“So Tristan doesn’t have a soul?”
“He does,” I growled, lurching to my feet. I didn’t like to hear those words uttered. It was a very old myth that vampires were soulless creatures, a myth that many humans still believed. And they would use that archaic belief to hunt us down when they discovered we existed.
Staring down at a tired Danaus, I forced myself to relax. He had meant nothing by the question and I knew I’d overreacted. My nerves were growing rawer the closer we got to Venice. Flopping back down, I bit off a sigh. “When the body is reanimated with the vampire blood, the soul is called back to the body. But when the sun rises, he dies again and the soul leaves. Of course, this is all theory.”
“And you?”
“They speculate that I don’t technically die like the rest at sunrise. Sadira thinks it’s why I’m able to dream when the others cannot,” I said with a shake of my head.
“Why did she make you like that?”
“If she is to be believed, it was what Jabari wanted,” I replied. “I was kidnapped centuries ago because of my ability to control fire. When they feared the plague would take my human life, they decided to make me a nightwalker. However, Jabari wanted to see if I could retain my ability, and the best chance of that was to make me a First Blood.”
“Jabari’s blood is in your veins.”
“And Sadira’s. And Tabor’s. The original members of the triad.” And two of the four members of the Coven. Some of the most powerful nightwalkers in existence, then and now. “They believe they and some of their progeny can control me because their blood is a part of me.”
“But I’m not a nightwalker. Never have been, never will be,” Danaus said.
I bit back a comment about how there was still time. There was nothing to be gained by antagonizing him right now. He had enough problems in the form of the Coven and every vampire in Venice wanting a piece of his nightwalker-hunting hide. “You? I have no idea. Since you refuse to tell me what you are, I can only guess you’re a freak of nature like me and that must give you some kind of strange edge.”
“Do the others know what really happened?” Danaus demanded, deftly changing the subject. He wasn’t going to tell me yet, but I liked to think I would have the truth out of him before his last breath.
“I don’t think so,” I said with a sigh on my lips. “If they had, I don’t think we would have made it out of Themis alive; naturi or not. It would be best if we kept the full extent of what we can do to ourselves. We are about to head into the heart of the nightwalker hierarchy. It might be a good idea not to give them any more reasons to crush us into the dirt.”
“You don’t think they will when we arrive in Venice?”
“At the moment, they might be kind enough to wait until after we stop the naturi,” I said with a frail chuckle, lifting my head to look at him.
“Lucky us,” Danaus grimly said. “You expect to survive the next few nights?”
“Not really.” A carefree shrug lifted my slim shoulders. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try.”
“Then you have a plan for when we hit Venice,” he prodded.
I smiled back at him, extending my legs out in front of me with my ankles crossed. The leather seat crinkled and crackled beneath me. “I have some ideas, but no specific plan. I work better off the cuff,” I said, causing his expression to grow even darker. I couldn’t blame him. We were in yet another situation in which he would have to trust me to protect him from my kind. Not a comfortable position, considering he had killed many of us during his extremely long career as a hunter.
“You’re going to try to talk your way out of death?” Danaus guessed, sounding incredulous as he sat forward on the edge of the bench.
“I plan to bluff, cajole, grandstand, and outright lie if necessary to save my skin,” I said, and laughed, throwing open my arms. One of the most powerful nightwalkers in existence wanted me dead. I had nothing to lose any longer.
“And sacrifice me when the opportunity presents itself,” Danaus finished, shoving to his feet. I rose as well and stepped closer so only a couple of feet of empty space were separating us. It felt odd being that close without weapons drawn.
“I bear the Elders no love,” I said. “Jabari was the only one who once resided in my heart and he crushed that before departing Themis. “On the other hand, you’ve saved my life on more than one occasion. I don’t know your rationale behind it and at the moment I don’t care,” I quickly finished, holding up my hand before he could interject any of his reasons for prolonging my life, which I’m sure were on the tip of his tongue. It didn’t look good for a hunter of his caliber to go around saving nightwalkers. “We will walk into Venice together and we will walk out together, I promise.” I held out my hand to him. Danaus stared into my eyes for a long time, weighing my words before he finally took my hand and shook it, sealing the bargain.
“And after?” he demanded, his hand still tightly gripping mine.
“After Venice? Assuming we both actually survive, we get back to the business of trying to kill each other like nature intended,” I mocked, releasing his rough, callused hand. A half smile briefly lifted one corner of his mouth as he sat back down.
“All I ask is that you keep your mouth shut and trust me,” I said, looking down at him. “It’s not an impossible task. You’re a hunter. I have no doubt that you’ve slaughtered countless nightwalkers. You’re not exactly winning over many friends.”
“It’s not my goal in life,” he said, sounding grumpy.
“I believe that,” I muttered as I returned to my seat. Draping my body over the bench, I listened to the roar of the engines. Even if I did live long enough to finally gain the ability to fly, I would still use my pretty little jet. Besides the obvious comfort, I liked listening to the moan of the air rushing past the windows and the roar of the engine.
As the plane carried us closer to Italy, Danaus bent down and started digging around in the large black duffel bag near his feet. I could hear the clang and ping of metal striking metal as he sifted around in his trusty bag of weapons. I was sorry that I’d left the sword I used at Themis behind, but my hands were full of Tristan at the time. My mind hadn’t been on proper weaponry for our trip to Venice. Lucky for me, Danaus remembered to grab his bag of tricks from the hotel. He might have even made a pit stop for extra toys at the Themis town house where we met James Parker.
After a moment he sat back with a gun in his hand. He quickly checked the magazine before standing and walking over to me. My eyes briefly flit from the gun he was holding out to me and back to his face questioningly.
“Guns seem to be effective against the naturi,” he said when I had yet to move. I stared at the gun for a second, frowning. I didn’t like guns. They were so impersonal. They were also ineffective when dealing with nightwalkers. Being shot just pissed vampires off and didn’t slow them down much. We also hadn’t fought the naturi on a regular basis in several centuries, so most of us never bothered to learn how to use a gun.
With a frown, I finally took the weapon from him, holding the grip between two fingers away from my body like a piece of rotting garbage. Growling in frustration, Danaus took the gun back and sat down next to me. “It’s a Browning Hi-Power loaded with 9mm bullets,” he explained, letting it rest in the palm of his hand. “The magazine holds fifteen bullets.” With a couple of deft motions with his fingers, he showed me how to load the magazine and turn off the safety. My knowledge of guns didn’t extend much further than pointing and squeezing the trigger. I had no desire to learn any more than that, but if I was faced with another naturi, the Browning was going to feel a whole lot better in my hand than a knife.
“I’m guessing you can manage that,” Danaus taunted, trying to get a rise out of me.
“I’ll manage,” I almost growled, the two words squeezing between my clenched teeth. “Holster?”
He returned to the opposite bench and pulled a leather double shoulder holster out of his bag. He t
ossed it across the jet and I caught it with my empty hand. It was made of a supple, dark brown leather and was adjustable so I didn’t have to worry about it being too bulky. Unfortunately I wasn’t wearing a belt so I wouldn’t be able to use the belt-securing ties. While I was strapping on the shoulder holster, Danaus brought over a second gun.
“It’s a Glock 17 with 9mm rounds,” he said as I accepted the gun and placed it in the right holster. The Browning went in the left. I looked down at myself and frowned. A nightwalker carrying guns. It seemed almost sacrilegious, if that was possible. We were graceful creatures from the Old World. When we killed, it was either with our bare hands or a blade.
“Is it wrong that the refrain from ‘Janie’s Got a Gun’ keeps running through my head?” I moaned. Danaus made a noise in the back of his throat as he quickly looked away, but not before I saw his lips quirk in a half smile. “What? You don’t like Aerosmith?” I asked.
“No! I—” He halted and shook his head, no longer fighting the smile. “Aerosmith is fine. I was thinking of another song.”
“Which one?”
When he looked up at me, his smile was gone, but laughter danced in his eyes. “‘Sympathy for the Devil,’” he answered.
“Ha ha. Real funny, hunter,” I said snidely. “At least it’s the Stones.”
“Nope. Guns N’ Roses,” he corrected, one corner of his mouth quirked in a grin. I snorted in disgust but couldn’t stop the smile that settled on my lips. However, when I looked back down at the guns hugging my frame, a sigh escaped my lips and the smile disintegrated.
“It’s not that bad,” Danaus said, interrupting my thoughts.
I just glared at him. He had no idea how bad it was.
His weary sigh seemed more show than exasperation as he returned to his bag one last time and quickly withdrew a long sword and scabbard. With a deep chuckle, I snatched the weapon from his hand and clutched it against my chest. The hilt and grip were of simple design, with an onion pommel and slightly curved cross guard with a flat ricasso. I pulled it out of the scabbard a little and discovered that it was a double-edged broadsword in exquisite condition. Actually, it was a sort of hybrid, with an elongated hilt common to a hand-and-a-half sword. The strap on the scabbard was designed so I could secure it across my chest and draw the sword from over my shoulder. I looked up to find him shaking his head, a smiling haunting his lips.
“I’m not the only one who prefers the old ways.” A smirk twisted my mouth and I raised both eyebrows at him. Danaus rarely used a gun, and the way he held a sword made me think he’d been born with one in his hand.
“But to survive, you learn to adapt,” he said grimly.
“True,” I whispered, looking back down at the pistols resting on either side of my chest. I didn’t like them, but they would stop a member of the naturi faster than I could cut them into pieces with my sword. “Thanks.”
Danaus grunted and returned to the white leather bench. I carefully removed the shoulder holster and laid it on one of the empty seats with the sword. I stretched out on the leather sofa again, grateful to be rid of the guns.
A deep silence settled in the jet. Only the sound of the screaming wind could be heard. I relaxed against the upholstery with my eyes closed, both of us lost in our own worlds. I blotted out thoughts of my wounded Gabriel, reassuring myself that he was safe with Ryan and James. I tried not to think about the Coven, Jabari, or the naturi. I tried not to think about the fact that I had lived with Jabari in Egypt for nearly a century. For almost one hundred years he ran his little experiments, letting other nightwalkers try to control me, and I couldn’t remember a moment of it. The years were a blur, but they weren’t a gaping black hole in my past. I remembered nights in Jabari’s home near Karnak where we would sit talking about the things we had seen. We discussed what it meant to be a nightwalker and others who had come before both of us. The Ancient nightwalker had given me a sense of history and a philosophy. He’d been a mentor and guide in the night.
I pushed those thoughts away, plunging deeper into the blackness of my mind, only to have images of Michael swim to the surface. His soft, golden locks rose up before me, and I ached to touch the smoothness of his skin as it stretched over miles of thick muscle. I remembered his wonderful smile and how it was always unsure and crooked when he struggled to read my moods. Yet tainting those good memories was the feel of his body in my arms as he died, a lead weight pressing down on my legs and awkward in my arms. The brush of his soul still chilled my skin. It beat against his chest, battling for freedom when I desperately wanted him to stay. I left him when consciousness abandoned him at last, unable to bear the final moments when his soul broke free and left me forever.
Leaning my head back, I rested one elbow on the back of the bench and threaded my fingers through my hair. A lump rose in my throat and my eyes burned with tears fighting to slip down my cool cheeks. I had killed Michael as surely as if I plunged the blade in his back myself. I had seen him slowly sliding deeper into my world, slipping further away from his own kind. The descent was slow and I had convinced myself that he could handle it. Gabriel had, after all. My remaining angel had served me as a bodyguard for more than a decade with no ill effects.
But Gabriel was always careful to maintain a normal life away from me. I had dipped into his mind on numerous occasions and saw the things he enjoyed. Gabriel looked forward to watching football on Sunday and drinking with friends at a local bar. He dated and kept lovers. I never saw such things in Michael’s mind. There had been only me.
Humans did not last when they became involved with my kind. For a while it was fun, but after a time there were only two paths for their fragile minds and bodies: death or rebirth. I could have saved my guardian angel at any time from his fate, but I could not bring myself to release him. A naturi may have wielded the blade that freed Michael’s soul, but I had set the trap and baited it with myself.
FOUR
Venice. Europe’s ultimate tourist trap, with its clichéd gondola drivers and pigeon-filled piazzas. Venice was like watching a grand dame of society slowly wither and die. She was filled with chatty, boisterous tour groups and their little clicking cameras as they crowded San Marco Piazza and oohed at the basilica. Then it was down to the Rialto and the open air market. Did any of them bother to cross the Guidecca Canal or wander through the quiet beauty of Campo Santa Margherita? Or even venture into some of the finest restaurants in San Polo?
When I’d traveled with Jabari, I spent many nights wandering the narrow streets of La Serenissima. I loved the vibrant nightlife in Dorsoduro, populated with its college students from the nearby universities. I loved the thickly populated island of Burano with its vibrantly painted little buildings. But my favorite was taking a water taxi to Torcello in the northern part of the Lagoon. This was where Venice had been born centuries ago, but now it was little more than a ghost town, its inhabitants shrinking from twenty thousand to fewer than thirty. Torcello’s streets were only dirt and broken cobblestone, while most of her buildings had been torn down so the materials could be used elsewhere. However, those fragmented shells and the desolate, overgrown land offered up a quiet respite from my world. I had even lingered on this nearly forgotten island during the daylight hours, sleeping in a dark, quiet corner of an empty building.
But I doubted I’d be able to wander along her ancient sidewalks this time. When we stepped off the plane, an escort was already waiting to greet us. Tall and lean, the nightwalker stood not far from where our jet had taxied to a private section of Marco Polo Airport. I had seen him on my last few trips to Venice. The vampire was picking pieces of lint from his dark Armani suit, looking supremely bored with the task at hand. I knew better. A toady of the Coven was a tenuous position, one that you were careful not to screw up.
Climbing off the jet, I glanced nervously at the sky. Dawn was less than two hours away and we still had to deal with the formalities of landing in Venice, the nightwalker playground. If not for the time con
straints, I would have been happy to wait until sunset tomorrow to leave for Venice.
The nightwalker in Armani gracefully strolled over as Danaus came to stand beside me. I had given him the guns and sword. I’d take back the Browning and Glock if forced to hunt the naturi again. For now, I didn’t have a clue about the Coven’s plans, but I knew that Rowe wouldn’t give up on his plan to break the seal just because I had thwarted him once. The naturi was going to try again, and I suspected the Coven would “request” that I be the one to stop him again.
Tristan descended the stairs last, carrying both of our bags with ease. He was lowest on the totem pole so he got to play the part of pack mule. It wasn’t fair, but we were protecting him and that task was more easily done without a bag on your shoulder.
“Benevenuto a Venezia,” the vampire greeted in flawless Italian, bowing deeply to me. “Il mio nome è Roberto.”
“Mira,” I said, biting out my name through clenched teeth, fighting the urge to use Italian as well. “Danaus. Tristan.” I completed the rest of the introductions with a quick wave of my hand toward my companions.
Roberto smiled at me, his eyes flickering with amusement. “The Elders are glad that you have arrived safely,” he replied, slipping into heavily accented English.
A snide comment nearly tumbled from my lips, but I bit off the words at the last minute. No reason to start a fight just yet. There would be plenty of opportunities for that later.
“We are losing moonlight. Shall we go?” I stiffly said in quick, sharp Italian. The language came easy for me. Sadira had insisted that I learn it even before I was reborn, and it was all Jabari had spoken while attempting to teach me Arabic. But I didn’t want to speak Italian; each syllable carried with it an echo of grim memories and dark pleasures I had left behind.
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