Pray for Dawn

by Jocelynn Drake

  And then some. I could feel the slight rumble of laughter roll through her mind and into mine. My attention darted back to the center of the room as a slender man in his late twenties pushed off the wall to my right and walked toward David and his child. He wore a pair of worn blue jeans and a faded black T-shirt. The man’s eyes never left the two vampires in the center of the room except to briefly flick over to Mira. Kneeling beside the young woman, he ran his hand over her head and down her back, smoothing her hair.

  David leaned close and pressed a kiss to the man’s temple then whispered something in his ear that I couldn’t quite make out. The tension around the man’s mouth eased and he almost smiled.

  Mira?

  He be longs to David. I think his name is Peter, but I’m not sure. He will be Emma’s first meal.

  I was about to question how she knew the fledgling’s name, but remembered that she had already spoken to David about bringing the girl into the family. There was also the chance that Mira had dipped into Emma’s mind, inspecting her.

  The newborn nightwalker turned in David’s arms so that she was now facing Peter. I caught the faint glow of her eyes before her back was to me and her hunger was now pounding in my brain to the point where I could barely feel Mira’s presence. I pulled against Mira’s grip and tried to take a step away, but she held tight. I had to get out of there. I couldn’t watch this. I couldn’t watch another creature feed upon a human. I was drowning, my breath coming in shallow gasps between clenched teeth. The hunger was not just coming from the fledgling anymore, but from every vampire in the room. A cold sweat broke out across my arms and rolled down my back despite the chill that hung in the air.

  Wait for it! Mira’s voice sounded almost breathless in my mind, eager and a little desperate.

  I never saw Emma place her mouth to Peter’s throat, but I felt her sharp fangs piercing his flesh. I flinched, resisting the urge to touch my own throat to see if I was bleeding as well. And then the first wave hit.

  Sensations exploded outward from Emma and Peter, slamming into my chest with enough force to push me back a step. The wave sucked me under, bathing me in a feeling of warm, liquid pleasure. I breathed deeply as the blissful sensation sank into my rigid frame, melting my bones. The air grew warm, drying the cold sweat that had formed just moments ago. Time slowed until I could crawl between the seconds and hold them apart. Tension drained from my limbs to pool at my feet.

  As I grew accustomed to the feeling, I looked up in time to see the other gathered vampires pulling their human companions closer. It was like waves pounding on the shore during a violent storm, but this time there was no sensation of piercing fangs, just mindless, raw pleasure flooding my brain.

  A deep moan slipped past my parted lips and I buried my face in Mira’s neck as my eyes fell shut. I wrapped my right arm around her waist, pulling her tighter against me. My hand slipped under her untucked shirt, sliding across her smooth stomach. Her skin was like cool satin and I suddenly had the overwhelming desire to touch every inch of her. But even as the notion glided across my mind, I knew it wouldn’t be enough. I wanted to know all of her; to be buried deep inside of her as her tongue grazed my feverish skin.

  Mira arched against me, pressing her backside into my groin as I grew harder. Reaching up, she slid her hands along my shoulder into my hair. She held my face imprisoned against her neck.

  My left hand tightened on her hip, keeping her pinned against me, while my right hand glided over her stomach, across the softest skin I had ever felt. Cool satin. I wanted to rip her clothes off and press her against me. Only the feel of her skin would cool the heat that continued to rise within me. My right hand closed over one breast and a soft moan escaped her as her hands tightened in two fistfuls of my hair. I breathed in her scent, letting my lips and teeth skim along her bare neck, nearly biting her.

  Thoughts of our constant fighting were just a worn, faded memory. At that moment, there was only Mira and the need to possess her completely. I wanted to sink into this feeling that seemed to have been hiding in the shadows of my mind for months now and let the world slip away from us.

  What felt like hours later, the waves lessened and my thoughts crept back to something that resembled logic. I drew a deep breath in through my nose, inhaling Mira’s intoxicating lilac scent and a faint hint of her shampoo. I started to lift my head and my hand dropped from where it was still caressing her hard nipple through her lacy bra when her voice skipped through my mind.

  Wait. The throb of need in her tone gave me pause. Her right hand slid from the back of my neck along my face, a gentle caress from my temple to my jaw. I got a deep sense of peace from the nightwalker; something I had never encountered in her.

  With a heavy sigh, Mira dropped her hands back to her sides and I released my hold on her. Around the room, vampires and humans were entangled, locked in an embrace that was shifting from blood to sex. Peter lay in Emma’s arms, considerably paler but still conscious. The fledgling was running her fingers through his hair while David trailed kisses up her neck to her ear.

  David looked up at Mira suddenly. I shall come when summoned.

  I jerked a half step backward at the invasive new voice. David locked surprised eyes on me then quickly looked away. He had not meant for me to hear that, only Mira. My connection with Mira was still strong and their thoughts were a low murmur in my mind. This was not something I wanted the others to know.

  With a slight nod, Mira turned and walked back up the stairs. My heavy footsteps trudging behind her rumbled like thunder over the soft moans and sighs rising up from the basement occupants. I paused on the front porch and rolled my shoulders, welcoming the touch of the cold night air against my flushed cheeks.

  Rational thought slammed through my mind once again, causing my hands to start shaking. What had I done? Mira was a vampire. She was my enemy, always would be. She and all of her kind were evil, and yet I had just wrapped my body around hers and wanted to bury myself so deeply within her that we could never be parted. I could blame the bori within me that made me susceptible to the bloodlust driving all of the nightwalkers in that basement, but if I was honest with myself, it was more than that. I was drawn to Mira. Her smile, her laugh, her irreverent sense of humor, and her compassion for those weaker than herself all sucked me in, so that I felt as if I were sinking in quicksand. I was fighting a battle with myself to continue hating her, and tonight proved only one thing to me: I was losing.

  “Why did you bring me here?” I demanded, still standing on the edge of the porch.

  Mira continued to walk to the car, throwing a little smirk over her shoulder at me. She pulled the remote out of her pocket and the lights blinked once as the doors unlocked.

  “Tell me why!” I commanded, hating the slight tremble in my voice.

  She finally paused a couple feet from the car and turned to fully face me. So I could see a flash of fang pressing against her lower lip. “I need you to understand us,” she replied. “And I need you to better understand yourself and your tie to my people. You’re one of us.”

  “I am not a vampire,” I said, descending the first couple steps.

  “No, but you’re closer to us than you are to being human.” The wind picked up and pulled a strand of hair across her face, forcing her to thread it behind her ear. “The only way you will stop hunting us is if you understand that you are one of us. We’re not the enemy.”

  “You’re evil,” I stubbornly said, but even that statement lacked its usual venom. I had had it beaten into my brain for centuries, but standing wrapped in the warm emotions of lust, passion, and even for some, love, I struggled with that belief. It was starting to crumble before my eyes.

  “No more than the rest of mankind,” she said with a shrug. “We were all human once. Becoming a nightwalker didn’t change our souls.”

  “Just your instincts,” I snapped.

  To that, Mira simply shrugged as she turned back toward the car. “Come along, hunter,” she
said. “We don’t have time to tarry here.” With her hand on the door, she stopped and looked over her shoulder at me, a playful grin spreading across her face. “Besides, my restraint is fading.”

  Quickly descending the last of the creaking porch stairs, I jumped into the passenger seat, sinking into the soft leather. This battle would not be won or lost tonight. I needed to think more.

  I glanced at the clock as Mira started the car. It wasn’t yet 9 P.M. I stared at it, my mind unable to comprehend what I was seeing. We had been in there for only thirty minutes. I would have guessed hours had drifted by in mind-numbing bliss.

  We were in the car for several minutes before my hard voice finally shattered the silence. “What was that?”

  “First Communion.”

  “I’ve been around when vampires feed. I’ve never felt anything like that.”

  “What you felt is what we feel every time we feed. A nightwalker can control whether his or her victim or other nightwalkers can feel it. A fledgling cannot. The first time you feed, it’s always the best. It’s a rush of power and pleasure like nothing you’ve ever known. For the first time, you’re connected to every living thing on the planet.” Her voice had taken on a dreamy quality, caressing my mind. “It’s why First Communion is so important. It’s our chance to relive that one moment. And for some, it’s a chance to remake that memory with someone important. Depending on the maker, First Communion doesn’t always go well for a fledgling. Emma was very lucky.”

  “So now it has turned into an orgy.”

  “Yeah.” Mira sighed. “You want to go back?”

  I remained silent, watching out my window as we pulled back onto the expressway headed south toward downtown Savannah. Images and sensations were still strong in my mind and I was struggling to reconcile them. I had wanted Mira like nothing I had ever known before. Had she put those thoughts in my head? Were they the result of the feeding vampires? I had desired Mira before, but I had never touched her. She was a vampire; I was supposed to kill her, not want to have sex with her.

  As the city rose up before us and we descended into the valley, I pushed those concerns away: but a new, grim thought dawned on me. “It looked like every vampire in the city was there.”

  Mira’s hands tightened on the steering wheel and the car accelerated, gliding past ninety miles per hour. Her chin dipped to her chest, causing her hair to fall like a curtain along the side of her face, hiding her expression. “Almost.”

  Almost. Tristan, her precious ward and one of her few family members, had been missing from the gathering.

  ELEVEN

  On Bay Street, Mira pulled into an open parking spot just a few blocks from Bull Street and City Hall while I called James to tell him where to meet us. As she shut off the car, Mira reached down and pulled a lever that popped the trunk. I slid out of the car at the same time as she and walked to the back of the vehicle. Knowing Mira had an old-fashioned distaste for guns, I expected to see a variety of knives, daggers, and swords gleaming in the light from the overhead streetlamp. Yet, when Mira opened the black leather bag hidden in the back of the trunk, all I saw were clothes.

  I threw her a puzzled look then reached down and lifted up a pile of clothes only to find more clothes. The nightwalker smiled as she lightly smacked my hand away then returned to tucking in her shirt into her jeans.

  “We can’t all walk around looking like hired thugs for the Mafia,” Mira teased. Rolling up her sleeves, Mira pulled a pair of wrist sheaths out of one pocket of the bag and strapped them on before pulling her sleeves back down. She also snapped a knife sheath to her belt, placing it down the back of her pants at her spine. All of her knives were small and lightweight, good for throwing or close fighting. With her clothes resettled, she pulled on a black suit jacket, but left it unbuttoned.

  “A person will more willingly believe a thought you put in their head if it matches what they see,” Mira explained. “And right now, I want them to believe we’re detectives for the local police.”

  While Mira’s clothes probably cost more than what most detectives made in a month, she did have a more professional air about her than usual. I, on the other hand, was dressed in my usual black cotton pants and turtleneck with worn black boots.

  James appeared as she was shutting the trunk of her car, his cheeks flushed as he was slightly winded from the jog over from the nearby hotel. “Everything go okay?” he inquired as he brushed some hair out of his eyes.

  “Fine,” I replied sharply, at which Mira lightly chuckled. If I were lucky, what occurred at that house would never be spoken of. The implications were something I wasn’t ready to contemplate while we were in the middle of a murder investigation, if ever.

  With everything settled, we followed Mira down a dark set of stone stairs to the lower level, called Factors Walk. River Street was the next block over and was at the level of the river, while Bay Street was at least one story above River Street. This was where I had briefly encountered the young girl earlier in the day. A quick glance over the area revealed that she was currently nowhere to be found.

  The wide alley was cloaked in darkness, as the main streetlamps on Bay Street didn’t reach down into Factors Walk. A couple of the buildings had doorways on Factors Walk, but their dim lamps did little to cut into the thick darkness. Our footsteps echoed off the ballast stone street and along the surrounding walls and building fronts.

  A man stood in one doorway, his back pressed to a wall, a position that allowed him to watch our approach. He pensively puffed on a cigarette, his dark eyes narrowed, deepening the crisscross of wrinkles that dug deep furrows in his face. His gray pants and white shirt were rumpled and half hidden beneath a dark brown trench coat. He reached up and twisted what appeared to be a blown-out lightbulb in a lamp by the doorway until it flickered on, blanketing the region in dirty yellow light.

  “You’re late,” he announced, flicking away the cigarette. I sank back into the shadows, out of the reach of the light that hung outside the front door of the six-story redbrick building. My life had been spent perfecting the art of invisibility, slinking along the fringe of a person’s memory. James, on the other hand, stood directly beside the nightwalker, blinking at the light as he stepped into it.

  “Something came up,” Mira replied, standing at the foot of the three stairs that led up to the building. She hovered along the edge of the light, her pale skin glowing like a grounded star. From her left jacket pocket, she withdrew a pair of sunglasses with blue-tinted lenses and settled them on the bridge of her nose.

  The man shoved his right hand into his pocket and pulled out a creased pack of cigarettes. “I’ve been waiting for almost an hour, damn it. People are gonna start asking questions.”

  “You really should stop smoking,” Mira calmly said, looking up at him.

  “Smoking ain’t gonna kill me. It’s dealing with your kind that’ll do me in,” he grumbled, pulling out a cigarette. “You know of any city where your kind hasn’t settled?”

  “There’s very few of us in the Dakotas,” Mira supplied cheerfully, earning a derisive snort from the man as he flicked his lighter. Cupping his hands around the cigarette, the brief flash of light further illuminated his features and picked up the flecks of gray in his dark brown hair. He was older than I had initially thought, worn to an angry nub by his years.

  “That’s okay.” His sarcastic sneer twisted his lips around his cigarette as he took a long drag. “This is enough of a hole.”

  “Then move,” Mira suggested.

  “Can’t,” he sighed. “Annie’s family is here and the girls are settled.” For a brief moment, his expression softened and he exhaled deeply. With a shake of his head, he reached in his pocket. “Keys for the front door and apartment. Top floor. Can’t miss it.” Mira caught the pair of keys on a ring in one hand as he tossed them to her.

  “The report?” She bounced the keys in her hand so that they jangled softly.

  “I’m working on it. Probably won’
t have it all until morning,” he said with another shake of his head.

  “Leave it at the town house. He can look at it during the day,” Mira directed, motioning with her head toward me. The man looked me over for a breath, his eyes sweeping over my features as if trying to memorize my appearance. I froze, my eyes locking with his, like I was a wolf sizing up an opponent.

  “He’s not one of yours?” he asked at last, his eyes still moving over my face as if he was internally weighing some thought that didn’t match up with my appearance. There was something in his tone. I couldn’t decide whether he was surprised that I wasn’t a vampire, or surprised that I wasn’t a vampire yet.

  “No, just an associate,” Mira replied.

  “And this one?” he asked, nodding his head toward James.

  James took a step forward and extended his hand toward the smoking man. “James Parker. I work as a researcher and I’m here to assist Mira in this matter.”

  Before the stranger could say anything, Mira took one step closer, and the man came down the stairs, careful not to brush against her. He gave a small grunt, ignoring James’s extended hand as he took another puff off his cigarette. He paused a couple of feet away from me, looking up at Mira as she stood at the top of the stairs. “You’ve got to be quick about this one,” he warned, his fingers nervously fiddling with his cigarette. “Too many people are watching.” He then turned and quickly walked down the alley, a thin trail of smoke lifting into the air behind him as he turned a corner and headed down to River Street. I watched him for a brief moment then followed Mira and James up the three stairs and into the redbrick building.

  Closing the door behind me, I blinked against the bright light that flooded the empty hallway. The walls were painted white and the doors and woodwork were all dark mahogany. The building was old, but very clean and well maintained. The floor was covered in tiny white and blue ceramic tiles arranged in an intricate design of flourishes and flowers. Someone had put a great deal of money into restoring this building.