Jocelynn Drake - Wait for Dusk

Shutting down my own powers and pulling out of his mind, I concentrated on what I could remember of the city. “Yes, there’s actually three islands in the Danube near Budapest. Is that where they are located?” I was impressed with Danaus’s skill. I could pick out a vague sense of direction, but I had no real feel for distance.

“Most of them are.”

“How did you know they’re on an island?”

“There’s a large blank spot around them where there are no signs of human life. The only spots in the area that would match such a thing would be the river that cuts through the middle of the city.” The hunter rubbed his eyes and the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger before looking down at me. “What did you see?”

A sheepish grin graced my mouth as I stared up at him. I had made no attempt to cloak my presence in his mind. In truth, I hadn’t thought about it. My main concern was trying to see if I could sense the naturi as well. I could, to my surprise, but with nowhere near the skill that Danaus could.

“Little balls of earth energy. I sensed them earlier but I thought they were just more lycanthropes,” I admitted, and then immediately regretted my words. I was no longer accustomed to hiding things from Danaus. I was used to him knowing everything I knew.

“How is it that you sensed them?”

I dropped my head and clenched my teeth, cursing my stupidity and carelessness. “Things have changed since that night in Savannah.” I forced each word out as if it was stuck in my throat. “Nick gave me the ability to sense all types of energy, but I’m still trying to sort it out. I’m nowhere near as skilled as you when it comes to sensing the naturi.”

To my utter shock, Danaus ran his cold hand across my cheek so that he was now cupping the back of my neck. He pulled me forward and pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “He was inside of the bathhouse, wasn’t he?”

“How did you know?”

“I sensed your rage and fear.”

“I’m afraid he’s going to kill you,” I whispered.

“You’d never allow it.”

Blinking back tears, I turned my head and pressed my lips to the palm of his hand. “Thank you for your confidence in me.” It was all I could say. He was giving me his trust, and as I had already proved once tonight, I didn’t deserve it.

After some discussion, Danaus and I decided we would pursue a small group of naturi hanging on the edge of the city at what turned out to be Szobor Park. I suspected that if anyone knew I was in the city, they would expect me to go straight for the gathering on one of the islands in the Danube River, but I wasn’t willing to step into that trap just yet. It was bad enough that I had willingly walked into whatever trap Macaire had set for me. For now, I was avoiding the bulk of the naturi on the island. I wasn’t sure how we would reach the island just yet, and I feared a trip out on a ferry would put me in the clutches of the water clan once again. My last encounter with the water clan in Savannah nearly cost Danaus his life.

Unfortunately, neither Danaus nor I were familiar with Budapest. The hunter knew a vague location of the group of naturi, but neither of us could give directions or a landmark to taxi driver. As a result, I was forced to dip into Danaus’s mind while he scanned the region for the naturi. At the same time, I was in the mind of the taxi driver, directing him as best as I could toward our ultimate destination. My powers were strained as I struggled to separate the two minds, while leaving enough of the driver conscious so he could effectively operate the car without plowing us into the first semi we passed. I was shaking by the time we reached Szobor Park, the strain making it one of the longest thirty-minute drives of my life.

I had done this trick before with other nightwalkers, touching multiple minds at once with little problem. But then, everything was easier when I was dealing with nightwalkers. The mind of a human was too easy to completely consume. Meanwhile, I had to maintain my own guard against Danaus so he could not see some of my own dark secrets as we were intimately linked together. I didn’t expect the hunter to go wandering around in my mind while we searched for the naturi, but I wasn’t about to leave the door hanging wide open either.

At Szorbor Park, my hands were trembling and my head was throbbing from the strain. I released both Danaus’s and the taxi driver’s minds at the same time, glad to finally be free of them. Slumping back against the seat as Danaus paid the fare, I closed my eyes and drew in a slow cleansing breath. The pain started to ebb and I became aware of the energy steadily flowing from Danaus. It pulsed and brushed against me, a reassuring heat that seeped into my chilled frame. The hunter was continuously scanning the area for the naturi to make sure we weren’t going to be attacked before we even stepped from the car.

“Are they coming?” I pushed into a sitting position as he opened his door.

“Not yet. Feels like they actually moved deeper into the park,” he replied as he slid out.

I followed behind him, unbuttoning my coat as I moved. My weapons were hidden beneath the heavy folds of my leather coat, and I needed to be able to easily access them. “Where are we?” I may have been giving directions to the taxi driver as I pulled them out of Danaus’s brain, but that didn’t mean I had even the slightest clue as to where we finally ended up. I frowned as I looked around the empty expanse. We were on a lonely strip of road, well outside the city proper. We weren’t going to easily find another taxi back to the hotel, assuming that we had little trouble dispatching the naturi. Grabbing my phone, I typed in the phone number for the taxi company written across the side of the car door. If we couldn’t get another taxi, I’d be forced to hotwire a car. Unfortunately, I was trying not to stir up too much trouble in the city just yet. I wanted to meet this Veyron first, and then I would be happy to cause as much trouble as I wanted.

A red brick wall rose up before us with three tall openings. There were two large windows within the wall that housed a pair of enormous stone statues. I walked over to one, squinting in the darkness until I finally made out the cubist vision of Karl Marx’s face. Cocking my head to the side, I took a step back and smiled.

“It’s Statue Park,” I said, talking mostly to myself.

Danaus stood next to me as he looked up at the statue of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. “I don’t know it.”

“It’s also called Memento Park by some.” I shoved my hands in my pockets and walked over to the other statue. I didn’t recognize the face, but it matched some of the Communist themes I had seen in pictures. “I read about this place. About a decade ago the city leaders gathered up all the Communist statues from around the city and placed them together in a single park. Preserving history, but keeping it carefully corralled in a single location so it can’t bleed into the present.”

“So, I’m guessing that we should be careful and try not to damage the statues,” Danaus said.

I smirked at the hunter over my shoulder. “It would be preferable. I don’t expect that the city will be able to easily replace anything that we break tonight, and I’d hate to be responsible for destroying this interesting bit of history.”

Taking a couple steps backward, I crouched on the balls of my feet for a second before taking a running leap into the air. It was with a sigh of relief that I easily landed on the top of the red brick wall despite the coating of snow and ice. Squatting down, I stared out at the broad swath of level ground that sparkled in the snow before me. Apparently the park was closed during the winter, because no one had bothered to shovel the snow from the walkways. However, I could still make out the outline of six large circles in the earth around a larger central circle. There were no trees in the park to hide behind, but I could easily make out more than three dozen statues. And somewhere in there, five naturi were hiding. I could feel the pulse of their energy, but it almost seemed blurry, as if their powers were obscured by the energy coming from the earth.