Pray for Dawn
( Dark Days - 4 )
Jocelynn Drake
Pray for salvation . . .
Pray for daylight . . .
Murder has pulled Mira out of the shadows and back into the living world . . .
As the fire-wielding enforcer of the nightwalker coven wrestles with the mind-destroying ghosts of her dark past, the slaying of a senator's daughter in Savannah threatens to expose her kind to the brilliant light of day. The dawn of chaos has come. The naturi have broken free of their eternal prison to feed on the defenseless and unbelieving of an unprepared Earth.
Mira and Danaus—vampire and vampire slayer—must unite to prevent the annihilation of their separate races. But for Danaus the challenge is intensified, for he must also fight the bori who covets his soul. And Mira, the nightwalker he must protect—whose power is the Earth's last hope—is rapidly going insane.
Pray for Dawn
(The fourth book in the Dark Days series)
Jocelynn Drake
TO MY FAMILY
YOU ARE A SOURCE OF ENDLESS INSPIRATION.
ONE
The bastard was fast.
The hard soles of his shoes echoed off the cobble-stones that lined the alleyway, leaving the sound to bounce off the tall brick walls that rose up around us. He wasn’t even trying to be quiet any longer. He was hoping to out-run me, but he didn’t realize that just because he was faster didn’t mean I wouldn’t finally catch up to my prey. I could sense him now, smell him out like a hound to a hare. Even if he went to ground, I would find him.
Popping suddenly out of the alley, we darted across a barren street, cutting between parked cars before shooting through another trash-strewn alley that fed into a network of back ways and dark streets. I took a corner too fast and my feet slid, sending my shoulder crashing into a building on my right. The steel of the blade in my right hand scraped against the brick as I pushed off. My prey was gaining distance on me, darting down one dark alley after another until I had finally lost sight of him. But then I was there again, just over his shoulder, ready to plunge my knife into his chest.
A breath exploded from my lungs in a white puff as I leaped over an overturned trash can, and a bead of sweat trickled cold down from my temple along the side of my face. The cold bit at my fingertips and my legs despite the fact that my blood was pumping from the chase. Sliding my left hand down to my waist, I grabbed one of the small blades that I kept in a holder there and pinched it between my thumb and index finger.
I had caught sight of the vampire as he strolled out of a dark alley on the other side of town. The scent of blood and death hung heavy in the air as I slipped after him to find a young girl lying limp among the bloated bags of trash, her breathing labored and her skin an unhealthy shade of white. She had lost too much blood and the vampire had left her for dead among the rotting garbage. He hadn’t even tried to hide her. I had spared a quick call on my cell to the local authorities, but I didn’t have much hope that the ambulance would reach her in time. From there, the chase was on.
Taking only a moment to aim, I hurled the small blade at the vampire, embedding it right between his shoulder blades, deep into his back. He cried out. His right arm reached back for the blade, his fast gait slowing as he struggled to maintain his balance. Clenching my teeth, I fought back a smile as I moved in for the kill.
Nearly two millennia had passed at the blink of an eye, most of the time spent hunting down vampires, wiping their evil from the face of the earth. Each time, each kill, seemed to come just a little bit easier. They were getting younger, less experienced, careless, and I was just hitting my prime. Only one had eluded me so far, but I’d get Mira eventually. I had eternity on my side.
The vampire exited the alleyway and skid to a stop in the middle of the small town circle. Despite the cold of winter, water still bubbled and danced in the center fountain, though the lights had been put out. The area was empty, but then it was after two in the morning. We had yet to run across any pedestrians or even a stray car during our long chase.
Pulling the knife from out of his back with a grunt of pain, the vampire turned to face me, tossing the blade aside. It made a metallic ping as it bounced off the cold pavement. The cocky bastard didn’t realize who he was up against, and thought he could easily dispatch me. He hissed, baring his bloodstained fangs at me. Tall and lean, he looked as if he were made of pure muscles and sinew, and yet the power that rolled off him spoke of a vampire that had seen only a few centuries of nights at best. He was young by most standards, a fledgling, but a killer nonetheless.
“What the hell do you want?” he snarled at me in roughly accented Spanish. He wasn’t a native of the area. “Are you a hunter or something?”
“Something like that,” I said in a low voice.
The vampire took a step backward, clenching his fists at his sides. “You’re out of your league here, hunter. This is Sadira’s domain. She won’t take hunting in her domain lightly. If you wish to survive, I would leave here while you still can.”
A soft snort escaped me as I took a step forward, keeping my legs spread wide and my stance ready for any kind of attack from the bloodsucking monster. That explained why there had been so much activity in this area recently. The mistress was gone, so all the children had decided to play. I had no problem exacting a little punishment for their carelessness. “Sadira was killed by the naturi in Peru months ago. Arrow through the heart.”
The vampire’s shoulders slumped slightly at this news and surprise actually flashed across his narrow face. He hadn’t known that his mistress had been killed. He was simply enjoying her extended absence.
In a flash of movement, I launched my attack, taking him by surprise. Of course, that didn’t mean that his reflexes weren’t still faster than mine. I slashed the blade in my right hand down, moving from right to left, hoping to catch him across the chest, but he jerked just out of my grasp. I managed to only clip the side of his hand as he moved away from me. As he jumped backward, I grabbed another knife.
The vampire swung his hand at me, looking to take advantage of my apparent slowness. The palm was open, revealing a set of sharp fingernails that could easily shred me with the sheer force that was behind them. Twisting awkwardly, I dodged the nails. At the same time, I swung the blade in my left hand, slicing his right arm before he could move away from me. The vampire howled and jumped backward several feet, clamping his left hand over the wound. His blue eyes glowed in the darkness and I could feel his power filling the night air. Apparently, he was finally seeing me for the threat that I truly was.
Yet, at the same time, a second power filled the air. It swirled around us before seeming to settle just at my back like a heavy cloak hanging from my shoulders. It bore the same icy energy touch as any vampire I had ever encountered, but this was infinitely more powerful than I had ever felt before. I reached out with my own powers, but the energy couldn’t be pinned down to any one place. It seemed to be everywhere and yet focused on me.
I kept my eyes locked on the vampire that stood before me, but he didn’t flinch, didn’t give anything away to indicate that there was something dark and evil standing just at my back. In fact, he launched himself at me, hands balled into fists. I dodged the first blow aimed at my jaw, but wasn’t fast enough to evade the punch to my stomach that cracked at least two ribs. The impact was enough to send the air from my lungs, but it didn’t stop me. Pushing the pain aside, I slammed the short blade in my left hand into his chest, just missing his heart.
The creature lurched away from me. Wrapping one hand around the handle of the blade, he attempted to pull it free as he dodged a series of swipes of my sword aimed at removing his head from his neck. A low growl rumbled thr
ough the circle, rising above the splash of water, as he pulled the blade free. Yet, instead of dropping it like he had the other, he kept this one tightly clenched in his bloody right hand. He finally had a weapon that he would wield faster and harder than I could, but not by much. My half-breed ancestry did give me a leg up when it came to fighting vampires. Not only could I sense them, but I was nearly as fast and as strong as they were, and could heal nearly as fast. Still, without actually becoming a nightwalker, I was just a poor cousin. I wasn’t complaining, though. I still had an ace up my sleeve if it came down to it, but I wouldn’t need it to take down this fledgling.
We circled each other, each looking for the perfect opportunity to insert a blade between the opponent’s ribs. My heart hammered in my chest and adrenaline surged through my veins, giving me the only high that I could find after all these years. Hunting vampires was the only challenge I had left, the only thrill when the rest of the world seemed to have faded to a sickly shade of gray.
Yet, to my surprise, the vampire pulled the blade back, hiding it partially behind his body as he took a step away from me. “We’re not alone,” he muttered, but this time the words were in English. His brow was furrowed and a frown pulled his mouth into a downward slash across his pale face. Something about our guests had disturbed the vampire.
And a quick scan with my powers easily revealed the reason. My adversary would normally have been happy to continue this fight in full view of the public since he could easily cloak us. Our world was kept apart from the human world at all times, separate and secret. Yet, I knew that the vampire feared he could not cloak us from our new companions because he could not sense them. But I could. A trio of naturi had descended upon our scuffle and I suddenly found myself caught in the middle of two separate battles.
“Naturi,” I murmured. I turned to my left, back toward the alley we had just come out of moments ago, so I could see both the vampire and the three naturi that were approaching our location, weapons drawn.
“Naturi?” the vampire demanded in surprise. He took a step backward and for a moment I was sure he was going to run. He had no problem chancing a quick scuffle with a creature he counted as simply human, but the idea of taking on three naturi at once was more than enough to send him scurrying for cover. And in truth, I couldn’t blame him.
A second later, the energy that had been hovering just at my back flowed toward my right and the vampire, who was slowly edging away from the naturi and me. The nightwalker suddenly jerked to a stop as his face went completely blank, his eyelids falling shut as if consciousness has been ripped from his grasp. To my left, the naturi halted and even looked at each other for a second in confusion.
A smile grew across the vampire’s face as he lifted his head. A red glow brightened his eyes, replacing the blue that had been there earlier. He tightened his grip on the dagger he had in his hand and slashed at the air a couple times.
Something was suddenly off here, and I couldn’t begin to guess what had convinced the vampire to stay when running was the smarter option. If he wasn’t killed by the naturi, he still had to face me, and that fight was bound to end poorly for him.
To confuse matters even more, the vampire said something to the trio of naturi in a language I had never heard before, but it was enough to cause the hair on the back of my neck to stand on end. It sounded as if I should recognize it, that it was something my deep subconscious understood but could no longer remember. It didn’t matter, because the naturi understood it and replied with a pair of poison-tipped darts aimed at the vampire.
Jumping backward a step to put more room between myself and the nightwalker, I watched as he easily deflected both bolts from a wrist crossbow with a couple swipes of the dagger, like swatting away flies.
Two of the naturi rushed the vampire then, while the third hung back, glaring at me. He raised one hand above his head and the black, midnight sky began to churn with dark clouds. It was cold enough to snow, but that wasn’t what this wind naturi was summoning up. I had seen this too many times before. I had to kill him before lightning bolts began to plummet from the gathering storm clouds.
With sword in hand, I rushed the naturi, forcing him to stop his spell and pull his own short sword in hopes of defending himself. The blond-haired naturi was fast and skilled, blocking each one of my attacks while managing to sneak in a few blows of his own that I narrowly avoided. Blocking one blow and holding his sword trapped above his head, I slammed my fist into his face. The impact shattered his nose and forced him to stumble backward a couple of steps. I jerked my sword free of his and slashed downward, cutting through his neck, leaving his head hanging on by a thin flap of skin. The wind naturi fell dead at my feet, leaving the storm brewing overhead to slowly dissipate.
Turning on my heel, I found the nightwalker dueling with both of the remaining naturi at once. The air was thick with energy, almost crackling around them. By their broad shoulders and thick build, I was willing to bet that the vampire faced a pair from the animal clan. They seemed to be the foot soldiers of the naturi race. The first into any battle and generally the most brutal.
I was about to insert my sword into the fray when I hesitated. I didn’t need to. The vampire had this fight completely within his control. In fact, by the devilish smile playing on his lips, I was willing to bet that he was only toying with them, drawing out the fight in order to crush their hopes. But it didn’t make any sense. Moments earlier, the vampire had seemed lucky to know which end of the knife to be holding. Now, watching the vampire move was like watching an intimate dance of light and shadow intertwine. The blades flashed red in the lamplight, as he had scored more than one hit on his opponents. And then, to my complete consternation, the vampire turned to look at me as he sliced the throat of one naturi and then, in a flash, plunged the dagger through the heart of the second. The vampire’s wide-eyed, red gaze never wavered from me as the naturi fell to the cold pavement, struggling to heal from their individual wounds before death finally stole them away.
My hand tightened on my own blade as I watched the two naturi writhing on the ground. “Finish it,” I commanded.
“You’ve always been too compassionate,” the vampire said in a voice that barely rose above a growl. However, the vampire heeded my wishes. Kneeling down, he cut the heads off the two naturi, killing them. At the moment of their deaths, he sucked in a deep breath, his eyes rolling up into his head as if he was savoring the exact moment of their demise. He then looked down at the blood covering his hands and smiled to himself.
“We’re not finished, vampire,” I reminded him, lifting my sword slightly.
The vampire turned on the balls of his feet to face me and easily rose, leaving the dagger on the ground next to the dead bodies. He took a step toward me with his arms out and hands open, revealing that he was completely unarmed. But no vampire was ever unarmed. They were deadly fast and amazingly strong whenever the sun was down. I would not be drawn in by whatever ruse he was trying to pull on me.
“It doesn’t have to be like this, Danaus,” the vampire said in a low, soothing voice. “You’ve been fighting a good fight for many years, my son, but you’ve been fighting the wrong side.”
“You may have helped with the naturi, but it doesn’t matter. They would have killed us both regardless. You can’t save your hide from me,” I replied. Unwilling to let him stall any longer, I lunged at him, but he dodged as easily as if I were moving in slow motion.
The vampire chuckled at me and shook his head. “You think you can kill me now. Did you not witness how I so easily destroyed the naturi? What is one mere man against a creature such as me?”
“You’re a vampire. A young one. You can be destroyed.” Again, I came at him with a barrage of moves, faster than I had moved the last time, and still he dodged me. It was like he was inside of my head and knew exactly how I was going to move, and yet no nightwalker could read my thoughts without my knowledge. I would sense their presence.
Panic began t
o take hold as sweat trickled down my brow and ran along the edge of my jaw. My heart thundered in my chest and I tightened my grip on the sword. He was too fast for me to kill by conventional means. Hell, I couldn’t even touch him. Something had changed in that moment when the naturi arrived and his eyes switched from a sky blue to a ruby red. I didn’t understand it, but somehow the vampire has come into possession of the energy that had been swirling about me just before the naturi arrived.
I had to kill him before he finally decided to kill me. Taking a step backward, I lowered my sword slightly and raised my empty left hand toward the vampire. To my surprise, his grin grew even wider as I summoned up the power that bubbled within me. My body came alive with a fresh surge of energy and within me something roared with delight. The power left me in a rush and slammed into the vampire. His head fell back and he laughed maniacally for only a moment.
And then the red glow left his eyes. Whatever power that had possessed him for a brief period of time had left him. The nightwalker clawed at his arms and chest, stumbling backward away from me, but it was too late. His skin undulated and started to blacken. I had already begun to boil his blood within his lithe frame and there was no escaping it now. The vampire let out a high-pitched scream as he fell to his knees. His nails scratched at his face, tearing away chunks of flesh before he finally collapsed into a darkened husk that flaked away in the breeze.
Gritting my teeth, I pulled the power back inside of my body, struggling to cage the energy all over again. Once it was set free, I could relax for the first time in so many long centuries, but I couldn’t let the power remain unleashed. The desire to kill grew as my body relaxed until it felt as if I would lash out at the first creature that crossed my path, nightwalker and innocent human alike.
I drew in a deep, cleansing breath while I tapped the power back down around my soul like a snake coiling around its prey, pushing away fear as well. The fear that I would lose control of the insidious power and kill everyone.
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