“He does,” I growled, lurching to my feet. I didn’t like to hear those words uttered. It was a very old myth that vampires were soulless creatures, a myth that many humans still believed. And they would use that archaic belief to hunt us down when they discovered we existed.
Staring down at a tired Danaus, I forced myself to relax. He had meant nothing by the question and I knew I’d overreacted. My nerves were growing rawer the closer we got to Venice. Flopping back down, I bit off a sigh. “When the body is reanimated with the vampire blood, the soul is called back to the body. But when the sun rises, he dies again and the soul leaves. Of course, this is all theory.”
“And you?”
“They speculate that I don’t technically die like the rest at sunrise. Sadira thinks it’s why I’m able to dream when the others cannot,” I said with a shake of my head.
“Why did she make you like that?”
“If she is to be believed, it was what Jabari wanted,” I replied. “I was kidnapped centuries ago because of my ability to control fire. When they feared the plague would take my human life, they decided to make me a nightwalker. However, Jabari wanted to see if I could retain my ability, and the best chance of that was to make me a First Blood.”
“Jabari’s blood is in your veins.”
“And Sadira’s. And Tabor’s. The original members of the triad.” And two of the four members of the Coven. Some of the most powerful nightwalkers in existence, then and now. “They believe they and some of their progeny can control me because their blood is a part of me.”
“But I’m not a nightwalker. Never have been, never will be,” Danaus said.
I bit back a comment about how there was still time. There was nothing to be gained by antagonizing him right now. He had enough problems in the form of the Coven and every vampire in Venice wanting a piece of his nightwalker-hunting hide. “You? I have no idea. Since you refuse to tell me what you are, I can only guess you’re a freak of nature like me and that must give you some kind of strange edge.”
“Do the others know what really happened?” Danaus demanded, deftly changing the subject. He wasn’t going to tell me yet, but I liked to think I would have the truth out of him before his last breath.
“I don’t think so,” I said with a sigh on my lips. “If they had, I don’t think we would have made it out of Themis alive; naturi or not. It would be best if we kept the full extent of what we can do to ourselves. We are about to head into the heart of the nightwalker hierarchy. It might be a good idea not to give them any more reasons to crush us into the dirt.”
“You don’t think they will when we arrive in Venice?”
“At the moment, they might be kind enough to wait until after we stop the naturi,” I said with a frail chuckle, lifting my head to look at him.
“Lucky us,” Danaus grimly said. “You expect to survive the next few nights?”
“Not really.” A carefree shrug lifted my slim shoulders. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try.”
“Then you have a plan for when we hit Venice,” he prodded.
I smiled back at him, extending my legs out in front of me with my ankles crossed. The leather seat crinkled and crackled beneath me. “I have some ideas, but no specific plan. I work better off the cuff,” I said, causing his expression to grow even darker. I couldn’t blame him. We were in yet another situation in which he would have to trust me to protect him from my kind. Not a comfortable position, considering he had killed many of us during his extremely long career as a hunter.
“You’re going to try to talk your way out of death?” Danaus guessed, sounding incredulous as he sat forward on the edge of the bench.
“I plan to bluff, cajole, grandstand, and outright lie if necessary to save my skin,” I said, and laughed, throwing open my arms. One of the most powerful nightwalkers in existence wanted me dead. I had nothing to lose any longer.
“And sacrifice me when the opportunity presents itself,” Danaus finished, shoving to his feet. I rose as well and stepped closer so only a couple of feet of empty space were separating us. It felt odd being that close without weapons drawn.
“I bear the Elders no love,” I said. “Jabari was the only one who once resided in my heart and he crushed that before departing Themis. “On the other hand, you’ve saved my life on more than one occasion. I don’t know your rationale behind it and at the moment I don’t care,” I quickly finished, holding up my hand before he could interject any of his reasons for prolonging my life, which I’m sure were on the tip of his tongue. It didn’t look good for a hunter of his caliber to go around saving nightwalkers. “We will walk into Venice together and we will walk out together, I promise.” I held out my hand to him. Danaus stared into my eyes for a long time, weighing my words before he finally took my hand and shook it, sealing the bargain.
“And after?” he demanded, his hand still tightly gripping mine.
“After Venice? Assuming we both actually survive, we get back to the business of trying to kill each other like nature intended,” I mocked, releasing his rough, callused hand. A half smile briefly lifted one corner of his mouth as he sat back down.
“All I ask is that you keep your mouth shut and trust me,” I said, looking down at him. “It’s not an impossible task. You’re a hunter. I have no doubt that you’ve slaughtered countless nightwalkers. You’re not exactly winning over many friends.”
“It’s not my goal in life,” he said, sounding grumpy.
“I believe that,” I muttered as I returned to my seat. Draping my body over the bench, I listened to the roar of the engines. Even if I did live long enough to finally gain the ability to fly, I would still use my pretty little jet. Besides the obvious comfort, I liked listening to the moan of the air rushing past the windows and the roar of the engine.
As the plane carried us closer to Italy, Danaus bent down and started digging around in the large black duffel bag near his feet. I could hear the clang and ping of metal striking metal as he sifted around in his trusty bag of weapons. I was sorry that I’d left the sword I used at Themis behind, but my hands were full of Tristan at the time. My mind hadn’t been on proper weaponry for our trip to Venice. Lucky for me, Danaus remembered to grab his bag of tricks from the hotel. He might have even made a pit stop for extra toys at the Themis town house where we met James Parker.
After a moment he sat back with a gun in his hand. He quickly checked the magazine before standing and walking over to me. My eyes briefly flit from the gun he was holding out to me and back to his face questioningly.
“Guns seem to be effective against the naturi,” he said when I had yet to move. I stared at the gun for a second, frowning. I didn’t like guns. They were so impersonal. They were also ineffective when dealing with nightwalkers. Being shot just pissed vampires off and didn’t slow them down much. We also hadn’t fought the naturi on a regular basis in several centuries, so most of us never bothered to learn how to use a gun.
With a frown, I finally took the weapon from him, holding the grip between two fingers away from my body like a piece of rotting garbage. Growling in frustration, Danaus took the gun back and sat down next to me. “It’s a Browning Hi-Power loaded with 9mm bullets,” he explained, letting it rest in the palm of his hand. “The magazine holds fifteen bullets.” With a couple of deft motions with his fingers, he showed me how to load the magazine and turn off the safety. My knowledge of guns didn’t extend much further than pointing and squeezing the trigger. I had no desire to learn any more than that, but if I was faced with another naturi, the Browning was going to feel a whole lot better in my hand than a knife.
“I’m guessing you can manage that,” Danaus taunted, trying to get a rise out of me.