Pray For Dawn Deleted Scene Scraps
I failed to stop the sigh that tripped past my slightly parted lips when I finally entered the main house of the Themis Compound. It was a large mansion two hours north of London, hidden deep within a copse of trees. The organization had spent the past several centuries quietly watching and documenting the activities of creatures like lycanthropes, vampires, and even a select group of warlocks and witches. Mira lovingly referred to them as a convention of librarians. I was beginning to see her point. Themis was almost entirely comprised of older men and women that spent their days squinting at old artifacts and digging through ancient tomes and journals. There was a handful that did some field work, but even that was sparing and completed from a distance. And then there were a few like me that worked to keep the peace. We were the enforcers, the mercenaries, the hired thugs that went in and destroyed anything that threatened to pull back the veil the separated the human world from all that was considered other. I had been with Themis for more than two centuries, far longer than anyone else. My position among the group never changed. I was sent in when it was too dangerous for anyone else to go. I had been their top vampire hunter and now … now they didn’t know what to do with me. The soft tinkle of delicate china being used skipped from the back of the house as a number of researchers finished up their breakfast. My flight out of Cincinnati had been delayed and then it took me longer than I had expected to drive from London to the Compound. I had briefly thought about staying at the townhouse in London and driving back later, but I couldn’t put off the trip. I knew that Tristan would have already called and I needed to speak with Ryan. It was now past 8:30 and the house was coming alive with activity. A few brief hours of sleep on the flight sustained me through the boring, two-hour drive, but I was still exhausted. I paused in the main hallway with my large black duffle of weapons and clothes hanging from my right shoulder. Breathing deeply, I drew in the familiar scent of dusty books and coffee. I didn’t fit in with these people. I was an outsider, as much an oddity as the other creatures they studied, but I liked it here. It was quiet and they moved slowly, taking the time to carefully think through each decision. At times, it reminded me of the monasteries I lived in centuries ago. But I was never here long. Maybe a month or two at the longest, and then I was gone again on another mission. Sometimes it was just research, a little surveillance. No matter how much I told myself I preferred the quiet, I had to keep moving, running from the restlessness that gnawed at my bones and the darkness I could not wash from my soul. “Mr. Danaus!” cried a soft female voice, jerking my gaze to the back of the narrow hall that stretched along the right side of the main staircase. A young woman with pale blond hair pulled back into a neat little bun stood, tightly clutching a white mug in both of her hands. Melanie Richards had been with Themis for only a few years and was fresh from graduate school. She seemed to avoid me whenever possible, though I have yet to figure out why. “Did you just arrive?” “Yes,” I said, my voice sounding thin and weary. “I’ll go fetch James. He’s been anxious,” she quickly said, backpedaling toward the main dining hall at the back of the house. I nodded and walked into one of the small parlors just off the hall. Themis rarely received guests, leaving the parlors rarely used by its occupants. “I was beginning to wonder what happened to you,” James announced when he entered the room, his hands shoved into his trouser pockets. “Welcome back.” “My flight was delayed,” I muttered, running my left hand through my hair to push it out of my eyes. It was now well past my shoulders and was a mess from my fight with the gargoyle the other night. I desperately needed a shower and a few hours of sleep, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to relax until after I had been debriefed. At the top of the stairs, I turned left and headed to my private chambers in the west wing. There wasn’t much up on the third floor; just my rooms, Ryan’s, and his private library and office. While we may not always agree, we both closely guarded our privacy. My apartment within the mansion held a small sitting room with a pale green sofa and matching chair around a dark coffee table. There were a handful of landscapes on the walls, but there were no personal mementos; no little knickknacks that stretched over the long centuries. I felt no need to collect random bits of my past; the memories still danced with amazing clarity through my mind. I barely spared the sitting room a glance as I walked straight through to the bedroom. This room was similar to the other, holding only a bed and a bureau for my clothes. On the wall opposite my bed hung several of my swords. They were the only items I had collected over the years, but they served a dual purpose. I dropped my duffle bag at the foot of the bed. I would decide whether to unpack after I had spoken with Ryan. No reason to unpack my collection of weapons if I was going to head back out on another mission. For now I would just content myself with a hot shower and, if I was lucky, a few hours of sleep before I had to deal with Ryan or provide Tristan with answers that I didn’t yet have. The interruption didn’t matter. I caught up on some much needed sleep and performed some maintenance on some of my more frequently used weapons. My Saracen blade with the Gaelic runes carved into the steel needed sharpening. I had acquired the blade not long after I left the Roman legionnaires, but the runes had been added only a few centuries ago. I had saved a witch from a lycan in the grips of a full-moon blood lust. Grateful, she inscribed some protection wards on the sword. So far, they held. The large windows in the main hall had been covered, creating an artificial night for Mira as she wandered free around the mansion. A vampire was walking unhindered in the Compound. I never thought I’d see the day. Warlocks, witches, and even some lycanthropes visited these quiet halls, but in them still resided some tie to humanity. Vampires threw off those last shackles of humanity when they died and were reborn into this new creature. Humanity was only a shell they still existed in, a part they played. In that way, vampires were more like the Fey they hated and just as dangerous. Both vampires and elves resembled humans, but neither worked within the basic rules of humanity. A vampire’s only saving grace was its dependency on mankind for sustenance. A member of the Fey, on the other hand, had no need of mankind and took great pleasure in hunting humans down. A vampire was a parasite that had to protect the life of its host. The Fey were just heartless murders bent on genocide. The two-hour drive into London from the Compound proved to be one of those rare moments when Mira was silent. I think we had said more than enough in our brief meeting with Ryan and the leaden silence allowed us to stew a while longer. Fearing that we wouldn’t be able to control our tempers, Ryan was kind enough to send James along as a baby-sitter; not that the young man actually had the ability to stop either of us if Mira or I got into our heads to kill each other. James was just a poor human with no extraordinary skills other than his unique ability to remain optimistic about the other races despite the horrors he had witnessed. Give him a few centuries and that would change. For now, the young researcher with gold-rimmed glasses chatted away as he drove, occasionally dragging a word or two out of me about my most recent trips. We hadn’t had much time to catch up on my assignments. In fact, as soon as I would phone in with news of my completed mission, he would have another lined up and a charter waiting for me. Not surprisingly, most of my encounters have been with the Fey. In Cincinnati, it had been a gargoyle. “How long has Tristan been with you?” I asked. I tried to pick a topic that was relatively neutral; not that I was entirely certain one existed. “He showed up not long after Machu Picchu,” she softly said. There was an emotionless quality to her voice. Mira stared out the plane window on her left, watching the tiny white lights blink past as we rose into the air. I could understand. That night she not only had to face a nightmare, but the one creature that she had trusted also tried to kill her because of me. “Didn’t you know?” she asked, dragging her eyes back to me. “No,” I said, with a shake of my head. “By the time I returned to Themis, he was already gone. He didn’t tell James where he was going. I didn’t know he would seek you out.” When leaving Peru that summer, I didn’t take the most direct route back to the Compound. I lingered for a brief time in Europe, wandering the back roads in a somewhat aimless fashion as I tried to figure out what had happened and what it mean to my mission. I never found any answers. Mira frowned, lowered her eyes for a moment to my chest. Before leaving Themis, she had changed into a pair of tight-fitting black pants and dark blue silk shirt that buttoned up the front. “I had thought to set him free when he appeared, but he’s not ready to be on his own,” she said, her wide lavender eyes lifting back to my face. “If he were to leave my city, another may try to take advantage of his … soft nature.” “Sleep, Danaus,” she chuckled when I sighed to myself. “You have a very long night ahead of you.” With her book spread on her lap and her feet propped up in an empty chair across from her, Mira read for the rest of the flight. I dozed in and out, haunted by the thought that I was once again relying on a vampire to watch my back. “And Joseph? Is he another one of your family?” The nightwalker’s frown deepened and her eyes darted back toward the window. Mira had not wanted a family. She loved her independence. “He will be when he returns to Cincinnati,” she grumbled. “It was an agreement we made. He would help and protect this Themis hunter. If he succeeded, I would bring him into the family.” “If he failed?” Mira’s eyes narrowed on my face and she flashed me an evil grin full of pearly white fangs. “Then I would hunt him,” she said, her voice dropping to a near purr. Then she blinked and the look was gone as if it had never existed and her face was carefully blank. “But none of that matters now. Gabriel called me before we left the Compound. The vampire is dead. He and Joseph are heading back to the States tonight.” “Gabriel was there?” I demanded. Mira tossed her head back and laughed. The joyous sound bounced off the cabin walls before coming to curl up on my lap. I had forgotten the sound and feel of her laughter. It was a physical thing, sometimes feeling more substantial than some of the people I had known. “Do you honestly think I was going to leave Joseph’s daytime protection to a Themis hunter?” she asked, laughter still skipping among her words. “But you expected us to leave Collins’ protection to a vampire,” I accused. My hands tightened on the arms rests at my sides, the plastic creaking slightly. “Naturally.” Mira gave a little shrug, slouching a bit in her chair. She crossed her right leg over her left, swinging her leather-booted foot in the air. “You do see the difference, don’t you? Your kind hunts us. It’s not in your nature to protect a nightwalker. On the other hand, nightwalkers don’t hunt your kind unless you attack us first. For us, it’s self-defense.” “And it’s not for us?” “No. You’re just picking a fight.” I turned my head to look out the window, resisting the urge to push out of my seat and move farther away from her. There was no arguing with her on this topic. We would always be on opposite ends of the spectrum. She walked over to the opposite aisle of seats and dug through her bag, which sat across from mine. She pulled out a large, leather-bound volume and returned to her seat. “Ryan said you trusted me,” I said, unwilling to let the conversation die just yet. “He said you trusted my sense of honor.” Mira’s eyes never lifted from the book, but her brows met over the bridge of her slender nose for a moment in thought. “He may be right,” she whispered. Cocking her head slightly to the side, she gazed thoughtfully up at me. “We’re from another age, you and I. The word ‘honor’ still means something to us. You may try to kill me one day, but I know you won’t do it while I sleep. You and Gabriel are the only creatures on this earth I can say that about.” “Not even Tristan?” “No,” she said so softly, the word was more air than sound. “But I hope to teach him the meaning of the word ‘honor’ one day.” A smile drifted back up to her lips and her eyes danced with a strange bit of laughter. “Trust a hunter. It’s a scary thought, isn’t it?” Mira sounded amused, surprised, dumbfounded, and maybe even a little confused by the concept, but there was no fear in her statement. In truth I didn’t want the think about it anymore, because I knew that deep down, I trusted her on a similar level. Mira had a rigid sense of honor that had guided her existence for centuries. And while she may look forward to the day of finally ripping my throat and feasting on my blood, she would never do it while I slept. I also knew that if she swore to protect me, she would do it while there was an ounce of blood in her veins.
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Pray For Dawn |
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Wait for Dusk |
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