Authors: Jocelynn Drake
“And it never will be,” Cynnia said with a sad shake of her head. “How do you finally get it to stop?”
“Blood magic. It pushes the earth magic back out of my body,” I carefully said, avoiding mentioning that Danaus served as my source of pure blood magic, given his bori nature. “I want control of this. I want to be able to use the earth magic that pours into my body, but I also need to be able to shut it off. Can either of you teach me that?”
Cynnia hesitated, but Shelly quickly spoke up, laying her hand on my knee. “I can.”
I looked over at Cynnia, who refused to meet my gaze. “Your usefulness is dwindling.”
“Please understand my point of view, Mira,” she said, slowly lifting her eyes to meet mine. “You’re already the stuff of legends among my people. Am I to be the one responsible for making you even stronger? More dangerous not only to my people, but to the entire world?”
“And what happens if we don’t?” Shelly snapped, raising her voice toward the young naturi for the first time. “Your sister Aurora will come through and kill us all. I don’t always agree with Mira’s methods, but at least in her version of the world, there’s a place for humans.”
“You’re food!” Cynnia snapped. She balled her hands into fists and tried to jerk her hands apart, but the chains kept her bound. “You’re cattle to them.”
Shelly jerked back, looking as if Cynnia had suddenly smacked her. Her mouth hung open but no words came out.
“It’s true, Shelly,” I gently said. This time I laid a hand on her shoulder. She flinched under my cool touch, but I refused to move my hand away. “Nightwalkers cannot exist without humans to feed upon, but that is not the only reason we seek to protect you. Humans are also our friends, our enemies, and our lovers. No matter how long a nightwalker exists in the shadows, at some time we always find ourselves establishing some sort of relationship with a human. It’s where we started as creatures and it’s something that we cannot completely escape.”
“They’ve hunted you,” Cynnia argued through clenched teeth.
“And we’ve protected you,” I calmly said. “We are neither villains nor saviors. We simply are a part of this world as much as humans are.”
Cynnia stood and took a couple steps toward me, her fists trembling in anger before her. “And we deserve a place in this world just as much as nightwalkers.”
“I’ll agree with that as long as you’re willing to share it with the rest of the races. Look me in the eye and tell me that is Aurora’s plan.”
Cynnia held my gaze for a second then blinked and turned away from me. “She doesn’t want to share,” she whispered, her slender shoulders slumping in defeat. “She never will share with the humans.”
“And because of that I will not stop fighting the naturi. Give me a naturi ruler that understands coexistence and I will consider putting down my sword.”
“Consider?” Cynnia asked, turning back to look at me, one eyebrow arched in question.
“Your brother and many others are responsible for much I will never be able to forgive. I cannot learn to forget so quickly,” I said in a cold voice.
“I thought the saying was ‘forgive and forget.’”
“I know my limitations. There will be no forgiveness.”
A sigh from Shelly drew my attention back to the earth witch. She was trapped between two warring races. Her only chance was to pick a race that would protect her survival, which meant siding with the nightwalkers. But Cynnia was right. Humans were little more than cattle to us. Cattle and a bit of violent, ugly amusement when the mood hit us. The lesser of the two evils was still evil.
“From what it sounds like, Mira,” Shelly slowly began, moving away from my touch as she kept her eyes on the worn and faded carpet beneath her knees. “You’re trying to act as a battery for the energy that is coming into you instead of a conduit.”
“I’m not trying to do anything,” I admitted, struggling to keep from sounding defensive. “The first couple times it happened, I wasn’t trying for it. It just happens against my will.”
“Then the earth must recognize you as an outlet because of your ability to manipulate fire,” Cynnia volunteered sullenly. She returned to her place on the floor against the wall, her arms wrapped around her bent legs. “To stop this from happening, you can simply stop going to the various swells around the world.”
“Nia,” I murmured in the gentlest voice I could muster amidst my growing frustration. “I have to stop the door from opening.”
To my surprise, Cynnia closed her eyes and a single fat tear rolled down her cheek. “I know.” What she also knew was that many of her own kind were going to be killed in the ensuing battle for Machu Picchu tomorrow night.
“As I was saying,” Shelly continued, drawing my attention away from the lost and hurting naturi. “You’re acting as a battery. It sounds like the power is going into your body and your body is attempting to store the energy until you are ready to use it. Unfortunately, you can store only so much energy before it finally destroys you.”
“I’ll agree with that assessment,” I muttered. At least that explained the excruciating pain I felt whenever the power entered my body, and the relief I felt when I used my powers. It also made me wonder if that was why I felt the same pain when Danaus or Jabari attempted to manipulate me. Was I simply storing up their power within my body until I finally abided by their wishes?
“You need to become a conduit,” Shelly said. “You need to allow the energy to not only flow into you, but to also flow out again. When you use earth magic, you are simply tapping into the power that is naturally flowing through you.”
“So how do I do that?”
At that question, Shelly bit on her lower lip and looked over her shoulder at Cynnia, who shrugged.
“This is your one chance to prove your value to me, to save your own life, and you’re going to say no!” I shouted, pushing off the bed and walking toward her.
“No, that’s not what I meant,” Cynnia said, throwing up both arms to keep me off of her. “I have no idea how to teach what you’re asking. It’s supposed to come naturally. Honestly, if I had a clue as to what I could do, I would tell you. I don’t want to contemplate how much energy you can hold or the damage you can do once that power is released. I’d rather you become the conduit that Shelly spoke of.”
I paused and looked back at Shelly, who was nodding at me. “I’ve never heard of this problem,” she added. “I have to reach for the power of the earth, pull it into myself, and it naturally flows back out again, like a river. When it flows through, I simply scoop up what I need for the spell that I am weaving.”
“Damn it,” I muttered, walking back over to plop back down on the edge of the bed. I shoved both my hands through my hair, pushing it out of my face in frustration as I desperately sought some solution, any kind of solution, to the problem. I couldn’t avoid the swells. In fact, I planned to be haunting each and every one of them until Rowe and his crew were finally taken care of.
The hairs on the back of my neck suddenly began to tingle, and I sent my powers flaring out of my body, running through the hotel like a horde of ghosts until they finally settled on Danaus. He was approaching. I was out of time for now. We needed to leave.
“Maybe you can help me in another way,” I began, looking up at Cynnia. “What can you tell me about Ollantaytambo?”
“Nothing,” she said with a shake of her head. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“It’s a place just outside of Machu Picchu,” I pressed. I needed any kind of information she could give me before we left on this fool’s errand. “I think there’s some sort of old Incan temple or structure there.”
Again Cynnia just sadly shook her head at me. “I only know the name Machu Picchu because you use it. It’s not our name for this place. I just know that it’s the last place that we attempted and nearly succeeded at opening the door.”
“What do you call this place?”
Cynnia said something in her own lyrical language that I couldn’t even begin to replicate, causing me to frown at her. “It translates roughly to ‘Mother’s Garden.’ It’s what we call the entire valley area.”
Danaus knocked on the bedroom door. It was time to go to Ollantaytambo. It wasn’t that I really wanted to go this site of ancient Incan ruins, but that I felt I had to go. There was something calling out to me from my past here. A door that needed to either be opened finally or firmly shut and locked forever.
Twenty-One
O
nly the human guardians spoke during the car ride to Ollantaytambo. Even then it was low, whispers in broken bits of Spanish or Italian. I rode in the front seat next to Danaus, who graciously volunteered to drive. At the random intersection, he’d stop, grunt, and we’d silently look at the map Eduardo had given us before we wordlessly continued on. Stefan lounged in the seat directly behind Danaus, vainly attempting to unnerve the hunter. If he succeeded, I couldn’t tell, but then again, that was Danaus. As far as I knew, I was the only one who had succeeded in rattling him. And I had every reason to believe he was going to cut my heart out for my troubles.
Stefan’s goal was also to remain as far from Cynnia as possible. It had not gone well when I informed the nightwalker that both an earth witch and a naturi would be joining us on our journey to Ollantaytambo. He would have been content to cut Cynnia’s heart out where she stood in the middle of the city sidewalk and leave her for the humans to find later, but I deftly talked him out of it, using promises of being able to use her as a bargaining chip later at the battle of Machu Picchu.
So, for now, Shelly acted as a thin, human buffer, sitting between the powerful and brooding Stefan and the all too quiet Cynnia as we headed deeper into the Sacred Valley by a sliver of fading moonlight. I would have liked to ask either of the two women if their sense of the power in the air was getting stronger, but I didn’t want to alert Stefan to any of this earth magic nonsense just yet. I preferred for him to think that I maintained a strict captor-captive relationship with Cynnia. He didn’t need to know that I was currently depending upon her to give me some kind of guidance when it came to controlling, or at least using, the earth magic that seemed desperate to flow through my body.
As we drove close to Ollantaytambo, hills rose up around us, blotting out what little light the stars had to offer. Naturally, the moon was nowhere to be found. Reduced to a slim sliver of her once great glory, she remained hidden from sight, seemingly content to let us fumble around in the overwhelming darkness. The animals that watched us lumber along the narrow, winding road were silent, cloaked by the rocks and bushes.
After more than two hours of driving, both the mountains and the scattering of trees and brush at last pulled back, opening into what seemed to be a tiny valley. Despite the fact that I didn’t breathe, I had to fight back the urge to draw in a deep breath at the sight of Ollantaytambo. The city was small, with only a handful of streets and a few hotels. It wasn’t a major stop for tourists. Some would take a short day trip to see the ruins at the edge of the city, but then move on to Aguas Calientes and Machu Picchu.
As we slowly rolled down the main street, I noticed that the four humans we’d brought along had fallen silent. At the back of the van I could make out the sound of cloth rustling and the soft snap of weapon guards being released so knives and guns could be quickly drawn. Before leaving the hotel room, both Danaus and I once again loaded up on weapons. He had a short sword strapped to his back along with a pair of guns that I couldn’t readily identify. The hunter had also been kind enough to return to me the same style of Glock and Browning that I’d used at Crete. I didn’t like handguns but was familiar enough with these two that I could manage better than starting with two totally unknown weapons. I also had a short sword strapped to my thigh. I was hoping to avoid using my power while we were here, as there was already too much energy crackling in the air to make me feel comfortable.
As we drove into the city, I noted that each block was surrounded by high walls in the traditional Incan design. Inside the walls were a cluster of neat little houses, and a courtyard in the center of it all. It was nearly midnight when we entered the town, and each of the houses was shut up tight and the lights doused.
At the end of the main street, Danaus halted the car and looked at me for direction. Now that we were here, I didn’t want to move, didn’t want to speak. It had sounded like a good idea while I was sitting in a crowded bar in Cuzco surrounded by my own kind. No, that’s wrong. It had sounded like a horrible idea when I was in Cuzco, and now that I was sitting here in the dark, I knew it was disastrous.
“Mira?” he prodded when I still refused to speak.
“The ruins,” I replied in a low voice, proud that it didn’t tremble. Of course, I was still struggling to loosen the death grip I had on the door handle. “Were we followed?”
There was no reason to ask who I was talking about. Only one group would be able to follow us without being detected by normal means. There was only one group right now that any of us were worried about. The naturi.
“No, but they’re not far away,” Danaus said. His deep voice was even and calm; a soothing balm despite the ominous words. Since we left the hotel, there had been a steady throb of energy seeping from him as he searched the area for our enemy. The relentless waves washed over and through me, pulling me closer to him. Those waves had both protected and sought to tear me apart in the past. Now I needed their protection not only from the enemy that was drawing close, but also from the ghosts haunting my past.
Danaus turned the grumbling white van down the road and drove the short distance to the ruins. Surrounded by hills, it was easy to make out the ruins rising up before us with the intricate stonework carved out by men centuries ago. The hunter pulled the van into the small, gravel parking lot a few hundred yards from the base of the mountain. Of course, mountain was a relative term considering we were already more than nine thousand feet above sea level. By the looks of it, the hike to the peak of the ruins was less that a quarter of a mile.