Chapter Thirty-Five

Tenzin walked up to the house, her feet stepping lightly on the damp cushion of needles that blanketed the perimeter of the clearing.

"You have no quarrel with her. Your fight is with me, Saraal."

"Sida, I do not know that name."

She stood at a distance, watching the windows for movement. For light. For any sign of life. She heard a bolt turn, and the heavy front door of the wooden house creaked open a few inches.

Nothing else moved.

"Her name is Zasha. She has nothing to do with us."

"You know why I am here."

"I am not my sire."

"Your god is a jealous god," Tenzin whispered, "visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation."

She pushed the door open and walked inside.

Tenzin cast her amnis into the darkness of a room that was lit only by a small fire in a stone hearth. She could sense another vampire in the room, but there was no sound. No movement. Only the fire crackling and the motes of dust floating in the red-gold light.

Red-gold like the memory of long hair splayed across a floor, mixing with dirt and bloody tears.

"I'm here." She stood still and waited.

"Why?" The voice came from the darkness, a flat, dull intonation from a figure hidden in the periphery of her vision. "You found Paulson's guests," the voice said. "Is Brigid on the Nautilus, wagging her finger at the naughty, naughty vampires?"

"I don't know." The lie came easily to her lips. "I don't really care about them."

A spark in the low, wooden voice. "Now you're just trying to make me feel special."

Tenzin almost smiled. "I came to apologize, Zasha."

"For killing Purev?"

"I found you because there were rumors of an Eastern wind vampire who was stealing children from the trade routes."

"Orphans. Beggars. Children who had already been thrown away. No one would miss them."

"I miss them."

"No," Tenzin said. "I will not apologize for killing your mate. Benjamin was right; I was correct to kill him. He may have been kind to you, but Purev was a monster."

Zasha stepped out of the shadows. Their hair was long and flowing over their shoulders, and their beautiful face was lit by the flickering gold of the fire.

They wore a black shirt and a long black skirt wrapped around their waist. The shirt was open halfway down their chest, revealing a sharply defined musculature and countless scars that appeared to have been made by knives.

Tenzin couldn't look away. She let out a soft sigh. "You're beautiful. Was it ever anything but a curse to you?"

"No." Zasha held out their hand, and a small whirling fireball danced into their palm. "Truvor found me while I was hiding among the dead. He spotted my hair in the darkness. That's why he took me. He loved my hair."

"He was a monster too."

Zasha rolled their eyes. "We're all monsters. You should know that by now."

"Some of us are more monstrous than others." Tenzin didn't take her eyes off them. That had been her mistake for centuries. She had moved on, tried to forget.

But Zasha had never forgotten.

"I killed your mate," Tenzin said. "But I won't apologize for that."

The fire leaped in the grate.

"So why are you here, you useless little thing?" Zasha spat out.

"I wanted to apologize for not killing you."

Zasha's black eyes went wide, and a crooked smile spread over their face. "That is your apology, daughter of Zhang? That you did not kill me when you killed Purev?"

"Yes." She didn't blink.

Zasha took a deep breath, and a strangled laugh escaped them. "This hasn't gone at all like I had hoped."

Tenzin decided to play along. "What did you hope?"

"I wanted to get to know Brigid better, but she's so…" Zasha sighed.

"Abrasive? Self-righteous? Rigid?"

"Protective." Zasha rolled their eyes. "I wanted her and her soft mate to come up here, and then I would force them to lure you here as well. Then I'd strike a deal with the priest to trade you for Paulson."

"Ah." Tenzin nodded. "And that would have gotten rid of Paulson and also driven a wedge between the priest and Brigid."

"Paulson is a self-important ass," Zasha muttered. "I'd trade him for you in a heartbeat."

Tenzin leaned against a post that held up the landing on the overhead loft. "But you can't kill me. So why would you care if the priest handed me over?"

"Oh no, I was going to make the priest kill you." Zasha offered a rueful smile.

"Not a bad idea." Tenzin nodded slowly. "But that would have been difficult."

"He would find some moral justification for it—saving innocent lives or something like that—but you know he's wanted to do it for centuries."

Tenzin barely kept from laughing. Carwyn had little love for her, but the priest was nothing if not hopeful. He'd try to convert her before he killed her.

But Tenzin didn't want to disabuse Zasha from the notion, especially when Tenzin could feel Brigid lurking along the perimeter. "It might have worked if Brigid hadn't come to me first. The priest doesn't like me much, but I might have killed him if he tried to kill me."

Zasha's eyes were dancing. "Either way, Brigid's life would have been ruined."

"Why ruin her?" Tenzin shrugged. "Why bother, Zasha?"

Zasha shrugged. "She killed Ivan."

Tenzin didn't know if that was even true, but it was evident that Zasha believed it was. "Why did you destroy our house in New York?"

"That was actually a favor from an old associate, one that I enjoyed cashing in." Zasha stepped closer, rolling the ball of fire from one hand to another. "They may have gone a little too far, but it gave you a push, didn't it?" Zasha winked.

"You got our attention." And I am going to kill you. Or watch happily as Brigid kills you. Either way is fine.

"I would have liked to go to New York," Zasha said, "but I was busy with Paulson's little shore excursions up here. He actually thought he could draw Katya and Oleg into a war. Can you believe that?"

"It almost worked."

Zasha shook their head. "No, I knew as soon as Brigid came up she would see through it. She's really very keen. She understands how we think."

"We?"

"Monsters," Zasha whispered. "You're the worst, you know."

"Am I?" Tenzin felt Brigid's power building, and she noticed the fire in the hearth moving in ways it shouldn't. Had Brigid's power grown that much?

Interesting.

"You are." Zasha was staring at her. "You pretend to be on the side of the angels, but you're a monster who hunts down vampires for the sins of their sire." Zasha's friendly veneer cracked. "Hypocrite. Is your own sire blameless? Shouldn't you be hunted too?"

"Probably. And my sire isn't blameless." Tenzin stepped farther into the room, sensing the shift in the air. She could feel what Brigid was doing, and she wanted to stay well out of the way. "But he is useful. And he has" —she racked her brain for the word Ben had used once— "evolved. Have you?"

Zasha lifted their chin. "Why would I want to evolve? I am as I am." They spread their arms, both hands holding growing balls of swirling fire. "I am as I have always been. I revel in it, Saraal." Zasha spat out her old name with ire.

Ah, Saraal. That poor girl buried in a tent beneath Temur's war chest.

"Saraal is dead," Tenzin whispered. "And I… have never pretended to be on the side of the angels."

In the space of a human heartbeat, the fire in the hearth leaped up and shot across the room, spearing from the fireplace to the window, blowing Zasha backward as it raked across their face, exploding through the room as the fire vampire screamed.

The flames blasted Tenzin across the neck, and she raised her arm to blow it back as she turned her face to shield herself.

Too late.

Tenzin pushed the air away from herself, but not before she felt Brigid's lashing flames eat into her skin.

Carwyn dropped from Ben's grip to the deck of the speedboat where two vampires were propping shoulder-held rocket launchers on the backs of dead-eyed human men.

"Fire!" One launched toward the front deck of the Nautilus, streaming though the black night and hitting the railing as it exploded and the deck where Jennie had been fighting erupted into flames.

Carwyn barreled toward the vampires firing the rockets and spread his arms wide, knocking both of them to the deck before they realized they were being attacked.

Thud.

He bent down and twisted one neck.

Scramble.

He pivoted on one leg, sweeping it out to knock the second human holding a rocket launcher to the ground.

"Conrad!" The vampire's shout was cut off when Carwyn gripped him by the throat and lifted him in the air, the blade of the hunting knife at the vampire's nape.

"Where's Paulson?" Carwyn growled.

"Nautilus," the man choked out. "Bridge."

He turned his head, spotted the Nautilus and the vampires already steaming upward toward the glass-covered deck that must have been the bridge.

"Good."

"Let me—" The vampire's words were choked off when Carwyn sliced the bowie knife across his spine.

There were three zombielike humans stumbling around the deck of the speedboat and slipping in the rain, but Carwyn could feel no other vampires, and the ones who had fired the rocket launchers were dead or neutralized.

The boat was bobbing in the stormy sea and drifting toward the immense black hull of the cruise ship. He ran to the controls, took the wheel, and gave the engine a short burst of power to point it in the correct direction.

Then Carwyn aimed the bow toward the beach where Ben had taken his mate and hit the throttle.

The speedboat jerked forward in the water, hitting the chop with rough slams until it reached a steady speed and rose to skim over the waves.

He had no idea how to properly drive it, but that didn't matter. He was planning to run it aground on the island where Brigid and Tenzin had gone to fight Zasha.

Carwyn aimed for the widest part of the beach he could see in the darkness, then braced himself and cut the throttle as he felt the first scrape of gravel on the hull.

The boat crashed up the beach, roaring over the rocky shore with a heinous grating scraaaaaape as it headed toward the tree line.

He crouched down as the dense cedar, pine, and hemlock grabbed the bow of the speedboat and forced it to stop. The boat rocked to the side, and the humans groaned as they rolled across the deck, shielding their heads and curling into balls.

Carwyn used the velocity of the boat to launch himself into the forest, crashing through the branches and digging his feet into the welcoming, rocky soil.

Ahhhh, that was better.

The moment he touched the ground, he could feel her.

Mate.

He started to run, weaving through the trees, his amnis reaching through the soil and the rock and the roots. Smoke drifted in the air, and he could smell the faint scent of charred flesh.

Brigid!

Carwyn's mind screamed her name, but he said nothing, barreling toward the fight with the single-minded focus of a man on fire.

"Hssssss!" Ben's shoulders retracted and the hair on his neck rose when he felt the burning sensation in his arm and across his neck.

Tenzin.

He felt her pain in his own body, but he also felt her rage, and his fangs ached as her amnis rose in defiance.

His mate's pain distracted him only for a moment before he swung the hammer from the toolbox he'd found on the deck, brought it down, and shattered the window covering the bridge, letting him and two other wind vampires inside.

For the first time, he saw Paulson in the flesh.

He was dressed in a tuxedo, and his arrogant expression didn't waver as he pointed his chin at Ben and barked a command at the dozen guards who flanked him. Some of the guards raised automatic rifles and pointed them at the vampires crawling onto the bridge.

"Kill him," the vampire billionaire said calmly. "Kill them all."

Ben smiled through bloody lips. "I don't think so."

Paulson dropped his radio and pushed the guards at his side forward.

Three of the guards dove toward the wind vampire on his left and three others toward the one on his right, driving both of Jennie's people off the bridge as Paulson's guards tackled them to the deck outside, leaving six armed vampires standing in front of Henri Paulson with their eyes on Ben.

Alone on the bridge, Ben speared through the air, ignoring the bullets that hit his body, shoved the guards blocking Paulson with a battering wind as he reached his hands out to grip Henri Paulson around the throat.

Ben's hands closed around the vampire's neck for only a moment before the guards pulled him away, one swinging a knife down toward his neck.

Ben swung his sword arm up, and the gladius sliced off the arm of the vampire, making the guard scream and the knife clatter to the floor.

He felt another blade hit his ankle, but he ignored the bite of pain.

More bullets hit his side, but none of them even came close to his spine.

Ben felt a deep slice along the small of his back, caught the scent of his own blood spraying the air, and time suddenly seemed to slow.

The black wind came to Ben in the scent of his own blood. It was a whisper in the darkness, wrapping around him like a shield as his vision went dark.

Ben closed his eyes and saw the room around him, the dead matter of the machinery mixed with the living elements of air and flesh and blood. The gold mist of matter woven through with silver mist of the water in the air, the flesh, the red threads of energy that hummed through the human-made machinery that surrounded them, all glowing against the wash of rain against glass.

And through it all, the darkness, the darkness in everything.

The precious space between.

Ben reached for the darkness that belonged to him and gathered it in, pulling it into himself, swallowing the emptiness like heated wine, gripping it in his fist and pulling hard until the gold compressed into a solid mass that fell like lead to the floor.

He expanded, his element stretching the borders of his physical form until he felt as if all the space in the metal-wrapped compartment was his to command. The air answered him, whispering that it had been waiting. That it was glad to be seen.

That it would serve him.

Ben opened his eyes and saw Henri Paulson frozen in front of him, his eyes darting from the crumpled lumps of flesh and blood that were barely recognizable as the guards who had made up his personal retinue.

Mangled steel, flesh, and fluid coated the ground, and Paulson had to steady himself on the control panel as he started to slip.

"What are you?" The vampire didn't sound afraid.

He sounded fascinated.

"I'm Ben Vecchio. And you're Henri Paulson."

The vampire's eyes lit up. "You're remarkable. I will make you rich beyond your dreams."

Ben frowned. Did this vampire think everyone was for sale?

"No, thanks." Ben inhaled, and the air was thick with a blood mist that entered his lungs and fed his amnis. "I'm good."

He drew his sword back and swung, slicing the billionaire's head from his body in one clean cut.

Henri Paulson's disembodied head thunked against what remained of the glass windows and fell to the ground, rolling into a messy mass of flesh that had once been a water vampire. Guns, swords, and daggers sloshed in the bloodstained water that flooded the bridge, turning it into nothing less than a scene of elemental carnage.

Ben flew back, desperate to hide the evidence of his violence before Jennie's people saw what he had done.

He was not ready for questions about his power.

He surveyed the battle on deck, but it was clear that Jennie and her pink-glow-stick army had taken control of the Nautilus, so he gathered his bursting energy and brought a violent whirlwind to tear into the elevated bridge, sweeping away the machinery, the bodies, the weapons, and what was left of Henri Paulson into the ocean.

Jennie looked up and shouted at Ben, but he couldn't hear her.

All he could feel was a burning pain on his skin.