Chapter1
The boat creaked and rocked around us.We had rolled up the nautical charts from the table bolted to the floor in the steering room.Vic, one of my boyfriends, had drawn in chalk a certain set of figures and diagrams on the exposed wood and was adjusting things, walking counter-clockwise around the table and occasionally tapping it with a forefinger here and there.A spark would run over the surface now and again, but ultimately it didn’t connect.He waved a hand through his hair and sighed, taking off his glasses and pinching his nose.
“I’m missing something,” Vic said, after a moment.“Doesn’t surprise me, but it’s frustrating.”
“Your incantation isn’t working?”Brother Al asked.He was the leader of the vampires aboard this boat—an older man with all the air of Count Dracula.Most of us were convinced he was the legend himself.
“No, the circuits won’t connect.And they won’t, not if I can’t figure the symbolatry out.I never thought this spell would ever be useful again, if I’m being honest.Navigation spells—those were some of the first things I learned when I started studying—but the modern age—moving on from trapping—” Vic shook his head, pushed his glasses back up a bit from where they had fallen.
“Not much use for navigational spells when GPS is in every hand,” Brother Al said.
“Exactly,” Vic said.“Give me a minute.This memory lapse couldn’t have come at a better time.”
“I’ll give you some space,” I said quietly.
We were returningto Chicago by boat—from being held as captives in a merman citadel under the water for the past few days.We’d heard word upon surfacing that the undead had overtaken Chicago.We had about half an hour before we hit shore, and word was, we wouldn’t have much time at all to get our asses in gear before we were attacked.
We were trying to come up with a battle plan.Vic was trying to summon up a phantasmal view of Chicago, to help us with the planning, but it was taking a little longer than we needed it to.We were all nervous.You could sense the tension dripping between all of us.
Eddie, my other boyfriend, was quiet for once, shaking his head in the corner, tapping his foot.I wandered over to him.His bronzed forehead was dripping with sweat.
“Hey,” I said.“Thank you for laying off Vic.”
Eddie shook his head.
“I don’t see how it would help,” he said.He shook his head.“Stace.This whole thing was real bad timing.You think Vic’s off his game because of earlier?”
Eddie and Vic had a pretty epic fight under the lake.Both of them had pretty much exhausted all their vampiric strength.I had been dating both—and thought they’d be okay with it like they told me they were at first.Unfortunately, tensions had come to a head earlier.They’d beat each other nearly senseless and now were barely able to keep their heads upright.
“Could be,” I said.“Look.For what it’s worth.I’m not sorry that I like you both.But I’m sorry if I did anything to come between your friendship.That’s not what I was intending.”
Eddie shook his head.
“I honestly think we’ve worked it out,” Eddie said.“Look, guys are competitive, okay.That’s just our nature.And Vic and I are kinda the rookies on the Council.We’ve always been a little… head to head.You were just an excuse to get crazy and cut loose.We’re creatures of the night, Stacey, but we’re following Brother Al, and the Regional Council’s orders.We’re wild animals being taught to be civil.The inner beast wants to come out and play on occasion, and that’s not anything you could have known.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
Eddie shrugged.
“I’m not sure.Me and Vic would have been the best bet at crowd control, but now…”
They were both exhausted.Eddie was paler than normal, face bruised and chunks of his hide torn out, his knuckles raw and his gait crooked.He was healing, but the process was slow.Vic, on the other hand, seemed to lose all mental focus.It was like he’d run out of mana, for lack of a better word—he looked scuffed, paler than usual, and a little foggy in the eyes.He’d barely managed to reform his body into being presentable looking earlier.
“I wish there was something I could do to help,” I said.
“You just being here to help us plan is more than enough,” Eddie said.
“When’s the last time you fed?”I asked.
“Don’t,” he said.
“I mean it.Did you eat at all when we were there?”
Eddie shook his head.
“I drained a gull.Don’t know about Vic.It was a light lunch, but that was before all the exercise.”
“Would human blood help?”I asked.
