Page 128 of Tin God

Tenzin frowned. “Not at his neck?”

“No.” Ben floated a short distance away and pointed to his belly. “Kind of right at the waist.”

“You have far more force in your blade strike than I do.”

“He irritated me, and he was definitely trying to kill me.”

Tenzin shrugged. “I don’t actually know if you killed him. If he can find the other half of his body in the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, he might manage to put himself back together. But I imagine he’s probably orca food.”

“Sorry.” Ben frowned. “I just realized we probably should have kept one of them alive to question.”

“No worries,” Tenzin said. “I know exactly where Henri Paulson is.”

ChapterThirty-One

The air in the far pocket of the long bay was eerily still, and the whipping wind that scraped across the summits of the surrounding islands seemed to die down to a cool, licking breeze within the outstretched arms of the natural cove where the cruise ship sat moored.

Ben floated in the darkness over the surface of the water, peering into the portholes, most of which were covered.

He wasn’t the only wind vampire in the area, so it was hardly surprising that the immortals in residence of Paulson’s prize vessel valued their privacy and blocked out curious eyes.

Ben was surprised that he’d been able to get as close as he did without detection. Tenzin was watching from the clouds, making certain that no one noticed his surveillance, but even the vampires she’d alerted him to had ignored his amnis. If they felt him at all, they weren’t bothered.

Maybe Ben was getting better at cloaking his power, or maybe Paulson’s residents had simply become too comfortable in their hidden cove to fear discovery.

He saw a sliver of light from a porthole near the front of the ship and flew closer, peering into the uncovered window to the cabin lit with golden lamplight. Ben glanced inside and quickly looked away. The passenger was a female vampire in the throes of sex, blood dripping from two cuts over each breast while two men—who appeared to be human—licked the blood from her sides, smearing it across her pale skin.

Okay, so Paulson’s guests were not preparing to invade or attack anythingthatnight. It looked like it was leisure time for the immortals on this floating vampire city.

But that one glance did confirm that there were definitely humans on board Paulson’s ship, which Ben and Tenzin had already guessed. How many was a mystery, but Ben knew that an oceangoing vessel like this would need a good-sized crew to run it, especially when vampires were only active during night hours.

He flew along the edge of the cabins, but there were no other portholes uncovered.

Maybe the first vampire was an exhibitionist.

Overhead, balconies rose over the icy water, and Ben could hear slips of conversation drift by before the breeze snatched them away. He floated up, moving just under the line of sight so he could listen in.

“…send him a message when the markets open in Tokyo.”

It sounded like a vampire speaking on a phone but with some kind of headset Ben couldn’t hear.

“No, I probably won’t be back to Taiwan until the spring. I’m in the middle of a project at the moment.” He laughed a little. “Yes, the one Paulson mentioned. I can’t tell you.”

Another silent exchange on the other side of the call.

“Soon enough. It’s not even worth talking about until the Nikkei is over forty thousand. If that happens in the next month, get in touch.”

The conversation settled into mundane business, and Ben moved on, looking for more clues.

Each cabin seemed to hold a vampire even richer than the one before, and there was more than one voice that tickled his memory. There was one immortal with a distinctly Corsican accent that Tenzin might feel conflicted about, more speaking Latin, and others speaking Russian. There was a whole section of the boat occupied by a clan from Singapore. Another area held a group of rich French aristocrats.

Ben wondered if they’d been on the run since the 1790s.

He was passing by another cabin and paused when he heard a familiar name.

“…seen Sokholov in days.”

The name was spoken in an aristocratic British accent, and Ben flew closer, curious if he could identify the man.

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