Jabari approached us, each step careful and precise. He stopped less than two feet away and his voice was barely over a whisper. “It is not your life I want, my Mira.” His words were coated so thickly with ice, I shuddered and closed my eyes. Danaus tightened his arms around me, pulling me harder against his chest. His warmth seeped into me through my bare arms and the cotton material of my shirt. The panic faded, enough so I could speak.
“Do not say it, Jabari.”
“It is my right to ask.”
But that was the big joke; it wasn’t a request. When an Elder asked to make you a Companion, you had no choice but to accept. Refusal only meant death. Most would not hesitate to accept such an offer. Though the position was dangerous, it was prestigious. But it also took away all independence, all individual will and rights. This was the punishment Jabari had chosen. Not death. He would wear me down until I was a pale shadow of my former self, driving me to the point where I lay down in the dawn light.
“You know my answer,” I said in a low voice. My hands tightened on Danaus’s arm to the point of my nails digging into his flesh.
“Mira—”
My head snapped up and I knew my eyes were glowing, a strange blue-purple like bittersweet nightshade. Death in battle held its own honor, and I could face that. What Jabari offered was slavery. My power welled up inside my chest until it was pressing against the inside of my skin, desperate for release. “Do not place us on this precipice,” I warned, my tone taking on a hard edge. “I will destroy us both; to hell with the naturi.”
Without actually conjuring the thought, a deep blue flame sprang from the earth at my feet. It quickly circled Danaus and me, then rose in intensity until the flames reached my chest. Never had I created a fire against Jabari, but I would not become his slave.
He stared at me through the flickering blue flames, holding his ground. He would never forgive me for this, I knew it. Anger had made his face pale and drawn.
“Let us save our race now,” I bargained. “We have all eternity to destroy each other.”
The tension was making me a bit hysterical, and the power in the quarry was crushing my brain. My thoughts were scattered and broken at best. I needed to put some distance between these two men or it would drive me mad.
A frigid smile grew on Jabari’s face, and he bared pristine white teeth at me. “This is not over.”
“I have no doubt,” I snapped.
Jabari nodded once and then turned his back on us. He walked over to the end of the unfinished obelisk, his hand running reverently along its smooth surface. The flames shrank back down to the ground and disappeared. Danaus released his steely grip on me and I fell forward to my knees. A chill ran up my arms and I felt as if I’d been dragged through the street behind a runaway carriage.
I forced myself to stand. My knees threatened to give, but I didn’t sway as I turned to look at Jabari. He was staring down at the obelisk, a fragment from his past. His face was once again calm and completely unreadable.
“I will think on what you have told me. We will talk again tomorrow.” He reached up and ran one hand over his close-cut hair, his gaze out into the night. I had been dismissed.
“May I find rest in your lands?” I asked. A new fear twisted in my stomach as he remained silent. I was a stranger in his domain and I had to ask his permission to remain. All vampires had to present themselves before the Keeper of the domain. If he refused, I had to leave his lands before the sun rose. This would be particularly difficult considering that Jabari’s domain encompassed most of Northern Africa and a scattering of islands in the Mediterranean.
“You may rest here,” he slowly said, as if he doubted his decision.
“Thank you.” I looked over at Danaus and motioned for him to leave. He hesitated a moment, his eyes darting from me to Jabari. Then without a word he slipped past me and headed toward where the camels had settled.
I stared at Jabari, his body straight and almost painfully erect. I wondered if he hurt as badly as I did. Tonight my heart had shattered in a way I hadn’t thought possible after all these long centuries. He still thought I had betrayed him, and whatever wonderful thing that once existed between us had died. He would never forgive me.
“I love you, Jabari. I have loved and trusted you above all else,” I whispered. “And even after what has happened tonight and with the knowledge that you will one day kill me, I still love you and will never stop.” I don’t know if he was listening or if he even cared. I had to say the words. I had to release them into the air so I could be free of the terrible weight on my heart.
Turning, I walked out of the quarry. I wanted him to call for me. I wanted to hear him say that he had loved me too, or that he forgave me, but he didn’t make a sound; didn’t move as I walked away from him. As I exited the quarry, I conjured up a small flame on the palm of my hand against the overwhelming darkness. I watched it wriggle and dance for a moment. Staring at that tender bit of light, I realized why I had retained this power even after death. If there were such a thing as fate, I had been put on this earth to destroy and not to create.
Eleven
The moon hung pale and swollen overhead in the night sky. Clouds crept over the stars, blotting out their glittering light and holding in the oppressive heat of summer. I stood in the main square, the low gray-white stone walls circling about me like the sun-bleached bones of an extinct monster. Farther away the mountains rose up, great monoliths of stone and earth that had survived dynasties and would still be prodding the sky when my body had turned to dust. The air smelled thick with vegetation, and the faint tang of blood was carried by the wind. I followed that wonderful scent up the stairs, passing through an arch into another temple.
I paused, my heart lurching in my chest. A woman lay stretched out across a low, large gray stone. Her head was tilted back so her long black hair flowed from the stone and brushed the ground. Her brown eyes were wide, trapping me in their liquid gaze. Standing over her was a man clutching a knife in one hand. I hadn’t made a sound, but he knew I was there. He looked up at me and I saw Nerian smile.
I tried to take a step backward, but hands grabbed my arms, forcing me to stay where I was. Struggling, I attempted to look around me at the people holding my arms, but I couldn’t see them. Footsteps echoed through the silence of the night, rising off the stones; more were coming to hold me. I looked back up and Nerian was walking toward me, dagger still in hand. I jerked and twisted, fighting my captors, but I couldn’t escape. Cold sweat slithered across my skin. Panic was throbbing in my chest faster than my own heartbeat.
Beyond, I could hear the woman repeating, “You betrayed me,” in a soft voice that held an accent long dead from the earth. I pushed backward against my captors, digging my heels into the stones, trying to catch on the small crevices between the bricks, but I couldn’t gain any leverage. I pushed, but I couldn’t move. Nerian kept coming. His white teeth gleamed in the darkness.
I screamed and jerked but could find no release. He stopped inches from me, his laughter cutting into my skin like little razors. If I looked down, I would find that I was bleeding. He was supposed to be dead. I knew I had killed him. I had incinerated his corpse, leaving behind only a small pile of white ash in Danaus’s basement. But he stood before me now, smiling. I could feel the heat of his body, smell his woodsy scent. He pulled back his arm, his laughter rising, growing almost frantic in its pitch. As the dagger plunged into my stomach, my eyes opened and I screamed again.
The sound filled the box, but I couldn’t stop. I kept screaming, my hands clawing at the red silk lining the top of the box until it was shredded. I screamed until I choked on a sob lodged in my throat.
With my fingers clenched around the torn silk above my head, I lay still in my protective little box. The muscles in my arms were painfully tensed and my jaw was starting to throb. I was gritting my teeth, trying to keep from screaming again. Bloody tears streaked down the sides of my face. I swallowed a second sob and forced
myself to relax. It was just a nightmare. Nerian was dead and I was safe.
Releasing my death grip on the silk ceiling, I roughly wiped the tears from my face with the heels of my palms. It had all felt so real. I could remember smells and the feel of their hands biting into my flesh. Worst of all, I could remember the beating of my heart. I laid my trembling right hand on my chest, pressing against my sternum, but felt nothing. Things like breathing and a heartbeat were tricks, illusions used by vampires to give the appearance of life. But things like that took power and energy, so we rarely bothered with it unless we were trying to fool humans. I never resorted to such tricks, but lying there now, I wondered if my heart had been beating while I dreamed.
I had not had a nightmare about Machu Picchu in a very long time. They once nearly drove me mad, but Jabari helped me, protected and guided me from my nightmare. After I’d left Egypt centuries ago I thought I also left his protection, but now I feared that I had been wrong. Maybe he helped me during my daylight sleep during all these years, and now that we’d parted ways, he had lifted his protection. Did I now face an eternity of waking with a scream on my lips?
Or worse, had Jabari sent the dream? Would he torture me until I was finally broken and came crawling back to him? I closed my eyes and folded my shaking hands over my stomach. I forced my thoughts away from the rising panic. The nightmare could be nothing more than what it was: a nightmare. I was upset about Jabari and the naturi; both had invaded my rest.
I lay there, fatigue creeping into my frame. Nightwalkers generally didn’t dream during the daylight hours. We had no memories of those hours when the sun hovered above the earth. It was dangerous for me to dream. It used up energy that I was supposed to be conserving for the night, for the hunt.
It wasn’t impossible for nightwalkers to dream, but it was extremely rare. As far as I knew, it only happened to those of us known to as First Bloods. They were rare simply because most nightwalkers couldn’t be bothered with spending several nights to several years carefully working a spell to bring over a human. First Bloods rose stronger and more powerful than our more common brethren, those lovingly referred to as “chum.” While crass and insulting, the nickname fit. Chum was quickly made and little more than bait for a true predator.
As my thoughts calmed, drifting away from the nightmare, a deeper sense of foreboding seeped into my bones. Hesitantly, I stretched out my senses, but I didn’t have to go far. Michael was leaning against the box and he was hurt. Someone else was in the room. I unlocked the box and threw back the lid, sitting up. My eyes easily located Michael, who was sitting on the floor near my feet, clutching his right arm to his chest.
Jumping to my feet, I turned to find another man, standing near the wall, a gun in one hand. My muscles tensed at the sight of Omari and I bit back a low growl. The dark-haired, dark-skinned man who served Jabari lowered the gun to his side but didn’t put it in his shoulder holster.
“He came to protect you,” Michael said in a rough voice before I could lunge at the human. I hadn’t told him about what occurred with Jabari, but I had no doubt that my astute assistant could easily read my tense posture.
“What happened?” I said, pivoting slowly on a heel as I gazed about the room. We had been lucky enough to secure a corner suite at the Sarah Hotel on the southern edge of the city. I took a couple steps forward, glass crackling under my feet. The pretty little room had been turned into a war zone. Furniture was broken, pictures pulled or knocked off the wall, and curtains torn. There was also a splatter of blood against one white wall, while the others were peppered with bullet holes. The hotel was located on a clifftop overlooking the city. With any luck, the distance had helped insulate us from drawing the attention of other city dwellers. However, I knew that both the hotel owner and the police had to be taken care of financially before we left the city.
“Four men attacked a few hours before sunset. They were well-trained hunters,” Michael said. He reached a hand over and closed the lid of my coffin. In the center was a deep dent, as if someone had taken an axe to it. I gritted my teeth as I stared at it. The dent was over where my heart would have been.
“I arrived shortly after them,” Omari stated, his words rolling to me like a low rumble of thunder.
My narrowed gaze snapped to his tense frame. “How did you know?”
Dressed in a pair of jeans and a plain, white button-up shirt, he had the polished look of an executive on holiday. Of course, the splatter of blood on his shirt and the tear in his jeans near his right calf destroyed the effect.
“Jabari doesn’t trust the one called Danaus. He sent me to watch over you, and Jamila was to follow Danaus if he left the hotel during the day,” Omari said, finally holstering his gun under his left arm.
“Where is the hunter?” The muscles in my shoulders tightened into a hard knot. Danaus had not been there when I was attacked.
“He left the hotel about an hour before the attackers arrived,” Michael said. “He hasn’t returned yet.”
I stared down at my protector, relieved that the scent of his blood wasn’t clouding my mind. After reaching the five-century mark, I discovered that I could go several days without needing to feed. With the meal Michael had provided for me the previous night, I was still feeling quite sated.
“Where is Gabriel?” I demanded, suddenly realizing his dark form was missing from my chambers.
A frown pulled at the corners of Michael’s full lips. “He’s following the men to find out who they are and where they have hidden themselves. I haven’t heard back yet.” He was worried, and I couldn’t blame him. Gabriel was good at what he did, but four against one was a little much even for him. I gazed out the window, taking in the murky gray sky. I was awake earlier than usual. Quickly, I mentally searched the city for Gabriel.
“He’s safe.” My voice sounded as if it had crossed a vast distance before reaching my ears. “He’s returning to the hotel.” I reached out a little farther and discovered Danaus was several blocks away toward the northeast but had not yet begun moving toward the hotel.
“If I’m not needed, I’ll return to my lord,” Omari said, drawing my gaze back to his face.
“Is Jabari near?”
“Yes, he keeps a residence within Koti.”
I nodded, recognizing the name of one of the Nubian villages on Elephantine Island. “Will you take Michael with you; tend his wounds?”
Omari stared at my bodyguard then looked up at me before briefly bowing his head. “Yes, I will take him with me.”
I pressed my lips into a firm line as I looked back over at my angel. “Take Gabriel with you. I will come to Jabari after I deal with the hunter.”
“Are you sure you will not need us?” Michael said, wincing as he pushed to his feet. He was hurt, but Omari and Jamila would see that he was properly stitched up. I needed to travel fast and I did not want them in my way when I faced Danaus.
“I’ll manage,” I said, failing to keep my fangs from peeking out when I spoke. “Go now.”
I walked over to the small balcony that looked down on the city and the Nile. Nearby was the first cataract with the outcropping of stone that had once caused a series of rapids in the Nile. With the addition of the High Dam in the seventies, the rapids had been largely tamed. I waited until I sensed Gabriel meeting Michael and Omari in the lobby before putting one hand on the balcony railing and vaulting smoothly over it. Before I hit the ground four stories below, both my invisibility and cloaking spells were in place. I could not be seen by humans nor sensed by other magic using creatures. I didn’t know what Danaus was capable of, but I wasn’t taking any chances. He had been conveniently gone while someone attacked me while I slept and endangered the lives of my angels. I struggled to believe that he might have been kidnapped while this all occurred, or that it was coincidence that he just happened to be away from the hotel at that moment.
Cutting down the road that led back into the city proper, I ran toward the north, slowly working my
way east. I slowed my gait every few blocks to check Danaus’s location, but he hadn’t moved yet. The city streets were still crowded with a mix of locals and tourists, enjoying the cooling temperatures now that the sun had set. After less than a mile, the tall white buildings and shorter tan square homes gave way to a vast expanse that looked like the ancient ruins of a forgotten city. It was Fatimid Cemetery. The old Muslim burial ground was filled with small, square mausoleums with domed tops and arched entries. However, the sun, wind, and sand that had ravaged the country over the long centuries took its toll on the monuments here. Names and inscriptions chiseled in the stones were worn away. Stone paths into the cemetery were broken and mostly covered by sand and dirt.
The sounds of the city died off here, falling to a soft hum of noise. Pausing at the entrance, I reached up and brushed some hair from my eyes. The wind had picked up, carrying with it the smell of the Nile. It wasn’t all that pleasant a smell, but it carried good memories with it. Some nights Jabari and I would follow the winding river north, walking along as close to the banks as possible. He would tell me tales of when Thebes was the capital city of the Egyptian Empire and how he designed great monuments for the pharaoh.
Danaus was on the move finally. He had been with a group of three humans. I sensed him headed in my direction, with the other humans headed northwest, back toward the city and the river. With a smile, I silently darted over to the shadows of a large mausoleum. After I dealt with Danaus, I would go after the humans.
Leaning one shoulder against the smooth white stone wall, it surprised me that I was amazingly calm. I knew I was going to kill Danaus. I was going to put my hand into his chest and pull out his heart. It was all quite simple. It might not be his style to stake vampires during the daylight hours, but he apparently had no problems sending in others to do the job. None of it made any sense, but that didn’t matter. He wasn’t there when I was attacked. That was damning enough for me.
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