Wait for Dusk

Chapter Twenty

The winter wind swept across the Margit Bridge, causing the waters of the Danube to whitecap. Snow swirled through the air in a lurid dance through the shafts of light thrown down by the iron lampposts. Danaus and I caught a cab from Gerbeaud Cukrászda to the Margit Bridge that led from Pest to Buda, connecting the two parts of the city with the island in the middle of the river. Margit Island was sparsely illuminated, and bare trees rose up from it like skeletal hands clawing at the night sky. A full moon drifted in and out from behind thick clouds that threatened to bring down a fresh blanket of snow.

“We shouldn’t have come directly here,” Danaus murmured. The hunter stood beside me on the bridge entrance the led to the island. He held one gun in his fist while his other hand gripped the metal railing. “We need weapons.”

“What do you have on you?” I asked, my gaze not wavering from the garden spread out before me. In the distance I could pick out the sidewalk walking trails around the edge of the island, while old monastic ruins rose up from the interior like cancerous growths.

“Two guns. A spare magazine for each. A few knives.”

I jerked my head to the side so that I could look at him. “And that’s not enough for us to handle this?”

“I’d prefer to have my sword, more ammo, and you armed with two guns as well,” Danaus snapped at me. He was right. I had only a couple knives on me. When it came to facing the naturi, I would have preferred to have a gun in my hand regardless of how bad my aim was.

“We’ll manage,” I grumbled, but I still couldn’t force myself to step forward onto the island. Upon reaching the bridge, Danaus had confirmed that Margit Island was where the bulk of the naturi horde was camping. We needed to clear them out of Budapest if we were to succeed in the mission that sent us to this city in the first place. More importantly, I needed to finally get rid of Rowe.

“How many are there?” I finally asked, when it was obvious I wasn’t ready to move. Thanks to Nick, I could sense the distinct signature of naturi magic, but it was just a large cloud of energy centered on the island. I didn’t have the skill Danaus did in being able to pick them out individually.

“You don’t want to know.”

I sighed, my head falling forward. I had heard those exact words before when we were faced with nearly insurmountable odds in England. Cornered at Themis, we were attacked by the naturi, who were intent on destroying both Jabari and me. Now I was walking willingly into the nest of naturi in hopes of finally destroying them. For some reason, I doubted they felt the same hesitance that I was feeling at that moment.

“What about Valerio? We could use the help,” Danaus reminded me.

I nodded, relieved by the idea of having someone else there to help us. Closing my eyes, I wrapped both hands around the railing and focused on locating my old friend. But something was wrong. I had known Valerio for centuries. I could have located him across any distance at any time as long as it was night where we were both located. Now, however, the feel of him was so faint. It was as if . . . he were dying. I could feel him on the island, but his energy was so weak.

“Something is wrong,” I gasped, starting to lurch forward. “The naturi have him.”

Danaus grabbed my elbow, stopping me from running headlong into the darkness. “They’re waiting for you to come to his rescue. Go running in there and they’ll cut you down in seconds.”

“They’re killing him,” I cried, jerking my arm out of his grasp.

“At least summon Stefan!” Danaus ordered before I could take another step closer to the island. “There are more than twenty naturi there, with that number potentially including Rowe. We’ve gone up against him a few times now and not had much luck killing him. With this many naturi, it’s not going to be any easier to get to him.”

Clenching my teeth, I forced myself to stop and focus on the Ancient nightwalker. Danaus was right. We would need Stefan’s assistance if we were going to have any hope of retrieving Valerio. No words were needed. Just the lightest brush of my presence against the ragged remains of his soul brought Stefan to our side with a sour expression. He was still upset about the death of his assistant, and I would have preferred to leave him to brood alone, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to free Valerio without his help.

“The naturi?” he asked.

“How did you know?” I said sarcastically, but needling Stefan still failed to bring a smile to my face.

“We slaughtered the lycans, I don’t sense any nightwalkers or warlocks, and this barren garden would be a refuge for only the naturi if they were determined to stay close to the city and cause mischief,” he said, ticking each item off on his long fingers.

“They have Valerio,” Danaus announced, causing Stefan’s expression to grow even darker. While I doubted that he felt any real concern for him, I suspected he was more upset about the fact that the naturi dare lay a hand on an old vampire such as Valerio. In his opinion, they were above such things as kidnapping and torture.

“I sent him to look into which island they were hiding on,” I said, then shook my head. “He wasn’t supposed to engage them. Just look around. I can only guess that they managed to sneak up on him.”

Stefan stepped around me and walked down the bridge to Margit Island. “Then we should get in there and kill them.”

Danaus and I followed close behind him, weapons drawn. As we came to stand at the southern tip of the island, I pulled one of my spare blades and offered it to Stefan. “Take it. I’ve got a little extra firepower.”

“Lame, Mira. Lame,” Stefan said, but he took the knife from me anyway. With his ability to appear and disappear, I thought about sending him for more weapons but decided against it. We couldn’t waste more time.

“There are three paths. Danaus, take the one to the left. I’ll take the center one up the middle of the island, while you take the one on the right,” I said, with a nod toward Stefan. “Kill anything that isn’t in our party.”

“The one that reaches the other end of the island first, wins?” Stefan challenged with an evil grin.

“I was thinking the one with the highest body count,” Danaus countered.

I growled, tightening my grip around the blade in my right hand. “How about the one that safely retrieves Valerio wins?”

Stefan rolled his eyes at me. “Not much of an objective.”

“Kill the naturi and free Valerio. Winner gets Ferko,” I sneered, finally putting the light back in Stefan’s eyes. Now he was interested in playing this game. The Ancient nightwalker floated off the ground, his long coat fluttering around him like a pair of wings. He gave me a small salute and then darted off into the darkness to locate some naturi.

“See you at the finish line,” Danaus said, then started down the path to my left, leaving me standing alone in the night with the naturi waiting for me.

I sucked in a deep breath and slowly expelled it, sending out a white fog in front of me. The air was bitter cold, tightening muscles and making my body resistant to movement, but it didn’t matter. Soon, I wouldn’t feel the cold or hear the splash of the waves as they crashed against the side of the island. I wouldn’t even notice the golden glow coming from Buda and Pest on either side of me. There would only be the naturi and my fight for survival. There would only be Rowe.

With a knife in one hand, I started off down the path, not bothering to try to mask my steps. Stefan was moving silently through the wind, and Danaus was a ghost on the ground. Let the naturi hear me coming so my companions would have a better chance of sneaking up on their enemies.

The first naturi attacked from my left, slicing his blade downward in an attempt to remove my head like a guillotine. I pulled up short, sliding a bit on the frozen sidewalk in my boots. I didn’t bother to raise my blade to slash at his exposed neck. Summoning up my powers, I encased the naturi in fire, almost instantly burning him to a crisp. He ran from me to a nearby snowbank, but it wasn’t enough to put out the flames. The bright light cast long, lunging shadows throughout the wooded island, revealing my enemies hiding around me in the darkest corners. They lurched forward as they tried to swarm me all at once. I extinguished the fire on the naturi that had attacked and created a wall of fire around me. The naturi was still breathing, but he wouldn’t be in any shape to attack me anytime soon if he did manage to survive the next few hours.

Overhead, the sky churned with black clouds and the wind poured around the tiny island in a torrent as if it were a raging river running through a narrow canyon. The flames danced and thinned in some parts, allowing the naturi to sneak through. It didn’t matter. I waved my hand and my approaching attackers went up in flames.

In a matter of only minutes five naturi had been dispatched, but there was a price. Surrounded by the smoking dead bodies of the naturi, I knelt down on one knee and stared at my trembling hand. I was exhausted and half frozen from the use of so much of my energy. The manipulation of fire came naturally to me, but there was a cost every time I used it. Energy was drained from my body, leaving me starving for blood and rest. Unfortunately, neither could be found here on this horrible strip of land. There were only empty trees and the naturi waiting to remove my head.

With a tired grunt I pushed off the ground and continued my trek into the island. The storm that was brewing gained strength with each passing second, until lightning streaked across the sky, arcing from one massive cloud to the next. A knot tightened in my stomach and I fought to keep my eyes on the path before me. Rowe and his fellow wind clan members were stirring up a storm that would either fry us with lightning or drown the island in the waves now crawling up the sides. In a small break in the trees, I could see the waves closing on the far sidewalk, casting sprays of icy water into the air. The hunter would soon have to move inland if he didn’t want to get washed into the Danube. That was fine with me. By the little I could sense of Valerio, he seemed to be in the center of the island near what appeared to be a giant ornate water tower. It was a strikingly odd construction in the middle of what appeared to be a giant garden, but I didn’t question it. I needed to get to him.

Picking up a short sword dropped by one of the dead naturi, I started a slow jog toward the center of the island. I was tempted to contact Danaus and see if he could give me an estimate of how many naturi remained and a location of where they were clustered. However, I kept my powers to myself and continued blind. I didn’t want to take a chance that Danaus was in the middle of a fight and my distraction could potentially result in an injury. The hunter would have my heart in his hand.

They’re at the tower, Stefan announced, obviously not caring whether I was in the middle of a fight.

Do you see Valerio? I picked up my pace to a run, reluctant to go too fast out of fear that I might succeed in stepping directly into a trap. The water tower was close now and I began to see the outline of a low building through the empty branches.

Valerio is there. Tied up on the stage.

Stage?

I’m going to fall back until you arrive. I will attack from the east. Don’t singe me.

A weak smile crossed my lips as I softened my footfalls so they couldn’t be heard over the wind. Reluctantly, I reached out to Danaus and briefly relayed the information that Stefan had supplied me. Danaus didn’t reply, but I could still sense him. He was preoccupied, but it seemed that he remained uninjured for the time being.

My footsteps faltered when I found the enormous water tower, directly next to an open air theater with the name “Szabadteri Szinpad” written across the top. Six more armed naturi waited for me. I raised my hand to conjure up a fresh wave of flames to burn through my opponents when a naturi created a wall of fire before I could. A string of low curses escaped me as I tightened my grip on my blade and took a step forward. No easy way out this time. The light clan naturi was going to keep me from burning any of the other naturi. I would have to fight each one of them.

“Kill the light clan while I handle the others,” Stefan said as he walked past me and engaged the first two naturi. I nodded and rushed forward. Stefan was strong and skilled enough to handle anything the wind or animal clan naturi threw at him for the time being. He had no defense against a light clan naturi throwing fireballs.

In a couple quick slashes and lunges I dispatched the two naturi guarding the light clan member. I was surprised to find her siding with Rowe, considering that Aurora was light clan as well. I guess there was no such thing as loyalty between the various clans. The light clan naturi backpedaled a couple of steps until her back was pressed against the stone wall. With a broad wave of her hand, brilliant orange and yellow flames sprung up between us.

A wolfish grin spread across my face as I stepped through the flames, turning them from orange to a silent and steady blue. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”

“Done,” she sneered, lifting her chin to me.

My only warning was the hair on my arms standing on edge. I dove forward, plunging my sword into the stomach of the naturi until the tip was buried into the wall. She grunted in surprise, but I barely heard it over the slam of lighting into the ground where I had been standing only a second earlier. Either Rowe or another wind clan naturi was close by, ready to make my night a nightmarish hell.

Pushing off the wall, I slowly pulled the sword from the naturi, but thrust a second smaller knife through her heart, making sure she was dead before I turned my back on her. The naturi were resilient and extremely fast healers. However, they couldn’t recover from a missing heart.

“Rowe!” I screamed, staring up at the sky for a glimpse of the naturi that seemed to haunt my every waking moment.

“Inside, my friend! Inside!”

“Bastard!” I growled, turning to look for Stefan. He was detaching himself from his final opponent. He walked close enough to a shaft of lamplight to reveal that he was completely covered in blood. The jeans and sweater he had worn into the woods earlier in the evening were soaked in the blood of both naturi and lycanthropes. It dripped from his chin, where it had splattered across his face and poured in thin streams from his bare hands. A part of me longed to run my tongue along his chin, lapping up such waste, but I knew better. I didn’t think Stefan would be opposed to it, but the temptation was tainted by the fact that naturi blood was poisonous to nightwalkers. Otherwise I would have been happy to bury my fangs into the devious monsters.

The echo of footsteps stopped my first comment to Stefan. I jerked around with sword drawn, but instantly relaxed when I saw Danaus pop through the trees. He slowed down to look over the bodies scattered around the area. With a wave of my hand, they all exploded into flames, burning away the remains so there would be nothing left behind for the humans to find. I could only hope that my companions were taking the time to dispose of their prey in the Danube. Otherwise we would have an annoying mess to clean up before we could finally leave this island tonight.

“How many are left?” I asked when Danaus finally reached my side. I didn’t even bother to scan the region. Now was not the time to hone that skill. We needed to get to Valerio.

“Only five more,” he said after a brief pause to catch his breath.

I glanced one last time at the sky, inwardly cringing as I waited for the heavens to strike at me once again. “And one of them is Rowe.”

“Is he truly such a problem to kill?” Stefan asked, leaving me wishing I could bury my blade in his stomach. He had no idea what kind of a problem the one-eyed naturi was.

“You take to the sky. Danaus and I will go in through the front on the ground. We’ll take care of the naturi. You get Valerio out of there. I don’t know how they’re holding him, but he might be too weak to disappear and reappear in Vienna. Get him somewhere safe,” I directed.

“As you wish, Coven Mistress,” he said snidely with an elaborate bow before taking to the air like Superman.

“Has he always been such an asshole?” Danaus inquired.

I was about to reply when another bolt of lightning streaked through the sky, sizzling directly toward Stefan. The nightwalker instantly disappeared from the open air, but reappeared lying on the ground just a few feet away. I darted over to him, sliding on my knees as I reached him. “Were you hit? Are you okay?” I demanded, helping him to slowly sit up.

“Fine. Wasn’t hit,” he said, but his voice sounded wobbly and broken. He may not have been hit, but it was a close thing.

“Looks like you’re walking in with us,” I said as he slowly regained his feet.

“Walking into a trap,” he groused, but he walked beside me as I approached the entrance to the theater. There was no doubt this was a trap of Rowe’s design, but our odds were pretty good. Of course, I was hoping to leave with all my companions alive and in one piece. Rowe didn’t care if we slaughtered the four naturi that were still at his side.

“Get to Valerio,” I told Stefan. “We’ll provide cover and a distraction.”

I led the way into the outdoor theater with its massive seating. There was no missing the four naturi that stood on the stage next to Valerio, who was strung up on a massive wooden cross with a stake protruding from his chest. They must not have driven it into his heart because I could still sense him, but it was close enough that he was gushing blood and he was close to death.

“No!” I screamed mindlessly. I ran up to the stage, leaving Danaus and Stefan struggling to keep up with me. Lightning rained down from the gathering clouds, slamming into the seats so that they exploded in a shower of sparks and debris.

“Mira!” Danaus cried after me, but I ignored him. I wouldn’t allow these nature-loving bastards to destroy Valerio, the one creature that didn’t make me doubt myself. Valerio might have intended to use me to his best advantage, but I also believed that he loved and trusted me in his own unique way. I would not allow the naturi to kill him.

More lightning fell between the stairs of the stage and me, causing me to halt. The naturi on the stage jumped down and instantly surrounded me, while Rowe finally appeared, placing one hand on the stake in Valerio’s chest.

“Surrender!” he shouted in a laughing voice. “Surrender and I’ll consider not plunging the stake deeper into his chest. Surrender and they won’t kill you now.”

“You’re not going to win,” I snarled, looking up at Rowe as one naturi pressed the tip of his short sword into my throat. The blade punctured my flesh, sending a trickle of blood down my neck. “We’ve destroyed your numbers tonight. You’re not leaving here alive.”

“I think it’s the other way around. It’s your friends who are not leaving here alive. You, on the other hand, are coming with me to Aurora.”

Despite the swords now digging into my neck, stomach, and chest, I laughed. My head fell back and a deep, dark chuckle rose from my throat. “Do you still believe that?” I looked around at the naturi standing directly in front of me. “Did he promise you absolution if you helped him hand me over to your queen?” I asked them. “Do you seriously believe that Aurora will forgive you for just me?”

The confidence and determination on the faces of my captors wavered ever so slightly, their eyes darting from me to look at their nearest companion. They were all asking the same thing: was I worth such a high price to Aurora? Sure, I was the Fire Starter, but to them I was still just a useless, dirty vampire. They began to doubt Rowe’s promises, and that gave me my opening.

Get Valerio! I directed Stefan. The nightwalker disappeared and instantly reappeared behind Valerio. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him lay one hand on Valerio’s shoulder as Rowe raised his hand to pound the stake deeper into Valerio’s chest. It all happened in a split second. Not even enough time for me to scream. Valerio and Stefan disappeared from sight just as Rowe’s hand passed through empty space and slammed into the wooden cross.

“Witch!” Rowe snarled, turning narrowed eyes on my face. “Just kill her. Aurora will be just as happy with her dead body.”

With Valerio safe, I didn’t hesitate to tap into my powers. I managed to dodge one sword at my throat, but wasn’t lucky enough to miss the one that plunged into my stomach. I groaned as I set the naturi surrounding me on fire. Unfortunately, Rowe remained at my back, so I couldn’t bathe him in flickering flames as well. I couldn’t sense the naturi, so I needed to physically see him in order to set him on fire.

“Boil him, Danaus!” I screamed, keeping my focus on the naturi fighting the flames and still slashing at me.

“I can’t,” he said softly.

“What?”

“He’s right.” Rowe laughed manically. I turned to find him standing on the edge of the stage with one hand reaching up toward the heavens. “He might be able to boil my blood and kill me, but I guarantee that I’ll be able to get off a couple lightning bolts before I go, and they’ll all be aimed at you.”

“Kill him, Danaus!” I screamed. The last of the naturi surrounding me had finally died, and I twisted around with a sword still in my stomach, ready to hurl a fireball at Rowe when I discovered that he had already taken to the skies on a pair of massive black wings. I threw the fireball at him, but he managed to easily dodge it on the heavy winds whipping through the park. In response, a bolt of lighting sizzled through the air. I jerked backward, only to slam my back into the wall of the theater near the stairs. I was trapped. The world exploded in bright white light, and for a moment I understood what it felt like to be burned. The lightning missed me by a few feet, but it was enough to singe.

When my vision finally cleared enough so I could see again, Rowe was gone. Danaus stood before me, one hand pressed to my stomach while the other pulled the sword free of my body. I clenched my teeth against the searing pain as the blade cut through muscle and tissue. A lump formed in my throat and I swallowed back a frustrated sob. Rowe was still alive.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Danaus grumbled. He kept his hand pressed to the wound in an effort to slow the bleeding.

I leaned my head back against the wall behind me and closed my eyes. “I just want him dead,” I whispered.

“Soon,” Danaus promised.

But not soon enough.