“So many things have happened since you left, Cam,” Derek said. “So. Many. Things. The spell has had to be recast a number of times.”
We moved toward the hatch of their submarine, and the four of us slipped down into it and made our way toward the control room. I was surprised to see, sitting in two of the chairs behind the main switchboard, a young man and woman. They were in their teens, but they looked younger than Rose and Ben.
“Meet Cedric and Pippa,” Liana said proudly.
The girl and boy stood up and shook our hands. Pippa had blazing red hair, like her father, but she shared Liana’s light amber eyes. Cedric on the other hand had dark blond hair, with Cameron’s brown eyes.
I stared at the teens in confusion. When Liana and Cameron had left The Shade, they’d said that they wanted to trace their descendants. They’d lived centuries regretting having to leave their young children when they were first turned into vampires. Then when finally we’d discovered a cure, they’d wanted to leave The Shade to live a normal life and watch over some of their distant relatives. I wondered if perhaps these teens were such distant relatives.
“And who are Cedric and Pippa exactly?” I asked.
Cameron and Liana exchanged glances. “Our son and daughter.”
I was speechless. I certainly hadn’t expected them to have more children. But now that I thought about it, it made total sense. Hundreds of years had passed since they’d last lived as humans. The relatives who would still be living would be very distant indeed. They had still been young when they left, in their late twenties. I should’ve expected that they would start a new family.
“Wow,” I said. Derek shared the same shocked expression as me.
I looked back at their two children. “What a pleasure to meet you. How old are you?”
“Fifteen,” Pippa replied.
“I’m sixteen,” Cedric said.
Apparently recovering from the shock, Derek proceeded to step behind the controls. “We should get inside.”
He moved the vessel the few feet that it took to pass through the boundary, and then stopped. He turned to me. “We still have our submarine floating nearby. We have to take that back to the shore, so Sofia, you stay with Cam and Liana, and I will navigate the other submarine back. We’ll meet at the Port.”
Derek didn’t look like he wanted to leave his two friends for even a minute after just reuniting with them, but we couldn’t leave our submarine stranded.
And so he left, leaving me still reeling as I looked from Cameron, to Liana, to their two children.
“So how are you a vampire?” Liana pressed, clutching my knee as Cameron took a seat behind the controls and navigated the submarine toward the shore.
I breathed out, and traced my memory back to when they had first left The Shade. Rose and Ben had still been newborns, and Derek and I had also left The Shade to move into our dream home in California.
I didn’t get far into our story before we arrived at the Port and Derek rejoined us.
We stepped out onto the jetty, and warmth filled Liana and Cameron’s expressions as they eyed their old home.
“I’ve got to say,” Cameron said hoarsely, “I’ve bloody missed this place.”
I saw tears in the corners of Liana’s eyes. She seemed quite choked up as she helped Pippa and Cedric onto the jetty next to them.
“You have no idea how excited everyone is going to be to see you again,” I said, my heart pounding at the thought of Vivienne’s eyes lighting up on seeing them again. Liana was her best and oldest friend. “We wondered what happened to you.”
It was late now and most people were in bed, so as we led the four of them through the woods, the only person we bumped into was Eli taking Shadow for a nighttime walk. He looked like he had just seen a ghost as he eyed Liana and Cameron. Then a huge grin split his face and he hurried forward to embrace them.
Eli ended up joining us back in our penthouse after he had taken Shadow back to his apartment, and we spent the rest of the night trying to recount everything that had happened since they left.
I sat them down in the living room and since they all admitted that they were hungry, I prepared a meal for them of hot tomato soup with fresh bread, paella with feta cheese salad, and apple pie with ice cream, while we talked.
I kept looking at Cedric and Pippa. I wasn’t sure how much their parents had told them of the supernatural world, and they looked in a daze listening to what we said. Heck, even Cameron and Liana looked in a daze—especially when we told them about our new fire-breathing residents.
Of course, there was no way to tell them everything that had happened in a matter of hours, but we did our best to provide a good recap.
And then it was our turn to ask questions.
“How come you never came to visit us all these years?” Derek asked. “And why are you here now?”
“Good questions,” Cameron said, leaning back in his chair and taking a sip from his cup of tea. He glanced warmly at Liana. “My love and I… you know how we yearned for a normal life, Derek. Just as you and Sofia did. We wanted to experience what it was like to be human again. To live oblivious to the supernatural world. When we decided to have children, we knew we wanted to give them a normal, carefree upbringing. I guess if we hadn’t had them, we probably would’ve come back to visit much sooner, but we wanted to shelter them. So once they were born, that just cemented our distance from The Shade. Actually, we only told them about… all this… about ten days ago.”
My eyes widened. “Ten days ago?” No wonder the poor kids look bewildered.
Cameron paused, wetting his lower lip. “Something rather… disturbing happened. Something that left us no choice but to tell them the truth about our past, and return to The Shade.”
Derek leaned forward in his seat. “What happened?”
“Two strange men showed up at our home in Scotland,” Liana answered. “We were away on vacation at the time, in France. It was our house sitter who opened the door. They arrived late at night, around 9pm, and they asked to speak to Cameron and me. Our house sitter was under the impression that they were the police, so she gave them our mobile number. We received a call while we were on the beach one morning. It was an American man. It was Cameron who picked up the phone.” She looked at her husband, who nodded.
“Yes, it was me,” Cameron said. “He addressed me by my first and last name. He explained that he was part of a team working with the government to dig into some of the supernatural incidents that had been going on recently. The long and short of it was, he was a hunter and he knew who we were. I have no idea how he found out about Liana and me, and how he tracked us down, but he knew that we were once residents of The Shade. He said that we would be required to meet with them and this would not be a matter of choice. He asked how long we would be on vacation, so I told him the truth—we were due to return in a week.” Cameron paused to eye his two children, who were watching him recount the story. “During that phone call,” he continued, “we set up a time to meet, the very day after we returned, at noon. A couple of people would come to our house and ask us questions, or so they said. Well, we didn’t wait that long. After I told Liana what had happened, we booked last-minute tickets and traveled back to Scotland the very same day. Reaching home in the middle of the night, we packed up in a frenzy, and thanked God that we had kept the sub in good condition all those years. We left within one hour—we dared not stay longer than that—and brought only the possessions that we really needed.”
I stared at the couple, my mouth open. I couldn’t imagine how traumatic that must’ve been, to leave what had likely been twenty years’ worth of memories within the space of an hour, never to return again. Especially for their son and daughter.
Derek also looked taken aback. “So you left…just like that.”
Cameron raised a brow. “Of course, Derek. It was obvious that the only reason they wanted to meet with us was to get intelligence on The Shade. And who knows what means t
hey would have resorted to in order to force the information out of us. Leaving was our only option. We could never betray you.”
“Besides,” Liana said, “it was about time that we returned to visit you.”
“This isn’t a visit though, is it?” I said. “You’re here for good now.”
Cameron and Liana nodded slowly.
I looked at their children for a reaction. They both appeared to be surprisingly resolved about the idea. Of course, we had plenty of youths here they could make friends with. It would just be a shock getting used to life on this strange dark island.
“There are five hunter ships outside the boundary now, watching the island,” Eli said, looking seriously at Cameron through his spectacles.
“But so far that’s all they’ve done,” I said. “Watch.”
A silence fell as Cameron and Liana looked at us uneasily.
“You haven’t considered launching an attack to get rid of them?” Cameron asked.
Derek glanced my way. There was an undercurrent of conflict in his expression, but I was relieved when he replied, “For now they have done nothing to directly harm us. And in the long term, The Shade clashing with the human world will not be good for anyone. We need to avoid bloodshed as much as possible.”
A small smile curved Cameron’s lips. “You’ve changed your tune, Novak. Since when are you a pacifist?”
Derek clenched his jaw, eyeing me once again. “Believe me, Cameron, this tune is grating on my nerves every second of the day.”
Chapter 12: River
After the day the blood rain fell, the echoing in Ben’s and my ears became more frequent.
Ben said that he heard not only sounds of the atrium, but a voice too—an eerie chant that played over in his mind. I was bewildered as to how it could’ve known his name—whatever “it” was.
Ben was more determined than ever to reach The Shade. He maintained that there were witches there more knowledgeable and experienced about all things supernatural than he was, and that they might be able to offer insight as to what was happening to us. As soon as we arrived, he said, I would enter The Shade to try to figure out not only whether I could turn back, but also what had happened to us in The Oasis that was causing this torment.
Although the sounds of that desert prison surrounded us instead of the calming waves, as days passed, we didn’t have another incident like the blood rain. In fact, as we sailed through the Red Sea, the journey began to take on an almost lethargic pace. Even despite the echoing in our ears, we started to find a semblance of peace in each other’s company—or at least I did in Ben’s.
Although it had been terrifying, it turned out that the shower of blood had been a mercy for Ben. When the blood fell upon us from the heavens, most of it had escaped as it streamed across the deck, but there had been three empty barrels that had filled almost halfway. As soon as Ben noticed them, he took them down to the small storage room beneath the deck which was the coolest room on the boat. Of course, without any way to treat it, the blood wouldn’t take long to congeal. But I guessed that he’d find a way to consume it and at least wouldn’t starve. I wasn’t sure what happened to vampires without blood. Whether they could even starve. I was glad I didn’t need to find out.
Thinking about what I would do if something happened to Ben made me realize just how dependent I was on him. Without him, I would perish. I’d no idea how to navigate the boat, and much less of an idea of how to live in this world as a supernatural. And being dependent was something I hated. Since my father left, I’d tried to become as self-reliant as I could.
Of course, Ben was just as dependent on me. Heck, he might’ve gone through the whole of Cairo slaughtering people if I hadn’t been there to help him regain control in that guesthouse office.
It was ironic. Despite Ben’s uncontrollable thirst for blood, I realized as the days passed that he was actually an easy person to get along with—at least I found him so. We both worked together to figure out practical day-to-day things, like having clean clothes to wear. Since I had only one pair of clothes, as did he, which were already dirty from our trip even before we left Ismailia, we ended up fashioning clothes for ourselves out of spare bed sheets—clothes being a very generous term. I just cut one to size and tied it around my chest so that it hung like a strapless dress, while Ben wore one around his waist.
As for food for myself, I was lucky that there was a stash of it in the storage compartment—all of it longlife food in packets and tins, and none of it tasty, but it was keeping me full.
Since there was only one bed in the bedroom, and not really enough room for one of us to sleep on the floor, I ended up sleeping alone at night. There was a couch up on the deck, and that was where Ben took naps when he felt like it—although he really didn’t sleep much. It was hard for me to sleep in the beginning. I wasn’t used to resting alone, nor was I used to the rocking motion of the boat, but after a week or so, I’d gotten used to it.
At night, we got into the habit of lighting up a small fire on the deck, inside a wide metal container that we found in the storage room. It was during those nights that I began to enjoy getting to know Ben better. Not just as the vampire, but as the human he’d been before he’d turned, and the human he still was when his bloodlust was at bay.
Finally one night, as we sat next to each other, I plucked up the courage to ask him the question that I had found myself wondering more and more recently.
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
He gave me a smile. “Why?”
I felt blood rush to my cheeks a bit. I’d been hoping that he wouldn’t ask me that. “Just curious.”
“No, I don’t,” he replied. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
I shook my head. I’d had crushes in high school before, but never a boyfriend.
I looked away from his face and down at the fire. Though I could feel his gaze still on me. I busied myself with my mug of instant hot chocolate, blowing on the liquid and tracing the rim of the cup with my finger.
“Well, I quite like you, Benjamin,” I said. “Especially when you’re not acting like a serial killer.”
He chuckled. “I like you too, River. This situation… sucks. But I’m honestly grateful that it’s you that I ended up stranded with.”
I raised a brow, prompting him to clarify.
He leaned back, resting on his palms as he looked at me, a thoughtful expression on his face. “You make me feel…” He paused. “Like I’m not Satan.”
I snorted. “Well, thank you.”
“You should take that as a compliment,” he said, a wry smile forming on his lips. “Not even my family could manage it.”
Setting my mug down, I bowed my head in honor. “Do you think they might present me with some kind of reward for being the one to tame the prince?”
“What kind of reward would satisfy you?”
Good question, I thought as I looked into his vivid green eyes. Eyes I was beginning to lose myself in.
“I… I, uh…” I found myself tongue-tied.
I knew what I should say—that all I wanted was to turn back into a human so I could return to my family—yet somehow, that wasn’t what I felt like saying in this moment as we sat together. I bit my lower lip.
Then something made me lean closer to him, and rest my head against his shoulder.
His arm slid around me.
I leaned up to kiss his cheek, then looked back at the fire. His fingers played with the tips of my hair, tugging gently against my scalp. It felt like a kind of massage, and, combined with the warmth of the fire, made me feel deeply relaxed.
Then his palm brushed over my forehead, moving aside my hair, and his lips pressed against the top of my head. Tingles ran down my spine and when he stopped, I found myself wishing his kiss had lasted longer.
My thoughts were interrupted as the boat rocked violently.
Detaching himself from me, Ben shot to his feet.
“What was that?” I whispere
d.
He raised a finger to his lips.
I heard the clanging of metal. It came from the stern of the boat, which was out of view from where we’d been sitting. We crept toward the control room in the center of the boat and peered around it.
Four tall, thin African men were standing on the deck, carrying guns. I gasped.
At first I thought they might be hunters. But something about their appearance told me they were not. For one thing, their guns looked too outdated, and their clothes were ragged and tattered.
“Who are these men?” I breathed, as a fifth man clambered on board and they began to walk toward us in the shadows.
“Pirates,” Ben whispered. “Wait here.”
Pirates. Of course, it made sense. By now we had reached the Gulf of Aden. Looking closer at the men, it appeared that they were Somali pirates.
Oh, dear.
They really picked the wrong boat.
Chapter 13: River
The pirates barely managed to release a gunshot before Ben sprang on them. Considering they might’ve even intended to kill us in order to hijack the boat, I couldn’t bring myself to feel too much sympathy for them. Still, I couldn’t bear to watch the scene. I’d witnessed too much gore already. I turned around and sat down by the fire, my hands over my ears as I tried to distract myself from what was going on at the stern of the ship.
After Ben had finished with them, he came into view, splattered with blood. I assumed that he had killed all five of the men. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had drained all of them in one go. I didn’t understand how he actually contained all that blood in his body. It was a mystery to me.
He had a look of satisfaction on his face, that much was undeniable, but he also looked guilt-ridden—just as he had looked during the attack in the guesthouse.
He stepped into the control room and, to my surprise, stopped the engine. Once the boat had slowed down, he stepped out and walked to the edge of the railing.