Page 125 of Tin God

It was the same idea Ben had been chewing in his mind. “You think they’re somewhere else.”

“I’m thinking that Zasha probably likes boats about as well as another earth vampire we know.”

“If I never set foot ina boat again,” Carwyn muttered, “I’ll be happy. I’ll celebrate that. Not a single thing could make me regret that.”

“My, my.” Brigid sidled up to him as he stood on the bow of their fishing vessel, which was trolling through the waters of the Frederick Sound. “I see someone isn’t enjoying the fresh air.”

“Fresh air? You mean freezing air.”

“It can be both.” She couldn’t help but be amused. For a thousand-year-old European, her husband did love warm weather. “Let’s go to Mexico when this is all over.”

Carwyn’s eyes lit up. “Warm mountain towns? Historic cities? Lucha Libre tournaments that go on for hours?”

“All of that.” Brigid smiled.

“That’s a brilliant idea.” He put his arm around her shoulders. “And let’s spend all the time on land. Nothing special about oceans anyway.”

In the distance, just to prove her mate wrong, a massive orca breached the water, its rounded dorsal fin cutting through the night air as two other whales in the pod skimmed the surface before all three plunged into the black water.

“Nothin’ special about oceans at all,” Brigid said. “I’m sure we’ll see somethin’ like that in the mountains around San Miguel.”

Carwyn blinked at the magnificent display. “Fine, boats aren’t the worst mode of travel in the world—that remains the bicycle—but they are very close. In the bottom five unless there are whales.”

“Not just boat slander but bicycles too? Jaysus.” She tsked under her breath as her eyes narrowed in on a figure flying toward them. “No wonder the Danish vampire hates us.”

Carwyn spotted the figure approaching from the sky. “Is that Tenzin?”

“No, it’s Raven,” Brigid said. “Her hair’s tied back.”

The wind vampire landed on the back deck of the ship with an uneven thunk, and Brigid and Carwyn walked around to greet her.

She perked up as soon as she met them. “Cool. I got the right boat. I ran into Tenzin flying north into the Stephens Passage. They spotted something in a bay that they think looked promising. I mean… suspicious.” She shook her head. “You know what I mean.”

“So we head north.” Brigid nodded. “I’ll tell the captain. Anythin’ else you spotted?”

“Eh…” Raven shrugged. “I’m not an expert here.”

Carwyn said, “You have good instincts. Did you notice something?”

“The lack of something,” Raven said. “I mean, I know it’s winter, but life goes on, right? We’re not that far from Juneau, and I think boat traffic is down from what it normally is this time of year. Which again, it’s winter, so I might be wrong, but it seems low.”

Brigid looked up at Carwyn. “Maybe Paulson put out the word that other boats weren’t welcome.”

“Or maybe something is happening to boats that normally travel in that area,” he said. “There are residents who live along there, in areas that are probably mainly accessible by boat this time of year.”

“You think there are more attacks we haven’t found yet?” Raven asked. “More than the ones Katya blamed on Oleg?”

“You mean the ones Oleg blamed on Katya?” Brigid nodded. “We might never know who all Zasha and their people killed. But if there’s less boat traffic than usual for this time of year, we have to at least consider that Paulson and Zasha are behind it.”

Tenzin lookedaround the narrow fjord they were flying over. “Maybe we should sell the house in Shanghai and buy a place here.”

“It’s freezing cold in winter.”

“And it’s burning hot in Shanghai all summer.”

“The only time the weather is nice here are the summer months when there’s something like twenty hours of sunlight.”

Her excitement did not wane. Ben was thinking like a human. “I’m just saying we should consider it.”

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