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. I understand, I whispered, and pressed a kiss to her temple. When it s over, come toSavannah and we ll go hunting. Pausing beside the table, I looked down at Nicolai, still lounging in his chair, his glass ofwine in his hand.We would meet again.Jabari might order the lycanthrope to kill mebefore I left Venice, and Nicolai would do it.Not because he bore any hatred for me andmy kind, but because Jabari was holding something over him. It s been a pleasure, I said with a little smirk.Nicolai smiled in return and raised hisglass to me.We both knew that we would meet again.It was a shame that it would be onopposite ends of the battlefield. Good luck, Mira, Alex whispered, grabbing my cool hand in both of her warm handsand squeezing it tightly.I chuckled as I walked away, my hand slowly slipping from her grasp. I don t need luck, I called, turning and walking backward so I could look at her as I departed. I m the FireStarter. I just wished I had a plan.TEND anaus and I wandered down the dark streets in silence, slowly heading back to thespeedboat.The sound of water lapping at the stone sides of the canal followed usthroughout the winding city.The night was still in its infancy and I wasn t particularlyeager to go back to the hotel suite where Sadira and Tristan were most likely cuddled.Ipaused on the sidewalk next to our boat and stared across the canal at the lights of theDoge s Palace and Piazza San Marco.The air was cluttered with the various thoughts andemotions of the people out enjoying the warm summer night. When was the last time you were in Venice? I asked, looking over my shoulder atDanaus.He was also watching the lights reflect off the undulating waves. I ve never been to Venice, he said.It was on the tip of my tongue to demand how thatwas even possible.He was Italian, or at least Roman, and more than a thousand years old.How could he have not visited the canals? But I knew I wasn t going to get an answer.Hewas still stingy about personal information regardless of the fact that he had popped intomy thoughts on more than one occasion. Come on, I said, jumping onto the boat we had borrowed from Roberto. I want toshow you something. With a somewhat skeptical look, he climbed onto the boat and satdown while I started the engine.I rushed back out into the Lagoon, away from the brightlights and crowded canals.We cruised away from the tourist hot spots and the quaintneighborhoods, as I took him across the Lagoon and between the islands of Burano andMurano to the tiny island of Torcello.I slowed the boat as I carefully maneuvered us past the swamps that surrounded theisland.Navigating the laguna morta would have been treacherous at best during the middleof the day, let alone during the black of night when the moon had waned to a slender sliverCreate PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com) in the sky.But I knew these waters and marshes.Torcello was my hidden sanctuary withinthe dark heart of the nightwalker world.We glided down the main canal and pulled up near one of the few bridges that spanned thewaterway.Danaus rose and tied the boat to an empty pole while I killed the engine.Theonly sound disrupting the silence was the break of the waves brushing against the side ofthe boat as we settled at the landing.In all of Venice, the island of San Michele wouldhave been the only place more peaceful, but despite some of the popular myths aboutvampires, I didn t get any particular kicks wandering around a crumbling, mold-infestedgraveyard at night.The living were generally more interesting than the dead. Where are we? he asked as we left the boat and wandered down the disintegratingfondamenta along the canal, toward the only cluster of buildings rising up in the darkness. The birthplace of Venice, I said.My voice hovered at a whisper, as if anything loudwould break the spell.Lights began to appear as we reached the edge of the campo thatwas now more dirt and gravel than the original stonework.Grass crowded close to theroad and weeds pushed their way between the cracks in the remaining paving.The mainsquare was overgrown, with only a few bits of broken column and statues left to adorn thearea like tombstone markers for the city that once was. The island is nearly deserted, but they say that this is where the Venetians first settled ineither the fourth or fifth century, I said, running my hand over one of the stone columns.All its original marks were worn away, leaving what appeared to be a pale white, bonelikepillar rising up without the rest of the skeleton. I ve always liked it here.I love theisland s sense of history and its peace. It s nice, he whispered.Danaus wandered over and stood before an odd chunk of whitestone that resembled a chair.The locals referred to it as the throne of Attila the Hun, butno one actually believed he had ever sat on that hunk of rock.A light breeze stirred theleaves in some nearby trees, sending up their soft song into the night
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