Jocelynn Drake - Wait for Dusk

“They’re killing him,” I cried, jerking my arm out of his grasp.

“At least summon Stefan!” Danaus ordered before I could take another step closer to the island. “There are more than twenty naturi there, with that number potentially including Rowe. We’ve gone up against him a few times now and not had much luck killing him. With this many naturi, it’s not going to be any easier to get to him.”

Clenching my teeth, I forced myself to stop and focus on the Ancient nightwalker. Danaus was right. We would need Stefan’s assistance if we were going to have any hope of retrieving Valerio. No words were needed. Just the lightest brush of my presence against the ragged remains of his soul brought Stefan to our side with a sour expression. He was still upset about the death of his assistant, and I would have preferred to leave him to brood alone, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to free Valerio without his help.

“The naturi?” he asked.

“How did you know?” I said sarcastically, but needling Stefan still failed to bring a smile to my face.

“We slaughtered the lycans, I don’t sense any nightwalkers or warlocks, and this barren garden would be a refuge for only the naturi if they were determined to stay close to the city and cause mischief,” he said, ticking each item off on his long fingers.

“They have Valerio,” Danaus announced, causing Stefan’s expression to grow even darker. While I doubted that he felt any real concern for him, I suspected he was more upset about the fact that the naturi dare lay a hand on an old vampire such as Valerio. In his opinion, they were above such things as kidnapping and torture.

“I sent him to look into which island they were hiding on,” I said, then shook my head. “He wasn’t supposed to engage them. Just look around. I can only guess that they managed to sneak up on him.”

Stefan stepped around me and walked down the bridge to Margit Island. “Then we should get in there and kill them.”

Danaus and I followed close behind him, weapons drawn. As we came to stand at the southern tip of the island, I pulled one of my spare blades and offered it to Stefan. “Take it. I’ve got a little extra firepower.”

“Lame, Mira. Lame,” Stefan said, but he took the knife from me anyway. With his ability to appear and disappear, I thought about sending him for more weapons but decided against it. We couldn’t waste more time.

“There are three paths. Danaus, take the one to the left. I’ll take the center one up the middle of the island, while you take the one on the right,” I said, with a nod toward Stefan. “Kill anything that isn’t in our party.”

“The one that reaches the other end of the island first, wins?” Stefan challenged with an evil grin.

“I was thinking the one with the highest body count,” Danaus countered.

I growled, tightening my grip around the blade in my right hand. “How about the one that safely retrieves Valerio wins?”

Stefan rolled his eyes at me. “Not much of an objective.”

“Kill the naturi and free Valerio. Winner gets Ferko,” I sneered, finally putting the light back in Stefan’s eyes. Now he was interested in playing this game. The Ancient nightwalker floated off the ground, his long coat fluttering around him like a pair of wings. He gave me a small salute and then darted off into the darkness to locate some naturi.

“See you at the finish line,” Danaus said, then started down the path to my left, leaving me standing alone in the night with the naturi waiting for me.

I sucked in a deep breath and slowly expelled it, sending out a white fog in front of me. The air was bitter cold, tightening muscles and making my body resistant to movement, but it didn’t matter. Soon, I wouldn’t feel the cold or hear the splash of the waves as they crashed against the side of the island. I wouldn’t even notice the golden glow coming from Buda and Pest on either side of me. There would only be the naturi and my fight for survival. There would only be Rowe.

With a knife in one hand, I started off down the path, not bothering to try to mask my steps. Stefan was moving silently through the wind, and Danaus was a ghost on the ground. Let the naturi hear me coming so my companions would have a better chance of sneaking up on their enemies.

The first naturi attacked from my left, slicing his blade downward in an attempt to remove my head like a guillotine. I pulled up short, sliding a bit on the frozen sidewalk in my boots. I didn’t bother to raise my blade to slash at his exposed neck. Summoning up my powers, I encased the naturi in fire, almost instantly burning him to a crisp. He ran from me to a nearby snowbank, but it wasn’t enough to put out the flames. The bright light cast long, lunging shadows throughout the wooded island, revealing my enemies hiding around me in the darkest corners. They lurched forward as they tried to swarm me all at once. I extinguished the fire on the naturi that had attacked and created a wall of fire around me. The naturi was still breathing, but he wouldn’t be in any shape to attack me anytime soon if he did manage to survive the next few hours.

Overhead, the sky churned with black clouds and the wind poured around the tiny island in a torrent as if it were a raging river running through a narrow canyon. The flames danced and thinned in some parts, allowing the naturi to sneak through. It didn’t matter. I waved my hand and my approaching attackers went up in flames.

In a matter of only minutes five naturi had been dispatched, but there was a price. Surrounded by the smoking dead bodies of the naturi, I knelt down on one knee and stared at my trembling hand. I was exhausted and half frozen from the use of so much of my energy. The manipulation of fire came naturally to me, but there was a cost every time I used it. Energy was drained from my body, leaving me starving for blood and rest. Unfortunately, neither could be found here on this horrible strip of land. There were only empty trees and the naturi waiting to remove my head.

With a tired grunt I pushed off the ground and continued my trek into the island. The storm that was brewing gained strength with each passing second, until lightning streaked across the sky, arcing from one massive cloud to the next. A knot tightened in my stomach and I fought to keep my eyes on the path before me. Rowe and his fellow wind clan members were stirring up a storm that would either fry us with lightning or drown the island in the waves now crawling up the sides. In a small break in the trees, I could see the waves closing on the far sidewalk, casting sprays of icy water into the air. The hunter would soon have to move inland if he didn’t want to get washed into the Danube. That was fine with me. By the little I could sense of Valerio, he seemed to be in the center of the island near what appeared to be a giant ornate water tower. It was a strikingly odd construction in the middle of what appeared to be a giant garden, but I didn’t question it. I needed to get to him.

Picking up a short sword dropped by one of the dead naturi, I started a slow jog toward the center of the island. I was tempted to contact Danaus and see if he could give me an estimate of how many naturi remained and a location of where they were clustered. However, I kept my powers to myself and continued blind. I didn’t want to take a chance that Danaus was in the middle of a fight and my distraction could potentially result in an injury. The hunter would have my heart in his hand.

They’re at the tower, Stefan announced, obviously not caring whether I was in the middle of a fight.

Do you see Valerio? I picked up my pace to a run, reluctant to go too fast out of fear that I might succeed in stepping directly into a trap. The water tower was close now and I began to see the outline of a low building through the empty branches.