Jocelynn Drake - Dawnbreaker

To Stephen

Thanks for keeping me young.

The tires squealed.

We took the corner going close to fifty miles per hour, skidding into the turn. I braced myself against the driver’s seat and clenched my teeth, swallowing yet another curse as Knox narrowly missed a parked car as he whipped us down another residential street. A second set of squealing tires followed close behind as the Ford Mustang barreled toward us with increasing velocity.

“Get us out of the city, damn it!” I shouted at Knox. At this speed, we were going to hit someone, and with the naturi gaining ground, we couldn’t afford to slow down. We had to get out of the city before we killed someone or the Savannah cops finally noticed a pair of cars rushing around the city at breakneck speeds.

“It’s not that easy!” Knox shouted back. Both of his hands gripped the wheel tight enough to make his knuckles white. “We’re coming from downtown and you said lose them, not get out of the city.”

“Well, I’m saying it now. Get the hell out of the city. You’re going to kill someone,” I snapped.

“Namely us,” Amanda added from the backseat. The blond nightwalker sat next to Tristan, who seemed to be taking it all in stride. Of course, Tristan had been in far worse situations with me and survived. “I’m not going to kill us,” Knox snarled as he took another turn going far faster than would be deemed sane. “This is a BMW M3. It’s a race car for the rich and bored. The car can handle it.”

“No, Knox, tell me what you really think,” I growled. The BMW was my car. I had decided to let him drive when I noticed the naturi following us along River Walk—I knew I might need my hands free if we didn’t succeed in losing them. I pulled my gun out of the glove compartment and checked the magazine.

“You know what I mean.” The nightwalker glanced at me briefly, one corner of his mouth cocked in a weak smile.

“Rich and bored,” I repeated drily.

“Are we really having this discussion now?” Amanda demanded as Knox skidded into another turn and clipped the bumper of a parked car.

“Knox!”

“Mira!” he shouted back. “Let me drive or you do it!”

But it was too late for that. The naturi were gaining with every turn. They didn’t care who they hit along the way, which was why we had to get them out of the city.

I relaxed a little when we turned onto Montgomery Street. The on ramp to Highway 16 was close by. We would finally get out of the city and into more open ground.

“Mira,” Tristan said in a calm voice, grabbing my attention as I looked at him in the rearview mirror. “Is leaving the city the wisest choice?”

Some of the tension might have drained from my shoulders, but a knot of worry still tightened in my stomach. I knew what he was asking. We were leaving the relative safety of the city and potentially taking the fight into naturi territory by heading into the open countryside. Controlling nature was their strength.

Tristan had already fought the naturi with me in the woods, and the fight didn’t go well. He had nearly been shredded by a naturi from the animal clan, and I was impaled by members of the wind and earth clans. And this time we didn’t have Danaus or Sadira around to help save our respective butts.

“We have no other choice,” I admitted, frowning at him because I could understand his fear. “I’m not willing to fight this war in front of the humans like the naturi want.”

“Can’t you set them on fire or something?” Amanda demanded, fidgeting in the backseat. The nightwalker was anxious to get to the fighting because running wasn’t her style. She was all claws and fangs in any situation, leaving behind shredded flesh and a spray of blood. It was what made her a good enforcer among the fledglings, but not the most reliable nightwalker, as she didn’t always think things through.

“I have to be able to see or sense what I’m setting on fire, and I can’t sense the naturi,” I said, turning my frown into a frustrated glare.

“How about the car?”

“Only the parts I can see.”

“Then the tires. Set the tires on fire. That’ll slow them down.”

“That might work,” I agreed, rolling down my window with a nearly silent electric hum. “Who taught the naturi how to drive like this anyway? Or hotwire a car?” I muttered under my breath, but in a car full of nightwalkers, everyone heard me.

“The Internet is full of amazing information,” Knox said sarcastically.

“The Internet?” I added it to my list of gripes. “These are Old World creatures. They don’t drive, hotwire cars, or surf the Web.”

To my surprise, Tristan chuckled, stopping me as I grabbed the exterior frame of the door. “There are moments when you sound really old, Mira. Is it any stranger than a nightwalker your age doing all those things and more?”

“Shut up, Tristan.” I was barely over six centuries. I wasn’t that old.

Turning my attention back to Knox, I said, “Slow down just a little bit and hold the car steady.” Gripping the exterior of the car door, I slid out of the window and sat on the frame. It was a somewhat awkward balance, but it made it easier for me to see the tires of the red Ford Mustang following us. Focusing my thoughts, both the front and back passenger side tires exploded into flames. The car swerved twice before finally flipping over onto its top on the side of the road.

I slid back into the car and grabbed my gun from where I had set it on the floor. “Pull over. We have to finish this.”

My feet were on the gravelly side of the road before Knox managed to put the parking brake on. I flipped the safety off the Browning that was now my constant companion and paused, looking down at the gun, which was identical to the one Danaus had given me in Venice. Nightwalkers were not in the habit of carrying guns—most of our enemies couldn’t be killed by a bullet, and being shot just tended to piss them off. But the naturi could be killed by a well-placed bullet, so now I carried a gun no matter where I went, along with a blade. The rest of my companions hadn’t necessarily gotten into the habit.

Tristan? I mentally reached out to him.

I’ve got a gun, he confirmed without my needing to ask. The young nightwalker had been with me when I fought the naturi in England and again when the naturi appeared in Venice. He was well aware of what it took to kill these resilient bastards.

“Knox,” I called, putting the safety back on the gun. “Take this.” I lightly tossed the gun to him over the top of the car as he stood. “Just don’t hit me with your crappy aim.” I was one to talk. We all had crappy aim. Not one of us had ever bothered to learn to shoot. But then, guns hadn’t been that reliable five centuries ago—the last time nightwalkers faced the naturi on a regular basis. Times change and we had to learn to change with them.

Pulling a knife from the sheath at my waist, I walked over to where the car was balanced on its top. Three naturi had crawled out, while the fourth was still behind the wheel, not moving. They were cut and bruised but mending from their little fender bender. The naturi had the ability to heal from any wound almost as quickly as a nightwalker. However, a bullet to the head was successful in stopping them. A bullet in the heart slowed them down long enough to reload and take another, closer shot.

“Where’s Rowe?” I called when I was within a few yards of the closest naturi.

“Coming for you, Fire Starter,” replied the naturi.

I twirled the knife in my hand, letting the long silver blade capture the light from a nearby street lamp. “Tell me something I don’t know.”