Page 71 of Tin God

Ben held out his arms. “Give him to me. I can fly?—”

“I have no idea what condition he’s in or what he’s capable of,” Carwyn said. “Right now he’s barely alive. He needs blood, and I don’t know if you can control him if he loses it.” Carwyn began to move through the trees the same way they’d come. “Buck has blood on the boat. Meet me there.”

The vampire was coveredin mud, and his skin was blackened from fire, but his fangs were long and pure white when they sank into the bag of blood that Carwyn held for him on the deck of Buck’s boat.

“I don’t know him,” Buck said. “But he doesn’t speak Tlingit. Or at least he doesn’t right now. If we get him back to my place, Jennie might be able to talk to him. He might just not recognize my accent; it’s not great.”

“He’s Tlingit?” Ben asked.

Buck nodded. “I mean, I think so. He looks Tlingit, but then if he’s as old as you think he is, he might be something else. Whoever came before them, you know?”

“He’s old.” Carwyn reached out a hand toward the blackened forehead of the vampire before he pulled back. “He’s older than me. I want to comfort him, but touching him might be painful. The best thing we can do is leave the mud on him.”

“He might have been living back in those woods for a thousand years without anyone bothering him.” Buck kept his voice quiet. “Like I said, there aren’t too many vampires who come out here. It’s possible Zasha just happened on him, or this one came looking when he sensed other vamps in the area.”

“There’s no way of knowing,” Ben said. “We just need to focus on getting him stronger. Something tells me that if he’s been living out here all this time and no one even knew he was here, he was probably feeding on animal blood like Carwyn.”

“This is human blood,” Carwyn said. “Donated. He’ll heal faster with human blood.” Carwyn muttered something quietly in a language Ben didn’t speak, something that sounded soothing and reassuring.

Hopefully the desiccated vampire would recognize the tone of the words even if he didn’t understand their meaning.

Buck had already pointed the boat back toward Ketchikan.

“Do you think it’s a good idea to move him?” Ben asked.

“It might take him centuries to heal from burns like this with no help,” Carwyn said. “He’d be alive but barely. Getting blood into him is better.”

Buck added, “If we get him back to our place and Jennie can’t talk to him, I know someone else we can call. She’s older than my wife and might know this guy. Either way, we’ll make sure he gets better.” Buck scowled at the vampire curled in the corner, hidden under emergency blankets. “I don’t understand it. I don’t understand any of it.”

“Zasha was there with friends most likely.” Carwyn pulled another bag of blood from the refrigerator. “Brigid said there was at least one wind vampire with them in the desert. That’s how they got away.”

“A child?” Buck asked.

“No.” Ben shook his head. “Zasha’s sire was an earth vampire. Any child they sired would go to the earth. This has to be someone else.”

“Someone who’s following them around. A friend. An ally.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Carwyn said. “We finish anyone involved in this.” He looked at Ben. “Judge, jury, and executioners. This cannot continue.”

“Agreed.” Ben looked at Buck. “We have permission from Katya to get Zasha out of her territory by any means possible. This is the second survivor found from one of Zasha’s attacks. The first one happened a couple of weeks ago. This one might have been in the ground for months. We need to find out where they’re hiding.”

“In this place?” Buck spread his arms out. “Sorry, gentlemen, but you’re lookin’ for a needle in a haystack.”

They were greeted backin Ketchikan by a round-faced woman with light brown skin, wavy black hair that fell to her waist, and fine lines of tattoos decorating her chin.

Buck stood at the wheel and waved. “That’s my lady. That’s my Jennie.”

Katya’s top lieutenant in Alaska wore a serious expression on her face and a blood-red parka dotted with rain. There were two humans waiting with her as she stood on the dock, a tall man and a woman who could have been her sister.

“I’m Jennie.” She nodded at Carwyn, who was carrying the burned vampire in his arms. “Sorry I haven’t been able to meet you before. What the hell, Buck?”

“I know, honey.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Just glad the earth vampire was with us or we never would have known.”

“Sounds like you’ve had a lot thrown at you,” Ben said, “from what Buck has said. Do you recognize him?”

Ben held out a hand to stop her when she reached out to the burned vampire in Carwyn’s arms. “His skin.”

“Right,” she murmured. “I think I might know who it is. We didn’t know if he was alive or not ’cause no one’s seen him in so long.” She bent her head to the curled-up vampire and whispered something in his ear that seemed to get a reaction.

---