Chapter Ten

There was no snow falling when they made port in Ketchikan, but it was pouring rain. Ben stepped onto the dock and felt the space under his feet. The crisp night air, redolent with water and chilled from the northern wind, swirled around him, kissing his skin and filling him with a fresh burst of energy.

"Vecchio?" A middle-aged man in a heavy green parka nodded at him. "You the priest?"

The human had a beard and mustache, his brown hair threaded heavily with steel grey. His skin was weathered and tan; Ben guessed he'd spent his life on the water.

"The priest would be my friend." Ben turned to see Carwyn clambering off the boat.

Despite the vampire's age, he never seemed to have developed sea legs, so there was visible relief when the earth vampire set foot on the dock. "But he's not a priest anymore. Name's Carwyn."

The man said nothing but gave Ben a nod that told him he understood.

He didn't reach out to shake Ben's hand, which told him the human was accustomed to vampires. He waited until Carwyn had bid effusive goodbyes to the crew and exchanged phone numbers with Jack, the young man with the missing girlfriend.

By the time the big man made his way to meet them, the cold had crept down Ben's neck and wrapped icy fingers around his throat. He didn't mind winter in most places, but he was quickly learning that winter in Alaska was a whole new level of cold. It reminded him more of his training time in the northern mountains of Mongolia. But wetter.

"You Katya's man?" Carwyn asked, stomping his feet a little as he walked toward them.

"Bradley Buckland," the man said. "Just call me Buck. You Carwyn?"

"Yes, and you've met Ben." Carwyn looked up at the pouring rain, his red hair quickly getting soaked. "Can we get on real land and indoors?"

"Sure thing." Buck led them toward a walkway to dry ground. "We've got about six hours of night left. Where do you want to start?"

"We came up here to look for Katya's ships," Carwyn said. "I was told we were meeting one of Katya's lieutenants. That you?"

"That'd be my wife, Jennie. She's in charge, but she's tied up with some local stuff right now." He lowered his voice. "You heard about the raids?"

Carwyn nodded, and Ben kept his mouth shut.

"We've heard there were no survivors," Carwyn said. "She dealing with?—"

"The families. Most of the dead were Tlingit like her. Big extended family."

"We're deeply sorry about your community's loss," Carwyn said.

"Goddamn Russians," Buck muttered. "Katya's folk excepted, of course."

Ben asked, "People around here think Oleg was involved?"

"Who else?" Buck shrugged. "They were happy to be rid of him a hundred years ago, and now he's back. Jennie thinks he's taking revenge on some of the folk who went to Katya when she took over."

"What do you think?" Carwyn asked.

"Ah hell, I wasn't even alive then, what do I know?" Buck said. "Come on, what're your elements? Where you gonna be comfortable? We got rooms for all kinds."

Carwyn nodded at Ben. "He can fly, but I prefer a ground floor. We've got time tonight, so catch us up with whatever information you have on the captains, the crews, and the last-known locations of the boats that are missing. Also, how am I getting around? You have any seaplanes that can take our kind?"

"Seaplanes can go in the winter with a good captain and the right conditions, but not at night. This time of year, boats are about the only way to get around the area."

"Damn."

Buck smiled a little. "My Jennie don't mind, but she's a water vampire." He pointed to a squat building in the distance, the only one with glowing gold lights in the windows. "I have all the information you were asking about laid out in the office along with what we know so far about the latest raid."

Ben froze, and Carwyn nearly slammed into him. "Wait, there was another raid?"

Buck turned to them with a frown. "I thought Katya's people had already contacted the captain of the Lady. There was a raid we found last night—that's what Jennie's dealing with. We think it happened three or four nights ago."

Ben and Carwyn exchanged a heavy look.

"They didn't tell us," Ben said. "Let's get inside. We need to know more."

"Skala wasn't really a town. More of a village," Buck said, pointing to a map spread out on the table. "Tucked back into an inlet not far from Annette Island, which is Metlakatla land."

"Metlakatla is a Native reservation?" Carwyn asked.

Buck nodded.

"Tlingit?" Ben asked.

"No, Tsimshian," Buck said. "Neighbors, but not related to the Tlingit."

He asked, "And are the Native people here associated with the Athabaskan Confederation at all?"

"Why do you want to know?" Buck frowned.

"Just being… friendly." Ben looked at Carwyn. "No offense meant."

Buck's expression shouted suspicion, but Ben tried to put him at ease. "Seriously. No offense intended. I apologize. You're probably wary of outsiders right now, and I'm sure it seems like I'm prying."

Buck took a deep breath. "You're friends of Katya's, so I should probably get over it. All this is real disturbing. Things are quiet around here. These raids aren't like anything anyone living has seen before."

Carwyn got Buck back on track. "Tell us about the latest raid."

"Skala was run by an old wind vampire. He took a Tsimshian wife way back when, and he's been living there for a couple hundred years with her people."

"What happened?"

"Mike—Mikael, but he goes by Mike—ordered some supplies last week. Nothing special. Canned stuff mostly, but he didn't want to fly into town and haul back that much stuff for his people, so he asked for a delivery. Pretty routine, but when my guys showed up yesterday, the village was…" Buck pursed his lips. "They said they never seen anything like that."

"Any survivors?"

"We have to assume anyone there is dead, but there were no bodies that my guys saw. Some blood in the houses, but mostly just ruins. Buildings torn up. They said it looked like the foundations had been ripped up." Buck glanced at Carwyn. "Only thing I know that can create that kind of damage is an earth vampire."

Ben leaned on the table. "Do you have pictures?"

Buck shook his head. "It was nearing sunset by the time they got out there, and my guys were spooked. They rushed through the houses nearest the dock, looking to see if anyone needed help, but they knew it wasn't a human attack. They wanted to get out of there quick before dusk. They didn't even grab the supplies they'd already unloaded on the dock, just jumped back in the boat and took off."

Carwyn sat down in the chair next to the table. "How long to get out there by boat?"

"Three hours at least," Buck said.

"And by air?"

He nodded at Ben. "Faster. "

"I could make it," Ben said. "I could take a look around."

"Problem is," Buck said, "I don't know that you're gonna find the place in the dark on your own. Mike hid his people well."

"Which makes me wonder how he was found?" Carwyn spoke softly. "Zasha?"

Ben cocked his head. "We have to assume they were involved with all these attacks. The timing lines up." He looked at Buck. "Anyone else been causing problems around here? Anyone with a grudge against Mike?"

"That vampire has been living in that village for over a century. He doesn't bother anyone. He takes care of his wife's family. Last I heard, he was bitching about the tuition bills from UDub because one of the kids just got accepted and he was paying for it."

"Sounds like a family man," Carwyn said.

"I mean, he was a stoic old bastard, but he took care of his people. He must have been loyal because I don't think he even drinks human blood. I remember him making some remark once about how delicious moose blood could be."

"It's less gamey than you'd think," Carwyn said.

Buck and Ben both stared at him.

"What?" Carwyn shrugged. "Let's find out what happened to Mike. He seems like a good man."

Ben nodded. "So tomorrow at nightfall." He looked at Buck. "You take a boat out there with Carwyn and I'll follow. See if I can see anything from the air your men might have missed. You feel comfortable going out there with the two of us? We have no idea how many vampires Zasha might be working with, but it sounds like there was definitely a group, and there's no way of knowing if they're still hanging around."

Honestly, Ben was hoping they were still hanging around. He wanted to break some necks after hearing about Mike and his family home.

"We won't force you to go," Carwyn said. "If you give us coordinates, we should be able to find it on our own."

"Jennie would kick my ass if I sent you out there on your own, and honestly, coordinates won't help you find Skala." Buck shrugged. "I'll go. If the vampires who did all that are still out there? Well, we all have to die sometime."

The following night, Buck took them out in a fishing boat roughly a third of the size of the one they'd taken to Ketchikan. This time they weren't chugging over the open ocean but speeding along the narrow passages and inlets of the Pacific coast.

Ben stayed with Carwyn and Buck for the first half of the trip, then took to the air to survey the dark coast, keeping the lights of Buck's boat in sight so he didn't get lost.

The expanse was nearly oppressive. There were few lights along the coast, and the dense forest reached right to the edge of the water.

The darkness wasn't dark for Ben, and the waning moon was over half full; its light cast shadows in the clouds and along the surface of the water as he flew.

He dipped low, spotting the occasional surfacing of marine life and the churn of large schools of fish as they coasted through the current below.

Occasionally, the bellow of what he thought might be moose sounded in the darkness, and he found himself reaching for any sign of life in the vast expanse of wilderness.

South from Ketchikan and then east and north into an interior dense with evergreen forest, void of human habitation and the bustle of civilization. Ben felt as if he was seeing the world as it rose from the ocean thousands of years before, damp, muddy, and ripe with life.

There was nothing but darkness before him, but he followed the tiny light from Buck's fishing boat north into a fist-shaped inlet with a lone island in the center of the water.

The wind was steady, but the water didn't churn as it did on the open sea. The forest and the slopes protected this inlet from the worst of the weather, but the sea was still choppy and a silver wake spread from behind the boat like a bird's tail.

Ben saw the boat approaching the end of the inlet and slowed. He flew closer and noticed the long dock that cut across the choppy water and led to a scattered group of buildings that spread in a fan around a large stone house.

He landed on the dock and immediately spotted the supplies Buck's men must have been sent to deliver. They sat on pallets at the end of the dock, and a forgotten dolly was tipped to the side. Beans, canned fish, and bags of rice made up the bulk of the delivery. Staples that would last through a cold, wet winter.

Buck nodded at the food supplies. "Guess I might need some help getting those back on the boat."

Carwyn's face was grim as he started walking toward the shore. "Let's look first." He motioned to Ben. "Want to fly over and scan the area? See if anyone escaped into the woods maybe?"

Ben nodded. "Good thinking."

He took to the air and flew over the village and the surrounding forest, but if there was a living human, he found no trace of them. He did see a small cove on the other side of a jut of land that looked like it might have held smaller boats, but there was nothing but a shed with a broken door visible from the air.

The big house was made of stone with a slate-tile roof and wooden beams that wrapped around it to create a massive porch on the second floor. It would have been protected from the sun and the rain, and Ben could see various signs of life on the wraparound porch. A barbecue, a child's play set. Porch swings and a few rusty space heaters stowed in a corner near the stairs.

This house had been alive, and it hadn't been empty for long.

But while it might have once been a bulwark of strength along this small stretch of coastline, it was leaning to the side, the ground around it ripped up like a child destroying a sandcastle at the beach.

The roof was partially caved in on one side, and sun umbrellas were tossed along the shoreline, their bright colors slowly being dragged into the sea.

Ben landed after his short circuit around the settlement to find Carwyn and Buck standing in front of the house, both men staring at the massive dwelling with their arms crossed over their chest.

Carwyn looked at him. "Anything?"

Ben shook his head and pointed to the right. "There's a little cove over past those trees with a beach, a shed. Maybe a landing spot for kayaks or something."

Buck nodded. "Yeah, not usable this time of year, but in the summer they'd take kayaks out in that spot."

"No kayaks that I could see," Ben said. "It's possible that some of them escaped, but…"

Carwyn shook his head. "Do you see this water damage?" He pointed to driftwood pushed up against the base of the house. "It almost looks like a tsunami. Or a hurricane." He kicked at a dead fish on the rocky ground. "Water vampire pushed water from the inlet up onto the shore. That's probably what started the attack."

"Did you check the houses?" Ben asked.

Carwyn nodded. "Nothing alive. I found…" His voice caught. "There was one body and a leg. A woman's leg, I think. Lots of blood in that house, but no bodies."

"No whole bodies anyway." Buck's face was a blank page. "I've never seen…" He shook his head. "I ain't ever seen anything like that."

"I have." Carwyn's voice was soft. "The bodies weren't taken then, but this looks like a raid. Not unlike the Viking raids in Wales. The looting, the destruction for destruction's sake. The… thoroughness." His jaw was tight. "That's what it reminds me of."

Ben asked, "How many people lived here?"

Buck glanced over his shoulder. "Mike ordered a pallet of supplies like that every couple of months. They hunted. Fished. This place was pretty off-the-grid. They were self-sufficient most of the year. Maybe a dozen people? Twenty at most."

"And a vampire," Carwyn said. "But one vampire and a dozen humans aren't going to be able to fight off at least four vampires when they have the element of surprise."

"Four?" Ben saw damage that had to be from an earth vampire, and the water vampire had wreaked havoc. Damage to the trees and the roof definitely looked like wind damage, but?—

"Look." Carwyn pointed at the house.

The door had once been wood, probably as beautifully carved as the shutters and the trim, but now it was black, and the charred body of a human was curled into the fetal position, right at the threshold of the blackened door.

"Fire." Ben breathed out.

"Four vampires," Carwyn said. "At least four. Maybe more." He looked down and kicked at a rock, shoving it across the rocky beach. "Humans didn't do this. This was all vampire."