Forever Young - Book 2

by Daniel Pierce

Kamila blushed. “I told you, being a pirate gets old after a decade or so. Although I do like the whole rum thing. Now hold on tight. We need to get there as soon as we can. If we never see another fucking boat again, it’ll be too soon.”

  I couldn’t have agreed with her more. I used my water abilities to speed us along, turning an hour’s journey into half an hour’s jaunt. Because of my water powers, I was able to steer us clear of the many reefs and sand bars too, lifting the hull in a gentle arc that cleared the dangerous obstacles with room to spare. Beneath us, I sensed the skeletons of boats that had not made the trip without a calamity. Here, the ocean was hungry, and the reef was a graveyard. I knew there was silver beneath us, and even some gold. Gems too, if my sense were correct, which they were, given the nature of water surrounding all the things people had lost over the centuries. The bottom was crowded with wealth, but it was no time for mercenary concerns. We would return someday, when we needed gold. Or rum. Or both.

  I jumped out of the boat and helped drag it onto the beach, grunting with the effort in the wet sand. The beach was white, not pink like the sand of Bermuda, but it was still one of the most beautiful places I’d ever seen. Around me, the air was sweet and salty, the sky a distant bowl of blue.

  We couldn’t see the mainland. We couldn’t see anything except the island. Someone who didn’t know better, or who wanted to pretend, could easily be convinced there wasn’t anything around beyond this island. It was a place away from places. A lost thing, just like the gold at the bottom of the sea.

  We made a circuit of the island first, stretching our legs and taking the measure of the place. Yet again, I sniffed myself, as did Daisy, who made the dog equivalent of a polite cough before backing away from me. The hold of the cargo ship had been a little cramped, and we all had a certain odor to us. I wanted to meet Zarya, but I really wanted to see her shower.

  The island was surrounded by water of a blue that defied the senses, quieting my mind with its mere presence. The water lapped gently—never crashed—onto sandy beaches on all sides of the island like the border of a blanket. I could see a few footsteps on that beach, bare feet going to and from the water, but it didn’t give me even a moment’s pause. The chances of Zarya hiding indoors when she lived in paradise were minimal, if not ridiculous.

  The interior of the island was thick, lush jungle. I could see and hear hundreds of birds, just from where I stood on the beach. Enough flowers to fill a florist’s shop back in Maine dangled from the trees and vines at the forest’s edge. I couldn’t identify them. I didn’t care to try. They were pretty, and they smelled good. That was all I cared about; that and a lack of vamps hanging from the trees.

  “Her house should probably be in the interior,” I said, looking at the dark, dense vegetation.

  Daisy barked.

  “Yeah. I know.” Kamila scratched her dog’s head, right between the ears. “Something about that jungle is making me nervous, but if she was looking to hide from the world, that’s where she would go. We’ll have to go in.”

  For a second, I considered suggesting we split up. We might be able to cover more ground that way, but I reconsidered immediately. None of us knew what might be hiding in those trees, from a boa constrictor to a jaguar to a vampire or twenty. The only safety we could find—the only safety we would ever find—lay in numbers.

  We pressed on.

  We didn’t discuss the plan, but we didn’t have to. It was obvious. We walked in a line, much as we had on Bermuda. We had three things to watch for: traps, vamps, and natural issues. The dense vegetation could hide fauna that saw us as great meals. It could also hide quicksand or sudden drop-offs. It could hide pools of water with crocodiles or alligators or any of a hundred other hazards. I fully expected spiders the size of beachballs, given the primal feel of the jungle around us.

  Part of me thought it would be funny for the vampires to mobilize and start a war, only to have the fabled Lifebringer get killed by a crocodile. Given that I was the Lifebringer, it was only a very small part of me that found that hilarious.

  Only one man had known of the island in Belize City, so I didn’t expect to see any signs of life other than those left by Zarya herself. I did find a couple of areas that made me wonder. I found some broken branches and vines smeared with dried blood at a height suitable for a human. I called them to Kamila’s and Tess’s attention. We had no way to analyze the blood and no way to learn more about the find. Instead, we kept moving, leaving the mystery behind.

  But the mystery would not leave us. I spotted more blood and knew we had found a trail.

  17

  The silence of the island appealed to me when we first made landfall. By the time we found the second blood marker, I was ready for some noise. I couldn’t hear the birds anymore, and their silence left a gap in my senses. I couldn’t hear the waves either. In fact, the absence of any sound at all was what first tipped me off to the fact that the situation had changed. Any kind of forest was a noisy place. A jungle was even louder. To have it go completely silent like that made my hair stand on end in a call to my lizard brain that I was only too happy to answer. I stalked with purpose, every nerve wound tight as we went deeper into the island interior, our steps roaring with noise in the quiet.

  Then we saw the building.

  Rather than try to build a brand-new house by herself, she’d taken what looked like an existing structure on the island and adapted it for her own purposes. It was a large building made of light-colored stone. The roof was flat and supported by a stunning colonnade. A grotesque frieze in the middle of the second story leered out at us, mocking us, and a mass of stairs led up to what looked like a floor that was open to the elements. It was finished, but raw and unsettling. An air of deceit hung around the place.

  We looked at each other, and Daisy began to growl, a low noise in her throat that left no doubt as to her intentions. Dogs are the world’s finest fighters, with senses that put my Ferin abilities to shame. I took heed of her warning and stepped away, my eyes locked on the structure standing mute before us.

  Kamila took the first step. The risers went all the way around the building, which was normal for Mayan buildings. If the surrounding countryside got flooded, everything indoors would be dry and safe. It was a smart design. I admired it for a moment before following Kamila and Daisy up the stairs. Tess brought up the rear, her eyes darting with nervous energy.

  Kamila stopped in her tracks and pointed at the ground. We could shrug off the few droplets of blood in the jungle. Things happened. People got lost. They got hurt. Hell, Zarya might have hurt someone to keep her secret safe. A pool of dried blood on the stairs was something we couldn’t ignore or rationalize away, and it was a pool, not a spatter. The volume of blood was alarming.

  We didn’t run into the house, even though we might be forgiven for wanting to do exactly that. There wouldn’t be vampires inside. The sun was still up. There might be drug dealers, though, or criminals of a different kind. It would be ironic if she’d taken so many precautions to protect herself from the supernatural only to fall prey to a more human type of predator.

  After all, this island would be the perfect kind of place for a cartel to use as a staging area. She was hiding in plain sight, a feat that made me respect her before we even met.

  If we were to meet. Inside was chaos.

  The heavy stones of the building created massive shadows despite the time of day, but there were sconces with torches in the wall. It only took half a second to light them When we did, we could see that the torches might have been the only things in the room that weren’t destroyed.

  The main floor of the room was indeed one massive, open room. There were no windows, just many doorways open to the elements. Whatever the building had been used for a thousand years ago, Zarya had turned it into a cozy comfort for herself now. One half had become an elegant library that felt European. I could see the remains of some of the books burned in the middle of what had once been a beautiful Persian r
ug. A lovely Stickley chair lay in pieces nearby. I could see more dried blood on it, a grotesque testament to the violence we’d missed.

  She had a small hot plate in another corner. It connected to a battery, which was in turn connected to something that went outside and up to the roof. The hot plate, the battery, and the wires had been pulled off their shelf and destroyed, along with pottery that might well have been collected over centuries.

  I squatted down to examine the battery. Little bits of skin were still attached to the wires. “Someone was tortured here.”

  Kamila covered her mouth and closed her eyes for a moment. “Was it absolutely necessary to say that, Jason?”

  I took a deep breath. “Sorry. I just—I’m trying to figure out what we’re dealing with here. That’s all.” I stood up.

  “We know what we’re dealing with,” Tess snarled. “It’s vampires. It’s always fucking vampires.”

  I didn’t share my theory about drug dealers. Based on Kamila’s reaction just now, I didn’t think anyone wanted to know. Instead, I scanned the rest of the debris. “I don’t suppose either of you can figure out what’s missing?”

  “Besides my friend?” Kamila bit her lip. “I apologize, Jason. I’m scared for her, and that’s making me a little nasty right now. Give me a minute or two to get control of myself.”

  I stepped over a pile of what I thought might be metal and wrapped my arms around her. “Hey. You’re a passionate person, and there’s nothing wrong with that.” Tess joined us, and even Daisy came to lean in. “We’re going to find her. Okay? We will find Zarya. There’s not enough blood here for them to have taken her head or her heart. So she has to be somewhere. All we have to do is figure out where.”

  Tess squeezed and sniffed. Then she took a step back. “We haven’t found Mort yet.”

  Thanks for bringing that up, Tess. “We haven’t. Mort may be staying away by choice. I don’t know Zarya, but I don’t know a whole lot of people who would do this to their own homes. Odds are good that she didn’t leave under her own power. Kamila, you know her best. I know it’s hard, but we’re doing this for her. Look around and see if you can see anything that’s out of place.”

  Tess shot me a dirty look. “Everything’s out of place. That’s the point.”

  I forced myself to smile. Getting mad wouldn’t solve anything. “Anything that looks like something that shouldn’t be in Zarya’s house. Like…” I cast my eyes around furiously for an example. “Like this. I don’t know Zarya. I don’t know what she’s into. Kamila, you’ve described her as a witch, right?”

  Kamila nodded. “What’s your point?”

  “So she’s not likely to be the kind of person to use brass knuckles.” I stepped over to one of the debris heaps and picked up a set of bloodied brass knuckles from the floor. “These aren’t hers. They wouldn’t fit a woman’s hand. So whoever took her was using brass knuckles.” I scratched my head. “Why would vampires need brass knuckles? They don’t need to hit harder.”

  “No, but the brass knuckles do hurt more.” Tess rubbed her cheek. It looked like a reflex action. “Okay, sorry. I get what you mean now.”

  We split up and pored over the house, examining every detail for something that might stand out. There wasn’t much. Vampires didn’t tend to leave a lot of clues. That alone told me they weren’t looking to send a message to us—to me. They were coming for Zarya for her own sake, not because of me.

  It was cold comfort at best.

  There was a ladder going up to the second floor. I grabbed a torch and headed up, my eyes peeled for any kind of motion. This was Zarya’s private room, where she kept personal items tied to who she was. Her inner sanctum. Her bed wasn’t much. She probably couldn’t transport anything old, but there were some dusty tomes that turned out to be original printings of classic novels. To my surprise, there were miniature portraits that looked an awful lot like Captain Logan and Kamila.

  Interesting…

  Not everything up here had been ransacked. There wasn’t enough up here to draw the vampires’ attention. The attackers’ attention, I corrected myself. It was wrong to assume they’d been vampires, even if I was about as sure as I could be they had been my usual enemies.

  I stepped farther into the room, letting the space speak to me. A room like this must have been terribly confining, even for Zarya. I felt like I was in a tomb, limited by the lack of space and sky—and odd sensation made worse by the simplicity of everything. I expected dark magic and things hinting at mystery, but there were simple quilts and homespun clothing, all of which spoke of a life lived within the parameters of normalcy. I tried to handle the books with care, since they were antiques and books didn’t tend to hold up well to time or rough handling.

  When a piece of paper fell out of a first printing of Ivanhoe, I felt a spark of fear that I might have damaged the book, but it wasn’t a page from the novel. The paper was modern, high-gloss, and—

  I brought it closer to my torch. The logo on the paper was familiar. It was a little too familiar for coincidence. “Morning Star Pty Ltd.” I picked my head up. “Guys, I’ve got something.”

  I brought the paper and the torch over to the ladder access hole. Then I just jumped down to the main floor, crouching to absorb the shock. As soon as my feet hit the ground, I put my torch in its sconce and ran over to the others. “Look, I found this.”

  They looked at the paper. Then they looked back at me. “It’s a party flyer,” Tess said. “What’s the point?”

  “The point is Bermuda.” I stood up taller. “Remember that one vampire? The one who was wearing real clothes when they attacked and could speak in full sentences?”

  “Your chew toy.” Kamila snorted and tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Yeah, I remember that bastard. What of him?”

  “So he had a business card for the same place in his pocket. I brought it with me.” I showed the offending card, holding it against the flyer. “Now do you see?”

  “Oh my god.” Tess looked over at Kamila. “That’s right in Belize City.”

  “We should go.” Kamila darted toward the door.

  “Kamila, wait.” I reached out for her. “There’s something upstairs you might want. Er, in case we don’t have time to come back here.”

  She gave me a quizzical look and raced up the ladder. She came back down about a minute later. I didn’t see the portraits, but she kissed me briefly as she passed. “Thank you,” she said.

  We left the house. None of us felt comfortable rifling through Zarya’s things. She wasn’t there, and the house felt haunted without her.

  “We need to check out that Morning Star company.” Tess folded her lips into a grim line. “I don’t know what they’re up to, but it’s too much of a coincidence. Let’s head back to Belize City and take it from there. I feel like this is something bridging our problems. The vamps, and Zarya, and the war. All in a simple logo.”

  Kamila checked the sky. “We’d have wanted to get going anyway. The sun’s going down. We already know the vampires have been here once. We don’t need for them to come back.”

  We didn’t bother with stealth as we cut through the jungle. We moved as fast as we dared to get back to the beach, and got to the boat much faster than we had gotten away from it. We pushed it back out onto the water, jumped into it, and headed out to sea. I pushed us back toward Belize City as fast as I could, not hiding what I was doing. Our slipstream was elegant and smooth, and Tess gave me a tight grin of thanks. Kamila looked stricken, then thoughtful, and then angry.

  We had a target. I didn’t know what they might have been looking for at Zarya’s house to have torn it apart like that, but I knew they had a potential ally in their grasp. We needed to circle back and get her as fast as we could. However powerful a water witch Zarya might be, she might not have much time left.

  We would be her deliverance. Or her end.

  18

  We disembarked in Belize City and ducked into a pub with an outdoor seating sectio
n. While we ate and drank beer, each of us disappeared to the restroom for a few moments to freshen up and change our clothes. We hadn’t been able to do that since leaving the Dominican Republic, and after our trip through the jungle, we were less tourist and more ragged adventurer. It wasn’t a good look. Or scent, for that matter.

  Once that was done, we headed back out, Kamila in the lead and armed with a plan. She, Daisy, and I were supposed to go to the strange business and check it out. Tess, meanwhile, would sneak into the business through a back door and see what she could see. It was all rather cloak and dagger, but the idea of approaching from two angles was better than kicking the door in and burning the city to ashes, no matter how attractive that might seem.

  “Are you sure about this? There may not even be a back door to sneak into.” I shook my head. “I’m a little iffy on sending Tess in alone too. Not that she needs my permission or anything. It just makes me nervous. I feel like we’re sending her in as a sacrificial lamb or something, and it’s not a good feeling.”

  “You’re cute,” Tess told me and ruffled my hair. “Don’t worry. We’re not going in looking for a fight. We’re just doing a scouting run.”

  “Why is it when I say I’m just doing a scouting run, I get in trouble?” I grumbled to no one in particular. Tess kissed my cheek, and it wasn’t patronizing. It was delicate and familiar.

  When Kamila and I got to Morning Star, we almost thought we might have been in the wrong place. The company turned out to be an event planning firm that handled weddings and other happy events. I’d never considered vampires and parties to be linked in any way, but then, most of my parties involved whiskey and not the blood of the innocent. I still didn’t believe in coincidences, so we pressed on, unfazed by the bizarre purpose of the firm. We’d been attacked by vampires connected to this place, and Zarya had been attacked by vampires connected to this place. There had to be something tying them together. We would go in, and we would get answers.