My hand shot out and closed around his throat, squeezing until I felt my fingernails tear through skin and muscle. I squeezed until my hand was filled with his warm flesh, and then I pulled. He gave one last gasp as his throat was ripped from his body. I dropped the squishy clump of flesh at my side, but chunks of it remained buried under my nails. I stood there, letting his warm blood spray over my face and shoulders, closed my eyes as the blood ran down my arms and coated my bare stomach. A scream rose up in my throat again, but I stood silent, listening to the gurgling sounds he made as he struggled to breathe without an esophagus.

When I could no longer feel his blood raining on me, I opened my eyes. Nerian sagged forward, held up by his arms, which were still chained to the wall. His head had fallen against his chest and his body was now covered in blood. Stepping back, my mind stumbled out of the blinding haze of anger. I could taste his blood in my mouth, and a part of me panicked. Naturi blood was poisonous to nightwalkers. I spit and raised my arm to wipe it off my lips, but my arm was covered with his blood as well. A little taste wouldn’t kill me, but it was enough to send an anxious chill through me. It didn’t taste like other blood. It was more bitter and unnatural.

Turning, I suddenly found myself facing Danaus. For a moment I had forgotten he was there. He stood in a crouch, the naturi dagger in his hand. I don’t know if he’d purposefully drawn that dagger or instinctively reacted when I tore out Nerian’s throat. It didn’t matter. My emotions were still too raw and violent for me to think clearly. I lunged at him, my hands going for the dagger. He swung it at me, causing me to jerk backward. Screaming, I slashed and kicked wildly. There was no holding back anymore. I wanted death; his, and maybe even mine. Anything so I could be free of Nerian’s smile. Backing Danaus against the wall, I finally kicked the dagger free. It spun through the air and crashed against the cinder-block wall.

The monstrous piece of metal held me in its bloody thrall, and I had to be rid of it…for good. I turned my back on Danaus, heedlessly, and stalked over to the blade. With my right hand, I threw a ball of blue fire at it. I encased the dagger in flames hot enough to cause the cement to sizzle and pop. The room grew uncomfortably hot, but I poured all my anger and hatred into the fire, willing the metal to bend and melt.

Exhausted, I sank to my knees, extinguishing the blaze. Then I stared at the naturi blade and started to laugh, high-pitched and a little mad. The blade was completely untouched. For a moment the metal had glowed red, but it was unchanged. I could do nothing to it. The charms on the blade would keep it from ever rusting, chipping, or melting. As long as the naturi existed, so would this blade.

Turning my head, I narrowed my gaze on Nerian. I might not be able to get rid of the dagger, but I could wipe his existence off the earth. Instantly, his body became engulfed in beautiful yellow and orange flames. The stench of burning flesh and hair filled the air, but I didn’t care. I kept the flames on him until the body crumbled to a small heap of white ash on the floor. The smoke filtered up through the warped boards of the ceiling to fill the upper part of the house. I didn’t care if anyone noticed. I’d be gone from this place soon enough.

Nerian was gone, but his memory would never leave me. For the first time in centuries I longed for Jabari. He had saved me from Nerian and his kind once. He had helped to keep the horrid memories at bay. Now I longed for the feel of his strong arms around me and his calm, cool presence in my brain, cradling my thoughts.

But Jabari was gone; dead or just absent, I didn’t know. It also didn’t matter. Nerian was dead at last. I had stood on my own two feet for more than four centuries. I would continue to do so no matter how weary I became.

The sound of a foot scraping along the cold concrete floor drew my attention back to Danaus. Gazing at him over my shoulder, a soft sigh rose from me. I felt a little freer than I’d been in a long time. A ghost had been sent back to Hell where it belonged; where I knew it would wait for me. But that wasn’t now.

I was more than a little surprised that Danaus had not tried to kill me when I attacked him. He’d defended himself, but nothing more. He had not needed me to kill Nerian for him; the naturi was at his mercy. To keep me alive, Danaus must have still needed something from me. However, I was coming up with fewer reasons to leave the hunter alive. Right now I only needed to know how he captured Nerian and if there were any more naturi.

“What do you know of the naturi?” I inquired, turning to face him. I held up my right hand and a small yellow flame danced on the palm.

Danaus stood against the far wall, a bead of sweat running from his temple down along his hard jaw. His dark blue eyes were narrowed in the faint light. With his right hand, he grabbed the right side of his leather coat and held it open. He reached over with his left hand and pulled a folded piece of paper from the interior pocket. With a flick of his wrist, he sent the paper across the room, to land less than a foot away from me. Extinguishing the flame, I leaned forward and picked up the paper. It was another high-gloss, color picture.

This one was distinctly different from the others. It was of a woman lying naked on reddish-brown paving stones. Her arms were thrown over her head. The skin on her chest had been peeled back and all of her organs removed. The little piles of black ash around the body had been her various pieces. Her blood pooled beneath her, but on the ground several feet away from her, symbols similar to the ones carved into the trees were drawn with her blood. Her face had been turned toward the camera, her mouth forever frozen in a scream that no one would ever hear. She had been alive during the ceremony. I imagine she was kept alive and lucid right up until her heart had been removed.

“When?” The single word floated through the room like a white wraith. The momentary peace I’d found with Nerian’s death had shriveled up in the pit of my stomach.

“Three months ago, night of the new moon.”

I nodded. I understood enough about magic to know that you started new magic under the new moon for the maximum potency. The full moon was used for breaking old spells, curses, and for binding. The naturi were just getting started.

“Where?”

“Konark.”

My head snapped up, eyes locking on his grim features. The muscles in my body clenched painfully. “Where?”

“Konark. The Sun Temple in Orissa, India.”

“I know it’s in India,” I said irritably, straightening up. My brain was struggling to take in this information. They had started making the necessary sacrifices in order to break the seal and open the door between the worlds. There were twelve sacred locations scattered around the world that could hold enough power for the naturi to perform the necessary spells. But how could they be doing this now? It didn’t make sense. It had been roughly five hundred years since they had last attempted this. Why now?

“There will be more,” Danaus said. It was more of a question than a statement.

I looked up at him, weighing my options. “Two more.” My earlier relief slowly leaked from my soul and I tried to organize my thoughts.

“You asked about a seal. What did you mean?”

My gaze fell to the floor for a moment as I thought back to the stories my maker, Sadira, and my beloved Jabari had told me. My own memories of Machu Picchu were sketchy and fragmented, but I knew the old “ghost stories.” I’d read our histories and the journals written by other nightwalkers detailing all we knew of the naturi.

“Centuries ago, before my time, before the time of any nightwalker that still exists, the naturi lived on Earth. Vampires forced them to another world. One that was similar and connected to this world, but different. A nightwalker triad closed the door and fashioned a seal on this side to bar them from returning. It’s like an elaborate magical lock.”