“No, this is just temporary,” he said, his smile fading into a frown. “I’m nearly out of the energy you and that wonderful nightwalker have sent my way. I need more, a lot more, if I’m going to permanently break free of my bonds and reenter this world.”

“Why would I ever send you more energy?” I demanded.

“Because you can’t help yourself,” he replied with a wide grin. “You’ve done it on numerous occasions already and I have no doubt that you’ll do it again.”

“What are you talking about?” I said, shaking my head at his nonsense. I had never sent him any kind of energy. I would never willingly do such a thing.

“Come now, my boy,” Gaizka chuckled. “You’ve been so helpful ever since you fashioned an alliance with the Fire Starter. I’ll admit that creature has got me more than a little stumped as to her origin, but in the end it doesn’t matter. You and she are the perfect match. I had always wondered how you would be able to finally help me, but you’ve found a way!”

“I’ve never helped you!” I shouted, resisting the urge to push to my feet. The bori seemed content to keep me on the floor at his feet.

“But you have,” he whispered. Leaning down, he grabbed a fistful of my hair and jerked my head back so that I was forced to look him in the eye. I could now smell the horrid scent of rotting flesh that hung on him like a cologne. The bori inside of the human was slowly killing him, and he wouldn’t be able to inhabit his current body for much longer.

“Whenever you combine your power with the nightwalker and kill naturi, you’re sending their souls directly to me,” he whispered in my ear before releasing my hair. “You’re feeding me with the sweetest power that you could possibly find. I’m feasting off my enemy and they are extending my own powers.”

I sat dumbfounded, staring straight ahead as he returned to his seat on the sofa, chuckling. In London, Mira and I had combined our powers for the first time and annihilated the horde of naturi that had come to destroy us. We thought we had destroyed their souls, but we had been wrong. Because of my link to this bori, we had sent the energy directly to Gaizka to feed off of. He had found a way to escape from his prison using the energy we had been sending him.

And then everything seemed to finally fit into place. “You killed Abigail Bradford,” I murmured. I blinked a couple times, my gaze finally focusing on the bori that sat across from me. “You killed her, attempting to frame the naturi. You have been torturing Mira with images of Nerian. You’ve been pushing us to go after the naturi and wipe them out so that we’ll send the energy to you.”

“You’ve always been such a bright boy,” Gaizka proudly crowed. “I knew you’d figure it out eventually, but I had to take a chance on the idea that you’d follow the breadcrumbs back to the naturi. Unfortunately, with the addition of that little girl, you’ve been led astray from the path that I’ve laid out for you. And I’m about out of time.”

“I won’t help you,” I snapped, but he waved me off, ignoring my statement.

“I thank you for all your help, but you’re not done just quite yet,” Gaizka taunted. “You see, I’m running a bit low and I would really like to remain here. It’s a nice place to stay and with the rest of my brethren still locked away, Earth is distinctly less crowded.”

Horror filled my frame, tightening my muscles. A bori running loose in the world, able to feed off the billions of souls that filled the landscape with no other bori to compete with would quickly become a god. One would have no way of stopping it. “I won’t help you,” I repeated.

“I don’t believe you’re going to have a choice in this matter,” Gaizka said, leaning forward on the sofa so that he could rest his forearms on his knees. “I will give you one last night to make some arrangements with the nightwalker. That will give you enough time to locate and destroy some naturi for me. If you fail to do that, tomorrow night I will stand on River Street and kill every human I see. But first, I will hunt down and slowly kill that little girl that you have so sweetly promised to protect.”

“You can’t!” I shouted, coming off the floor. This time, he didn’t push me back down, but rose so that he was looking up at me from bloodshot eyes.

“I can and I will,” he threatened, clenching his teeth. “Abigail Bradford was just a taste of what I am capable of. If I have to return to my cage, then I will destroy half of this city before I go. The nightwalkers will be exposed to the world. There will be no more hiding. They will become hunted by every creature on the face of the Earth. With that much bloodshed, you and the nightwalker will have no choice but to use your unique ability in order to survive. And then I will return regardless of your wishes. Do it my way, and the only ones hurt are the naturi.”

“We won’t do it,” I said stubbornly. Mira and I wouldn’t willingly help this creature that was potentially an even greater threat than the naturi could dream of being.

“You forget, you will have no choice but to help me. Your only choice lies in whether you will do it the hard way or the easy way. Think about it, Danaus, and then abide by my wishes. Kill the naturi. It will be easier for everyone.”

Gaizka then exited the body of the bald man. He hovered in the air as a column of thick white mist before finally dissipating. The man blinked again and swayed on his feet as he shook his head to clear it from the fog that enveloped his thoughts.

“Where am I?” he said in a low, scratchy voice that was the polar opposite from the smooth, easy tones Gaizka had spoken in.

“You’re in hell,” I muttered, letting my eyes fall shut. We were all in the lower regions of hell.

I hesitated outside of the town house, my hand on the doorknob, wondering how I was going to tell Mira that we were not only faced with a bori, but that it also planned to destroy her home and expose her. And in truth, I wasn’t sure how we could actually succeed in destroying this enemy. I couldn’t use my powers against it and I doubted Mira’s fire would make much of an impact on a creature that seemed to be pure spirit. Sure, we could destroy the body that it inhabited, but what would stop it from grabbing another human?

Before he passed out at Mira’s house, the man who had been briefly possessed spoke of encountering an angel with enormous white shining wings. Somehow the bori had convinced him that an angel needed access to his soul, which probably gave Gaizka access to the man’s body for possession. I delivered the bald man to the nearest hospital prior to driving to the town house. From his gray pallor and trembling, I didn’t think his odds of surviving the night were that good.

With a sigh, I opened the door and stepped into the house. Lily’s laughter hit me first as it drifted down the hall from the living room. I followed the sound to find the teenager looking over Mira’s shoulder as the nightwalker sat on the sofa holding something between both of her hands.

Lily turned at the sound of my footsteps, flashing me a broad smile. “Danaus!” she cried as she hooked a stray length of brown hair behind her left ear. “Look at what Mira bought me!”

Taking a step closer, I peered over Mira’s shoulder to find her holding a small electronic device with a flashing movie screen. “What is it?” I asked.

“It’s a PSP,” Lily said in a voice that clearly indicated that I should have recognized such a thing. “It’s a handheld gaming system,” she continued when I just looked blankly at her.

“Danaus prefers to live in the Dark Ages,” Mira coldly said, as she turned off the device and handed it back to Lily.

“I have a cell phone,” I countered.

“Yeah, but do you know how to use it?” Mira glanced over her shoulder at me, one corner of her mouth turning higher in a smirk. She had me there and we both knew it. James had had to program all the necessary phone numbers into the phone and teach me how to use its most basic functions. Technology and I didn’t always get along.