“Alone at last,” I said.
“You’re not going to kill me,” Cynnia boldly announced, lifting her chin in a moment of bravery.
I laughed at her, tossing my head back as I resettled myself on the floor with my legs crossed before me. “Of course I’m going to kill you eventually. But for now, you seem willing to help me, and if you haven’t guessed yet, I’ll take all the help I can get to keep your sister Aurora locked in her own realm. I’ll also take any help I can get against Rowe, so it seems we’re on the same side.”
“Like you and Danaus. He’s a nightwalker hunter, isn’t he?”
“Yes, but there’s a very distinct difference between you and Danaus.” Smiling again, I leaned forward so my elbows rested on my knees. “I don’t hate Danaus with every fiber of my being. What happens between Danaus and I is still up in the air. When this is over, I’d be willing to let him walk away. You? Not so much.”
“So, what can I do to prolong my life?” Cynnia asked.
“Take a look at these.” I handed over the pictures of the trees that Danaus had shown me just a few months ago, the ones that started me down this long horrible journey. There were twelve different pictures of twelve different types of trees. Each tree had a different symbol carved into it. Neither Danaus nor I had been able to figure out what it meant, but now we at least had a naturi at our disposal. The mystery might finally be solved.
Cynnia slowly moved, crossing her legs before her as well so she could more easily spread the photos out on the floor before her. She flipped through each one, her eyes pausing over a symbol for less than a second before moving on to the next.
“Trees,” she murmured. That had pretty much been my reaction, but I hadn’t expected it out of the naturi. This was their handwriting. It had to mean something to her.
“I noticed that the pictures were of trees as well,” I said between clenched teeth as I struggled to keep my temper under control. “I was hoping you could enlighten us as to what the symbols meant.” If I hadn’t known better, I would have said that she was toying with me.
“I’m not sure.”
“What do you mean you’re not sure? How can you not be sure?” I grabbed up a few of the photos and shook them at her. “This is your language, isn’t it? Your writing?”
“Yes, but some of them are just symbols used in spells. I’m not that strong a spell weaver. I know enough to protect myself, it’s all I was ever taught.”
And suddenly that struck me as odd. Why hadn’t Aurora seen to it that her youngest sister was well-versed in their own magical arts? Cynnia had never tried to physically attack us, and she had cooperated with Danaus during her one chance to escape when her manacles were off. Had Aurora purposefully kept her little sister weak? It was a thought I was content to let stew for a while.
Spreading the twelve pictures out between us in three neat little rows, I drew in a slow, steadying breath. I caught a whiff of her own unique scent this time over the stale scent of dust and some kind of cleaning product from the nearby bathroom. She smelled of spring rain and yellow tulips. “Can you read any of this?” I asked, feeling a little calmer.
“Yes, some of these are words, but I don’t know what order any of this goes in.” She picked up one picture that looked like a birch tree. “This one means open,’ and this one means welcome,’” she continued, picking up another picture of what appeared to be a type of palm tree. Cynnia put those two pictures aside and scanned over the rest. “This one over here refers to a weary traveler,’” she said, putting aside a picture of blue spruce.
As she pulled pictures out of the three rows, I carefully rearranged them before her so she could clearly see each one. None of it made sense to me so far, but I was hoping that as we identified more pieces of this puzzle, a picture would become clear.
“There isn’t a clear translation for this one between our two languages,” she said, pulling up one that looked like a maple tree.
“Can you give me something close?”
“Maybe…forgotten path.’ Or hidden road.’”
That didn’t feel particularly reassuring, and a knot twisted in my stomach. I had yet to guess what the naturi were up to with this assortment of pictures, and I felt more anxious the closer we drew to the evening of the equinox and the coming sacrifice. Rowe had something special planned up his sleeve.
With the pictures whittled down to two rows of four, I noticed that Cynnia had stopped picking them up, her brow furrowed in concentration as she stared at each one. Every once in a while she would rearrange them into a particular order and then shake her head again, as whatever she was looking for failed to appear.
“Is there anything else here that you recognize?”
She sighed, her eyes slowly traveling over the remaining eight pictures. I noticed that her hand trembled slightly when she reached for one picture that was on my far left. I had always hated that picture. It was hard to tell from the darkness of the image, but it looked like the symbol had been carved into the dark, thick bark of a live oak tree, just like one of the hundreds of live oaks that dotted the historical district of my beloved Savannah.
“This one means home,” she said, then shook her head. “But not just the idea of home as the place where you live. It’s home as in Earth—our home.”
Nodding, I took the picture from her and added it to the pile that she had already identified. “What about the rest?”
“Just magical symbols. They don’t equal words, ideas, or phrases to me. They’re used for some kind of spell.”
“Spell? Not message?”
“I doubt it’s a message of any kind unless the naturi on this side have developed their own kind of shortened language or base of symbols. It’s possible, but it looks like these trees are from all over the globe. You would need to see most if not all of the message to make sense of it. I’ve seen it all and it doesn’t make sense to me,” she admitted. She picked up one of the pictures that she couldn’t identify and shook her head before putting it back on the floor. “I’ve thought about the symbol and what it resembles, and the potential relation to the type of tree that it’s in, but I’m coming up with nothing. Why are some easily identifiable words and the rest is just nonsense?”
“I need answers, Cynnia, not more questions,” I snapped, resting my head against my hand while placing my elbow on my right knee.
“Sorry.”
I glared up at her, curling my lip up to reveal one of my fangs. She quickly held up her manacled hands as if to ward me off.
“I’m serious. I’m sorry that I can’t help you with this. Helping you means that I get to stay alive a little bit longer.”
“So you’re willing to sell out your own kind just so you can live a little while longer?”
“No,” she quickly said, then frowned as she looked down at the iron manacles on her wrists. “Not really.” She drew in a slow breath and closed her eyes, holding back tears that I saw suddenly rise to the surface. “I’ve not told you anything that would endanger my people.
They’ve cast some kind of spell using symbols in trees, but I can’t tell you what the spell is.
It’s honestly beyond my knowledge.”
“And if it wasn’t? If you could identify the spell, would you tell me?” I asked, straightening my back as I watched her closely.
“I—I don’t know,” Cynnia replied. “I don’t know what I would do. Yes, they’re my people and I know I should do everything within my power to protect them. And according to our laws, that means killing any nightwalker or human that we come into contact with. Yet, they’ve called me a traitor when I’ve done nothing to betray them.” She shook her head and a tear slipped out from beneath her right eyelid, which she quickly wiped away with a jangle of chains. “They left me for dead, to be killed by the infamous Fire Starter, because they were too afraid to kill their queen’s sister. They left you to do their dirty work, sure you would give me a tortured and gruesome end.”
“So the quest
ion becomes, why protect them?” I asked. It was a question I’d had to answer myself on more than one occasion during the past couple of months. And every time I did, I was left wondering if I had made a mistake.
“Because it’s the right thing to do.”
I smiled at her and shook my head. “And what exactly is the right thing’? That’s the true sticking point in this mess. I truly wish you luck in figuring that out. I’m still looking myself.”
There was a knock at the door, and my hand instantly went to the knife at my side even though I had already sensed Danaus’s approach down the hall, with Shelly following directly behind him.
“Mira, I won’t lie to you,” Cynnia quickly said before Danaus could come into the room.
“If it comes down to telling you something that would betray and hurt my people and lying to you, I will simply refuse to tell you.”
“And then I’ll kill you.”
“There are worse reasons to die,” she said.
Eighteen
After Shelly and Cynnia were settled with food, Danaus followed me back to the other hotel room we were occupying. I was reluctant to say that we were actually sharing it.
He had the bed and I, obviously, was stuck in a trunk in the closet. Hardly a fair setup, but unfortunately a necessary one.
“I need some weapons,” I announced after he closed and locked the door behind me.
With a nod, he pulled out his handy black duffel bag from under the bed and dropped it on the mattress with a small bounce. He unzipped it and began sorting through the items, coming up with an assortment of knives with matching sheaths that I could attach to my waist and ankle under my pants.
“Where are we headed?” he asked as I pulled my pant leg back down over the last knife.
“I’m headed out for a bite to eat,” I said, looking up at him. Danaus frowned, his fingers nervously fiddling with a small silver throwing knife as he stared down at the bed.
“Mira, I don’t know if I…” he started, but his voice quickly faded. I knew what he was about to say. He wasn’t sure that he could accompany me on a hunting expedition since he was still struggling with the idea of what I was. And yet, he felt that he had to stay by my side in an effort to keep me alive.
I smiled as I walked over to him. I carefully took the throwing knife out of his nimble fingers and laid it on the bed, more out of an effort to keep it from accidentally injuring one of us. Danaus stared down at me, his dark blue eyes narrowed with mistrust.
“I wasn’t inviting you along,” I murmured. “I don’t want to worry about you trying to keep up with me.”
“I’ve had no problem keeping up with you, vampire,” he bit out, but there was no real fire behind his anger.
“So far, but then you’ve never been around when I’ve been hunting,” I teased. Reaching up, I brushed aside some black hair that had fallen forward on his forehead and was threatening to block his vision. Danaus caught my wrist and squeezed tightly so I wouldn’t be able to easily free myself.
“This isn’t about you hunting,” he said, his voice softening.
“I know.”
“It’s about Rowe hunting you.”
“I’m counting on it. I want him outside waiting for me. He and I need to talk again,” I said, twisting my wrist slightly, but he refused to release me, though he did lighten his grip.
“And I don’t want you meeting with him alone. He could kill you before you get a single word out.”
I shook my head at his assessment, though I appreciated his concern. “That’s not Rowe’s style. I’d be willing to bet that he wants me to stay alive to see his triumph on the mountain at the Machu Picchu ruins. My only problem is making sure that I’m not present as a prisoner, and Cynnia will be my guarantee that I’m not. Rowe will be willing to talk with me.”
Danaus slowly released me, his thumb rubbing along the tender flesh on the inside of my wrist, caressing the veins that would have held my pulse had I still been alive. The hunter wasn’t happy with my plan, but he was going to let me go alone. At least, he would say that, but I didn’t trust him not to be lingering at a distance, protecting my back. I had to keep him otherwise occupied.
“After I feed and meet with Rowe, I will need to meet with all the nightwalkers in the city,” I announced.
“Locals?”
A soft chuckle escaped me and I shook my head as I took a couple steps away from the hunter. When I looked up at him, a ghost of a smile flitted across my pale face. “There’s no such thing in South America. No nightwalker that I know of calls this continent home. This is naturi territory. Always has been.”
Around us I could feel nightwalkers awakening and beginning to move about the city.
They had all been sent by the Coven for one purpose, which explained the overwhelming feeling of anxiety. Unfortunately, fear easily shifted to anger and violence. I needed to get this group reined in before people started dying.
“We need to get moving,” Danaus said, shoving his hands in his pockets. After his more casual attire in Savannah, he was back in his durable black pants, but his black T-shirt looked new.
“Do you know of a place I can call the nightwalkers together? Somewhere very large and public?”
“There’s a bar a couple blocks away called Norton Rat’s. It’s just off the main plaza and should be big enough. It’s where Eduardo works.”
“Good.” I nodded, pacing over to the edge of the bed and then back. “Head over there and see if Eduardo can help you get some vans or a bus. We can at least drive part of the way to Machu Picchu tonight.”
“And you?”
“I’ll hunt, take care of my business with Rowe, and meet you at the bar in less than an hour,” I said.
“Are you sure?”
“We both know you wouldn’t allow me to feed, and I must hunt tonight. I go alone. I can handle Rowe and whatever the naturi decides to throw at me,” I firmly said.
Whatever he planned to say died in his throat. I knew what he was concerned about. The naturi were in the city. I couldn’t sense them, but I believed Cynnia when she said there were more than a hundred. The whole area was crawling with them.
“I’ll be fine. Trust me, if I’m in trouble, you’ll know it.” I flashed the hunter an evil grin full of fangs and menace. If I had to, I’d set half this town on fire to rid the earth of a handful of naturi.
“The bar is off the Plaza de Armas. You have to go through the Hostal Loreto to reach it,” Danaus explained, finally accepting my decision. He then wordlessly left the hotel room. I didn’t ask how many naturi were in the city and he didn’t offer. Obviously, he thought it was better that I didn’t know exactly how many were close by.
Once the door was closed, I jerked open my bag of clothes and dumped its contents onto the bed to see what I had grabbed in a rush before running out of the house to catch my painfully late flight. Jerking off my T-shirt, I pulled on a V-neck, long sleeve shirt that clung to me like a second skin before pulling on a second button-up black shirt. While fall was just beginning to give birth back in the States, Peru was still in the last days of winter, waiting for the official arrival of spring. The cold wouldn’t bother me, but it would tighten up my muscles, and I needed to be as nimble as possible if I was going to take on Rowe.
I quickly ran a brush through my hair and piled it on my head to keep it out of my eyes.
Just before leaving the room, I paused in front of the pile of clothes I had created when I rummaged through my backpack. Why bother even to pack again? The fight on Machu Picchu was coming soon. There would no longer be any need for clothes or worrying what I would wear to return home. Oh, I planned to fight back against the naturi, Jabari, and, if I had to, Danaus as well. But the odds were stacked against me.
With a growl, I turned back at the last second and shoved all the clothes back into the bag. Stranger things had happened. Hell, the naturi were waltzing around the Coven’s main hall. Maybe I could survive this mess.
It wasn’t yet eight o’clock when I hit the streets. The night was young and I was starving. Every instinct within my body begged that I fall back into my typical hunting style of slowly stalking my prey. Ordinarily, I would wander through the crowds of people that still lingered on the streets and listen to their thoughts until something finally caught my attention, but I didn’t have that luxury tonight. Rowe would be lurking somewhere within this crowd, waiting for a glimpse of me, I had no doubt. I needed to feed quickly and carefully tonight. My only concern was not grabbing a naturi in my haste and drinking their poisoned blood.
Out of pure necessity, my “hunting” was condensed down to settling as comfortably as possibly in a dark shadowy niche between a pair of tall stone building and mentally calling to one human after another. My only requirements were large men in their mid-twenties to early thirties. I needed to be sure they wouldn’t pass out from a little blood loss. I fed from four different men and they all walked away without a mark or a memory of the event. On the other hand, I felt more than a little dirty from the whole affair, but pushed my qualms aside.
Flushed with fuel again, I leaned against the wall, running my tongue over my fangs as I sent my last victim on his merry way without a memory of the encounter in his head. The wind had picked up and was whipping through the city, causing flags to snap and flap in an angry frenzy. Trees swayed and the clouds overhead churned and swirled through the sky, completely blotting out the stars. The earth seemed angry.
Upon leaving the hotel and setting foot on the street, I instantly felt the power that Cynnia had warned of. It wasn’t as strong as at the Palace of Knossos on Crete, but it was there, beating against my flesh, trying to find an entrance into my body. We were still many miles from the ruins of Machu Picchu. I didn’t think I should be feeling this energy here, but there was no denying that the mother earth was fueling the power nearly crackling in the air around me. If anything, I had a feeling that it made the naturi more dangerous than normal.
Dawnbreaker Page 17
