Wait for Dusk

Wait for Dusk

( Dark Days - 5 )

Jocelynn Drake

There is no sanctuary in the night . . .

Feared even by her own kind for her mastery of fire, the nightwalker Mira is summoned by the coven to take her rightful place as Elder. But with this honor comes grave responsibility — a commitment to the annihilation of the unleashed naturi. For now the foul creatures walk the earth — and neither vampire nor human will survive their horrific onslaught.

A tide of blood is sweeping relentlessly across the European continent, as Mira is dispatched to Budapest for the most devastating test yet of her astonishing powers — and falls into a well-laid trap. With the dark secrets that haunt her growing darker by the hour, she must confront the terrible truth of her past and protect her fragile sanity in the face of unanticipated treachery — a betrayal by her trusted ally, her beloved enemy, the vampire slayer Danaus.

Wait for Dusk

(The fifth book in the Dark Days series)

Jocelynn Drake

To the man who loves me and my cats

Chapter One

P
ain exploded across my face, lighting up the black night. My body slammed against a hard surface before I slid limp to my knees, sending a fresh surge of pain up through my frame. The world around me was a blur of disorganized shapes and shadows, punctuated by splashes of red as something hit my jaw, snapping my head around. I landed on my back with a wooden thud.

I wanted to summon up my powers and set the bastard on fire, but the attacks were coming too quickly. My concentration was shattered. In the brief lull, I tried to assess the damage to see if I had any chance of striking back. My left knee had been shattered and my right leg was broken. My internal organs were swimming in my own blood, bruised, punctured, and damaged. My jaw felt fractured and my eyes were nearly swollen shut. I tried to shift to my side, revealing that at least three ribs were broken.

“You stupid bitch!” snarled a deep unfamiliar voice. For a moment I could almost convince myself that I had fallen into Rowe’s hands. Only that naturi could possibly hate me so much as to beat me senseless.

“A nightwalker?” he demanded incredulously just before his foot landed in my stomach. My arms had been crossed over my middle, so my left wrist took the brunt of the blow, fracturing. I cried out as my mind struggled to hold onto the voice. I didn’t recognize it. But then, I wasn’t sure where I was or how I had even gotten there.

“A nightwalker? If I had known how things were going to work out, I would never have let you out of my sight in the first place!” His footsteps moved farther away as he paced the area.

“Who the hell are you?” I spat, sending a stream of blood over my split lower lip.

The creature sighed heavily, and I flinched as he walked back toward me. A large hand sank into my hair, twisting it around his fist before finally jerking it so I was facing upward. Squinting and blinking, my eyes slowly focused in the dim light on a face I was sure I would never see again: my father.

A scream became choked in my raw throat while I tried to lurch backward, sending slashing pain through my scalp as the creature refused to release my hair. His grin grew over his lean, old face becoming a mockery of the love and laughter I had seen on my real father’s face.

Clenching my jaw, I closed my eyes and swallowed back a string of curses. I had to think clearly. This wasn’t my father. It was obviously a shapeshifter, and one that could read my mind and my memories. The only creature that could possibly do such a horrible thing was a bori.

Gaizka! Oh God!
We had failed to lock it up when we were on Factors Walk. The bori had gotten to me.

But even as the thought occurred to me, I knew it was wrong. LaVina grabbed me, using me to lock away the bori before it could steal Danaus away forever. LaVina had snatched me away from Factors Walk and taken me to this secluded location to beat me into oblivion. Or rather, it was this creature that had pretended to be the old witch LaVina so it could get closer to me and Danaus.

A growl rumbled in the back of my throat, warning him to back away, even though I had already proven to be a weak threat. LaVina had fooled us all. I should never have believed her to be a simple witch. I knew all the powerful witches from Charleston to New Orleans. This creature had snuck in, and we allowed it because we were desperate to cage the bori Gaizka. Now it was time for me to pay the price of not being more vigilant.

“You’re not real,” I groaned, clenching my fist against the swell of pain that swept over me as I tried to move.

The creature tightened his grip on my hair just before sending the back of his free hand across my cheekbone. A new pain blossomed across my face, causing my teeth to rattle in their sockets while a trickle of blood started to slip down my cheek.

“Did that feel real?” he mocked. He gave my head a sharp shake when I remained silent. “Look at me!”

My eyes snapped open and I stared into the dark eyes of the monster that held me. My body was broken and throbbing with pain. Without some help, I didn’t have a chance to defeat this creature. I did not have the strength to summon up my powers to light this son of a bitch on fire, and too many bones were still mending from being broken for me to effectively move, let alone fight. If I was going to die, I would do it with my eyes wide-open and staring into the dead soulless eyes of my opponent.

“You’re not my father. You’re a shapeshifter. A bori.” I could taste my own blood in my mouth as I spoke.

“Ahhh, my sweet child, you are not even close,” he said, finally releasing his hold on my hair so that I unexpectedly thudded on the floor. “It’s my own fault, though. I never should have waited so long to reveal myself to you.” The creature paced away from me, waving his hands in the air.

As he spoke, I pulled my arms beneath my body and pushed myself up a little bit so I could look around. Shock tightened my muscles as I discovered that I was in the library at my own house. However, it looked as if a tornado had ripped through it. The shelves were all broken and the books had fallen into large piles around the room. My massive desk was overturned, while papers splattered with my blood were strewn about. Something inside of me shivered when I saw that my extensive collection of hourglasses destroyed. What little light came in through the window glittered and danced off the broken glass and piles of sand. Had my time finally run out?

“Let me start at the beginning.” He spun on a heel to face me again, drawing my gaze back to the monster that still held the guise of my beloved father. “But you’re going have to think for me.”

Pain screamed through my body, causing my arms to tremble so badly that I finally gave up the fight and lay back down on the floor, trying to ignore the fragments of glass and wood beneath me. “Who are you?”

“I am your father,” he said simply, spreading his arms out on either side of him, his hands held open as if welcoming me into his thin embrace.

“Impossible! My father is dead! He died centuries ago. He was human. You’re just some pathetic mimic.”

The creature was before me in a flash, grabbing my hair again so I couldn’t look away. “Are you really so sure of that?” he demanded, laughing. Before my eyes, his features shifted so that his soft, wizened face grew younger and sharper in his appearance. His dark brown hair turned a bright shock of red that stuck out in all directions from his head. But it was his glowing lavender eyes that held me still. It was like looking at a male version of myself, and it was terrifying.

“This isn’t real either,” I whimpered. My mind was unable to comprehend exactly what I was staring at.

“Actually, you’re right,” he admitted with a slight shrug of one shoulder. “But then I doubt your little mind can fully comprehend the real version of me, so we’re just going have to settle for the light version of the truth.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Come now, Mira. Think just a little bit for me.” Giving my head a little shake, he continued. “You know the old tales. Zeus comes down to earth from Mount Olympus in various forms and cheats on his darling wife, spawning an untold number of children, leaving the earth to be littered with all kinds of little demigods and nymphs.”

A low, rough chuckle escaped me before I could stop it. “You’re a god?”

With a growl, the monster slammed the back of my head into the shelf behind me, causing my vision to go black. I blinked a couple times, trying to regain my sight. The creature leaned close enough that I could feel its hot breath dance across my cheek. “Half dead and long forgotten from this world, but I am still here and here I will remain.”

He pulled away, seeming to have control of his temper once again. “That old one wasn’t the only one trying to maintain his immortality. We all had brief forays around this dark little mud hole, some having more success than others. Centuries ago, I appeared before your mother in the guise of the man that she was attached to.”

When I managed to get my vision to clear again, I saw that I was once again staring into the face of the man whom I had always called my father. I gritted my teeth and tried to push away from the monster, but he held fast. My father had been a good, kind man, and his memory didn’t deserve to be soiled in such a manner.

“So you’re saying that you seduced my mother while pretending to be my father,” I snapped, wishing I could put some distance between us. However, I lay as still as possible, hoping to give my body some time to heal. I would gather my strength, and as soon as I could, I would set this bastard on fire like a Roman candle.

The creature clucked his tongue at me and shook his head. “But, little one, he was never really your father. I am,” he corrected. “But I am grateful for how he looked after you when you were younger and hadn’t yet learned to defend yourself. Your mother proved to be utterly useless.”

“My mother loved me!” I screamed, jerking forward.

The creature snorted at me as he released my hair. He changed back into the redheaded figure he had appeared as just moments earlier. “Your mother was terrified of you. Red hair, violet eyes, in a world that was filled with brown hair, brown-eyed children. Even worse, she was afraid of bringing another monster into the world. That’s why she killed herself.”

Putting my hands on the ground for a second, I pushed upward and lunged at the stranger, aiming to gouge out his eyeballs with my fingernails. Anger had overtaken my common sense. The creature just laughed as he easily captured both my wrists and slammed me back down onto the ground.

Running his tongue over his upper teeth, he smiled down at me, taking particular glee in revealing his next bit of information. “Yes, when you were but eight years old, she discovered she was with child again. Fearful of bringing another demon spawn into the earth, she walked into the sea, killing herself and the child.”

“No!” I tried to lurch off the ground as fresh tears welled up in my eyes. I knew I shouldn’t believe him, but I did. My mother had simply disappeared early one morning when I was young and never returned. My father wept for her, but we continued on as best as we could. Something in me had always felt responsible for her disappearance, and I’d always known that she was dead. I just never understood why she had left us.

In response to my tears, the creature laughed as he released his hold on my wrists. I lifted my hands and wiped my eyes, sweeping away the blood and the dirt that had been smeared and crusted on my face.

“Who are you? What do you want with me?” I was tired of playing mind games with this monster. I needed to heal. I needed to find Danaus and know that he was safe. I needed to put my world back in order.

“Haven’t you guessed by now?” he inquired, jumping to his feet with an eerie lightness. “I am your real father. The one responsible for your wonderful set of genes, your special gifts, and rather stunning looks.”

“Whatever,” I grumbled, causing his ebullient expression to deflate somewhat. “But who are you? Another bori? We shut Gaizka up. We can do it with you.”

At this, he smiled. He slipped to his knees and crawled across the floor toward me, a smile widening on his sharp face. “In Africa, I’ve been called Ogo and Anansi. In Egypt, I was known as Keku. Among the Norse, I was known as Loki. The Native Americans referred to me as Coyote and Raven.”

“Oh God,” I whispered, trying to shrink away from the creature that was inches away from me. His frame seemed to grow so that his huge bulk hovered over me, blocking out the rest of the room.

A dark chuckle rose up from his chest and slithered over toward me, sending a fresh chill down my spine. “No need to be quite so formal,” he mocked. “You, my dear sweet child, may just call me Nick.”

“Wh-What do you want from me?” My brain failed to get past the sudden log jamb of thoughts that were nearly crippling me. I didn’t want to believe it, but I was left with either the idea that he was actually telling the truth or that I had fallen in with another bori Danaus and I hadn’t been looking for. Either way, I was in serious trouble.