Chapter Thirty-Two

Carwyn crouched low in the bow of the speedboat, hurtling through the night toward the long cove where Henri Paulson had parked the Nautilus, his "floating city" for vampire elites.

Using Ben and Tenzin's description, they'd identified the ship as a three-hundred-thirty-foot vessel bought by a shell company in the Bahamas several years ago. It had cruised up to Vancouver two years before; then by all official accounts, it had disappeared.

Katya had no idea how Paulson had managed to keep an entire cruise ship in her territory without her knowledge, but she was more than a little angry. Though, as Brigid had pointed out, if it was part of Paulson's shadow fleet, there was no telling where it had been and how long it had remained in Katya's stretch of the ocean.

Beside Carwyn, Gavin's chief of security on the West Coast sat on the deck, his eyes closed and his amnis positively swollen with power from the salt-and-water-laden air.

"Raj?"

The young vampire's eyes flickered open. "I'm so ready to be done with this."

"Sokholov?"

"Sokholov, Paulson. The Ankers. All of it." Raj took a deep breath and let it out slowly, the water in the air around them drawn to his skin, so it appeared almost as if the dark-skinned water vampire was sweating in the freezing-cold wind.

"I know we didn't make the best impression on you in New Orleans, and I'm sorry for that. You're entitled to your privacy. All of us have parts of our past we don't like to talk about."

"When you work for Gavin Wallace, you don't have secrets." Raj stared straight ahead. "At least not from your boss." He glanced at Carwyn from the side. "Remember that if you go in doubting any of our people again."

"I'll remember." He settled down next to the man, who was wearing a black wet suit. "You don't seem to mind the cold."

"I hate it, but this much water is always going to rev me up."

"I hate the cold and the water." Carwyn grinned. "I might not be a help at all."

Raj didn't even show a hint of a smile. "You know who else doesn't like water?"

"Zasha Sokholov?"

Raj nodded. "That vampire won't be on the boat. I guarantee it."

"Ben and Tenzin are already looking for someplace close by. Tenzin agrees with you." Carwyn looked at the dark water and the black outlines of land rising around them. "You know Zasha?"

"Mila had this weird fascination with them." He looked at Carwyn. "Mila Anker."

Carwyn knew from Gavin that Raj and Mila had a history before Gavin killed her. "Why fascination?"

"Zasha could be… very mercurial. One moment it was like they wanted to be your friend. They could be really fascinating when they wanted to be. Very… attractive."

"The same way a deadly animal can be attractive?"

Raj nodded. "Zasha always reminded me of a tiger. I never got too close—Mila kept me away from them—but they were beautiful and fascinating and very… relaxed. But with all this silent energy you could just sense anytime you got close."

"What happens when a tiger gets hungry?"

"Or bored?" Raj's voice got softer. "I think Zasha grows bored quickly. Mila tried to impress them, but Zasha ended up leaving her after a month or two."

That surprised Carwyn, and he didn't know why. "Mila and Zasha were lovers?"

"For a time. Mila tried to brush it off. I could tell she was angry though. She said Zasha would never stay with any lover for long. They were still in love with their dead mate."

"We only learned about their mate last year."

Raj looked at Carwyn. "Can you imagine loving a tiger?"

Carwyn looked at the deck and the sky reflected in the dark water that had pooled at their feet. "Maybe Zasha wasn't always a tiger."

"Maybe." Raj shrugged. "But I don't think you just suddenly turn into a sociopath like that. Even when life hurts you, there has to be something beyond that."

Carwyn took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Despite his firm belief that something Tenzin had done had precipitated the vampire's ire, he knew that Zasha wasn't the average vampire out to get revenge.

"I agree with you," Carwyn said. "I've seen many hurt people in my life. Human and vampire. Very few of them become monsters."

Raj sat up. "And I misjudged you. I thought you and your mate were bullies."

Carwyn laughed a little bit. "There's nothing my wife hates more than a bully, but she can be a little abrasive at times."

"I don't mind abrasive." Raj shrugged. "Abrasive gets results."

He nodded. "Yes, she does do that."

Brigid stood on the bridge, a paper map spread in front of her, as pelting rain bashed the glass enclosure. "We're passin' through the narrows. If Paulson has any security at all, he'll be able to see us soon."

Jennie was the captain at the helm. She glanced at Brigid over her shoulder. "I think there's already someone following us. Don't ask me how I know—it's a gut feeling."

Brigid nodded. "Not a shocker." The real question was: If someone was following them, how fast could they get back to Paulson with a warning?

Unless someone intercepted them before they could do that.

She poked her head out of the cabin. "Raj!"

Gavin's man stood and turned, giving her a terse nod.

"You ready to channel some of that aggression on an unwelcome guest? Make sure they don't make it to Paulson's ship before us?"

Raj nodded. "Someone following us?"

"Captain thinks so."

He looked at the churning water behind them. "Are any of Oleg's people in the area?"

Brigid shook her head.

Raj raised an eyebrow. "You're sure?"

Carwyn stood up and wiped water from his eyes. "Too much tension between his and Katya's people. They agreed that Oleg would focus on hunting down Paulson's shadow fleet for now while Katya's people planned this attack on the cruise ship."

"Good," Raj shouted as he walked toward her. "Too many unknown vampires in a fray just equals friendly fire."

"You have military experience," Brigid said.

Raj nodded but said nothing else.

"Then get to it, soldier." She nodded toward the rear of the ship. "You have your sticks?"

They'd given all of Katya's people bright pink glow sticks that had been left over from Jennie's granddaughter's birthday party to signal if any of them needed a pickup. Designated wind vampires were circling overhead, watching for the color in the water, while others joined the assault.

Brigid ducked back inside the boat as Raj leaped overboard into the freezing waves.

"This is goin' to get messy." She wiped the water from her eyes.

"It's already messy," Jennie said. "Paulson made it messy when he decided to get ambitious."

"I don't think it's ambition that Katya and Oleg object to," Brigid said. "Pretty sure it's the murder."

Brigid felt the boat shift to the right, and a looming black point of land rose in front of them before Jennie turned the wheel to the left and pointed the cruiser toward a channel that appeared between what looked like two pointed islands.

"There's another island running lengthwise down the center of this bay as I recall," Jennie said. "Though I haven't been here in years. The water's cold but the fishing's always been bad in this area."

"Any particular reason?"

She shrugged. "Personal opinion? There may be a water elder somewhere in the area, and the fish keep away from a powerful predator instinctively. But sailing boats love this area in the summer because the water stays calm."

"And in the winters?"

Jennie shook her head. "You're not going to catch any sailboats in this area past September. Paulson could have parked that ship for months and no one but locals would even notice it."

"And what if— Jaysus." Brigid held on to the back of the counter as a massive wave rocked the boat.

"Or you could have a water vampire" —Jennie's fangs fell— "guarding the entrance to the bay." She struggled to keep the wheel steady. "And making sure that no vessels come your direction. Sam! Take this and let me get out there. Keep it steady."

"Yes, Auntie Jen." A young human who couldn't have been more than twenty-five quickly took the wheel, and Jennie bolted off the bridge and ran to the bow of the ship.

Brigid tried to see through the increased onslaught of rain pelting the glass covering the bridge.

"You're not gonna be able to see anything not on the radar from inside," Sam said.

Brigid pushed her way through the wind and the water sloshing around the narrow side deck of the cruiser and peered around the corner to see Jennie locked in an epic battle with a massive wave bearing down on the ship.

"God in heaven." Brigid lost her breath as Jennie swept an arm out and seemed to grab her own wave coming from the side, gathering the water in a massive column of icy slush she picked up from both sides of the boat and bashed into the supernatural wave that rose to block the channel that led into the bay.

Paulson had some powerful allies.

Another boat appeared from the darkness to their left, and Brigid saw a dark-haired man standing in the bow, his arms out and his hair streaming behind him. He leaned forward, seeming to embrace the water beating against their vessels, as two more twin waves on either side of his boat rose like orcas frozen in midbreach before arrowing toward the wall of water and joining Jennie's assault.

The four waves speared through the barrier that guarded the bay and shattered the wall into a deluge that rained around them, and the two speeding cruisers shot straight into the heart of Paulson's hidden empire.

"Woo-hoo!"

Brigid turned to see Carwyn standing next to Jennie, his arms spread out and his voice rising over the din of the engine.

"That was bloody brilliant!"

Trust her husband to get a thrill from narrowly escaping a giant, boat-destroying wave. Brigid walked back inside and grabbed a towel that was hanging on the wall behind the ship's wheel.

Sam looked as pale as a vampire, but he was holding steady. "I knew Auntie Jen would get rid of that wave."

"Did ya now?"

"Uh-huh." He nodded quickly "She's the best."

A few moments later, Jennie was back on the bridge of the cruiser, soaked to the skin as she took the wheel from Sam. "Two of Kelso's crew are in the water, dealing with whatever vampire Paulson has stationed at the mouth of the bay." Her voice was grim. "Do we have any clue how many vampires are on that ship?"

"None," Brigid said. "The Nautilus has fifty-four cabins, but that could mean?—"

"A hundred vampires? More?" Jennie growled. "Against thirty-four of us."

"Yep," Brigid confirmed. "Against thirty-four of us, and Ben and Tenzin."

Jennie shook her head. "That may mean something in the air, but it means nothing on the water."

Ben swooped down and hooked Raj's arm, lifting him from the water and carrying him back toward the red-lit boat where Brigid and Carwyn were speeding toward the Nautilus.

"Raj," Ben shouted over the wind. "Good to see you."

"Been a while." Raj had a cut across his belly that was already closing. He also had a harpoon gun. "Take me to that ship. I'm armed now."

"Aww, did you find a new toy?"

"Oh yeah. I love it when toys nearly impale me," Raj shouted. "Luckily, my new diving knife works."

"I've been stabbed underwater myself," Ben offered. "Not an experience I'd like to repeat."

"Then fair warning." Raj looked up at Ben as they crested the island in the center of the bay. "Do not fall in this water." He pointed at a pool of black water and shook Ben's arm. "There."

"Still got your glow sticks?"

Raj nodded, then shook his arm free of Ben's grip and dropped into the icy deep.