Page 57 of Tin God

“Turn the camera back so I can see you and I’ll tell you.”

ChapterThirteen

He turned the camera back, and his heart relaxed when he saw her face.

I love you so much it hurts.

“Tell me,” Ben said.

Tenzin rested her chin in the palm of her hand and stared at him. “I want to kiss you.”

“You could do that if you didn’t leave, so I refuse to feel sorry for you.”

Her eyes were soft, and she mouthed something he couldn’t hear, probably in a language he couldn’t speak.

“Zasha is raiding along the coast,” Tenzin said. “We found a survivor today. An old man. I flew him to the hospital, and he told me about his grandson who had married a vampire he met three years ago. He’d convinced the family to move with him up to Alaska, and they were all living together.”

Ben’s heart ached at the soft sadness in her voice. “The family?”

“All dead except for him. He has one granddaughter left somewhere in the south.” She looked down. “If he lives long enough to see her. He probably won’t live. I think his organs were bleeding.”

“I’m sorry.”

She shook her head. “He was human and already old.”

“It’s okay to feel sad about his family, Tenzin.”

“I don’t know them.”

“But you knowhimnow, and you know they were probably nice people who were just trying to live.” Sometimes Tenzin’s humanity was hard to find, but other times it was swimming just below the surface like a fish under ice. “So it’s okay to feel sad. That’s empathy.”

She wrinkled her nose. “He is a great-grandfather now. I promised him that Brigid and I would kill the vampires who did it.” She quickly added, “They’re dangerous and they need to die or they will kill more humans.”

“I know.” Ben nodded. “That was a good promise, Tiny. There have been raids around here too. More humans and vampires killed farther south. No one is going to try to save these guys. The problem is finding them.”

“Brigid thinks they are on a boat. Zasha is on a boat somewhere, and they are raiding from that boat.”

That was as good a theory as any. “Brigid’s smart.”

Tenzin curled her lip. “She also said it is a big ocean.”

Ben sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He needed a haircut, but he didn’t want one. “She’s not wrong. I was at a raid site last night. Carwyn said it reminded him of a Viking raid in Wales.”

Something sparked in Tenzin’s eyes. “Like Zasha’s sire.”

Ben frowned. “Was he a Viking?”

“Yes, or something that came before. Maybe he gave them the idea in the first place. He was an earth vampire, but he traveled the rivers by boat and he raided human villages at night.”

“Name?”

“I don’t even know it.” Tenzin frowned. “I’ve never asked.”

Ben would make it a point to ask Carwyn. “Okay, so Zasha was sired by some horrible Viking vampire and now they’re re-creating that with other vampires. Why?”

“Oleg thinks Zasha is working with Katya.”

“Katya thinks Zasha is working with Oleg.”

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