Chapter 3
Three
“Options?” Cally asked.
They gathered around Antoine’s kitchen table while Marcel flipped pancakes at the stove, as though breakfast solved everything. Cally wasn’t hungry, and nursed her coffee.
“We need to get out there and see what we’re dealing with,” Zoey said.
Gabe shook his head, wavy dark hair perfectly in place. He was glamoured to hide his vampiric appearance: skin a warmer tone, green eyes a cool peridot. “Too soon for that. They’ll be watching for the first few days, making sure there’s nothing suspicious. Besides, they know I have a yacht.”
“We could take a fishing boat.”
“In this weather?” Gabe looked skeptical. “I mean, you could, but you’d be tossed around like dice in a gambler’s fist.”
“I’m still going,” Cally said firmly. “I need to talk to him, to let him know we’re coming.”
Gabe’s eyebrows rose. “You can talk through the bond?”
“No. But Noah can talk to him. We’ll go together.”
“Not leaving your side anyway,” Noah muttered, the weight of his commitment evident in the tightness around his eyes. His sandy hair stuck up at odd angles, as though brushing it hadn’t been a priority. “The last thing Antoine asked me to do was keep you safe.”
“Taking her out into the open sea in weather like this isn’t ‘keeping her safe’,” Gabe argued.
Noah accepted a plate of pancakes from Marcel with a nod. “You heard her; she’s going anyway. And I can’t keep her safe if she breaks my legs, can I?” He winked at Cally and reached for the maple syrup.
Zoey pushed a strand of brown hair behind her ear. “We still need to figure out how to get him back from that depth.”
“I might have the answer to that.” Eve sat in a comfy chair off to one side, auburn curls tumbling as she bent over Marcel’s laptop, busy googling while her untouched pancakes grew cold. “ROVs. Remotely Operated Vehicles. Even the simplest ones can go down to three thousand feet.”
“Needle in a haystack,” Zoey replied. “We could be right on top of him and never find him with something like that. They probably tied weights around his ankles, right? He’d be one more bit of debris on the sea floor.”
“Don’t call him ‘debris’,” Cally said sharply.
Zoey ducked her head. “Sorry.”
“Okay, scratch the ROV,” Eve said. “Backup idea. Mini-sub. You could pilot it, Zoey.”
She held her hands up. “I mostly did security. Give me a door you don’t want anyone to go in, and I’m your gal. But I don’t know the first thing about piloting a sub.”
“I might have thralls who can help,” Gabe said. “But we’d still have to find him.”
“Well, that’s the beauty of the sub idea.” Eve looked up from the screen and offered Cally a smile. “We don’t need a sonar when we have our own Miss Bloodhound here. If she’s in the sub, she could lead you right to him. You can do that, right?”
“Yeah, I should be able to do that, if I’m in the sub.” Cally toyed with her coffee cup. “I’ve never tried using the bond at short range, but that would work, right, Gabe?”
“Yeah, it should work fine. As soon as you’re close, you’ll get a sense of distance, too.”
“We don’t have access to Antoine’s money,” Noah said. “How much does a mini-sub cost anyway?”
Eve tapped the keyboard for a few moments, then grimaced. “Price available on request. So, expensive.” Then she whistled through her teeth. “Twelve to twenty-four months’ manufacturing lead time.”
“No way we’re leaving him down there that long,” Cally said.
Months? Antoine would be feral in weeks.
Not only that, but without him feeding on her, her power would grow until it killed her.
How long did she have before that happened?
There was no way to know. If she died, how would they ever find him?
Plus, he’d never be able to recover even if the others somehow managed the impossible.
Fuck. Like we don’t have enough problems.
Her coffee cup exploded in her grip, shards skimming toward Noah.
Marcel arrived in short order with a cloth, mopping up without saying anything. Eve gave her a sympathetic look, then mouthed She-Hulk.
“We’re not waiting a year,” Noah said around a mouthful of pancake like nothing had happened. He gestured at Gabe with his fork. “If we steal one, will your thralls help?”
The vampire raised an eyebrow. “Do you know where to find one?”
“No.”
Gabe leaned back in his chair. “You want to use my thralls to locate then steal a submersible vehicle, somehow get it out to wherever the hell Antoine is, pilot it down there without any experience while Cally accompanies you—who you’re responsible for protecting—pull him from whatever hole they’ve thrown him in, and then back up to the surface without anything going wrong? ”
Noah swallowed his mouthful. “Sounds like a plan to me.”
Gabe fixed him with a cold look.
“Hoo-ee!” Eve blurted at her screen, then grinned up at Cally. Her smile faltered as she saw their expressions. “Who-eye?”
Cally only sighed, fondness slipping through. “Translate for those who don’t speak ‘Eve,’ please.”
“Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution,” Eve read from her screen. “They have a manned submersible. And the best thing? They’re only ninety minutes south of Boston.”
Noah finger-gunned her. “There we go, then. Not much security in a place like that.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure—it’s a joint venture with the US Navy.” Eve was still scrolling. “According to Wikipedia, their sub has a name: Alvin. Oh.” She winced and looked at Noah. “Can we steal something that weighs seventeen tons?”
Gabe muttered something that might’ve been, “Staying in the shadows.”
Cally sharply tapped the table. “We’re getting Antoine back.
I don’t care what it takes, what we have to do, or what we have to steal to make it happen.
We’re getting him back, and we’re doing it as fast as we can.
Would any of you want to spend a single minute longer than you had to, trapped a thousand feet underwater?
” She met the eyes of each of them in turn.
“I want a working plan ready by the end of the day. Zoey, bring Antoine’s thralls to work with Gabe’s.
Marcel, you know what thralls Antoine has and where they are, right? ”
“Indeed I do, madam.”
Cally nodded. “Eve, you’re the brains. Find a way.” She turned to Gabe. “We need you on this, whatever it takes. Can we depend on you?”
Gabe folded his large arms across his chest as his silk shirt stretched tight over his shoulders.
“I owe Antoine my life. Of course you can depend on me. But I advise a modicum of caution. This will take time.” He held up a hand as Cally opened her mouth to speak.
“I know you want Antoine back as soon as possible. We all do. But if you rush this, it’ll go a lot worse. ”
“He just called you ‘impulsive,’ babe,” Eve said with a grin.
Cally closed her mouth and nodded to Gabe begrudgingly, ignoring Eve. “I hear you. Let’s just not waste any time, okay?”
“Agreed.”
Cally rose from her seat as Marcel took a step forward.
Eve looked up. “Where are you going while we do all the work?”
“Fishing,” Cally said, her eyes on Noah, who swallowed the last of his pancakes and began to rise too, then faltered as he saw Marcel’s expression.
Noah slumped back into his chair. “Keeping you safe means even from Marcel. So eat some pancakes before we go?”
Gabe pulled out his phone. “No point going now anyway. Antoine will be asleep when you get there.” He busied himself with the keypad.
“Zoey, I’m sending you the details for Ryan, my number one.
” He stood with a sigh. “I’m going to rest; I’ll see the rest of you this afternoon. Take care of her, Noah.”
Marcel picked up the plate of pancakes Cally had left untouched and replaced it with a new, steaming batch. “If you will sit down, please, madam? Otherwise I’ll tell Noah that starving yourself is bad for your safety, then stand back and watch as his compulsion kicks in.”
*
Cally tapped into her savings account to pay an obscene amount of money for a fisherman to take them out, despite the choppy waves and the argument that mid-afternoon was a terrible time to fish.
They huddled in the cabin around a small table, ignoring the mutterings of ‘tourists’ from the captain and his crew.
The captain had given up trying to persuade them with good advice, and sailed due east as he’d been bid.
Three hours had already passed, with nothing for Cally to do but check their heading still led toward Antoine.
How far out had they taken him? They must be getting close.
“Let me know as soon as you can reach him,” Cally told Noah in a quiet voice, but the wind battering the rattling windows made it unlikely any of their conversation would be overheard.
Noah nodded with a wince, looking slightly green around the edges, and gripped the small table.
Cally was grateful her stomach was strong, and tilted her head as she watched him. “You all right?”
“Don’t like boats.”
It was as good an opportunity as any, and maybe it would help to distract him. “Can I ask you a personal question?”
Noah swallowed hard and nodded.
“What’s it really like? Being a thrall?”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean…” Cally waved a hand, trying to find words that wouldn’t risk offending him. “How do you feel when Antoine tells you to do things?”
“I feel like I want what’s best for him,” Noah said earnestly. “Like it’s a privilege to do whatever I can to help.”
Cally fought to keep her expression neutral, to hide the grimace that threatened to push to the surface. “So compelled, huh? No free will?” It was as bad as she feared.
“No, it’s not like that.” Noah frowned as he thought about it. “I have free will. I can choose to eat or not eat. I could walk out onto the deck if I wanted to, but it’s warmer in here.” That wasn’t saying much; the wind whistled in through the open door. “You know I served in the military, right?”
“Yeah.” Noah, Zoey, and most of the other thralls—if not all of them. Like Antoine chose them specifically for that reason.