A Vial of Life (A Shade of Vampire #21)(32)

We lined up the merfolk together in a row before scanning the surrounding area to see if any had managed to escape our notice. Satisfied that these were the only ones who had managed to take this particular detour around our guard of witches and vampires, we picked up the stunned merfolk and carried them over our shoulders back to the beach.

Rows of captured merfolk covered the beach. Some were unconscious, some bound, while some appeared so still and injured I was certain they’d been killed.

“Did any others manage to enter the island?” My voice boomed across the beach.

“Don’t think so!” came several shouts, between the screeches of the last of the merpeople putting up a fight.

Soon, all the merfolk were piled up together in the center of the beach. I cast my eyes out toward the ocean, unable to spot any more in the waves, although that certainly did not mean that there weren’t more. It was more than likely that the merfolk we had lined up on the sand were only those who’d crawled out of the ocean before we arrived. Others could have just retreated into the depths.

“What do you suggest we do now?” Ibrahim called, brushing sweat away from his brow with the back of his hand.

I chewed on my lower lip, my eyes traveling over the long line of merfolk. From the looks of it, most had been stunned, but apparently in some cases where they had been caught by impatient vampires, they had been maimed and killed.

What now? I asked myself Ibrahim’s question. What are we going to do with all these fish? The logical step would be to transport them outside the boundary, far away from our island, and drop them into the depths of the ocean. Then the problem of those merfolk who might still be lurking in our waters would remain. Ibrahim had already stated how difficult it was to catch them—and he’d only been talking about two merfolk. Here, we could be talking about a huge swarm of them. We didn’t know. And it wasn’t like we could send the dragons after them either, being protected by all this water…

“Not all of them lying here are dead,” Xavier commented, “and we don’t know how long it will take for those who were stunned to come to. We need to hurry and make a decision.”

“We don’t know how many more are still swimming within our boundary,” Sofia said, looking anxiously out at the waves. “I think the first thing we need to do is set up a second boundary. A boundary that separates the water from the land. We need to prevent anyone from swimming at Sun Beach, or on any other shore of the island. I don’t know what these merfolk are here for, or how they got inside, but it seems clear they want to enter the island. If we keep a second boundary up long enough, perhaps they’ll go away…”

I had my doubts about that, and from the look on my wife’s face, she did too. But she was right about what our first steps had to be. We had to secure the island immediately, which meant shutting off our access to the ocean.

Ever since The Shade was founded, we’d always had access to the stretches of water that surrounded the beaches. This would be the first time in history that we were forced to cut them off—for however long it took to get rid of this infestation.

I turned to Ibrahim. “You heard Sofia. The first thing we need to do is set up a second boundary. Not only must it prevent merfolk from entering the island, but it also must prevent any of our residents from entering the ocean. For now, we need to have a total lockdown. Other than the witches, the only persons with permission to exit should be Sofia, Xavier, and me.”

Contact with the ocean was ingrained in our island’s culture. Our people, especially the humans, enjoyed lounging around on Sun Beach and swimming in the waves. It would come as a shock to have that taken away from them without any warning, but it had to be done. I feared that even now, although it was evening, people might be swimming on some other part of the island and could be in danger of another attack.

“How soon can you work your magic?” I urged Ibrahim.

He exchanged glances with his fellow witches. “We’ll get on it right away.” With that, he and the other witches vanished, leaving the rest of us gathered around the line of merfolk and staring down at them grimly.

But we didn’t have time to stand and stare. “We need to scour the beaches to check that the merfolk haven’t simply migrated to another part of the island. In the meantime, ten vampires should stay here to make sure the merfolk don’t escape. Once we’ve finished searching the island, and Ibrahim has confirmed that the second boundary is up, I’ll return and give further instructions about what we’re going to do with these creatures.”

We formed a search party, while ten vampires volunteered to stay behind and keep watch on the merfolk on the beach.

Our search group split into two and began running in opposite directions. Each would work its way around the circumference of the island and we would meet again at the halfway point. Although I still hadn’t turned back into a vampire and was technically a human, in addition to my ability to wield fire, my speed was nearly fast enough to keep up with a vampire— they lagged a little to keep up with my pace, but we were still able to cross the island quickly. I instructed everyone to keep a sharp ear and instantly report any screams or even the slightest sounds of struggle.

My throat was tight as we ran, my heart pounding. I kept expecting one of them to report an attack at any moment. Thankfully, we made it halfway around the island with no such alarm, and we didn’t see any signs of an incident along the way. When we met up with the second party, led by Xavier, they hadn’t come across any attack either.