The hunter looked back at me, his hand on the doorknob. He felt me use my powers as well.
“Open it,” I said with a nod of my head, relieved that my voice didn’t betray my concern. For all the world, I sounded as if I was actually looking forward to seeing Nerian, like a reunion of old friends. Hardly. My only hope was that I didn’t kill him on sight, but I had serious doubts as to whether that was a realistic thought.
Danaus pushed open the door, which moaned in angry protest. The hunter stepped inside first and moved so I could follow while he closed the door. Once inside, I turned to face him, keeping my back to the wall. I didn’t trust him or this situation. With his hands open at his sides, he walked in front of me down the main hall. The floorboards creaked and screamed under the weight of our footsteps. The walls were cracked and crumbling, and the scent of some long-dead animal lingered in the air. A dark staircase ran along the left side of the hall, leading to a silent second floor.
Stopping halfway down the hall, Danaus pulled open a door under the staircase. He flipped on a light, revealing a set of plain wooden stairs that led into the basement. I was surprised. Most homes in Savannah didn’t have basements, due to the height of the water table. I had one in my own home, but it was added at great expense. Of course, underground was the only safe place to be during the daylight hours.
A single bare bulb dangled from the ceiling above the stairs, fighting to push aside the shadows that inhabited the dark corners of the subterranean room. I followed him down the stairs, my heels echoing like gunshots off the wood. Neither of us was trying to be quiet. The scent of blood on the damp air brought me to a sharp halt on the landing. It was the first bit of proof that someone else was in the house, but I still couldn’t sense anyone. I continued down the stairs, my eyes quickly scanning the room.
The walls were made of gray concrete, covered in a spiderweb of cracks and fissures that now leaked water from the ground outside. The floor was the same cold concrete. It was completely empty except for a furnace squatting in the far corner and a network of pipes and wires overhead. The air was musty and damp, filled with mold and the faint tang of blood.
It took me a couple seconds to actually see the hunched form. Maybe it was because my mind didn’t want to see him, didn’t want to know that he actually was still alive. But once I did see him, rage flooded my senses, blotting out all rational thought. The muscles in my body involuntarily clenched and knotted as if I’d been hit. When I looked at Nerian, I didn’t see him standing against the wall, his wrists and ankles chained in iron manacles. I saw him standing over me more than five centuries ago, with that dagger covered in my blood. I heard him laughing in my mind and my scream.
And then I realized I really was screaming. I kept screaming, clamping my hands over my ears as I tried to push the memories from my mind. The sound only stopped when the rawness of my torn throat finally overcame the images. The silent night air had been shattered by the wretched sound and was left cringing in some dark corner.
I blinked, my screams still echoing in my brain. Both Danaus and the naturi were staring at me. Nerian was smiling with that same horrible smile, basking in my pain.
“You remember me!” he exclaimed. He tossed his head back and laughed, the sound somehow managing to be both musical and maniacal at the same time. I shivered, clenching my teeth against the sound as a fresh onslaught of memories danced through my brain. My knees turned to jelly and for a moment I thought I would fall, but the wave passed.
“Thank you, human,” Nerian continued. “Seeing this parasite again is a real treat. Though I’m surprised she had the sense to stay alive this long. But even cockroaches are known for their resilience.”
“I see you managed to pull yourself back together,” I said. My voice was choked and rough, failing miserably to portray my usual bravado. I finally descended the last couple of wooden stairs and stood in the basement. “I imagine it was difficult to get your intestines back inside your skin.”
At Machu Picchu so many years ago, Jabari had given me the gift of killing Nerian. We fought and I eviscerated him, leaving him curled on the ground, clutching his stomach and intestines. But the sun was rising. My own strength was failing me in the growing light. I was forced to run to find shelter before the sun finally broke above the horizon. If I had thought it was at all possible that Nerian would survive, I would have stayed and finished him, meeting my own end.
“Unshackle me and I will happily show you how difficult it was.” His tone was still light and full of amusement. There was some veiled enticement lying hidden between his words as his voice tried to work a spell over my will.
“No.” The silence settled back between us for a moment as my eyes ran over his blood-encrusted wrists, battered face, and stained clothes. “I think I like you better this way; trapped by a human.”
Nerian was of the animal clan, resulting in his shaggy mane of brown hair and the hard, aggressive bone structure of his face. His vibrant green eyes were vertically slitted, like that of a cat. The iron manacles were the only thing keeping him from calling for assistance from any other naturi or animals. The old tales of iron and its harmful effect on the fey were actually true. It kept the naturi from performing any kind of magic.
His taunting smile crumbled from his face. “Hardly a fair fight.”
“What do the naturi know of fair?”
“What do we care of fairness when dealing with vermin?” His voice had changed from one of enticement to that of a cold, hard glacier. “Both vampires and humans are beneath contempt. You should never have survived so long, but at least humans have their uses. Vampires are just parasites.”
With my teeth clenched and fists at my sides, I closed the distance between Nerian and myself. I felt more than saw Danaus take up a position behind my right shoulder. His arms were folded over his chest, his legs spread wide.
I stared at Nerian, only inches between us. In all this time, he hadn’t changed. Yet, it felt like something should have been different. He should have been scarred in some way. When I’d last seen him, both his legs were broken and he was struggling to keep his intestines in his body. I had left him for dead. He should be dead. But instead he stood before me, his wrists bloody from pulling against the iron manacles. His brown leather jerkin was splattered with blood. His sharp, wide face was smudged with dirt and blood, his thick brown hair dirty and matted. And still he smiled at me, dark amusement glinting in his green eyes.
I don’t know how long we stood there staring at each other. It could have been hours or seconds. Time had become a thing that existed outside this small, damp basement, twisting and contorting into something I no longer recognized.
“Has the seal been broken?” I demanded at last. I had no more energy for verbal sparring with him. My voice sounded rough, as if it had been dragged along the lower levels of Hell before finally reaching my ears.
I didn’t think it was possible, but his smile widened, revealing a perfect set of white teeth. “Rowe has spoken with the sun,” he said in a lyrical voice. Without words, it whispered of clear streams and green woods. That voice had bewitched scores before the slaughter. “The dawn is coming.”
There was no clear thought after that. My body throbbed with rage and all I felt was anger and fear. Enough fear that I could taste it in the back of my throat. Enough that I was drowning in it. A kaleidoscope of brutal memories flashed through my brain. The naturi held me captive for two weeks at Machu Picchu, torturing me each night until I finally escaped consciousness with the rising sun. Their hope had been to wear me down until I agreed to serve them as a weapon against the nightwalkers. They wanted me for protection as they opened the door between the two worlds, freeing the rest of their kind. But I knew they could never be free. It would mean the destruction of everything I loved.