“Unless you can tell us how to send him back,” Mira quickly countered.

“What makes you think I know how to send a bori back to its cage?” LaVina snapped, putting the container of creamer on the counter with a little more force than was necessary. She filled her mug before putting the carafe back on the coffeemaker stand. “I’ve had no dealings with their kind.”

“But I have no doubt that you know how to summon one,” Mira said. LaVina turned around so that she could glare at the nightwalker, but Mira didn’t flinch. I was beginning to wonder if this house was suddenly going to fall in on our heads. Mira didn’t need to be pressing the buttons of yet another powerful creature. For an undead, the nightwalker had a death wish.

“You’re a powerful witch,” Mira said, leaning forward on the counter again. “Powerful enough to sense the different energies that come from different soil samples and how to mix them so that they work in harmony with your own skills. You may have never summoned up a bori, but I’m sure you know how the spell works. Someone of your ability would want to have the knowledge in her back pocket for emergencies.”

“You’re pressing your luck, vampire,” LaVina warned, staring down at her coffee as creamer and sugar turned it pale brown.

“Maybe, but you know how,” Mira said, a grin finally growing across her face. Some of the tension eased from my own frame as some of her own confidence returned. “We don’t need you to summon one. We need you to tell us how you send one away again. The other half of that summoning spell has to be rattling around in your brain somewhere. We just need that bit.”

“It’s not as simple as you want it to be,” LaVina admitted with a shake of her head.

“It doesn’t matter whether it’s simple or not. Just as long as you know how it’s done. You’re going to be the one that performs the spell tomorrow night,” Mira said, to which LaVina let out a wonderful laugh, nearly sloshing her coffee out of her mug.

“You’re not going to get me anywhere near that bori,” she said, chuckling.

“Listen, witch—” Mira started, but I grabbed her elbow suddenly when something appeared on the periphery of my thoughts, something strong enough to cause the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end.

“Are you cloaking me?” I demanded, but I had a feeling I already knew the answer to that question.

“What?” Mira asked, looking up at me with furrowed brow.

“Are you cloaking me? Blocking me from the sight of the naturi?” I repeated.

“No,” she whispered. A tremble went through her frame, reaching my fingers through her arm. “I forgot. Shit. How many are there?”

“Eight, and they’re getting close. Do you have a weapon?”

“A knife at my side, but my gun is in the car,” she said, her expression growing grimmer. I could understand why, since her last few outings with the naturi hadn’t gone well. The mixture of no sleep and Gaizka messing with her mind had left the nightwalker struggling with every battle, no longer sure of what was real and what was just a horrible nightmare. She had been unable to clearly see the world around her, leaving her vulnerable to the naturi.

“We can handle this. We’re in your domain and you’re back to your full strength,” I said, rubbing my thumb across her arm.

Mira gave a soft laugh as she stepped away from me, pulling her arm free of my grip. “Yeah, we’ve been in worse positions before, right? Just a walk in the park.”

Only now our most effective weapon against the naturi had been stolen away. We could no longer combine our powers or we would be feeding Gaizka directly, putting it one step closer to freedom.

“LaVina, we’ll take care of them. You might want to go hide in your basement for the time being,” I advised.

“You think that’s going to keep me safe?” she demanded, slamming her coffee mug on the counter.

Mira rolled her eyes as she turned her back on LaVina and started to walk out of the kitchen. “Just find a place out of the way. We’ll take care of it,” the nightwalker grumbled, the heels of her boots pounding on the floor and nearly drowning out her words.

Wordlessly, I followed Mira through the house to the front door. Anything I said was sure to anger one of the women and I wasn’t about to step into the trap. Why should I get my face ripped off, when I still had to take on the naturi?

“Where are they?” Mira asked as she wrapped her long slender fingers around the front doorknob.

Standing directly behind her, I let my eyes drift shut as I finally sent my powers out of my body and searching through the area. I had become so attuned to searching for the naturi, it had become second nature for me and I was now doing it unconsciously. I could feel Mira’s own powers spike in response to the touch of mine as if her body was reflexively protecting itself from me.

It took less than a second for my powers to pick out the bodies of eight naturi crossing the long front yard that led up to LaVina’s two-story farmhouse. I couldn’t tell which clan they were from or any other details beyond the fact that they were naturi. Their powers were like a glaring, cacophonous noise in contrast to the seemingly hypnotic melody that rose from Mira.

“Directly in front of us and slowly approaching,” I replied, opening my eyes again. “They’re spread out, so they’re most likely on foot.”

“I’m sorry about this,” Mira murmured as her fist tightened around the knob. “I should have been—”

“Let it go. It’s better we face them now rather than tomorrow with Gaizka,” I said, cutting her off.

“Then let’s clean up my domain,” Mira said before jerking open the front door.

We stepped out onto the front porch and quickly spotted eight dark figures approaching from across the lawn. They were all tall and slim, wearing dark clothes that allowed them to blend in with the night. At the sight of them, my heart rate sped up and the muscles in my chest constricted. Adrenaline filled my veins at the promise of battle, while my thoughts slowed down to a precise point of focus. There was only my opponent and me. More than a thousand years of battle had filled my existence, and they all distilled down to that single moment of clarity before the first splash of blood. Until Mira had stepped into my life, even the fear had been drained from the fight. The nightwalker had been the first to remind me that there were worse things than death waiting for me.

“What clan do you think they’re from?” I asked as I descended the stairs.

The nightwalker motioned with her head toward the sky, where dark clouds had begun to churn. “At least one is from the wind clan,” she said as she pulled out a knife.

I frowned. The wind clan possessed the ability to control the weather, which meant they could also bring down strike after strike of lightning. From Mira’s wariness of this particular clan, I was willing to bet that she didn’t think she could survive a direct hit of lightning. I wasn’t even sure I could. We would need to locate and take out the wind clan members as soon as possible.

“Do you want my gun?” I offered the weapon from a holster at my lower back. “I can make a run for the other gun in the glove compartment.”

“Keep it,” Mira said, shaking her head. “You’re a better aim than me. I’ve got a couple of tricks.” Taking the lead, the nightwalker stepped into the middle of the large yard under the limbs of a massive oak tree with her hands planted on her narrow hips. I hung back, ready to fire off a round of shots if they so much as flinched in our direction.

“You weren’t invited into my domain,” Mira called to the naturi.

“You aren’t welcome in our world,” one female naturi replied smugly, leaving my fingers itching to pull the trigger and bury a bullet in the middle of her forehead.

“Leave now, or we’ll be forced to slaughter you all,” Mira shouted. At the same time, she held her left hand out to her side and summoned up a fireball. While I was standing several feet away, I could feel the cool touch of her powers brushing against my face.