our powers and destroy the naturi, we’re not destroying their souls like we thought. We’re directly feeding Gaizka, making it stronger. It’s how it managed to escape in the first place.”

“Shit,” Mira hissed, shoving both her hands through her hair, pushing it away from her face as she stared down at the floor. “Danaus, we weren’t killing them that way because it was particularly fun. It was because we had no other choice. That weapon can’t be stripped away now.”

Coming around to the front of the sofa, I sat down on the arm. “But it has been. We can’t give Gaizka any more power. We can’t risk setting it loose in a world where it will have no other competition against other bori. I’m not sure exactly how they feed, but in a world filled with humans, getting energy from their souls can’t be that hard. Gaizka would become a god among men.”

“And we have enough to worry about with Aurora and the rest of the naturi running loose,” Mira finished. The nightwalker drew in a deep breath and slowly released it, letting her shoulder slump. “All right. It’s agreed. We don’t combine our powers any more. The risk is too great, now that we understand what we’re doing.”

“Then you’re in the clear,” Tristan said, drawing our combined gaze over to him as he balanced on the edge of his chair. “If it’s not getting any more power from you two, then it can’t be a threat here.”

“But it’s got enough strength to create one more massacre and it plans to start tomorrow night if we don’t kill the naturi soon,” I argued. Looking down at my hands, I remembered the bori’s threat. “Gaizka stated that if we don’t kill naturi, it’s going to start killing tourists on River Street tomorrow night. It will create a massacre large enough to shine a light on the nightwalker community, risking total exposure. It plans to start a war if it doesn’t get freed. Gaizka believes that if we’re forced into a war, we’ll have no choice but to use our powers and it’ll be freed regardless of our attempts to stop it now. But first, the bori said it will come after Lily before wreaking chaos on Savannah.”

“No,” Mira gasped.

“I should never have taken her from the police station,” I muttered, mostly talking to myself. “It only succeeded in drawing more attention to her. If I hadn’t promised to protect her, Gaizka might have finally lost interest in her. Whatever we try to protect is destroyed.”

“That’s not true,” Tristan said firmly, drawing my eyes back over to him as he rose to his feet. “Both you and Mira have protected me on more than one occasion and I’ve survived. Lily will too.”

“Then we fight it. We go looking for it tonight before it can destroy my city,” Mira said, pushing to her feet. “We’ll kill it tonight.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, but we’ll find a way. We can go back to my place and search through the journals. Maybe there’s something in there that will tell us how to send it back to its cage,” Mira suggested. She was grasping at straws, desperate for anything that might protect that young girl who was currently pouting upstairs.

“We don’t have time for that,” I snapped, shoving to my feet so that I was standing in front of her. “Besides, I don’t think we can beat it. I think it can control any nightwalker that it runs across the same way that the animal clan naturi can control the shifters. You wouldn’t be able to stop it no matter how hard you tried. It’s stronger and faster than anything I’ve ever encountered. It tossed me around like a rag doll.”

“Then we’ll get someone stronger.”

“Who? The only people I know who are stronger than me are nightwalkers, and they are helpless against the thing. The only natural predators the bori have are the naturi, and I don’t know of any naturi that would help us take out Gaizka.”

Mira turned and paced away from me, her hands fisting in her hair in frustration. We were trapped. We had nowhere to turn. “Aurora could beat it,” Mira murmured.

“I don’t know. You nearly beat her,” Tristan said softly.

“Under very special circumstances,” Mira pointed out quickly.

“I don’t think Aurora would be willing to help us even if it means taking out a bori. Besides, we haven’t a clue as to where we can find her,” I reminded her.

“I-I don’t know what to do,” she stammered, shaking her head as she flopped down in her chair. “If this were any other problem, I would bring it before the coven. Let them handle it.”

“But you’re on the coven now and the nightwalkers can’t fight the bori,” I said. Frowning, I looked back over at Mira, who was staring at the ground. I didn’t want to utter aloud the next few words, but I had no choice. It would break Mira’s heart, particularly since her memories of Calla had been running so fresh in her mind during the past few days. “Lily can’t stay here,” I forced myself to say, finally.

“I know,” Mira whispered. “It’s not safe, not if it comes to fighting a bori that’s going to use her as a bargaining chip. I was thinking that I could send her out to Alex in Portland for a few days, just until we get Gaizka taken care of.”

Something in my chest tightened and I fought the urge to lay my hand on her shoulder. “I…” I started and then paused, trying to find the words. “I was thinking of something more permanent.”

Mira jumped to her feet and paced away from me before spinning sharply on her heel to face me. Several feet of charged air separated us. We were squared off in the small living room and I just hoped that we wouldn’t come to blows.

“What are you talking about?” she demanded, struggling to keep her voice from rising.

“I know you like Lily, Mira, but you can’t raise her,” I said calmly.

“You don’t think I’m capable of raising a child?” she said, pointing toward her chest as she took a step forward. “I’ve already had one child and she was just fine under my care before I was taken. How could you possibly know what it takes to raise a child?”

I flinched. “I’m sure you could have raised a child just fine while you were human, but you’re not any longer, Mira. You’re a vampire. A nightwalker. You’re limited in what you can do for her.”

“I would be just fine!”

“What if she needed you during the day while she was at school?” I quickly countered, trying to leave her with nowhere she could run with her argument. “What if she was sick with a fever? What would you do? Nothing. There’s nothing you could do to help her.”

“I’ve got Gabriel. He could help,” she said.

“You’re going to turn your bodyguard into a nanny? How do you think he would feel about that?”

Mira growled at me as she paced a few feet away, but then quickly turned back to me. “Then I’ll hire an actual nanny for a few years. Just to have someone around during the daylight hours.”

“And what about Jabari? And the coven? What if they come calling? Don’t you think she’ll become a target? Isn’t it enough that Tristan is in danger because of his association with you?”

“Don’t drag me into this!” Tristan said, pointing at me. “I chose to be with Mira.”

I ignored the young nightwalker’s outburst and pressed on. “He can at least take care of himself against other nightwalkers. Lily can’t.”

“Then what do you propose?” Mira demanded, crossing her arms over her chest as she closed herself off from me as I continued my attack. “Stick her with another so-called normal family? We’ve seen how well that works. She feels like an outcast, when she’s really a precious gift. We see that. We understand her. We stick her with a normal human family and she’s either going to feel like a freak when she reveals her gift, or worse, she’s going to hide it from the world and never develop her talents.”

“You’re right in that we can’t send her to a regular human family,” I agreed, stunning Mira into silence. “She needs to be with people who will appreciate her gift and help her to expand her talents.”

“What do you have in mind?” Mira slowly inquired, some of the tension slipping from her arms.

“Themis.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Mira screamed, finally losing her hold on her temper. “You’re taking her away from me so you can raise her with Ryan. Neither one of you knows anything about children. She would be a mess when you two were done with her.”

“Do you consider James a mess?” I countered.

“What are you talking about?” Mira demanded, confused.

“Lily wouldn’t be the first child Themis has taken in. While it’s rare, it has happened in the past. James’s parents were killed when he was only eight years old. Both were werewolves. They had been killed by a farmer who thought they were after his sheep one night. Unsure of whether James actually carried the shape-shifting gene, Themis offered to take him in and raise him in the event that he did grow up to be a lycanthrope.”

“Why didn’t his pack take him in?” Mira inquired.

Shoving my hands in the pockets of my pants, I shrugged my shoulders. “James’s parents didn’t belong to a pack. There are very few packs in the U.K. and none where James lived.”

“Since I’m unfit to raise Lily, you plan to take her back to Themis so you can raise her among the researchers.”

“I’m not going back to Themis.”

A part of me had known for a while now that I wouldn’t be going back, but actually saying the words out loud seemed to only solidify the idea, leaving me with no opportunity to change my mind. I maintained my usual outward calm, but on the inside my stomach was twisting into knots. I had no place to go, no place to call home after the long centuries with Themis. Anyone that I had once called a friend was now dead. I was truly alone in this world, beyond the people I called my enemies.

Tristan slowly returned to his chair as Mira’s mouth hung open in shape of a perfect oval for a second before she found her voice again.

“What do you mean, you’re not going back?” she said in a voice that barely carried across the room.

“It’s time I left,” I admitted. “I’ve known it was coming, but I always needed a reason. After what happened last night with Ryan, I can’t go back to that place. I don’t agree with his methods and I’m worried about his plans.”

“So you want to send Lily into his clutches?” Mira demanded incredulously.

I knew it sounded crazy, but I had no doubt that my logic was sound. “It’s the safest place I can think of. The naturi attacked Themis only when we were around. Ryan is a powerful warlock, well known in our respective communities. No one will cross him. With Themis, she will be out of the view of the coven.”

“But she’ll be with Ryan—the one man you trust the least on the face of the Earth,” Mira quickly pointed out.

“I don’t trust him, but I do know him very well,” I admitted. I walked over and took Mira’s arms in both of my hands. “The warlock needs you as an ally, not an enemy. If he’s to get you on his side, he’ll not touch a hair on Lily’s head. In fact, he will work very hard to see that she’s protected and happy. He will teach her to use her gift. He will see to it that she gets an excellent education and that she also learns about our world so that she is equipped to handle nightwalkers, lycanthropes, warlocks, naturi, and anything else the world decides to throw at her.”

“I don’t know,” Mira hedged, looking down at my hands.

“Themis can offer her a somewhat normal life,” I pressed. “We can’t do that, no matter how hard we try.”

I don’t want to give her up, Mira whispered in my mind. I could feel the sorrow welling up within her. Lily had been her second chance at having a child, a second chance at living, and I was stealing that away from her. But then, I was losing her too.

I know. Neither do I, I replied as I leaned in and pressed a kiss to her temple. “We have to do what’s best for her,” I said out loud as I stepped away.

“Then let me stay!” Lily shouted as she burst into the room.

I stepped away from Mira and turned in time to see the teenager run across the room and grab my left arm. I could only guess that she had been listening from the stairs. After she had gone upstairs, I hadn’t bothered to check to make sure that she stayed up there. Like I had told Mira, we weren’t equipped to handle a child. A real parent would have checked to make sure they were alone when they started to discuss the fate of the child.

“We have to do what’s best for you,” I explained. “It’s too dangerous for you to remain here. That creature that you saw, the bori, it plans to kill you if Mira and I don’t do as it wishes. We have to send you somewhere you will be safe.”

“I want to stay!” she pressed.

“It’s too dangerous. We won’t risk your life,” Mira said, laying her hand on the girl’s slim shoulder.

“Fine. Send me away, but let me come back once it’s safe,” she replied. “I like being here with you and Danaus and Tristan. You treat me like I’m normal.”

“There is no such thing as safe when you are with Danaus and me. We can’t risk your life,” Mira said in a soft voice.

“The people that you are going to will treat you like you are normal,” I stated. “Themis is a research facility that studies people like Mira and Tristan. There are others there that have abilities similar to yours. They will help you learn to strengthen your skills, something neither Mira nor I can teach you to do. At Themis, you will grow stronger. If you stay with Mira and me, you will only get hurt.”

Lily pressed her lips into a firm, unyielding line as she looked from me to Mira. “Will I ever see you again?”

Mira gave a deep laugh that seemed to be half relief and half heartache as she threw her arms around Lily’s shoulders and pulled her into a hug. “You’ll see us again. Holidays. Summer break. Think of Themis as going away to school. You’ll see us as often as possible, I promise.”

Lily looked over at me for confirmation and I nodded, forcing a smile on my lips. I still didn’t know where I was going to be after I left Themis, but I would do whatever I could to keep Lily in my life for just a few more years.

“Mira, could you call Ryan? We need to get her on a plane tonight,” I said, dragging us back to the task at hand now that Lily was no longer fighting us.

“I’m leaving tonight? I—I don’t have many clothes. Where is Themis?” she demanded, panic starting to creep inside of her voice.

“Themis is outside of London,” Tristan interjected, pushing to his feet again. “If Mira can spare me, I’ll accompany you to Themis. I’ve been there before. I can introduce you to some of the people and help you get settled.”

“Please, Mira!” Lily pleaded, grabbing the Fire Starter’s hand. “I can’t leave the country alone. I’ve never even been on a plane before.”

“That’s fine with me.” Mira nodded, giving Lily’s hand a squeeze. “Gabriel, Matsui, and Tristan will accompany you. They will see that you are safely settled, and if there are any problems, they will bring you straight back to Savannah.”

Mira slowly allowed Lily’s hands to slide from hers before she walked out of the room and headed for her office so she could make a round of phone calls to settle things with Ryan, arrange the flight, and contact Gabriel.

Lily looked up at me as she stood in the center of the room, suddenly looking very alone. “This is for the best,” I repeated.

The girl nodded, forcing a smile onto her lips though it didn’t reach her eyes. “I’ve seen what vampires and werewolves are capable of. I heard about what that creature did to the girl. I know your world is dangerous. I still want to stay, but I know it’s not safe. I know that this is for the best.”

A smile finally lifted the corners of my own mouth. At least she believed me. Unfortunately, I was still trying to convince myself that this was all for the best. It just didn’t feel like it.