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.
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, reachi
ng 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.
Pray for Dawn Page 33
