Jocelynn Drake - Nightwalker

“I find it hard to believe that you’ve never touched a nightwalker before,” I teased, tilting my head up so I was looking him in the eyes.

“Once before,” he said, a grim smile touching his lips. “And that was only after he was done feeding off me.”

“Yes, a meal tends to warm us up.”

“But you’ve not fed tonight?”

“No.”

“And you’re still not…”

“Cold as a corpse?” I supplied. The darkness that had briefly clouded his expression lifted at the comparison and his smile brightened. “Under normal circumstances, I can go several days without feeding and retain some warmth. A hot shower also helps.”

“Do you retain such warmth because of your ability?”

“To control fire? No. Fire does not burn or warm me. In fact, if I use the ability too much, I grow cold because it requires energy.”

“I hadn’t known.”

“No human ever has.”

“Why do you trust me?” he asked, sounding surprised.

I laughed deeply, the sound filling the room, shoving aside some his energy. He shifted at the sudden intrusion, resettling himself against his desk. “I don’t.” I slumped into the chair behind me, throwing one leg carelessly over the chair arm. “Call it a gesture of good faith. I give you a little something…”

“Because you want something,” he finished.

“Doesn’t everybody?”

“What is it you desire?”

My voice and expression hardened instantly. “Information.”

“An expensive commodity.”

“Perhaps, but what you get in return is valuable as well,” I said, my eyes never wavering from his face.

“And what is that?”

“Your life.”

“So we’ve come to threats,” Ryan announced, sounding amused.

“Not at all. Just a statement of fact. The naturi are a threat to both human and nightwalker. You have information that may help my kind. We are the ones risking our lives to protect you.”

“Very noble of you.”

“Hardly,” I said with a snort. “And you know better.” I looked up at him and his expression turned serious again. We had enjoyed our brief moment of levity, but time was wasting away.

“What is it you think I know?”

“I don’t know, but considering that I know nothing, it has to be more than me,” I admitted. “You discovered the first sacrifice in India before we even realized anything was happening.”

“Are you sure we were the first?”

“No,” I whispered.

Before the disaster in London and Thorne’s death, I would have emphatically said yes, but now I wasn’t sure of anything. The naturi knew too much, finding me far too quickly in Egypt and again in London. Someone was betraying me, and I didn’t like my options at the moment. Of course, I wasn’t about to voice those thoughts to a human. And if I had my way, I’d be holding the creature’s heart in my hand before the naturi attempted the second sacrifice.

“But at the moment,” I continued, pressing through those dark thoughts, “it doesn’t matter. How did you discover the body?”

“Konark has long been the center for heavy magic use,” he explained, “though it hadn’t been used for a very long time. I felt the surge in power that night. I had researchers on a plane before dawn touched the Indian sky.”

“What about the trees?”

“That, I fear, was just luck. One of the members of Themis was on vacation in Canada. He caught sight of a carving while hiking and took a picture. He thought it was some new branch of Wicca springing up. After that, I sent out every available operative to find more carvings.”

“How many did you locate?”

“Twelve.”

“Do you know what they mean? Can you read their writing?”

“Not really,” he said with a sigh. “The markings on the trees mean nothing to me, but I can make some educated guesses with the blood markings surrounding the sacrifice at Konark.”

“Do you think you found all the carvings?”

“Yes. I’ve checked every day since the first sacrifice but detected no other places I think might have the markings. Do you know what they mean?”

“The carvings? No,” I said with a shake of my head. “This isn’t the first time they’ve attempted to break the seal, but I have never seen or heard of the carvings before.”

“I had thought they were used as a way of activating the twelve holy sites,” Ryan speculated. With his right hand, he picked up a crystal paperweight about the size of a baseball. It looked like a crystal ball, but instead of being clear, red veins ran through the orb. He rolled the crystal between his two hands, a nervous gesture that revealed his worry, unlike the more guarded and planned expressions that crossed his face.

“No, the first sacrifice accomplished that. The carvings mean something else,” I said, shoving my hand through my hair, pushing it back from my face.

“So, now we just wait for the second sacrifice.”

“It will be soon. Very soon,” I whispered.

Ryan put the paperweight back on his desk and stood. “Are you sure? How do you know?”

“They’ve begun checking the other eleven sites. Once they locate the right one, they have only a small window of time to use it. The pool of power is constantly moving. I’ve never heard of anyone being able to tell when it will move or where it will go to. Maybe Aurora can, I don’t know.”

“But the next new moon isn’t for another five nights,” Ryan said with a shake of his head.

“The naturi are not bound to the key phases of the moon, though it helps,” I replied, fighting the urge to get up and pace. I forced a tight smile onto my lips as I titled my head back to look up at a warlock. “You know magic. It’s more than just the moon, and the seasons, and the alignment of the heavens.”

“Magic is also about circles and balance,” he finished. His brows drew together slightly, as furrows ran through his smooth forehead.

“And the anniversary of when the last seal was created is upon us,” I murmured. The thought had first occurred to me when I was talking to James last night. I too thought they would stick to phases of the moon, since it would provide them with the most power to break the seal. But destroying what the nightwalkers had wrought on the anniversary would not only be a powerful blow magically, but deal a heavy blow to the morale of my kind. “The naturi will be making their attempt either tonight or tomorrow night.”

“And if they were to succeed…”

“Then they would be able to open the door in five nights, lining up perfectly with the new moon.”

“And the pagan harvest holiday.”

“We’re running out of time,” I said with frustration, pushing out of the chair. I paced over to the wall of books on my left and back to Ryan, my arms folded over my stomach.

“But you have everything you need,” he argued, looking at me with confusion filling his face.

“No, I don’t,” I replied, turning to walk back toward the bookshelf. “A triad of nightwalkers stopped the naturi five centuries ago. One of the three, Tabor, was killed by the naturi several years ago. With him gone, we have to reform the triad. Unfortunately, the replacement I found was killed while I stood there watching.”

“But the triad has already been reformed,” the warlock said, his voice a gentle caress in the silence of the room.

I spun on my heel to look at him as my stomach attempted to turn itself inside out. “What?”

“I could feel it as soon as you entered the compound. All the pieces needed to seal the door again have been found,” he said confidently.

My legs threatened to buckle beneath me when I heard this horrible pronouncement. I was supposed to be the third? It couldn’t be. Sadira was my maker, putting us in the same bloodline. And if Sadira’s story was to be believed, so was Jabari and Tabor. I didn’t want to be a part of the triad. My job was to find a replacement for Tabor and protect Sadira. After that, I was returning to my city across the ocean and never looking back. They didn’t need me for anything else.