Pray for Dawn

THIRTY

I still don’t see how she’s going to be able to help us,” Mira said for the third time since getting in the car. Yet, regardless of her doubts, the nightwalker pulled the flashy BMW into LaVina’s long gravel driveway.

“When I met her this past summer, she already knew about the naturi. It stands to reason that she’s heard of the bori,” I patiently repeated for the third time. “We need to find out how to send this thing back to its cage and we don’t have time to track down Jabari.”

Mira gave a little snort as she slowed the car to a stop and threw it into park. “I doubt the Ancient would know,” she replied. “I’ve read the journals. There’s no mention of how the cage was formed.”

Besides, I doubted Jabari would be willing to help us. I suspected the coven member would just snatch up Mira and disappear rather than risk her to the bori. He had to protect his interests now that he wielded controlling power on the coven. At least, I thought he did. Mira had never discovered where Elizabeth’s loyalties truly lay. The other coven member’s loyalties remained a mystery to us.

Even after parking the car and turning off the engine, Mira continued to sit, gripping the steering wheel. She was staring straight ahead, though I doubt she actually saw anything.

“She’s fine,” I said, resisting the urge to place my hand over hers.

“Yeah,” she sighed. We had all left at the same time. Mira and I in one car for LaVina, and Tristan, Gabriel, Matsui, and Lily in another, for a private airfield where they would catch Mira’s private jet for London. I knew that she was safe, but I was concerned about putting her in Ryan’s hands. While I believed what I told Mira about the warlock, he still had the power to surprise me on occasion. I preferred to think he would not risk Mira’s wrath by using the child as a pawn in his latest game.

With a shake of her head, Mira got out of the car as I did. Yet, she stopped me as I shut the door. “Did you call and tell her we were coming?” Mira inquired. The house was dark except for a single bare bulb burning away on the front porch.

“Not really.” I hedged.

“What do you mean, ‘Not really’?” she demanded, thumping the top of the car with her fist.

“No, I didn’t call ahead. She wasn’t exactly thrilled to see us the first time. I didn’t want to give her the chance to say no,” I admitted. “Let’s just go. Everything will be fine.”

Mira shoved both her hands through her hair and let out a low growl. “Danaus, you don’t go surprising witches. And judging by the trouble she went to for the dirt in her basement, I’m willing to bet she’s a powerful witch.”

“I hope so,” I muttered as I led the way up to the front porch. My footsteps up the wooden stairs were heavy, thundering in the silence that blanketed the area. Sure, I hadn’t wanted her to know we were coming, but I didn’t exactly want to surprise LaVina either. Mira hung back, moving as soundlessly as the wind.

Before I could ring the bell, a light was switched on in the front room, followed by another light in the main hall. LaVina pulled aside the curtain on the door and frowned at me as she shook her head. But at least she unlocked and opened the door.

“We need your help,” I opened before she could say anything.

“You get that one fed?” she demanded, jerking her head toward Mira, who was hovering behind my left shoulder.

“I’ve been properly fed,” Mira purred, seeming to taunt the witch. LaVina only gave a little snort and opened the door the rest of the way so that we could enter her home. Upon stepping over the threshold, I saw that the old woman was wrapped in a soft floral robe over what appeared to be a white nightgown. On her feet were a pair of worn pink house slippers. We had obviously woken her up.

“Sorry about getting you out of bed,” I murmured. It had never occurred to me that she wouldn’t be awake. I had become so accustomed to dealing with creatures that roamed at night that I had lost touch with the majority of humanity that preferred the warm comfort of daylight.

“It happens from time to time. Come on in,” she said, motioning for Mira to enter the house. After shutting and locking the door, LaVina shuffled down the main hall, leading us into the kitchen, where she flipped on a bright overhead light that left both Mira and me blinking as we struggled to adjust.

“Would you like a glass of iced tea? Or maybe you’d prefer some coffee?” LaVina offered, moving over to some honey-colored wood cabinets. “It’ll take me just a minute to get a pot brewing.”

“No, thank you. We’re fine,” Mira said. The nightwalker stepped forward and leaned her forearms on the island in the center of the kitchen. “We need to talk about the bori.”

Leaning back against the counter that lined the back wall of the kitchen, I folded my arms over my chest and watched LaVina. Her old hands stilled on the paper filter. I could see a grim frown pull at one corner of her mouth.

“Is that the way the wind blows now?” she murmured, resuming the task of putting the filter in the coffeemaker.

“You don’t sound surprised,” I commented, but she didn’t reply again until she had finished preparing the coffeemaker.

“Should I be?” she finally said, glancing over her shoulder at me as she pulled down a coffee mug with kittens on it. “From what I’ve been hearing, the naturi have already broken out of their cage. Something’s obviously gone wrong with the spell that held them. Why shouldn’t the bori be trying to break free as well?”

I looked over at Mira to find her staring down at her hands, her shoulders slumped under the weight of our failure. The naturi were running free because we failed to stop them. Rowe had been willing to take risks we hadn’t foreseen. We weren’t going to make the same mistake with Gaizka.

“I was contacted by a bori called Gaizka,” I slid past her question. “He wants his freedom. Somehow he’s here but he’s not free. I don’t exactly understand it.”

“Are you going to tell him how it works, vampire?” LaVina demanded, settling her piercing gaze on Mira.

“The bori are little more than pure spirit energy,” Mira began with a sigh. “If they want to interact with the world in some meaningful fashion, they have to have a host body, an avatar, a puppet.”

“Like when it appeared at your house in the body of an older man?” I suggested.

“Sort of,” she said with a grimace. Pushing off the counter, Mira stood upright and turned so that she could look at me. “That was only a temporary host. They can use a body for a short period of time, but their presence tends to contaminate the body, destroying the host. That man you saw is probably dead by now. However, a bori can prepare a body to be a permanent host so that it can use the body indefinitely. That’s how we trapped them.”

“What do you mean?” I inquired, a strange twisting in my gut caused me to take a step back away from her.

“The permanent human hosts for the bori were locked away in a magical cage,” LaVina explained.

“Take away their permanent home, the main source of their energy, and they are trapped,” Mira continued. “The bori had to follow their human hosts into the cage. We suspected they’d be able to slip out here and there for a short period of time under special circumstances, but they wouldn’t be able to escape without preparing new permanent hosts—something they would never have the strength to do.”

“Until we came along,” I corrected.

“True,” Mira sadly agreed.

I took a step back toward Mira as my thoughts shifted in a new direction. The floor creaked beneath my shifting weight, making the house seem to groan in the silence as night crawled past the midnight hour. “I don’t understand. You said that you didn’t know how they were caged.”

“I don’t know how they were caged or how the cage itself was created,” Mira replied, shoving her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “I know what was caged: humans.”

“Their human hosts,” I said.

“Humans,” Mira pressed, sending a chill down my back. “I think the bodies that these bori inhabit still possess the souls and consciousness of their original owners. We locked up humans in an attempt to save ourselves from the bori. The bori are nothing more than parasites attached to the human body. Just like nightwalkers.”

“Innocent people are being tormented by these creatures?” I murmured, my brain struggling to wrap itself about this horrible thought.

“‘Innocent’ is a questionable word here,” Mira said with a shrug. “They had to make some kind of deal with the bori in the first place. Sure, many were probably tricked, but I wouldn’t paint most of these people as innocent. Of course, I doubt any one of them would have agreed to thousands of years of servitude to these creatures.”

“And now you’ve got one with an interest in Danaus there,” LaVina added, drawing our combined gazes back to her thin frame. The old witch shuffled over to the refrigerator and pulled out a container of creamer. “Gaizka is going to go looking for your weak spot. He’s going to find a way to force you into making a deal with him to protect something you care about. And when you do, he’s finally going to be free.”

“Unless you can tell us how to send him back,” Mira quickly countered.

“What makes you think I know how to send a bori back to its cage?” LaVina snapped, putting the container of creamer on the counter with a little more force than was necessary. She filled her mug before putting the carafe back on the coffeemaker stand. “I’ve had no dealings with their kind.”

“But I have no doubt that you know how to summon one,” Mira said. LaVina turned around so that she could glare at the nightwalker, but Mira didn’t flinch. I was beginning to wonder if this house was suddenly going to fall in on our heads. Mira didn’t need to be pressing the buttons of yet another powerful creature. For an undead, the nightwalker had a death wish.

“You’re a powerful witch,” Mira said, leaning forward on the counter again. “Powerful enough to sense the different energies that come from different soil samples and how to mix them so that they work in harmony with your own skills. You may have never summoned up a bori, but I’m sure you know how the spell works. Someone of your ability would want to have the knowledge in her back pocket for emergencies.”

“You’re pressing your luck, vampire,” LaVina warned, staring down at her coffee as creamer and sugar turned it pale brown.

“Maybe, but you know how,” Mira said, a grin finally growing across her face. Some of the tension eased from my own frame as some of her own confidence returned. “We don’t need you to summon one. We need you to tell us how you send one away again. The other half of that summoning spell has to be rattling around in your brain somewhere. We just need that bit.”

“It’s not as simple as you want it to be,” LaVina admitted with a shake of her head.

“It doesn’t matter whether it’s simple or not. Just as long as you know how it’s done. You’re going to be the one that performs the spell tomorrow night,” Mira said, to which LaVina let out a wonderful laugh, nearly sloshing her coffee out of her mug.

“You’re not going to get me anywhere near that bori,” she said, chuckling.

“Listen, witch—” Mira started, but I grabbed her elbow suddenly when something appeared on the periphery of my thoughts, something strong enough to cause the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end.

“Are you cloaking me?” I demanded, but I had a feeling I already knew the answer to that question.

“What?” Mira asked, looking up at me with furrowed brow.

“Are you cloaking me? Blocking me from the sight of the naturi?” I repeated.

“No,” she whispered. A tremble went through her frame, reaching my fingers through her arm. “I forgot. Shit. How many are there?”

“Eight, and they’re getting close. Do you have a weapon?”

“A knife at my side, but my gun is in the car,” she said, her expression growing grimmer. I could understand why, since her last few outings with the naturi hadn’t gone well. The mixture of no sleep and Gaizka messing with her mind had left the nightwalker struggling with every battle, no longer sure of what was real and what was just a horrible nightmare. She had been unable to clearly see the world around her, leaving her vulnerable to the naturi.

“We can handle this. We’re in your domain and you’re back to your full strength,” I said, rubbing my thumb across her arm.

Mira gave a soft laugh as she stepped away from me, pulling her arm free of my grip. “Yeah, we’ve been in worse positions before, right? Just a walk in the park.”

Only now our most effective weapon against the naturi had been stolen away. We could no longer combine our powers or we would be feeding Gaizka directly, putting it one step closer to freedom.

“LaVina, we’ll take care of them. You might want to go hide in your basement for the time being,” I advised.

“You think that’s going to keep me safe?” she demanded, slamming her coffee mug on the counter.

Mira rolled her eyes as she turned her back on LaVina and started to walk out of the kitchen. “Just find a place out of the way. We’ll take care of it,” the nightwalker grumbled, the heels of her boots pounding on the floor and nearly drowning out her words.

Wordlessly, I followed Mira through the house to the front door. Anything I said was sure to anger one of the women and I wasn’t about to step into the trap. Why should I get my face ripped off, when I still had to take on the naturi?

“Where are they?” Mira asked as she wrapped her long slender fingers around the front doorknob.

Standing directly behind her, I let my eyes drift shut as I finally sent my powers out of my body and searching through the area. I had become so attuned to searching for the naturi, it had become second nature for me and I was now doing it unconsciously. I could feel Mira’s own powers spike in response to the touch of mine as if her body was reflexively protecting itself from me.

It took less than a second for my powers to pick out the bodies of eight naturi crossing the long front yard that led up to LaVina’s two-story farmhouse. I couldn’t tell which clan they were from or any other details beyond the fact that they were naturi. Their powers were like a glaring, cacophonous noise in contrast to the seemingly hypnotic melody that rose from Mira.

“Directly in front of us and slowly approaching,” I replied, opening my eyes again. “They’re spread out, so they’re most likely on foot.”

“I’m sorry about this,” Mira murmured as her fist tightened around the knob. “I should have been—”

“Let it go. It’s better we face them now rather than tomorrow with Gaizka,” I said, cutting her off.

“Then let’s clean up my domain,” Mira said before jerking open the front door.

We stepped out onto the front porch and quickly spotted eight dark figures approaching from across the lawn. They were all tall and slim, wearing dark clothes that allowed them to blend in with the night. At the sight of them, my heart rate sped up and the muscles in my chest constricted. Adrenaline filled my veins at the promise of battle, while my thoughts slowed down to a precise point of focus. There was only my opponent and me. More than a thousand years of battle had filled my existence, and they all distilled down to that single moment of clarity before the first splash of blood. Until Mira had stepped into my life, even the fear had been drained from the fight. The nightwalker had been the first to remind me that there were worse things than death waiting for me.

“What clan do you think they’re from?” I asked as I descended the stairs.

The nightwalker motioned with her head toward the sky, where dark clouds had begun to churn. “At least one is from the wind clan,” she said as she pulled out a knife.

I frowned. The wind clan possessed the ability to control the weather, which meant they could also bring down strike after strike of lightning. From Mira’s wariness of this particular clan, I was willing to bet that she didn’t think she could survive a direct hit of lightning. I wasn’t even sure I could. We would need to locate and take out the wind clan members as soon as possible.

“Do you want my gun?” I offered the weapon from a holster at my lower back. “I can make a run for the other gun in the glove compartment.”

“Keep it,” Mira said, shaking her head. “You’re a better aim than me. I’ve got a couple of tricks.” Taking the lead, the nightwalker stepped into the middle of the large yard under the limbs of a massive oak tree with her hands planted on her narrow hips. I hung back, ready to fire off a round of shots if they so much as flinched in our direction.

“You weren’t invited into my domain,” Mira called to the naturi.

“You aren’t welcome in our world,” one female naturi replied smugly, leaving my fingers itching to pull the trigger and bury a bullet in the middle of her forehead.

“Leave now, or we’ll be forced to slaughter you all,” Mira shouted. At the same time, she held her left hand out to her side and summoned up a fireball. While I was standing several feet away, I could feel the cool touch of her powers brushing against my face.

In response to Mira’s obvious threat, three naturi also reached out their hands only to have them instantly engulfed in flames, matching Mira’s stance. A ripple of laughter spread among the naturi. Not only did they outnumber us, but there were also light clan naturi among their numbers. That took away Mira’s edge since they could counter any fire attacks that she could possibly summon.

“You’re the one that started this fight,” called one of the light clan naturi. “Those in the conservatory were no threat to you.”

“Any naturi within my domain are a threat to my people,” Mira shouted back.

The naturi gave a soft sniff, lifting her chin. “She warned us you may be unwilling to share.” For a moment, I wondered whether she was referring to Cynnia or Aurora, but such thoughts were quickly shoved aside.

Danaus, shoot them now! Mira cried in my head.

In a single, smooth motion, I raised the gun with both hands and fired off three quick shots, landing two in the heads of the light clan naturi. Unfortunately, the third light clan member was already moving by the time and the bullet went slightly wide of its target, hitting her in the shoulder. Two naturi hit the ground with a hard thud.

A roll of thunder rumbled through the silence and the naturi charged. I squeezed off a couple rounds at the three that were headed toward me, but all the shots missed their marks as I was forced to dive for cover. Fireballs were flung at me in quick succession, backing me toward the house and away from Mira.

Instincts rose up to take control of my brain and I found myself reaching for my powers to boil their blood in their lithe bodies, but I fought the urge. I knew if Mira and I combined our powers, the souls of the dead would go directly to Gaizka, but I wasn’t sure if the bori would benefit if I killed the naturi using my own powers alone. The bori had been the one to give me this ability, why should it not benefit?

With a growl, I rolled back to my feet, gun trained on the naturi as they closed in on me. Above, thunder exploded in the sky as the storm steadily grew in intensity. I turned my sights on the one naturi who was hanging back, controlling the growing storm. I tried to fire off a round of shots, but at that moment, he threw out a pair of white wings, catching the wind so that it carried him into the sky. I fired off two rounds, but only managed to clip some feathers before more fireballs came speeding at me.

I wasn’t quick enough this time. One knot of flames slammed into my right hand, burning flesh and causing me to drop the gun in the grass. Tucking my right hand against my stomach as I tried to ignore the pain that beat at me, I picked up the gun with my left hand only to immediately drop it again. The metal burned my hand from when it had been heated by the fireball.

Running a few feet away from my predators, I grabbed the knife I had attached to my belt. I turned, ready to take on my opponents. My heart pounded in my chest and a cold sweat was trickling down the back of my neck. For the first time in a very long time, I had begun to doubt my ability to get out of this fight alive. For too long I had relied on my powers to escape any situation against a dark creature without contemplating the potential consequences. Now that my powers had been removed from me by the threat of something darker, I was simply a human against creatures far more powerful than me.

“Boil them, Danaus!” Mira screamed. I caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of my eye, trapped in a firefight with three naturi encircling her. Soon, they would succeed in wearing her down.

“I can’t! Gaizka!” I shouted back. “It’ll gain strength!”

“Shit,” Mira swore softly, following this with a grunt as she threw another fireball at a waiting naturi.

We were trapped. And then the lightning came. The naturi facing me backed off a couple steps just before a bolt of lightning slammed the ground a few feet away from where I had been standing. I jumped farther away from the spot. A cry of pain escaped me as I landed on my burned right hand, which was healing far too slowly for my liking. I rolled and quickly regained my feet. Another bolt of lightning smashed into a large oak tree, splitting it down the center. I threw my shoulder into the back of one naturi, knocking him to the ground. Wincing in excruciating pain, I wrapped my right arm around Mira’s waist and carried her several feet before we both crashed to the ground. Behind us, the tree she had been standing under splintered and collapsed to the ground in a loud bang. Thin branches blanketed us as we failed to move out of the reach of the massive tree.

I groaned as I rolled onto my back, my body protesting every movement. “We need to get out of here,” I said in a low voice, praying the naturi couldn’t hear me utter the horrible words over the pounding rain that had begun to fall.

“Use your powers!” Mira snapped, sliding out from under my arm as she sat up. Her eyes glowed a vibrant lavender as energy pulsed around her in chilling waves like a cold arctic wind. “They are matching me fire for fire. I can’t even get close enough to use my blade.”

“Gaizka will get stronger,” I said, sitting up as well while I kept my hand tucked against my stomach.

“You’re hurt.”

“It’ll heal,” I muttered, struggling to get back to my feet. The naturi were coming and it would be only a matter of seconds before the next bolt of lightning slammed into the exact spot where we were sitting.

“I’ve had enough of this,” Mira snarled. Shoving herself to her feet, the nightwalker grabbed the knife from my left hand so that she now held a blade in each hand. Her shoulders were painfully rigid as she stalked the five naturi that remained on the ground. “Stay behind me,” she called. The Fire Starter briefly glanced over her shoulder at me and I noted that her eyes now glowed an ominous red, something I had never seen her do before. Not even when she was lost in the heat of battle or wracked with pain from my pushing my powers through her body.

The naturi pummeled Mira with fireballs, but the flames seemed to wash harmlessly down her body. Her movements were a blur, yet each slice of the blade was precise in its execution. The naturi couldn’t move fast enough to defend themselves. Within a couple seconds, the female naturi collapsed to the ground, her head rolling across the lawn while her insides spilled out of her body. Two rushed Mira, but just as quickly ended up in the same condition. A second later, she jerked to her left, dodging a lightning bolt that struck the spot she had been standing in. She hadn’t even glanced up at the sky.

Something twisted in my gut as I watched her. I knew Mira’s fighting style. I had fought her and spent nights watching her fight nightwalkers, lycanthropes, and naturi. I had never seen her move like this. She was faster, more precise, more ruthless in her motions.

The nightwalker twisted around as she blocked one slash aimed at her heart, and threw out her left arm toward me. At the same time, a massive force slammed into my chest. It threw me backward several feet, sending me crashing back into the ground. Yet, before I hit the soggy earth, I saw a bolt of lightning slam into the spot I had been standing in.

The pounding of my heart returned and a knot grew in my throat. Mira couldn’t move things with her mind. Between the red glow of her eyes and the increase speed and dexterity, something was controlling the nightwalker.

“Gaizka!” I shouted in the air, but received no answer. I could feel it now that I knew what I was looking for. There was a new power circling around us, filling the darkness that flickered and danced in the firelight. The bori had taken control of Mira.

As I regained my feet, the wind naturi who’d sprouted wings earlier lightly touched back down to the ground behind Mira as she battled the last two light clan naturi.

“No!” I bellowed, but I knew that Mira would not have enough time to react. She was surrounded. There was no second thought, no doubt in my mind. I summoned my powers and reached out for the wind naturi. He screamed in pain as he raised his blade, preparing to plunge it into Mira’s back. He dropped the sword as he started to claw at his arms and chest. But it was too late. His blood blackened his flesh before finally bubbling through with an ominous pop and hiss.

A second later, Mira finished off the second of the two naturi. She blasted the creature with a massive wave of fire, lighting the night to the point where it seemed as if the sun had settled on the Earth between us. When she doused the flames, the naturi was reduced to a pile of ash.

With the threat destroyed, Mira collapsed to her knees, her body seeming to convulse. I ran over to her. My feet slid out from underneath me on the wet grass as I stopped beside her. I grabbed her shoulders, holding her upright so that I could look her in the face. The glow was completely gone from her eyes, but her irises had now expanded to the point of blotting out what purple there had been in her eyes. Terror had taken over.

“It—it was inside of me,” she stammered, horror filling her tone. “I couldn’t fight it. I could feel it in my head, in my body. Controlling everything. I tried to scream. I tried t-to reach for you. Couldn’t do anything.”

“It’s gone now,” I said, only to be instantly contradicted.

“Not quite, my boy,” announced a scratchy, hollow voice that had become too familiar for my liking. I twisted around to find a ghostly figure standing just a few feet away. A teenager with spiked hair and baggy clothes that were crisscrossed with chains, it looked completely human other than the fact that we could see through it.

“Your hesitance to use your gifts is going to get you killed,” Gaizka sneered. “If the nightwalker had not been here, I would not have been able to save you. I am disappointed that you didn’t dispatch this riffraff properly. But then you’ll get another chance to find some tomorrow night.”

“We won’t help you break free,” I barked, my grip tightening on Mira’s shaking shoulders. The rain was slowing, but the trembling wasn’t from the bitter cold that bit into both of us. I could feel the fear that flooded her senses. She was looking at her creator, one of the creators of all nightwalkers. She was staring in the face of yet another creature that could control her. She couldn’t even fight this one, like she could Jabari or me.

The bori laughed, sending a cold, bitter noise winging through the air. “I don’t recall giving you a choice. Tomorrow night, I will finally be free of my cage, and you, my boy, are going to be my key.”

“We w-won’t help you,” Mira bit out, struggling to stop her chattering teeth.

Gaizka laughed at us as we were suddenly torn apart, our bodies flying through the air in separate directions. My back slammed into the side panel of Mira’s car, while the vampire hit the trunk of an oak tree standing near the middle of the yard. I inwardly cringed, my heart nearly coming to a stop when I saw her slump there for a moment. One misplaced tree branch could have staked her in a second, sucking her life away before she could draw a breath to scream. Kneeling on my hands and knees in the mud, I watched Mira, waiting to see her move, anything to prove that she was still alive. The bori might need her alive, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t make an impulsive error.

After a couple seconds, Mira pushed to her hands and knees as well, allowing me to expel my pent-up breath. The vampire summoned up a ball of fire and attempted to throw it at the bori, but her arm stopped in mid-swing as if it had struck an invisible wall. Gaizka raised one hand and closed its fingers, causing Mira to extinguish the flame. For a moment, her eyes glowed red, but a terrified scream was still ripped from her chest as she fought it.

“Leave her alone!” I shouted, pushing to my feet. I summoned up my own powers and attempted to focus on the center of the energy that danced in the air. But all attempts to beat the creature back were useless. It had no body for me to attack. I had no way of fighting pure energy. I had no effective attack against a creature that was little more than a ghost.

“Listen to her screaming, Danaus,” Gaizka said over the endless cries that escaped Mira, shattering the silence of the countryside. “The naturi are nothing in comparison to what I can do to her. Save her by doing as I wish. Set me free and you both will be protected.”

The bori finally released Mira, and she flopped limply to the ground. Gaizka slowly faded from sight, leaving Mira sitting in the mud in LaVina’s front yard. I ran over to her side and gathered her trembling body up in my arms. A large, broken tree smoldered beside us, while bodies of dead naturi lay scattered around the yard like broken ornaments. We had to find a way to stop the bori, but I had a growing fear that I wasn’t going to survive this encounter if we were to succeed. What if, during the past thousand years, Gaizka had been simply preparing me to become his next permanent host?