In truth, I wasn’t feeling much better. And worse, this was my fault. The longer I remained with her, the easier it was for them to track her down. But Mira was right. We were stronger when we worked together. While I acted as a beacon, bringing them to her side, I was also her only warning that they were even in the area. Vampires couldn’t sense the naturi and the naturi couldn’t sense vampires. Up until now, it had been an arrangement that seemed to work for both sides.

“Can you see them?” she asked, her voice sounding somewhat calmer.

Twisting around to look out the rear window, I let my eyes dance over the cars that were keeping pace behind us. No one seemed to be in any great hurry to catch up to us. “No, but they’re still coming.” I could sense them, four naturi approaching fast.

“Do you need to see them to boil their blood?” Mira inquired.

“What?” I demanded, jerking around so that I was sitting back in my seat again.

“I have to see the naturi to burn them,” she explained. “Do you have to see them to boil their blood? Or is it enough that you can sense them?”

“I—I don’t know,” I admitted. “Anytime I’ve used that power I’ve been able to look my enemy in the eye. It’s a last resort.”

“Well, I think we’ve reached that point,” Mira snapped. “Unless you really want to pull over and fight them hand to hand.”

“I can try it, but they’re in a car. If it works, they’re going to crash,” I pointed out. “Innocent people could die.”

“There would be another investigation, more memories to wipe, bodies to dispose of…” she softly listed under her breath with a shake of her head. “I can’t do it.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I—I can’t do it,” she whispered then shook her head violently as if to wake herself up from a trance. “It won’t work. We need another plan and I think I’ve got one,” she announced with renewed vigor. “Are they still following us?”

I reached out with my powers briefly, touching on the naturi that were still speeding along behind us. They seemed a little closer than they had been only a couple moments ago, but they weren’t quite breathing down our necks. “They’re still there.”

“Good.” To my surprise, Mira jerked the car across three lanes of traffic and grabbed the first exit. I didn’t say anything, but held on as she jumped off the expressway and then grabbed the first on-ramp to the highway, heading back south.

“Where the hell are we going?” I demanded once we were comfortably settled in front of a semi.

“Back to Savannah,” she informed me, as she actually slowed the car down to the legal speed limit.

“I thought you wanted to keep them away from the lycans,” I said, flinching when she abruptly changed lanes a little closer to a Toyota Prius than I thought was sensible.

“They’re not animal clan,” she replied. “If they were, they would have called up the shifters when we were at the restaurant. I think these are from the wind clan.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because the only thing that’s been in my domain since you showed up was from the wind clan. The group in the conservatory.”

“So it’s somebody out for a little revenge,” I said, frowning.

“But why only the wind clan?” Mira asked as she glanced up into the rearview mirror.

“Who do we know from the wind clan?”

“Rowe, Cynnia, and her sister Nyx,” Mira quickly replied. “I don’t think they’re with the pirate. He was banished. Besides, if Rowe wanted my head, I have no doubt that he’d come here to get it personally, after his falling out with Aurora.”

“Do you think they were sent by Cynnia? Trying to extend an olive branch?” I asked. I barely resisted the urge to turn the heat on in the car. The later the night grew, the more the temperature dropped, so that now my fingers were growing stiff from the cold.

“Then I guess we might get to see if these naturi want to talk or fight,” Mira said, taking an exit into Savannah. “Are they still following?”

“Yes,” I said, glancing over my shoulder as I continued searching for the car that I knew held the naturi.

Beside me, I could feel a slight chill enter the air. It reached through my clothes and brushed against my skin. I jerked and looked back over at my companion. The unexpected touch of cool energy was coming from Mira. She was using her powers, but I couldn’t begin to guess at what she was doing. The energy was very slight and I might not have noticed it if I hadn’t been sitting so close to her.

“What are you doing?” I demanded.

“Saw this in a movie once,” she said, flashing me a somewhat strained grin.

“You know movies aren’t real life,” I reminded her.

“Yeah, well this movie didn’t also have a wily nightwalker as the lead, so this may just work,” she joked, then abruptly turned serious as she headed toward the riverfront area. “Open the glove compartment. You’ll find a garage door opener inside.”

Leaning forward, I popped open the glove compartment. Inside lay only a 9mm automatic and a small remote control for a garage door opener. I pulled out the remote, but didn’t close the glove compartment door. I wasn’t carrying a gun and I felt safer with the weapon just a matter of inches from my fingertips.

“When we turn the corner, hit the button,” Mira directed.

Mira headed into what appeared to be a somewhat dodgy part of town, full of old warehouses and worn houses. She suddenly took a left turn and I hit the button. I looked around, trying to discern what I had opened when I heard a low, metallic creak and grumble just down the street from us. A large metal doorway was rolling up to a warehouse. Mira quickly jerked the car into the opening, the roof of the car barely missing the bottom of the doorway as we squeaked through the opening.

“Don’t close the door!” she quickly ordered before I could push the button again. “If they’re close behind, they could see it going down.” Mira hit the brakes and turned off the car before we came to a complete stop, plunging the warehouse back into total darkness.

“Now what?” I asked.

“We wait,” she whispered. Mira sat back, letting her hands slip from the steering wheel and into her lap. “How close are they?”

I closed my eyes and stretched out with my power, letting it run through the entire city. I could feel nightwalkers leisurely strolling all over the place, or seated in close quarters with other warm bodies. I could sense a scattering of naturi all over the city, but the set of four moving fast enough to be in a car were a distance off; maybe a half mile away. “They’re not close. Actually…I think they’re moving away from us.”

“Did they ever get close enough to get a good look at my car?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Good,” Mira said with a soft sigh. “Then we’ll just wait a little while and make sure that they aren’t getting any closer.”

“How?” I asked. Releasing the seat belt, I turned in my seat so that I was partially facing the nightwalker. My eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness, picking up the small chunks of dirty light that was filtering in through the window on the second floor and through the roof skylight. I could pick out the outline of broken wooden pallets and the occasional crate. Mira remained a faint outline in the dark car.

“When we entered the city, I started cloaking you. I wanted to see if I could cloak you against the naturi. If they’re headed away from us, it would seem that the answer to my question is yes.”

“And if the answer is no?”

“Then we fight them in here, away from anyone else that might be hurt.”

I sat back in my seat again and stared off into the darkness. One thought kept repeating through my head. This choice didn’t fit her usual actions. When I arrived in Savannah in September, she had been in a car chase with the naturi. She had caused them to wreck and then continued the fight on the side of the road. This time we were hiding. Something had changed.