Page 72 of The Vampire and the Case of the Malevolent Mermaid

Sidnee was beaming, hope shining in her eyes for the first time in far too long. ‘That means he’s fine and causing problems like he always does!’ She gave a little bounce on the seat, a flash of her old self.

We drove to the office and processed the paperwork for a council trial for Bob Sampson. He wasn’t getting out on bail; the only place he was going to was jail. We were all on tenterhooks, waiting to hear more about Thomas so it was hard to concentrate on anything else, but I managed to finish the admin and send it all to the council.

Sidnee’s legs were jiggling with the effort of stopping herself from running into the street and trying to find Thomas, wherever he was. It was only a lack of location that stopped her from barrelling out and making bad decisions.

Finally Gunnar summoned us. ‘I’ve got Thomas’s location,’ he announced, triumphantly.

Sidnee sank onto a chair looking pale at the thought that her hopes might finally be coming true. If we didn’t find Thomas this time, it would destroy her.

‘I’m getting together a crew and we’re going to get him,’ Gunnar announced.

‘We’re on the crew, right?’ I asked, though my tone said he’d better not try to stop us.

Gunnar laughed. ‘Obviously. We’ll leave at seven – we need time for my contact to extract himself so we can go in guns blazing. Besides, that gives us an hour to get ready. Stan is preparing the boats and gathering the people on my list. We need to gear up and join them.’

‘Thank you,’ was all Sidnee could mutter. ‘You’re sure he’s … you know, alive?’

‘I am. I just got confirmation.’

Relief left her as limp as a wet noodle and she closed her eyes for a moment. ‘Good. That’s good.’ She blew out a long breath.

Gunnar stood and stretched his back. ‘Okay, let’s get our gear and head out to join the others.’

Sigrid had taken over watching Sampson for April, but I noted she hadn’t gone anywhere near the cell. As she watched Gunnar pull on his vest and weapons, she pulled him close. ‘Come home safe, Bam Bam.’

‘Always. I love you, Sig.’

‘And I you.’

Their declaration had me thinking of Connor. He wouldn’t be best pleased when he learned I’d gone to rescue Thomas without a ta-ta, but I wasn’t best pleased he’d sneaked out at dawn to summon a vampire court to trymysuspect, so I figured we were square. I put on my vest, my rain gear, and loaded up every weapon I could use confidently.

In all of our excitement, we’d forgotten to ask Gunnar where they’d found Thomas, though apparently it was somewhere we needed a boat to access ‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

He looked grim. ‘Elizabeth Island.’

I groaned. ‘Not my favourite place. Why would they go back there? They know about the kushtaka, plus it’s so near to us. Why would they think we wouldn’t find them?’

‘They know we don’t have enough personnel to search the area. Luckily, we don’t need to because we have GPS co-ordinates from my MIB contact.’ Gunnar sounded satisfied. We were being underestimated and we would use that to our fullest advantage.

Gunnar grinned. ‘I’m pretty sure that between you and Aoife, that kushtaka is either dead or he’ll be licking his wounds for years. We should be safe enough from it.’

I groaned. ‘You justhadto say it, didn’t you?’ He snickered.

Sidnee ignored our banter. She was dressed to the nines in weapons and as tense as bow-string. I dialled back the humour. ‘We need a better warning system for these fuckers,’ I mumbled. ‘Elizabeth Island is only five miles away.’

Gunnar nodded. ‘Yup. Something else to add to our to-do list.’ I heard the implication loud and clear: our to-do list was already far too long to ever complete. He hefted a huge duffle bag full of guns over his shoulder and headed for the SUV.

With all our problems with the Knight Stalkers and the MIB, we probably needed a whole team with helicopters, drones and armed men. Naturally, we had none of those – but we had heart and a malevolent mermaid, so I reckoned we’d be fine.

‘Grab the other bags,’ Gunnar ordered and I shouldered the one closest to me, noticing its heft. I could handle it, but it was larger than me so it was unwieldy. Sidnee collected the last bag and we loaded up.

When we carried our gear down the ramp at the North Harbour, Stan was already there with a hodgepodge of supernatural help. He’d brought Mads, his second and April’s husband, together with a couple of large, tough-looking shifters. He’d also enlisted Calliope and Soapy, who had brought a few more sirens. To my surprise, Connor was there, too, accompanied by John and a handful of vampires I recognised from the gathering I’d just left.

He was looking at me and he was none too happy that I hadn’t let him know about this adventure. Well, see how he liked it. He closed the distance between us. ‘Doe,’ he barked.

The snarky part of me wanted to reply with ‘Prince Connor’, but that would be bitchy so I didn’t. Instead I said, ‘You left.’ He pressed his lips together but I went on before he could speak. ‘You left to killmysuspect.’

‘My subject,’ he corrected.

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