A Trail of Echoes

  Her eyelids flickered open, her turquoise gaze fixing on me through her long dark lashes.

  “Hmm?”

  “The boat’s stopping.”

  She shivered a little as she pushed the blankets away from her, and then stood up. Her eyes were distant as she brushed a hand over her forehead and swayed slightly on the spot. She looked in a daze.

  “I had a… strange dream,” she said, furrowing her brows.

  “What?”

  “My mother, two sisters and brother were in it. They had moved to a pretty part of Manhattan, and were living in a nice apartment. And my brother… He’s nineteen and severely autistic, but in the dream, I… I had an actual conversation with him for the first time in my life.”

  Her words hung in the air as she continued standing, lost in her own thoughts. Then she shook herself and snapped out of it. She walked to the table, poured herself a glass of water, and downed it. Then she took my hand and we moved toward the balcony and looked out. The boat had almost stopped and there was a small harbor nearby.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  River looked at me nervously as I led her to the door.

  There was hardly anything I could say to comfort her when I was a bag of nerves myself. I swallowed hard, my mouth watering just at the thought of passing by a human in the corridor. Clenching my jaw, I swung the door open and we stepped outside.

  To my anguish, we passed many more humans on the way down than we had on the way up. It was early in the evening, and the ship had come alive with people going to dinner and heading up to the deck to participate in the nighttime entertainment.

  River gripped me so hard, if she’d had claws, they would’ve pierced right through my flesh. But thanks to River’s conscientiousness, we made it off the ship and onto the jetty without any bloodshed.

  Chapter 4: River

  As soon as our feet hit the ground, we hurried across the harbor toward a tourist shop. We stopped here to buy another, more detailed map of the area, and then we made our way toward the nearest road. This time, I didn’t run. I allowed Ben to carry me, which meant that we moved a lot faster. Racing partly on the road, and partly through the desert, he carried me through the late hours of the night until we ended up in a harbor in Ismailia. I was relieved that we hadn’t got caught out in the desert when the sun rose without any shelter for Ben, but it also meant that nobody was around, so we’d have no choice but to take another boat.

  Ben chose a vessel that was much larger and sturdier than the speedboat we’d found before, and equipped with lots of extra fuel. I headed below deck to have a look around while Ben figured out how to start the boat. As soon as the engine stuttered and the boat moved forward, I froze.

  Footsteps sounded outside, and then three guttural voices shouted in Arabic at once.

  “Hey! Stop!”

  I shot back up to the deck to see three men dressed in uniform racing toward us carrying guns.

  Oh, crap. Security.

  I hurried toward Ben, who’d poked his head out of the control room at the commotion. On eyeing the men, he looked ready to pounce. I stood in front of him, blocking his view of the men as they each boarded jet skis and began speeding toward us.

  “Just keep the boat moving,” I called back to Ben. “I’ll try to… deal with this.”

  Even as Ben ramped up the speed, the men were quickly gaining on us.

  Guns began firing as they continued to yell and demand that we stop.

  If we ignored them any longer, they’d catch up with the boat and try to board it. And then they’d be directly within Ben’s reach.

  I rushed down the stairs to the storage room beneath the deck and looked around frantically. I was relieved when I found what I’d hoped to see—a weapon. A rifle to be precise. Grabbing it, I made my way back up to the deck.

  I had only practiced using a gun once before in my life, and it was nothing this large, but I didn’t have time to doubt myself. As I arrived back on the deck, I ducked down and crawled toward the edge of the boat. I sensed them only feet away now.

  I didn’t want to harm these people. But we needed to get them off our tail.

  Using all the speed that I possessed, I raised myself and began firing wildly over their heads. I was scared that I might actually hit one of them because my hands were so unsteady, but thankfully, my idea ended up working. Having no cover at all, the men had no choice but to fall back and return to shore.

  Thank God.

  As I made my way back to the front of the boat where Ben was, my hands were still shaking. I sat next to Ben and looked at him. His eyes were set forward, fixed in concentration.

  Then he eyed the gun I was holding, and raised a brow. “Did you kill them?”

  “No. I could have just let them climb aboard and come near you if I’d wanted to do that… I just scared them off.”

  Leaning the rifle against the dashboard, I put thoughts of the men aside.

  “So now we’re headed for the Red Sea,” I said. “Do you think this boat will last us?”

  “I hope so.”

  I hoped so too, because I really didn’t fancy stopping by another port to meet with more security personnel. Or stealing another boat for that matter.

  I tried not to think too much about it, and instead just focused on the immediate stretch of journey ahead of us.

  I leaned back against the wall, and to my annoyance, started shivering again. This coldness was really becoming tiresome. It wasn’t even cold outside.

  I left Ben and went back down to the lower deck. I entered the bedroom—a small, basic room that could have done with a good refurbishment. But at least it was clean. I tore off the blanket from the double bed and wrapped it around my shoulders before leaving the room and heading back up to join Ben in the control room.

  But as I climbed the stairs, I stopped short.

  Noises filled my ears—noises that didn’t belong on this boat. The echoing of footsteps, the dripping of water, the murmuring of people talking around me, the sound of… grinding.

  My tattoo prickled uncomfortably.

  I scrambled up the steps and ran toward Ben. He looked at me in surprise as I clutched his shoulders.

  “I hear it,” I said, my eyes wide. “I hear what you hear. It’s like… It’s like we never left.”

  Chapter 5: River

  After the noises disappeared a few minutes later, I was surrounded again by the sound of water lapping against the boat.

  My breathing was quick and shallow as the prickling in my arm began to subside. Looking down at the skin around the etching, I could’ve sworn that it was glowing with a slight tinge of red.

  My hands were trembling.

  I’d been alarmed when Ben had told me about it, but experiencing it for myself was an entirely different matter.

  I’d thought that perhaps he was just suffering from trauma. But what was the likelihood of me experiencing exactly the same symptoms?

  Something else was at work here, and the unknown was terrifying.

  Clutching the blanket close to me, I sat next to Ben as he navigated the boat. After a couple of hours, he put it on autopilot and we both went to sit beneath a small shelter on the deck.

  By now we had exhausted the topic of what could be happening to us, so I changed the subject.

  “So, um, what’s it like in The Shade?” I asked, trying to fix my mind on more positive things.

  Ben cleared his throat. “Dark. It’s forever night there.”

  I stared at him. “Seriously?”

  “Yes, we have witches who’ve cast a spell on the island—a spell that also makes it invisible to everyone.”

  “A-and it’s full of vampires?”

  “Vampires, werewolves, some witches—even an ogre.”

  “An ogre?”

  “As I said, it’s a refuge for supernaturals.”

  Still taking in his words, I looked down at my feet, drawing my knees up to my chest and holding them tight a
gainst me.

  I wondered if someone there really would be able to cure me. Whether I would be able to return to my family without fear of being hunted down. Whether I could ever live a normal life again, or if that had been snatched from me forever.

  Ben shifted in his seat, looking uncomfortable.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Hunger pangs,” he said, rolling his eyes. “The smell of all those humans really brought my appetite to the surface.”

  I’d expected that the amount of blood he’d consumed would last much longer. If he was feeling hungry now, when we had only just started out on our journey, God knew what state he would be in when we arrived.

  “How will you manage?” I asked.

  “I’ll figure something out,” he said grimly.

  I stood up, keeping the blanket around me, and walked out from under the shelter and into the sun.

  I faced directly toward it, its rays upon my skin. I closed my eyes and relished the warmth. I didn’t feel pain from the sun as vampires did. But perhaps I would if I stayed in it long enough.

  I walked to the edge of the boat and leaned my back against the railing, soaking up the sun from this angle while Ben remained in the shade.

  I found myself stealing glances at him from across the deck, averting my gaze each time I sensed that he was about to look my way.

  The sky began to darken. I looked upward to see a cloud had formed in what had previously been a blue sky. It blocked out the sun and cast a shadow over the boat and the surrounding waters.

  I felt a drop of rain fall upon my cheek. The water was cool, and oddly thick. I brushed it aside with the back of my hand.

  “Wha—What is that?” Ben said, staring at me.

  “What?”

  He shot to his feet and closed the distance between us. He was gazing down at me, a look of disbelief in his eyes. His thumb brushed against my skin where the drop had fallen, and when he lifted it again, it was tinged with red.

  I looked down at the back of my hand.

  Also stained with red.

  I gaped up at the sky, at the cloud above, as droplets fell upon us more rapidly, until a shower of the thick red liquid pounded against the deck.

  Blood.

  It’s raining blood.

  Chapter 6: Ben

  Even as I stared at the blood in horror, my body ached to taste it.

  I shook myself, trying to rein in my bloodlust, ashamed that I could be so under its control even at a time like this.

  What is happening?

  I kept asking myself the question as I stared up at the cloud, squinting through the droplets of blood.

  And then I heard it.

  A voice, male or female I didn’t know. It was too soft, too echoing, to tell.

  It started out quiet, so quiet that I could barely understand what it was saying. Then it grew louder and louder, until it was echoing in my ears so loudly that the words couldn’t be mistaken:

  “Come back, Benjamin Novak.”

  My name. How does it know my name?

  The resounding voice repeated again and again in some kind of sinister chant. I clutched my ears, as if that would make any difference.

  “We know who you are, and we know what you want.”

  We? Who’s we?

  I staggered to the edge of the ship, clutching the sides and staring up at the sky, blood now streaming down my face.

  Despite my mind being preoccupied, my body was aching for the blood. I reached up to my face, touching the blood, and then moved to taste it.

  Human blood.

  It’s raining human blood.

  “Come back, Benjamin Novak…”

  Suddenly the tattoo seared severely—more severely than I remembered experiencing before. My legs gave way beneath me and I fell to the deck, crouched on all fours as I clenched my jaw against the pain.

  By my side, River crouched down and touched my shoulder.

  I was so consumed by the burning, I could barely see. Then I felt a different type of sensation—a burning not just in my upper arm, but the rest of my body too.

  River tugged on me.

  “Ben, you need to get out of the sun.”

  The sun. It had broken through the sky.

  The blood stopped. The cloud vanished.

  The pain in my tattoo ebbing away, I crawled toward the shelter.

  “What’s wrong?” River asked, looking at me worriedly.

  Still recovering, all I could manage to reply was:

  “We need to get you to The Shade.”

  Chapter 7: Rose

  Caleb and I sat on the steps of our mountain cabin, admiring the magnificent view of the island. The ocean in the distance shimmered beneath pale moonlight and a cool breeze rustled the leaves of the redwoods. We planned to move into a new penthouse soon, near the Residences with the other vampires, but for now we were still enjoying this mountain location.

  Aside from the strange gray ships moored outside the boundary, things in The Shade had been peaceful since our wedding and the departure of the dragon prince. I wasn’t going to complain. We had all had enough drama recently.

  I took a sip from my mug of hot chocolate, while Caleb took the last draught from his glass of blood. We sat in silence, content with each other’s presence.

  I glanced down at the beautiful ring on my finger. It was still bizarre to think that I was married.

  Married.

  I looked sideways at my new husband. His eyes looked slightly glazed as he looked out toward the ocean in the distance.

  “What are you thinking about?” I asked softly, leaning in and resting my head against his shoulder. He wrapped an arm around me, his hand on my thigh as he pulled me closer toward him.

  “A lot of things.” He averted his eyes away from the ocean and looked down at me, a mischievous glint in his gaze. “One of them being… How much longer do I have to wait for you to finish that hot chocolate so I can take you to bed?”

  His gaze gave me butterflies. He hadn’t been able to keep his hands off me since we’d exchanged vows. While previously he had been restrained, he was certainly making up for it now… which sure suited me.

  I sloshed the liquid in the cup. It had cooled by now. I swallowed the last two mouthfuls within the space of a few seconds, then showed him the empty cup. “No more need to wonder about that,” I said, giving him a sultry look.

  His hands reaching around my back and beneath my knees, he swept me up into his arms and carried me back into the cabin. Closing the door behind us, he headed straight for the bedroom and placed me down in the center of the bed. I was expecting him to begin removing his shirt, but instead he paused, giving me a thoughtful look.

  “Something else I was thinking about was… our honeymoon,” he said.

  I raised a brow, moving back toward the headboard and sitting upright. “Oh?”

  “I know you said that you don’t mind waiting for now, since I’m a vampire and traveling anywhere is going to be difficult. But it doesn’t have to be.” He reached for the nearby table and slid open the top drawer. He pulled out a sheet of paper filled with sketches and various mathematical notes. It all looked rather complicated, but I focused on the diagram in the center of the paper as he sat next to me and spread the sheet out on the mattress. It was a fairly large boat, about twenty-five feet long and eighteen feet wide according to the notes, and a shelter of some sort covered the entire deck.

  “What are you suggesting exactly?” I asked.

  “You’ve never visited New Zealand, have you?”

  My pulse quickened in excitement just at the thought. “No.”

  “Then how about we go on a little tour, stopping by some of the most remote islands in the Pacific Ocean, and make our destination New Zealand?” His brown eyes warmed as he watched my reaction. “This boat is something that I’ve been working on. Ibrahim would help me to equip it with an exceptionally powerful engine. If it all comes out right, we could stay in the
boat by day and at night explore the land.”

  I couldn’t nod more enthusiastically, but there were some things that bothered me about the plan.

  He seemed to read my mind and answered my first objection before I even asked it. “Yes, we could just take a submarine, and that way we’d be hidden away from the sun… But we will be spending all the daylight hours on the boat, and we will likely be gone for weeks—there’s only so long you can feel comfortable trapped within the hull of a submarine. We’d both be craving the open sea air.”

  My stomach churned a little. “But what about the hunters?”

  “We’ll ask Corrine to place a spell over the boat.”

  “That’s while we are at sea, but what about night time, when we reach land?”

  “Rose, the places I have in mind to take you to… I doubt we will meet any hunters there. We’ll stick to the remote areas and avoid people.”

  I paused, still uncertain. But the confidence in his expression soon convinced me.

  “So”—he moved the plan of the boat aside and leaned in closer to me, his mouth a few inches away from mine—“what do you say, Mrs. Achilles?”

  He placed his hands on either side of my hips, brushing gently against me with his thumbs.

  A smile spread across my face. Caleb knew how to melt me.

  “Sail away with me, Captain.”

  Chapter 8: Rose

  When I broke the news to my parents about our plan for a honeymoon, they both voiced worries similar to mine about Caleb being a vampire and the threat of the hunters. I let Caleb reassure them in the same way that he had done with me. My father was especially concerned about the hunters because he had been keeping watch on them near the shore. Caleb’s words seemed to satisfy my parents for the most part, although my father still seemed tense. I didn’t like him to be worried, but I couldn’t help but feel warmed on witnessing how genuinely he cared about Caleb’s safety. Not so long ago, my father had believed him to be a traitor and tried to kill him.