"Tonight you get a taste of what our world wil be like when our competition is out of the picture. Fol ow me!"
Riley bounded away; Raoul and his team were right on his heels. Kristie's group started shoving and clawing right through the middle of them to get to the front.
"Don't make me change my mind!" Riley bel owed from the trees ahead. "You can al go thirsty. I don't care!"
Kristie barked an order and her group sul enly fel behind Raoul's. Fred and I waited until the last of them was out of sight. Then Fred did one of those little ladies first sweeps with his arm. It didn't feel like he was afraid to have me at his back, just that he was being polite. I started running after the army. The others were already long gone, but it was nothing to fol ow their smel . Fred and I ran in companionable silence. I wondered what he was thinking. Maybe he was only thirsty. I was burning, so he probably was, too.
We caught up to the others after about five minutes, but kept our distance. The army was moving in amazing quiet. They were focused, and more... disciplined. I kind of wished that Riley had started the training sooner. It was easier to be around this group.
We crossed over an empty two-lane freeway, another strip of forest, and then we were on a beach. The water was smooth, and we'd gone almost due north, so this must have been the strait. We hadn't passed near any residences, and I was sure that was on purpose. Thirsty and on edge, it wouldn't take too much to dissolve this smal measure of organization into a screaming free-for-al .
We'd never hunted al together before, and I was pretty sure that it was not a good idea now. I remembered Kevin and the Spider-Man kid fighting over the woman in the car that first night I'd talked to Diego. Riley had better have a whole lot of bodies for us or people were going to start tearing each other up to get the most blood.
Riley paused at the water's edge.
"Don't hold back," he told us. "I want you wel fed and strong - at your peak. Now... let's go have some fun."
He dove smoothly into the surf. The others were growling excitedly as they submerged, too. Fred and I fol owed more closely than before because we couldn't fol ow their scent under water. But I could feel that Fred was hesitant - ready to bolt if this was something other than an al -you-can-eat smorgasbord. It seemed like he didn't trust Riley any more than I did. We didn't swim long, and then we saw the others kicking upward. Fred and I surfaced last, and Riley started talking as soon as our heads were out of the water, like he'd been waiting for us. He must have been more aware of Fred than the others were.
"There she is," he said, waving toward a large ferry chugging south, probably making the last commuter run of the night down from Canada. "Give me a minute. When the power goes out, she's al yours."
There was an excited murmur. Someone giggled. Riley was off like a shot, and seconds later we saw him fly up the side of the big boat. He headed straight for the control tower on top of the ship. Silencing the radio was my bet. He could say al he wanted about these enemies being our reason for caution, but I was sure there was more to it than that. Humans weren't supposed to know about vampires. At least, not for very long. Just long enough for us to kil them.
Riley kicked a big plate-glass window out of his way and disappeared into the tower. Five seconds later, the lights went out.
I realized Raoul was already gone. He must have submerged so we wouldn't hear him swimming after Riley. Everyone else took off, and the water churned as if an enormous school of barracuda were attacking.
Fred and I swam at a relatively leisurely pace behind them. In a funny way, it was like we were some old married couple. We never talked, but we stil did things at exactly the same time. We got to the boat about three seconds later, and already the air was ful of shrieks and the warm scent of blood. The smel made me realize exactly how thirsty I was, but that was the last thing I realized. My brain shut down completely. There was nothing but fiery pain in my throat and the delicious blood - blood everywhere - promising to put that fire out. When it was over and there wasn't a heart left beating on the whole ship, I wasn't sure how many people I'd personal y kil ed. More than triple the number I'd ever had on a hunting trip before, easy. I felt hot and flushed. I'd drunk long past the point at which my thirst was total y slaked, just for the taste of the blood. Most of the blood on the ferry was clean and luscious - these passengers had not been dregs. Though I hadn't held back, I was probably at the low end of the kil count. Raoul was so surrounded by mangled bodies that they actual y made a little hil . He sat on top of his pile of the dead and laughed loudly to himself.
He wasn't the only one laughing. The dark boat was ful of sounds of delight. I heard Kristie say, "That was amazing - three cheers for Riley!" Some of her crowd put up a raucous chorus of hurrahs like a bunch of happy drunks.
Jen and Kevin swung onto the view deck, dripping wet. "Got
'em al, boss," Jen cal ed to Riley. So some people must have tried to swim for it. I hadn't noticed.
I looked around for Fred. It took me a while to find him. I final y realized that I couldn't look directly at the back corner by the vending machines, and I headed that way. At first I felt like the rocking ferry was making me seasick, but then I got close enough that the feeling faded and I could see Fred standing by the window. He smiled at me quickly, and then looked over my head. I fol owed his gaze and saw that he was watching Riley. I got the feeling that he'd been doing this for some time.
"Okay, kids," Riley said. "You've had a taste of the sweet life, but now we've got work to do!"
They al roared enthusiastical y.
"I've got three last things to tel you - and one of those things involves a little dessert - so let's sink this scow and get home!"
With laughter mixed in with the snarls, the army went to work dismantling the boat. Fred and I bailed out the window and watched the demo from a short distance. It didn't take long for the ferry to crumple in the middle with a loud groan of metal. The midsection went down first, with both the bow and the stern twisting up to point to the sky. They sank one at a time, the stern beating the bow by a few seconds. The school of barracuda headed toward us. Fred and I started swimming for shore. We ran home with the others - though keeping our distance. A couple of times Fred looked at me like he had something he wanted to say, but each time he seemed to change his mind. Back at the house, Riley let the celebratory mood wind down. Even after a few hours had passed, he stil had his hands ful trying to get everyone serious again. For once it wasn't a fight he was trying to defuse, just high spirits. If Riley's promises were false, as I thought, he was going to have an issue when the ambush was over. Now that al these vampires had real y feasted, they weren't going to go back to any measure of restraint very easily. For tonight, though, Riley was a hero. Final y - a while after I would have guessed that the sun was up outside - everyone was quiet and paying attention. From their faces, it seemed they were ready to hear just about anything he had to say.
Riley stood halfway up the stairs, his face serious.
"Three things," he began. "First, we want to be sure we get the right coven. If we accidental y run across another clan and slaughter them, we'l tip our hand. We want our enemies overconfident and unprepared. There are two things that mark this coven, and they're pretty hard to miss. One, they look different - they have yel ow eyes."
There was a murmur of confusion.
"Yel ow?" Raoul repeated in a disgusted tone.
"There's a lot of the vampire world out there that you haven't encountered yet. I told you these vampires were old. Their eyes are weaker than ours - yel owed with age. Another advantage to our side." He nodded to himself as if to say, one down. "But other old vampires exist, so there is another way that we'l know them for sure... and this is where the dessert I mentioned comes into play." Riley smiled slyly and waited a beat. "This is going to be hard to process," he warned. "I don't understand it, but I've seen it for myself. These old vampires have gone so soft that they actual y keep - as a member of their coven - a pet human."
His revelation was met by blank silence. Total disbelief.
"I know - hard to swal ow. But it's true. We'l know it's definitely them because a human girl wil be with them."
"Like... how?" Kristie asked. "You mean they carry meals around with them or something?"
"No, it's always the same girl, just the one, and they don't plan to kil her. I don't know how they manage it, or why. Maybe they just like to be different. Maybe they want to show off their self-control. Maybe they think it makes them look stronger. It makes no sense to me. But I've seen her. More than that, I've smel ed her."
Slow and dramatic, Riley reached into his jacket and pul ed out a smal ziplock bag with red fabric wadded up inside.