Chapter Sixteen

Ben explored the area around Zasha's rental house while he waited for Carwyn and Buck to reach the shore. He'd already circled the island where the luxurious cabin was tucked between the forest and the sea. It was a sportsman's paradise with dense wooded property stretching back from an inlet bordered by a curved pebble beach.

There was a boathouse built over the water, and the two-story cantilevered chalet had massive windows overlooking the cove where a wooden dock stretched out from the shore.

A meadow filled the area behind the house. It would be lush with wildflowers when the sun peeked through the heavily clouded sky, but when Ben flew over it, it was nothing but a dense green patch bordered by mud.

He floated through the forest behind the house, following muddy paths that wound through the trees. Pine, cedar, and a few hardwoods created a dense patchwork, dripping with moisture from the air. They were in the cool, temperate rainforest of the Pacific Northwest, and moss covered every surface, ferns filled the underbrush, and bugs the size of his palm flew next to him.

There were scents in the forest, but none of them spoke of humans or vampires. Deer, bear, and fox. The low hoot of owls calling as he passed silently through their realm.

It was completely dark; the moon and stars were covered by a dense cloud, and no light shone from the empty house save for a small security light at the end of the dock.

He heard the putter of the boat engine in the distance and flew to greet Carwyn and Buck, waiting on the rocky beach while they walked down the dock toward him.

The earth vampire had spoken to his mate, and Ben could see the slight ease in the set of Carwyn's shoulders.

Ben lifted a hand in greeting. "How was the water?"

"Wet," Carwyn muttered. He heaved a visible sigh of relief when his feet touched land, then froze. "Ben, what did you see from the air?"

He frowned. "Nothing. House looks good. No damage that I could see. Paths through the forest. Lots of mud and trees. Why?"

Carwyn's knees hit the soil, and he dug his hands into the mud.

The hairs on Ben's arms rose as the old vampire's amnis stretched out, touching everything connected to the earth.

Ben's instincts went on alert, and his feet lifted from the ground.

"Not you," Carwyn muttered. "It's not you. But he's somewhere." Carwyn stood up, kicked off his shoes, and sank his feet into the earth. "There's a vampire here. Deep underground."

Buck frowned. "I don't know anyone who lives out here. None of Jennie or Katya's people?—"

"He's none of Katya's. He's much older than Katya." Carwyn started walking barefoot across the rocks, then straight into the trees and back into the forest, moving at a pace that didn't match his size.

From Ben's perspective, the vampire appeared to float through the trees, moving with so much speed that he appeared to be flying. He moved over the ground like a boat skimming over water.

Ben flew after him, leaving Buck alone on the rocky shore, Ben dodged through the canopy as Carwyn ran through the forest. He was as silent as an owl in flight, his body slipping through the dense underbrush, and the only way Ben could keep him in sight was watching for the bright red shock of hair appearing like a spark in the forest.

Carwyn had stripped down to his shirtsleeves, and mud streaked over his arms and legs. He stopped every now and then to crouch down, altering his angle before he moved again.

Ben had no idea how long they'd run before they came to a mound that rose in the center of the trees, ferns blanketing the steep rise of earth. A hint of old logs poked out from the edges of the moss and the dirt.

He landed next to Carwyn. "What is it?"

"He was hurt. Surprised by them. This place is old, and he came here to heal."

"There's a vampire in there?" Ben reached for one of the blades worked into his jacket.

"You won't need that." Carwyn spread his arms, and Ben gawked as the earth hollowed out beneath him, the mud and the rocks peeling back as Carwyn stepped down into their depths. "Stay here. He may not trust you."

The earth was silent after it swallowed Carwyn, the ferns dripping water onto the churned soil and the moss gently creeping over the scarred ground as Ben watched the ground begin to heal itself.

Like most of the vampire world, Ben sometimes forgot how formidable earth vampires could be. They were the humble folk of the immortal world, living in isolated places and gathering communities around them, more enmeshed in the human world than most vampires and their retinues.

But as Ben watched the ground open up for the old vampire, he remembered how powerful the earth could be.

Minutes passed; silence reigned.

Finally the ground began to move again, the moss and ferns pulling back like a blanket tugged from a bed. The soil beneath Ben's feet heaved up, and as he backed away, he saw Carwyn emerge from the earth with a blackened figure in his arms.

"I don't speak his language." Carwyn's voice was a low growl. "Buck's wife is Tlingit. Does he speak the language?"

"I don't know. What happened to him?"

Ben could sense the vampire was alive but just barely.

"Burned," Carwyn said. "Maybe by Zasha. Maybe by someone else. I have no idea."

Ben held out his arms. "Give him to me. I can fly?—"

"I have no idea what condition he's in or what he's capable of," Carwyn said. "Right now he's barely alive. He needs blood, and I don't know if you can control him if he loses it." Carwyn began to move through the trees the same way they'd come. "Buck has blood on the boat. Meet me there."

The vampire was covered in mud, and his skin was blackened from fire, but his fangs were long and pure white when they sank into the bag of blood that Carwyn held for him on the deck of Buck's boat.

"I don't know him," Buck said. "But he doesn't speak Tlingit. Or at least he doesn't right now. If we get him back to my place, Jennie might be able to talk to him. He might just not recognize my accent; it's not great."

"He's Tlingit?" Ben asked.

Buck nodded. "I mean, I think so. He looks Tlingit, but then if he's as old as you think he is, he might be something else. Whoever came before them, you know?"

"He's old." Carwyn reached out a hand toward the blackened forehead of the vampire before he pulled back. "He's older than me. I want to comfort him, but touching him might be painful. The best thing we can do is leave the mud on him."

"He might have been living back in those woods for a thousand years without anyone bothering him." Buck kept his voice quiet. "Like I said, there aren't too many vampires who come out here. It's possible Zasha just happened on him, or this one came looking when he sensed other vamps in the area."

"There's no way of knowing," Ben said. "We just need to focus on getting him stronger. Something tells me that if he's been living out here all this time and no one even knew he was here, he was probably feeding on animal blood like Carwyn."

"This is human blood," Carwyn said. "Donated. He'll heal faster with human blood." Carwyn muttered something quietly in a language Ben didn't speak, something that sounded soothing and reassuring.

Hopefully the desiccated vampire would recognize the tone of the words even if he didn't understand their meaning.

Buck had already pointed the boat back toward Ketchikan.

"Do you think it's a good idea to move him?" Ben asked.

"It might take him centuries to heal from burns like this with no help," Carwyn said. "He'd be alive but barely. Getting blood into him is better."

Buck added, "If we get him back to our place and Jennie can't talk to him, I know someone else we can call. She's older than my wife and might know this guy. Either way, we'll make sure he gets better." Buck scowled at the vampire curled in the corner, hidden under emergency blankets. "I don't understand it. I don't understand any of it."

"Zasha was there with friends most likely." Carwyn pulled another bag of blood from the refrigerator. "Brigid said there was at least one wind vampire with them in the desert. That's how they got away."

"A child?" Buck asked.

"No." Ben shook his head. "Zasha's sire was an earth vampire. Any child they sired would go to the earth. This has to be someone else."

"Someone who's following them around. A friend. An ally."

"Doesn't matter," Carwyn said. "We finish anyone involved in this." He looked at Ben. "Judge, jury, and executioners. This cannot continue."

"Agreed." Ben looked at Buck. "We have permission from Katya to get Zasha out of her territory by any means possible. This is the second survivor found from one of Zasha's attacks. The first one happened a couple of weeks ago. This one might have been in the ground for months. We need to find out where they're hiding."

"In this place?" Buck spread his arms out. "Sorry, gentlemen, but you're lookin' for a needle in a haystack."

They were greeted back in Ketchikan by a round-faced woman with light brown skin, wavy black hair that fell to her waist, and fine lines of tattoos decorating her chin.

Buck stood at the wheel and waved. "That's my lady. That's my Jennie."

Katya's top lieutenant in Alaska wore a serious expression on her face and a blood-red parka dotted with rain. There were two humans waiting with her as she stood on the dock, a tall man and a woman who could have been her sister.

"I'm Jennie." She nodded at Carwyn, who was carrying the burned vampire in his arms. "Sorry I haven't been able to meet you before. What the hell, Buck?"

"I know, honey." He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "Just glad the earth vampire was with us or we never would have known."

"Sounds like you've had a lot thrown at you," Ben said, "from what Buck has said. Do you recognize him?"

Ben held out a hand to stop her when she reached out to the burned vampire in Carwyn's arms. "His skin."

"Right," she murmured. "I think I might know who it is. We didn't know if he was alive or not 'cause no one's seen him in so long." She bent her head to the curled-up vampire and whispered something in his ear that seemed to get a reaction.

"Yeah." Jennie nodded. "Come on then. We already made a bed for him. Let's get him out of the water and onto land."

Carwyn muttered, "He needs blood."

"That's why they're here." Jennie nodded at the two humans. "He gonna hurt 'em?"

"I don't think so. He took some donated blood on the boat and didn't lash out." Carwyn followed Jennie off the dock. "He didn't seem aggressive."

"Yeah." She nodded. "That sounds right if he's who I'm thinkin' of."

Buck and Ben hung back, tying up the fishing boat to the dock as a misty rain fell on them.

"Does it rain every day here?" Ben asked the man.

"Pretty much." The man smiled. "Water vampires love it."

"I bet." He glanced at the retreating figures. "Will he be okay?"

"Friend, you probably know better than me about that. I'm just married to one of you folk." He stood up straight when the ropes were secured and pulled out a mobile phone. Something dinged and he stared at the screen for a few moments, his mouth a grim line.

"Everything okay?" Ben asked.

If there was one thing he missed from mortal life, it was his damn phone. The lumpy miniature tablets they had to carry to use any technology did not match the sleek black phone that had been his constant companion before he turned.

"Everything's fine," Buck said. "Let's get in the house. Carwyn was asking about Henri Paulson the other day."

Ben nodded. "He was thinking that Zasha might be working off the Flying Dolphin."

"I put a word in with Katya's people in Seattle after Paulson's name kept coming up. Tried to find out what all I could tell you."

"Okay." That made sense to Ben. "You hear back?"

"Just now. Let's head in and I'll fill you in on what I know."

Ben changed out of his damp clothes, listening to Buck as the man moved around in the living area upstairs. He could hear the human talking to someone on the phone and suspected Buck was filling Katya's office in on what they'd discovered at Zasha's rental house.

If Paulson was under Katya's aegis, that meant he was afforded some privacy from outsiders. Vampire aegis went more than one way. Katya would expect immortals in her territory to show her loyalty, but that meant they were under her protection as well, so sharing private information with an outsider would be frowned on unless there was a reason.

But Ben wasn't sure if Paulson was under aegis or just residing in Katya's territory independently. He was leaning toward the latter.

By the time Ben walked upstairs, whatever permission Buck needed must have been granted, because the human had his laptop out and was projecting his screen on a wall across the room.

"I've been looking through the file Katya's people just emailed," Buck said. "Paulson is the current name of Henri Paulus." He pointed to a grainy black-and-white picture. "Water vampire from what's now Denmark. About three hundred years old or so—not sure on that one, to be honest—and apparently the quietest billionaire you've never heard of."

Ben blinked. "Billionaire?"

Millionaires weren't uncommon among the undead. After all, when you lived for centuries, it was almost impossible not to acquire wealth. But billionaire wealth was a level that few vampires reached because it required too much interaction in the human world. Of course, the richest vampires in the world—including his mate—really had no way of measuring wealth since they kept most of it in gold.

Ben frowned. "How did he make his money?"

"Technology if you can believe it. And pharmaceuticals. He quietly invested in a bunch of internet start-ups over the years and some very successful pharma companies. He pays Katya boatloads to keep his location a secret. No one is supposed to know where he is. He lives only on the water and has no citizenship of any kind."

"Like one of those marine colonies humans talk about?" Ben asked. "What do they call it? Sea-steading or something?" He leaned forward, watching as Buck flipped through pictures.

Buck nodded. "Somethin' like that."

There was Paulson on the deck of a yacht in the moonlight. All the pictures were at night save for some of large watercraft that were taken during the day with what looked like staff on deck.

"All these boats are his?"

"And more. I was told that Henri Paulus has a network of ships that he loans to immortals who are trying to keep a low profile."

Ben blinked. "You don't say."

"The ships are unregistered and move around constantly."

"And Katya allows that?" Ben murmured.

"Hey, I don't make the decisions." Buck shrugged. "I suppose it's not really a problem as long as they're not causing trouble."

"But Paulus has disappeared," Ben said, "along with his boat. So where did he go, and who is in charge of his fleet?"

"That would be the billion-dollar question, because if one of them is being loaned to Zasha Sokholov and used as a base to attack the mainland, Paulus has now become a major problem."

"Is it possible that Zasha took it and Paulson doesn't know?"

"Possible? Yes. Probable? No idea." Buck flipped the picture to an overhead shot of a giant marina. "This is Vancouver. Normally the Dolphin would be moored there this time of year. It's gone."

"And the last report about it was from crew who got in touch a couple of weeks after Zasha Sokholov came to visit?"

"Yeah." Buck clicked to another grainy image of Paulson on the deck of the Dolphin. "So how is Paulus involved in all this? Is he a victim or an accomplice?"

"And if he's an accomplice, where are he and Zasha right now?"