A Trail of Echoes (A Shade of Vampire #18)(26)

Extending my claws and baring my fangs, I moved toward them, slashing the nearest one to me across the face. She howled and went tumbling down into the water.

One of the remaining two launched toward me with alarming speed, her hands outstretched and aiming for my foot. I dodged her, and she went rolling off the side of the submarine, back into the sea. The third one—with an injured torso—had now managed to make a hole big enough to slip through. Grabbing hold of a pole so I wouldn’t go skidding into the water, I reached for her. She slipped through too quickly, and although I managed to grab the tip of her tail, it was too slippery for me to hold onto.

I was about to slip through after her when a squelching sound came from above me on the roof. Turning to face the open hatch, I was just in time to see a tail disappear through it, and then a loud thud came from inside the submarine.

Damn.

Why the hell do they want to get in our submarine?

Rushing through the open hatch, I laid eyes on another creature squelching away from me across the corridor. But this one looked different than the others. With shorter hair, broad square shoulders, and a thick waist, this was clearly a male.

I caught up with him in a few strides and gripped the back of his neck. He squirmed beneath me and twisted round on his back to look up at me, revealing a face that was no less hideous than the women’s. He tried to bite my wrist with his sharp black fangs, but I struck him hard across the face. I was about to slit his throat when I noticed that he was wheezing badly. He looked so ill and pathetic as he lay beneath me, I decided to just leave him there and deal with the other who had made her way toward River’s side of the submarine.

Following the trail of dark blood the mermaid had left along the floor, I found her, to my surprise, curled up in a fetal position in a corner of an empty cabin. The fin at the end of her long tail was splayed out to cover her face. Her whole body trembled as she too had begun to make a wheezing sound.

I hurried back along the corridor to fetch the merman and dragged him into the cabin along with the female. I wasn’t sure what to do with them. I really didn’t want to kill them, but I also didn’t see the point in throwing them back in the water when they clearly didn’t want to be there. It seemed that they would rather die up here. Locking them both inside, I headed back to the control room to examine the broken screen.

I breathed out in frustration. Great. After all the trouble we’d undergone to find a submarine, now we were going to have to spend the rest of the journey above the waves.

I was about to go to River when something outside caught my eye. Bright blue lights. Flashing beneath the surface of the water. Grabbing a pair of goggles from one of the cabinets, I slid out through the hole in the glass and stood at the edge of the submarine. Staring down to the dark waters, I tried to make out what was causing the light. But the moonlight was reflecting too much over the surface.

Lowering myself into the sea, I put on the goggles and dipped down. Beneath the surface I looked toward the direction of where the light seemed to be coming from, and almost swallowed a mouthful of water in shock.

Perhaps a hundred merfolk darted in all directions as blue light shot toward them. Five black submarines were surrounded by dozens of divers in black suits, all armed with some kind of mini torpedo.

River and I needed to get far, far away from here.

I was about to haul myself back onto the submarine when a diver came into view about twenty feet beneath me. He was staring up at me, his head cocked to one side.

Hurrying out of the water and back into the control room, I just prayed that in the few seconds that diver saw me, he had not been able to detect that I was a vampire. I hoped he’d assume I was just a curious onlooker who happened to be passing this way.

I urged the vessel forward as fast as I could in the opposite direction.

“Ben?” River called. “What’s going on? Can I come out?”

“Just… stay where you are for now,” I replied.

The strong sea wind entered the control room as the sub sped faster and faster. I breathed in a scent that chilled me.

Human blood. Warm human blood. It was close. Too close.

I urged the vessel forward, but it was already going at maximum speed.

I pulled myself through the hole in the screen and looked round, trying to trace the source of the blood. Then I caught sight of two submarines above the surface, chasing after us.

No.

“Ben? What’s going on?” River’s voice again.

I didn’t answer her.

If those hunters catch up with us, this is the end of our journey. The end of us.

Navigating the submarine, I had been so focused on the two vessels behind me that I only noticed the one in front when its smooth surface emerged from the waves. It was a much larger submarine than ours and was positioned deliberately to block our path. I swerved to the right to avoid it, but the two submarines behind me were fast closing in. As all three worked together to trap us, it became clear to me that it was only a matter of time.

We had two options. Continue to try to skirt away from them in this vessel, the vessel that was much more outdated and slower than their own, or dive into the water.

My guess was that we would survive longer beneath the water than in such a big, clunky open target. Keeping the submarine speeding on autopilot, I left the control room and raced to River’s bedroom. As I opened the door, she looked at me in panic, a line of sweat on her brow.