Dayhunter (2 page)

Raising her right hand, she began murmuring an incantation under her breath. I had taken a single step toward her, trying to get in front of Tristan, when her right hand was engulfed in a ball of yellow and orange flames. I paused, a tiny smile toying with my lips. She was smart. Normally, the sight of fire in the hands of a witch would send any nightwalker running for shelter. However, I wasn’t just any nightwalker, I was the Fire Starter. Controlling fire had been both my gift and curse since I was a human child. Poor witch.

With a grunt, she hurled the fireball, aiming for Tristan. Reaching out with my right hand, the fire curved toward me and settled in the palm of my open hand. Smiling broadly, I closed my fingers and extinguished the flame, plunging the narrow alley back into darkness.

The witch frowned, confusion clearly written across her pale face. Refusing to admit defeat, she lifted both hands and repeated the spell. This time I could feel the pull of energy in the air. She was putting everything she had into this one. I stepped in front of Tristan as she threw a pair of large fireballs at me.

My eyelids drifted nearly closed and time slowed. The smell of the rotting garbage and the sounds of the people within the city ceased to exist. There was only the fire as it roared at me. With my palm out, I waved my left hand before my body. The flames once again followed my pale hand. They gathered around it for a moment, then slithered up my arm and down my chest like a well-fed python. I could not be burned.

Yet something was off. While my focus was on the fire, I could hear the monster inside me screaming, but it wasn’t the roar of hunger I had listened to for more than six centuries. It was a shriek of anger and pain. Suddenly confused and fearful, I redirected the flames to wash down my legs like water. However, the second the fire touched the ground, my senses exploded. The earth was consumed in a blinding white light, scorching my brain. Beneath my feet I could feel an enormous well of power flowing like a river, and the fire was returning to it.

And then nothing. The fire was gone and cold silence crowded around me. The new connection had snapped off before I could even begin to guess at what I’d tapped into. The white light faded. Even the growling hunger inside of me had gone still, possibly with the same wary confusion.

The telltale scrape of a shoe across concrete drew my attention back to the witch. Her arms were tightly wrapped around her middle and she was slowly shaking her head. “Oh, God,” she moaned in a hoarse voice. “The Fire Starter. Here.”

Before I could take another step toward her, the woman reached into the front pocket of her jeans as she took a step backward and disappeared.

“Damn it,” I whispered, fighting back the chill that swept up my spine. She knew who I was. It was one thing for a nightwalker to recognize me on sight. Fear was useful when it came to controlling those who would try to control you. But I didn’t like it when the other races discovered my presence. There was no telling who was pissed at me at any given time.

Now the questions became: Where did she go, and was she reporting my presence to someone stronger and meaner? Judging from her age, spell choice, and amount of power used, she wasn’t a particularly experienced witch. Furthermore, transportation spells like that were extremely advanced. When she’d reached into her pocket, she must have touched a locator charm, probably created by someone much more powerful.

Frowning, I bit back a curse. This was all idle speculation. I knew a fair amount regarding magic because I had suffered through enough run-ins with witches and warlocks to learn a few things. I needed to talk to Ryan and get his thoughts. Unfortunately, the white-haired warlock was his own bundle of trouble, and I was in no hurry to deal with him again just yet. I would have to manage with the witch’s unconscious companions for now.

Turning to approach Tristan, my knees buckled and then I found myself kneeling on the ground. I blinked once to clear the growing fog from around my thoughts. Using fire had sapped the last of my strength, and my body was demanding that I feed again and rest. What strength I had gained from feeding off the werewolf was gone.

The young vampire appeared at my side, a firm hand resting beneath my elbow. I gazed up at him, a worried expression twisting his handsome face. “Has she done something to you?” he inquired. For the first time since meeting him, I heard a soft accent in his speech. French maybe, but different. A remnant of his human life. Slowly, he guided me back to sit on the ground, my back pressed to the brick wall.

“No,” I replied with a weary smile. “Just tired. I need to rest a minute.” I jerked my head toward the human who had pulled the gun. “Is he still alive?”

“For now,” Tristan grumbled, the hand on my elbow tightening as his eyes drifted over to the body of our gunman.

Laying my left hand beneath his chin, I forced him to look at me. “And he’ll stay that way. I need you to discover the identity of our attackers without killing him.”

Frowning, Tristan rose and returned to the man’s side. He stood over the man, his fists on his hips. I couldn’t tell whether the nightwalker was stalling out of distaste for the task or if he had begun rummaging through the man’s mind. Some nightwalkers had to physically touch their prey to enter his or her mind, especially if the person was unconscious.

“David Perry,” Tristan suddenly said, a faintly far-off quality to his voice. His mind was half with me, half with the human. “Thirty-six. Ex-marine. From Birmingham, Alabama. He’s—” His words were broken off with a harsh hiss and his eyes glowed pale blue when he looked over at me. “He’s a member of the Daylight Coalition.”

“Tristan!” I barked, lurching to my feet as the nightwalker started to reach for the unconscious man. He halted, but still growled in the back of his throat, and I couldn’t blame him. I would have been happy to rip the human’s throat out at that second too.

The Daylight Coalition was a group of humans within the United States who knew of the existence of nightwalkers and sought our total extermination. Humanity believed them to be a cult of insane fanatics and didn’t take them seriously. Of course, that didn’t erase the fact that members of the Coalition had staked a number of nightwalkers during the daylight hours. Regardless of whether you resided in the United States, all nightwalkers knew of the Coalition. We all feared they were the future we faced if we came “out of the coffin,” so to speak.

But for now my concern was not the little zealot at my feet, but the witch and lycan he traveled with. All our information said that the Daylight Coalition was exclusively human, wisely avoided by the other races. In fact it was against our law to work with the Coalition. One turncoat could result in all out war. This was not a good development when we already had a war brewing with the naturi.

“Focus,” I snapped, standing beside Tristan. “Who was the woman?”

Tristan stared down at the man, radiating a lethal mix of anger and fear. “Caroline…Caroline Buckberry, but he wondered if it was her real name…” The anger started to ebb as his focus tightened on the man’s thoughts, causing his eyes to drift closed. “He didn’t know her. He was sent by the Houston branch to fetch the woman and the man. Harold Finchley. That’s all.” Tristan opened his eyes again and looked up at me. “He was told to go to London and bring them back to Houston. I don’t think he even knew what they were.”

“He didn’t have to know,” I murmured. “Perry is just a foot soldier. He follows the orders he’s given.”

“Do you think they were to be plants by the witches and lycans?” Tristan inquired. I didn’t miss the hopeful note in his voice.

“No,” I replied with a slight shake of my head. “The witches and warlocks have no business with the Coalition. Either one of them could have said something to explain their association with the human. But instead they attacked because they know the law.”

“But—”

“Forget what you saw,” I said, cutting off his next comment. “We have bigger problems.”

“The naturi.” His hands curled into fists and the muscles in his jaw tightened.

Yes, the naturi were coming and they would destroy us all, human and nightwalker, if given half a chance. In comparison, the Daylight Coalition was nothing; a fly on a rhino’s ass.

Standing, I propped my right shoulder against the alley wall and let my eyes drift shut for a moment. I hardly recognized my world anymore. A few nights ago I had been standing in my own domain back in my beloved Savannah, the warm summer air filled with the scent of honeysuckle and lilacs. It had been five hundred years since that night on Machu Picchu. The naturi were a distant memory, a dark nightmare from my past that could no longer touch me. The Daylight Coalition was just a fringe group with no contact with the others. But now both were threatening. My world was crumbling at an alarming rate and it all started with the hunter, Danaus. But there was no need to kill the messenger…yet.

Thoughts of him brought a faint smile to my lips as I pushed off the wall and opened my eyes. Tristan was watching me intently, waiting. He needed me alive to fulfill my promise to him. There was still time.

Briefly, I looked around the alley until I located the gun the human had used. There was no hesitation. There was no gray area in this law. Standing close, I fired a single bullet into the head of the lycanthrope. He had betrayed not only his own kind, but all the other races. He endangered our secret. And now he paid the cost with his life.

But his death didn’t dissolve the cold knot in my stomach. The Daylight Coalition’s main target had always been nightwalkers, but we were all confident they would attack any nonhumans eventually. Had Harold Finchley been a wolf acting alone, or was he part of a larger movement against nightwalkers?

“Wipe the memories of both men,” I said, motioning toward the drug dealer Tristan had fed from only minutes ago. Walking over to the Coalition member, I wiped the gun off on his shirt and dropped it by his body. “Then return to my hotel room.” Danaus would already be waiting there for us. From the hotel, we would head to the airport and grab my jet to Venice. If we were to have any hope of stopping the naturi and the coming war, we would need to first go to Venice and meet with the nightwalker Coven. They would know the best way to deal with the growing threat. They were the only ones who could summon an army.

“Where are you going?” Tristan asked.

A broad smile lifted my lips, revealing a pair of long white fangs. “To hunt.”

TWO

I
ran several blocks, merging with the shadows until I was nearly a mile from Tristan. A horrible trembling had started in my limbs and began to vibrate through my entire body. I throbbed and ached with a mixture of fresh wounds sustained during the past few hours and old wounds not completely healed from the night before. The world was an angry swirl of pain and noise and glaring lights. Pushing it all aside, my focus narrowed to a single pinpoint of finding prey.

Hunting had been a solitary act almost from the moment I was reborn. For me, it was a personal moment. Most nights I was particular about my prey, choosing him or her based on history or personal philosophy. I would listen to my prey’s thoughts until something finally enticed me to move. And then there were nights like tonight, where I grabbed the first poor fool to cross my path.

She was nineteen, and for a second she thought I was a rapist. Grabbing a handful of her dark brown hair, I jerked her into the deep shadows of a doorway. She pushed against me, tears gathering in her wide hazel eyes. I sunk my fangs into her throat as a scream rose to her lips. Out of some latent kindness, I pushed her thoughts down into a deep sleep as I drank. Swallowing her blood, I let its warmth and life fill me, and I drank until my memory of the night grew blurry and distant. The monster in my chest, hiding behind the remnants of my soul, was briefly appeased by the offering.

Reluctantly, I released her as her heart slowed to a lethargic beat. Holding her in my arms, I stared down at her smooth young face. I didn’t know her. She could have been a college student or a young mother on her way home. I hadn’t taken the time to sift around in her thoughts, learn her hopes or her fears. I didn’t know her dreams for the future and I felt cheated. Hunting and feeding were more than a power rush. It was my last contact with humanity, the last thing that kept me bound to a race I had once been a part of. While I felt rejuvenated, a more subtle ache had started in my chest. A type of weariness that might have worried me if I allowed myself to dwell on it, but there simply wasn’t time.

I gently sat her against the doorjamb and healed the wound on her neck. It was a gift of evolution, I think. We could heal the puncture wound caused by our fangs so we could remain hidden. Unfortunately, I couldn’t heal knife or bullet wounds, forcing me to watch more than one injured human companion die in my arms.

Before leaving, I wiped her memory clean. It was better that my kind not be remembered just yet. But it was more than a need for our own protection. She didn’t need to recall the momentary horror of being held in my arms.

On my way back to the hotel I fed twice more, using the same care as with the young woman. While I never bother to learn their names, they would never remember that they had been stopped. I walked down the winding London streets, angling back toward the river as I slipped through the crowd of people. Those few remaining on the lamplit streets were oblivious to my presence. My bloodstained appearance would have caused a panic.

The night air was thick with moisture, as if the skies were preparing to open up in a late night summer shower. A slim mist hovered just above the ground and wound its way around the occasional tree. Thin and wispy, it seemed little more than a ghost, or maybe the forgotten soul of this old town.

Wandering the streets, I let the warm summer air dance around me as I thought of my home in Savannah and walking along River Street. After a night of entertainment at the bars in the area, I would stroll through one park after another that dotted the neat little city, heading back toward Forsyth Park. I would smile at the scantily clad young people as they hurried to and from the row of bars, restaurants, and nightclubs, oblivious to me even if I wasn’t using an enchantment. Their laughter and voices lowered to rough, giggly whispers skipped about me like leaves caught up in a breeze, bringing a twinkle of amusement to my eyes.