Chapter 11
Anais
My hands shook as I tried to get the keycards we had for the cruise out of the little envelope they were in. I wanted to go straight to Leo’s suite and be safe there, but I knew that this part of the mission wouldn’t work if I ran away from the danger.
Naomi was just behind me and already looking out for danger. I appreciated her being so careful, but there could be vampires in the room we were about to go into.
I hadn’t been booked into the fanciest cabin, nothing like the suite where Leo was, but it did have a veranda and it was on the same side of the ship as Leo’s suite, so it wouldn’t take him too long to get to us if he heard us scream.
We had discussed our plan as we got into the room based on what we discovered, and I was confident that Naomi and I were well set up to defend ourselves. An attack wouldn’t be a surprise because we were going into the cabin expecting to be attacked.
But it wasn’t like us hunting vampires in Vegas. We couldn’t get our weapons ready and then open the door. We had to open the door, get inside and then get our weapons. Despite that, we had already ducked into a restroom after going through security and put our blades back about our bodies.
It hadn’t been easy to get them through the different security checks and customs, but Leo had assured us that as long as they were in our suitcases, he would be able to get them wherever they were needed. But that meant the majority were in our luggage and not on us.
Still, I had my magic ring and I put my hand in my pocket, my finger poised over it to slip it on should the vampires attack us quickly.
I also tried to look over the door to see if there was some indication we might be attacked before we had gone through it, but it looked like every other cabin door on the ship.
This wasn’t one of those cruise lines where everyone decorated their doors and put hangers out to act as a sort of secret Santa, but a more sedate one. Very few kids would be on the ship.
In many ways, it was a good thing. If there were as many vampires on board as Leo thought and they were the kind of turned who didn’t care much for the rules, then it was going to be very important that vulnerable people like children weren’t aboard.
Not that the average human stood a chance against a vampire, but letting children die or putting them in harm’s way was a whole different level of evil.
Finally I had the key in the door and it lit up green to let me into the room. I took the handle in the same hand and glanced toward Naomi to check that she was ready to go through and risk our first fight of this cruise.
She gave me a nod, one hand in her pocket as well, no doubt clutching a blade. She had a crossbow in her purse, but she would have to reach in and get it out before she could even aim.
I pushed the door open and hurried inside, immediately looking for danger signs. There was an open door to my left that must have gone to a bathroom, and a closet with a rolling door on my right.
Knowing that an attack could come from either place forced me to pause with Naomi out of the room and check both locations. As I stepped into the restroom and found only a toilet and sink and no enemies, Naomi came into the cabin as well.
She bypassed me just before I came back out, also glancing at the open closet and seeing it empty before she made her way into the next room on the left. It was my turn to carry on, my blade out now and my ring still ready to put on.
I gave a quick look toward the next room to see a bathtub and shower combo and another sink, but no vampire there either.
Thanks to the small rooms on our left, we couldn’t see all the way into the cabin and I could only see the end of a bed, also on the left, and a small sitting area beyond and the veranda door framed by curtains on either side.
If there was a vampire in the room, there was only one place left they could be—tucked down the side of the bed in the only blind spot I had.
Coming past the corner, I turned to the left and slipped my ring on. It made me faster just in time for me to block the lunge. A youngish male vampire with blond hair and torn jeans came at me.
My body moved with the practiced ease of someone who’d trained for fighting and I blocked and lunged at him.
With the ring making me faster and stronger, the vampire didn’t have the skills to outfight me, but he was a lot stronger and I was forced to take a step back.
It wasn’t long before Naomi was there with me.
She had a blade in one hand and she was pulling out her crossbow with the other.
I tried to shift so she could attack as well and turn this into a three-way fight, but I also wanted to keep the focus of the vampire. Instead of rushing after me, the vampire began to think more clearly and actually pulled back a little.
This gave Naomi the chance to help out as well, and she quickly shifted her blade so she could pull her crossbow across and hold it in her main hand.
At the same time I pulled a stake so I had a weapon in each hand.
I wasn’t sure what this vampire thought it could do, but it clearly hadn’t expected to find two of us.
That alone was a relief. To know we had managed to get a small victory in whatever was going on here helped calm me.
I backed up, giving it a little more space and beginning to put myself between it and the veranda door.
Not that I thought it would attempt to go that way.
It was unlikely to be able to daywalk like Leo could.
Naomi didn’t back up much but she put herself firmly between it and the door, crossbow bolt still aimed straight at it.
We had discussed the possibility of her getting to the veranda and getting it open to yell for Leo if we encountered vampires, but we had just the one, and both the vampire and I were in her way.
Of course, I could have run to do that, but then I’d leave her between the vampire and the door with no backup. If it decided that it wanted to get out of here and she was in the way, I would need to make sure I dealt with it and kept her from being overwhelmed.
The vampire looked between us and fixed on me.
“I’m who you’re after, aren’t I?” I asked, wanting to be sure Naomi had the easier end of this fight but also not wanting to delay it too much longer. I had put the ring on and if I didn’t win this fight and take it off soon, it was going to drain me before I could get the most out of it.
“Yes, you are.” With that it rushed at me again, flinging itself over the edge of the bed.
I could move fast enough to step back, thrust the closest arm away from me so it couldn’t get a grip and slashed with the blade in the other hand.
The vampire moved quickly enough that I only managed to slice down one shoulder before it rolled onto the floor and pushed back up onto its feet.
The tip of a crossbow bolt came out of its chest, but Naomi had missed the heart, and while it had gone through the lungs, it wasn’t as if this vampire needed lungs anymore.
As it tried to come closer to me, I thrust with the stake and managed to aim a little better. It couldn’t dodge when there was a wall to one side and a bed on the other.
I didn’t fully get it through the heart, but I must have gotten close, because it made it pause, grimacing. A second crossbow bolt appeared, coming from Naomi. That did finish it off.
Before it could fall, I thrust my hand in my pocket and yanked off the ring. Leaving it in my pocket, I turned my attention to Naomi.
“You good?” I asked her.
“I am if you are,” she replied. “We still make a good team.”
While I tried to catch my breath and recover from the ring’s energy consumption, Naomi knelt down and checked the vampire was dead and not just faking it.
“It’s over. The vampire is dead. What do you want to do with the body?” she asked, knowing we couldn’t leave it right there.
“We’ll need to dump it in the water, but we’ll want it to sink, which means we need to open the airways so the lungs fill with water.” I frowned as I tried to remember how Leo had done that with the last vampires we had fought.
“Or tie something heavy to it,” Naomi added.
“It’s less reliable, but yes, that can also work.
” I wasn’t as fond of that idea, knowing it would be harder to find something that wouldn’t be missed.
We didn’t have anything we wanted to chuck overboard with the body.
I didn’t carry around heavy objects as a rule, and we couldn’t take anything out of the room.
Not without drawing even more unwanted attention to ourselves.
For the next few minutes we tried to come up with solutions that didn’t cost us anything, but in the end we knew we were just going to have to dump the body as soon as we could.
Thankfully, we were on the ocean side of the ship and not on the side facing port, especially as the ship was still docked.
There was activity out on the ocean and I watched a tug boat go past us, no doubt on the way to help the cruise ship get out of harbor without damaging anything.
I considered waiting until we had left port and at the very least would be in deeper water, but I knew that Leandro would be waiting for us. Him showing up here to check we were okay wouldn’t help us stay under the radar and not be associated with him yet.
Not when we hadn’t decided what was going on, or figured out who had tried to have me killed. The vampire who had waited for us in the room didn’t seem to be the kind of killer for hire who would know why he was sent after me. He hadn’t been very bright, or as strong as I would have expected.
“Do you think there will be more of them?” Naomi asked as we very carefully brought the dead body out onto the veranda.
The wall to keep us from going overboard was high enough that it hid the body well from almost every angle.
It meant we wouldn’t have to take it far when the opportune moment presented itself.
“I do,” I replied, hoping Naomi wouldn’t be too scared by my admission. “And they’ll get stronger and possibly larger numbers of them at once as we continue to thwart them.”
She let out a sigh. “I was hoping this cruise would be more of a holiday than just the same job somewhere else.”
Tilting my head to the side, I considered the situation and opted for a little dark humor to lighten the mood. “Well, we could always ask them to hurry it up. Get them all killed quickly and then just enjoy the cruise sans vampires.”
As she chuckled, I allowed myself to smile as well. After a moment her eyes twinkled in merriment. “I assume a certain lover of yours will be an exception?”
“He’s a true-blood. They don’t count.”
“Technically that’s not true, but I’ll agree that so far I like this one and it would be a shame to end him.”
“He’s right, you know,” I replied. “There’s no way we could kill him. Even if we wanted to. The Brethren are much stronger and it takes a lot of skill and planning to take one out.”
“Our kind have done it before. I’m sure we could do it if we needed to. You know, if he ever causes you trouble and there’s a bad break-up or anything like that.”
I gave her a quick hug, noticing the ship’s engines beginning to pick up a little momentum. “I really appreciate how much you look out for me. Now, let’s get ready to drop this body as soon as we’re out of the harbor and get to the others. I imagine Alan and Tess will be nervous with Leo.”
“You mean Drew,” she shot back before she let go of me and we bent to grab the body. Already the ship was beginning to move and take us out to sea, although it would take a moment to get up to speed.
The sun was low in the sky and on the other side of the ship, casting a dark shadow on this side and making it difficult for anyone looking this way from the small section of harbor wall on the other side to see what we were doing.
“This is probably safe enough,” Naomi said as she hauled on one arm and one leg to lift him enough to toss him.
We managed to get a little momentum to swing the body up and over so it would clear the side of the ship but there was still quite a splash when it hit the water. Both of us tucked right back in and left the veranda in a hurry.
Without another word to each other, we tucked what weapons we could conceal about our bodies, grabbed our key cards for the room, and made our way back out into the hallway. We both checked for anyone who would see us as we came out, but the hallway was empty.
For now, whoever had sent the vampire, they would be left to wonder what had happened.
“Do you want to go to the suite or go check on Alan and Tess first?” Naomi asked as we made our way toward the elevator and stairs area closest to us.
Although I wanted to prioritize Alan and Tess, to make sure they were okay, I knew we had taken a long time and there was a good chance they would have gone to the suite already.
If we went to their room first, we could worry ourselves over nothing and leave them nervously trying to get along with Leo even longer.
But if they hadn’t made it to Leo, then it could be a sign they had been attacked as well.
The sooner we got to them, the more likely we were to find them alive and help them.
But I also knew that if they were also attacked, we would have far bigger problems. The turned shouldn’t know Tess and Alan were with us.
At least not yet. And if that was the case, we were going to need the backup of a Brethren.
“To Leo first. I am hopeful Alan and Tess will beat us there. If not, Leo will help us find them faster than anyone can.”
Naomi nodded. “I can get behind the logic of making sure we have our super-human vampire tracker with us if shit hits the fan. I’m starting to understand how you took out Ludis now. Having someone like Leo around certainly has its perks.”
I grinned, more grateful than anything that she understood why I had teamed up with him. I really had found some good friends in the end.