Urban Fantasy 2x05 "Not a Job, But a Responsibility."

CHAPTER FIVE
“Not a Job, But a Responsibility”
Released on www.patreon.com/99geek (December 2017)

“You should have involved me sooner,” Mrs. Holbrook told the car full of women from her place in the center of the back seat.

The two women in the front seat were quiet, Rebecca Masterson focusing on the road while Billy’s mom Petti watched the trees pass in silent contemplation. Rebecca’s daughter had disappeared almost a month ago, and Mrs. Holbrook couldn’t help but wonder if only Rebecca had clued her in then on what had been going on in their neighbourhood, perhaps Mrs. Holbrook could have organized a proper resistance sooner and her beautiful daughter Stacy might have still been safe at home now.

“It’s been all over the news,” Mrs. Masterson said with a quick glance into the rear view mirror at Holbrook. Of course with 7 kids it was a little hard to find time for things like the news. “Besides, what could you really have brought to the table? Your perfect Bristol board making skills? I already had a number of signs drawn up. They’re in the trunk.”

Mrs. Holbrook reached behind her and grabbed a sign from the rear of the hatchback. There were a pile of them, each with slogans like ‘Justice for all should include our children not just the rich.’ and ‘The world isn’t the Hunger Games, our kids are not tribute.’

“Protests have been going on long before you were born Laura, and they’ll roll on with or without you behind a megaphone.”

“And you think this will fix anything?” Laura Holbrook asked, looking down at the signs as her stringy blonde hair fell over her face. “You think someone will read your slogans and memes and will be suddenly swayed unto empathy by how clever you are?” Laura looked out the window.

“Pull over,” she said to the mother driving.

“We’re almost there,” Mrs. Masterson told Holbrook.

“Rebecca!” Laura Holbrook said her name with command. “Pull over, now!”

With a tsk behind her red hair, Rebecca Masterson did as she was told and swung the wheel to pull their car off to the side of the road. Laura got out, spotting about ten meters back the thing she was looking for.

“Protests aren’t won with signs and slogans,” Laura yelled over her shoulder at Rebecca as the other mom got out of her car.

“I didn’t think protests were something you could win,” Rebecca muttered loudly, heard over the traffic passing.

Laura stopped over the large rock she’d spotted from the car. “Maybe that attitude is why the mayor has been ignoring your concerns for so long. For a protest to make waves, someone has to be willing to throw the first stone.” She bent down to pick up the rock, it easily being large enough to call a boulder. She had to wrap her arms around it and lift it like it was a loveseat.

“You shouldn’t lift with your back,” The third mother yelled from the open window of the passenger seat.

“Shut up Petti,” Laura yelled back to her. To the other mom she commanded, “Help me get this into the trunk.”

 “And you wonder why we didn’t involve you?” Rebecca asked rhetorically with concern, slipping shades on her face to consider Laura’s find without squinting in the bright sun.

*     *     *

Rachel felt sick, waking up under her hoodie to find the hospital room flooded with natural light from outside. A nurse must have come by at some point and thrown the blinds wide open. The sun bleeding through the window was bright, betraying that it had in fact been many hours since sunrise. Her hood protected her from the direct sunlight, keeping her safe from magically combusting into flames. The intense indirect light seemed to be enough to affect her, however, twisting at her stomach and making her muscles feel slow and sluggish. It was almost like she was in water. She wondered how long the light from the sun had been beaming directly on her.

Her brother Jacob was asleep in a chair by the hospital bed where his friend Sabrina was recovering from the injuries she’d sustained the night before. Jacob had been pretty banged up too, but had refused to leave Sabrina’s side after the nurse had bandaged him up. He seemed to care a lot for this person who, from what Rachel could tell, was his only friend. He’d fallen asleep leaning against her bedside.

Rachel shook her brother awake with a hand on his shoulder. He groaned, and shifted, leaning his head onto the corner of her bed.

“The sun’s up,” the vampire told Jacob. “I’m gonna go.”

“Return to your coffin?” Jacob asked, apparently having no problem recalling the events from last evening.

“I was thinking more along the lines of school,” Rachel lied, giving Jacob a lopsided grin. He didn’t need to know her true destination.

“I don’t wanna go today,” he said groggily, straightening in his chair and stretching out. “Can I stay here?”

“Of course,” Rachel said, not expecting him to want to go to school after what he’d been through. “Text me every couple hours okay?” She hugged him tightly.

In the hallway, she found Tanya sleeping in a chair by the door. She had her jacket bundled into a pillow, and lifted her brown haired head from it as Rachel stepped through.

“You could have come in,” Rachel told her friend, the noise of the hospital ringing in her ears. There was the clattering of trays as breakfast was being prepared, the rattling of medications being served, the PA was blaring non-stop requests for doctors on one floor or another. Rachel massaged her temple and gestured for Tanya to follow her.

“Where are we going?” Tanya asked, checking her watch as she got up. She also checked her breath and grimaced. “I’m guessing it’s not school.”

“No,” Rachel said simply, as they reached the elevator. Rachel reached out with her cane to push the button, then set it with a tap on the hard floor.

“That’s fine,” Rachel’s friend said, slipping a cigarette in her mouth as the doors opened and they stepped on. “I didn’t do the homework anyway.”

From the moment they stepped outside into the sun it was a race for Tanya to light her cigarette before Rachel opened her cane into an umbrella. It was a tie.

Tanya sucked back on her cigarette while they made their way to her car. “Ah,” she said to Rachel. “That feels so good.” She inhaled deeply and started coughing. “I…love…it.”

Tanya continued to cough, covering her mouth. “Where are we headed?” she asked once she finally calmed down and took another, this time far lighter, drag of her smoke.

“Do you know where your father would be, this time in the morning?” Rachel asked.

“Eew,” Tanya said at the thought of her father. “Probably hiding in his office,” she admitted as she unlocked her car.

“Then you have your destination,” Rachel told Tanya, and the two of them got into the yellow Corvette. “Get me into that office. I need a word with him, he’s about the only one I can think who can help us now.”

Tanya paused for a moment. “I guess stranger things have happened.” She started the engine.

“Can you get us past security?” Rachel asked.

Tanya shook her head, “Security won’t be the problem.” She started the car forward. “But from what I’ve heard the riots will.”

*     *     *

Even in the parking lot around the side of the building, Isabol could still hear the loud explosive yells of the protesting crowd of people that had formed outside city hall. The crowd had grown since last Isabol had seen it.

“Sounds like there’s a lot of anger out there,” Isabol said to Hana as she got out of the car and listened. The voices rang like thunder.

“We want our kids!”

“Give us our children back!”

Hana frowned to the reporter she’d been taxiing around all day yesterday. “I’d be angry too if either of my children were missing.” As it were, they spent the last night in the hospital, something she’d only found out upon getting home late last night. Stifling a yawn, the mayor’s assistant started her walk around to the front of the building. “I have a lot of work to catch up on in my office, but I’ll catch up with you tonight?”

“Maybe,” Isabol muttered as the crowd of people came into view, she was so stunned by the sight that she stopped in place.

“You okay?”

“There’s over a hundred people there,” Isabol said, doing a quick estimation in her head.

“I wouldn’t know the difference between sixty people or a hundred and sixty.”

“When you hit three digits you stop being able to pick out individual cliques and it becomes more of a mass.”

Isabol saw Hana scrunch her face up in confusion. “Have more children been taken?” she asked the reporter.

“Maybe it’s not anger I was hearing,” Isabol told her new friend. “It could have been fear. And fear can spread a whole helluvalot faster.”

As they passed in front of the crowds a woman shrieked across at Hana, “My son is missing while you’re doing nothing!”

“It could be our children next!” A man in the crowd yelled.

The youthful Detective Dae Daniels approached them, breaking from the line-up of cops that were barring anyone from entering city hall.

“They called in every officer to control the crowd,” Dae explained to them, shifting uncomfortably in her bulky riot gear. Her body armour and weapons easily must have weighed more than she did. “While I’m stuck here there’s no one who left to investigate the disappearances.”

“I’m going to stay here and try to get some interviews amongst the protesters,” Isabol told Hana with resolve. The Mayor’s assistant flashed her badge to a cop in the line-up and she was allowed to pass into the building.

Isabol stepped away from the line up towards the crowd of people. “Excuse me,” she called into the crowd. “Is there someone in charge here? Someone organizing all this?”

Dae placed a hand against Iasbol’s breast. “Maybe you should keep your distance,” she warned the reporter. “You don’t want to get hurt.”

“Please,” Isabol said, stepping into the protesting crowd. They almost seemed to part for her. “I am a reporter for Voice News, Detective, these are my people.”

*

The police line up around city hall moved away from the entrance, staying close to the reporter it seemed in case trouble broke out. It gave Rachel and Tanya the perfect opportunity to slip past. Rachel stopped at the top of the stairs in front of the large opulent glass structure. Even from outside you could see through the glass walls to the waterfall that fell from the second floor and created a river under the first.

“Yeah,” Tanya told her vampire friend. “It’s pretty aggressively opulent.” Rachel’s focus wasn’t on the building however.

She’d turned around to look down on all the protesters that had gathered. Tanya followed Rachel’s gaze.

Rachel spoke softly, “Everyone down there has lost someone.” They all had sons and daughters and sisters and brothers that had gone missing, all because she hadn’t been strong enough to stop this sooner. “How do I tell all these people they will never see their family members again?” Her heart seemed to drop in her chest, and she wondered if a vampire could get a heart attack. Or even a panic attack, was she about to have one of those?

Tanya put her hand on Rachel’s shoulder. It was an immediate comfort, as if Rachel could breathe again. “You don’t tell them,” Tanya told her. “Nothing good would come of it.”

Rachel shook off her friend’s grip. That hadn’t helped at all. “Someone has to,” she told Tanya. “The truth is the only thing that can heal this kind of emotional pain.”

“Okay,” Tanya said. “ Yeah, that’s deep. You wanna stay out here and write that down, or should we go talk to my father.”

Rachel turned on Tanya, throwing her finger threateningly in Tanya’s face. “You’re lucky you’re pretty, Shawna Dixon.” A grin spread on her face as Rachel passed Tanya towards the front doors.

“Nuh uh hun,” Tanya said, following close behind her. “You’re the pretty one. I’m gorgeous.” Rachel was acutely aware that neither of them had showered or changed clothes since yesterday.

Inside the automatic doors she could hear her mother from up the escalator on the second floor. “Focusing Oakville’s entire department on protecting his ass,” her mother’s voice carried from above, “was just about the douchiest most selfish move he could have possibly made. Does he plan to run again next elections?”

“Honestly,” another woman’s voice said from the secretary’s desk, “I think he’s scared he might not live to the next elections.”

“My mom is upstairs,” Rachel told Tanya, the school president unable to hear as well as her. Rachel pulled her hood up over her head and switched places with Tanya. “Make sure to stand between us. I don’t want her to see me.”

“Okay,” Tanya said as they reached the top of the escalator and made a right towards the indoor forest. “But for the record I’m supposed to be the one with parental issues.”

“Noted.”

“I’d love to give him a piece of my mind,” her mother said to the secretary as they crossed the entry hall. “Is he in his office?”

“He is,” the secretary said. “But he made it quite clear he didn’t want to be disturbed. In fact he specified you by name.”

 They entered the indoor forest and shuffled quickly across the bridge over a river. Why the mayor had a river running through his city hall was beyond her. Were those bees?

Rachel heard her mother’s voice behind her, and presumed the woman had turned around. She quickly hid in front of Tanya, hoping she was sufficiently obscured from her mother’s view.

“Who was that?” Her mother asked the secretary.

“The mayor’s daughter,” she told Rachel’s mom. “I had no idea she was coming in. Don’t see her too often.”

“I’ve never met her,” Hana said, and Rachel heard footprints behind them.

“Move faster,” Rachel hissed and they picked up the pace, power walking down the glass hallway and into the mayor’s office. Rachel closed the door behind them.

It was made of glass.

“Who designed this place?” Rachel complained, grabbing a large bookcase and sliding it across the wall to block the door, both physically and visually.

“In the flesh,” Tanya muttered and she nodded across at her father who seemed hard at work with a wrench on what appeared to be some kind of automated minigun turret. Propped up on three sturdy metal tripod legs, the top of the turret only barely cleared the mayor’s waist.

“Please god tell me that fires rubber bullets,” Tanya said loudly.

“Hmm?” the mayor said, looking up at them as if he hadn’t even noticed them come in. “Oh the protestors? No. This isn’t for them.”

“You’re expecting a different army of people to storm this building any time soon?” Tanya asked, and the mayor didn’t respond, instead getting back to work. Reaching in, he seemed to be trying to twist a knot that he couldn’t quite reach. His wrench was too big.

“Damn it,” he said distractedly. Without looking up he asked, “How can I help my daughter today? I haven’t seen you in forever. We haven’t talked in… well...” He did finally look up, but it was just a fleeting glance.

“And you brought your vampire friend with you,” he said, loudly changing the subject. “That’s good. She’s powerful. Perhaps I should have thought to come to you.” Rachel wasn’t sure if he was talking to them or himself. She wasn’t even sure if this man was still sane.

She could smell the fear on him.

“I know I’m the last person you want to talk to right now,” Tanya started to say, speaking slowly.

The mayor shook his head. “Nonsense. There’s no one else in the world I’d rather talk to. You’re my daughter and it’s been too long.”

“Yeah… we covered that. Look we need your help,” Tanya said at last to her father, speaking slowly. She seemed to be very thrown off balance. “I don’t know how exactly. Rachel has the plan.”

“I need a boat,” Rachel said, stepping forward.

Tanya turned to look at her.

“I don’t understand,” The mayor said, stepping away from the turret and sitting down behind his desk.

“I don’t either,” Tanya said. “We already have a new headquarters…”

“That’s cute,” the mayor said under his breath with a bizarre smile.

“What are we going to do, attack them from the sea?”

The mayor crossed his fingers over his desk. “What exactly is this pertaining to?”

“We can help you with your problem,” Rachel told him, ignoring her friend. “With the protestors outside.”

Mayor Dixon frowned. “I assure you that is only the beginning of my problems.”

“We know what happened to their children,” Rachel told the mayor, her voice surprisingly steady. “They’ve all been turned into vampires.”

“That’s,” Mayor Dixon said, frowning again, “troubling.” He looked out one of the glass walls of his office down at the protestors  below. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “We can’t tell them that, they’ll eat me alive.”

“I’ll take care of the parents downstairs,” Rachel assured him.

“We don’t have a plan for that,” Tanya told her father, as if implying he shouldn’t hold them accountable.

“But I think I can get the children out of the city,” Rachel explained, “and stop them from turning anyone else. And that’s priority number one.”

“How?” Tanya asked.

“Using a boat,” the Mayor told his daughter with a smirk, showing off that he was paying attention.

“He’s right,” Rachel said. “Have you ever seen Jurassic Park?”

Tanya shook her head. “I’ve seen the third one,” she said.

“Who only sees the third one?” Rachel asked, scrunching up her face.

Tanya just shrugged. “I only ever watch the last of trilogies. I figure by the third they’ve finally figured it out.”

Rachel continued, “Well there’s an island in Jurassic Park two, and three I think, that’s all off limits to humans. Dinosaurs are allowed to roam free. Free of human interference, free from hurting anyone innocent, and safe to live their own lives however they wish.”

“So you want us to feed the children to the dinosaurs,” the mayor said, and Rachel looked at him sharply. “I’m just kidding, I’m following you, I swear. So I give you a ship. You gather up the vampires and we transport them to a secluded island. Then I pass laws making that island inaccessible to people and we divert military resources to patrolling the waters around it. Sounds like you need more than just a boat. You need government support behind your insane operation.”

“This goes any other way,” Rachel told the mayor, swiping her hand through the air, “More people are going to be hurt.”

“And what do I get out of this?” Mayor Dixon asked, leaning back in his chair. “If I help you?”

“You’re kidding,” Tanya said. “Right? We’re solving your problem.”

“If I do all this for you, I want a favor in return.” The mayor looked from his daughter to Rachel, holding his gaze on her.

“Absolutely not,” Tanya insisted.

“Anything,” Rachel said. “I just want to help those kids.”

Tanya rolled her eyes and gestured to the turret gun. “We don’t know how to put that together,” She told him. “Did it come with instructions?”

Dixon gave a smile, which Rachel supposed was the closest he got to laughing. “Not so much. We can worry about my favour after the children are out of the city. Priorities of course.” The way he talked about child lives so coldly gave Rachel a bizarre shiver down her spine. “I can have my assistant set up for a shipping liner to meet you at Bronte harbour. Seven PM tonight. I’ll have the dock master notified. And the crew of the ship. But the fewer people we involve in all this, the better.”

“At least we can agree on something,” Tanya muttered. “But if this is a trick or trap,” she said threateningly to her father, “I swear I’ll make you regret it.”

“Please, Shawna,” Dixon said his daughter’s real name. “I’m putting the past behind us. We’re going in a new direction now, a new partnership where you scratch my back and I scratch yours.”

Tanya gave an obviously fake smile and Rachel could tell she wasn’t finding it as easy to put the past behind them as he was.

“Come on,” Rachel muttered to her friend. “Let’s go inform the gang of the plan. I still have to find the pack of kid vamps before sundown.” She figured it was probably best to get Tanya out of there before she escalated things any further.

*

Things outside the city hall were escalating far faster than Isabol had hoped. Multiple tv crews were setting up as the situation seemed to be turning quickly from the kind of interest piece Isabol specialized at to the kind of breaking news that attracted the masses.

“I’m not going to let anyone take my story away from me,” Isabol told a cameraman from Voice news who had found her in the crowd. “Whoever they sent with you will have to sit this one out. I’ve put too much work in already.”

“They didn’t send anyone with me,” the cameraman told Isabol. “They want you reporting on this live. You up for that?”

“I’ve been preparing for this moment my whole life,” Isabol said, trying to straighten herself. “How’s my make up?”

The cameraman sighed. “You’re wearing make up?” he asked, positioning the camera on his shoulder.

“No,” Isabol told him indignantly. “Do I need any?”

“Do I look like I carry some with me?” He was wearing dingy overalls over a checkered shirt with rolled up sleeves. His jean overalls had a lot of pockets, admittedly, but Isabol was fairly certain not one of them contained anything related to make up. “You ready to go, or do you need more time?”

He looked around the crowd of people, at the other news stations breaking the story, while he put the finishing touches on his camera settings. “We go live in ten.” He told her and her heart jumped. She’d done plenty of segments for the channel before, but never anything live. This was the holy grail of reporting. The moment she’d lived her life to build towards. She took an earpiece and shoved it in her ear.

“Nine. Eight.” The cameraman said while handing her a custom shaped mic. She held it in both hands, and planted a big smile on her face. “Seven. Six. And try to remember this is about missing, possibly dead, children. Three. Two.” Isabol’s smile faded. “One, and you’re live.”

 She heard the voice of Voice founder Brian Schultz at the desk through her earpiece. “There she is now. Isabol, can you hear me?”

“That’s right Brian,” She said into the mic and camera. The cameraman gave her the thumbs up, confirming they were receiving her. “I’m standing outside the city hall of a small Canadian town, one few people may have even ever heard of before. Oakville isn’t always listed on every map, sometimes it’s hard to fit it between Toronto and Hamilton, but the town will be forever a household name across the world as the details come out of the horror that has gripped its families here.”

She continued. “Authorities won’t go on record as to the exact number of children missing in this region, but rumours have it being as high as fifty seven children have gone missing over the past number of months. The number seems to be increasing every day, and little hints can be found as to what might be happening to the kids in question.”

Brian’s voice came in through her ear. “Has it been ruled out that the children ran away?”

“It’s being deemed somewhat unlikely due to many of the circumstances around the disappearances,” Isabol tried to explain to her boss in the news room.

“Can you give us a sense of some of those circumstances,” her boss asked her through the earpiece.

“I’m talking murder, Brian,” she told him, giving the scoop few other news sources would have picked up on. “Multiple bodies found with their blood drained. Many of the victims were parents or other family members of the children now missing.”

“That sounds unimaginably tragic,” Brian said through the earpiece.

“It’s like nothing this small town has ever seen,” Isabol told the camera. “Worst of all, perhaps, is the city’s inability so far to accomplish any kind of progress towards justice or returning these kids to the arms of their families. I was talking to one woman by the name of Laura Holbrook who seemed to be in charge of this movement of parents calling for action.”

Isabol turned to try to find the woman she’d just been talking to, but it seemed the woman had wandered off. Oh this wouldn’t do. The last thing Isabol needed was to be ridiculed on live tv.

“Come on ladies,” Isabol heard Laura’s voice say from inside the crowd. Isabol waved for the cameraman to follow her, and she pushed past protestors to where a bunch of women were trying to lift a large boulder. It seemed they had tried to throw it at the line-up of cops, and when that failed they changed tactics. Now it seemed they were working together to lift it like a battering ram.

“Charge,” Laura yelled, and the four or five women slowly stumbled forward, barely keeping the rock off the ground.

“I’m losing it!” one woman yelled. “Stop stop, I’m losing it.”

“I don’t have a grip either,” complained another woman.

Detective Daniels stepped out from the police line-up and chuckling she waved her gun lazily over their heads. “Alright now, put it down.” She was laughing despite herself. “That’s quite enough of that.”

A teenage girl carrying an umbrella, only barely as tall as the short Detective Daniels, squeezed past her to stand in front of the mass of protestors. She had pale skin, black hair, and vaguely Asian features, all hidden under a black hoodie. “Stop,” she screamed into the crowd louder than Isabol expected a girl her size to be able to yell. “It’s my fault your children are gone. They’re not coming back.”

The boulder dropped with a loud thump.

“What do you mean our children are gone?” Laura Holbrook asked the teen, stepping forward to get directly into the young girl’s face. The young Asian teen just looked at the ground uncomfortably, fidgeting with her black fingerless gloves.

“Are you getting this?” Isabol asked her cameraman who nodded at her briskly. He didn’t want to miss a thing.

Another teen tried to squeeze between Laura and the first teen. This teen was taller, and more built. She had thick legs, brown hair done up in a ponytail that lay flat against her leather jacket. “She didn’t mean that,” the second teen tried to explain to the mother. “It was a figure of speech.” She looked directly at Isabol’s camera. “Figure of speech.”

Laura shoved a finger into the second teen’s breast. “Where is my daughter.”

The first teen pushed past the second. “My name is Rachel, and I know where your daughter is. She… they’ve all been infected with something…”

Isabol stepped in front of the crowd, only steps away from where Laura was standing. “How are we supposed to believe two teenage girls? If there’s some kind of disease going around wouldn’t the government let us know?”

“That’s um,” Rachel swallowed. “That’s a really good question.”

“Thank you,” Isabol said. “My name is Isabol Teung. I’m a reporter for Voice News.”

“I bet you say that a lot,” the second teen said to her off hand.

 Rachel raised a hand for her friend to be quiet. “The government hasn’t told you about this disease because it isn’t a disease, per se. But it’s an explanation for every cold case, every body that was found drained of blood. Every missing person that couldn’t be explained. Every conspiracy theory that seemed to insane to be true.”

Isabol tried to follow the girl. “Are you saying there’s something supernatural behind the disappearance of the children?” her heart sank, as it seemed this was just another dead end.

“I’m saying they were turned into vampires against their will.”

The second teen turned. “Was this really your plan?” she asked Rachel. People in the crowd behind Isabol started to snicker.

“What makes you think that?” Isabol asked, focused on getting as much actual information from this crazy goth teen that she could. “How do you know all this?”

“Because I was turned into a vampire just months before them,” Rachel explained to the stunned, and largely bemused, crowd. A couple people laughed openly. Isabol wasn’t one of those people. There was something about the look on Rachel’s face. She at least believed the girl believed what she was saying.

Laura backed away. “Shut up!” she yelled at the two girls. Reaching down, she wrapped her arms around the boulder.

“Now Laura,” Isabol said, breaking her journalistic rule and getting in the way of the news. “Leave that alone.”

“You know where my daughter is,” Laura shrieked at Rachel.

“Yes,” Rachel said. “I do.”

Laura screamed a loud battlecry and threw the boulder with all the strength she couldn’t muster before. The boulder barreled directly for the two girls, but the small Asian Rachel stepped forward and stopped the massive stone easily with one hand. Using just that one hand, she lifted the boulder high above her head, holding it above the crowd.

“Oh shit,” The second teen said, covering her ears. “We’re really doin this.”

Rachel’s mouth opened, and sharp teeth extended past her normal ones, transforming her into her more vampire visage before their very eyes. The teen roared loudly, holding the stone high above her head. Her roar echoed through the crowds of people, and everyone seemed frozen. The noise rattled Isabol to her very bones, chilling her spine. A few people screamed. One woman fainted. Rachel effortlessly tossed the boulder aside.

“It’s natural to fear the roar of a vampire,” Rachel told the people who were now taking in her every word. “Vampires are the natural predator of humans. At our best we can hide amongst you as human. At worst, we can be the kind of monsters as are told in legends. The man who turned me was one such predator. Immortal as he was, he traveled Europe for lifetimes feeding on people, and killing indiscriminately. That would be bad enough, if he wasn’t also turning girls like me into monsters like him.”

“Is he the one that took my daughter?” Laura asked from beside Isabol. She hadn’t even noticed the mother had fallen to her knees.

“He started everything,” Rachel told the woman. “Turned the first child. Under a certain age, the vampire instincts are too strong to control. Even after we ended the monster that turned me, the child escaped and was compelled to feed and turn others to be like her. She was lonely. She wasn’t in control. It wasn’t her fault.”

Isabol glanced to her cameraman to make sure he was still filming. This was going to change the world. She stepped forward to ask another question, even as all the other reporters in the crowd were stunned into silence.

“It doesn’t sound like it was much your fault either,” she said to Rachel, pointing the mic in her direction. “It sounds to me like you were the victim.”

“She was,” the second teen said sharply.

“Have you ever killed anyone?” Isabol asked past the second teen at Rachel.

The second teen looked ready to punch her, but Rachel just shook her head. “Besides my sire? No.”

A kid in the crowd raised his hand. “Why are you out in the sun?” the boy no older than Jacob’s age said. “Do you glitter like on Twilight?”

“No,” Rachel said with a chuckle. “I don’t glitter. But I don’t love the sun either. Direct sunlight will kill me. Hence the umbrella and hood.”

The people in the crowd murmured to each other. A man in the crowd spoke up. “My cousin claims he was abducted by aliens, and all probed and shit,” the man said loudly. “Could he have been telling the truth?”

Rachel scrunched her face up. “Are you asking me if aliens are real?” She threw her hands up. “I dunno. Maybe. I’ve come to find that lately nothing is impossible. I think what’s important is that we rely on the scientific method. Conclusions based on observation and analysis. Trust what you see and can prove. As I’m standing here before you.”

“I want to see my daughter,” Laura said through gritted teeth from her place at Isabol’s feet. She seemed somewhat defeated.

“I’m so sorry,” Rachel said. “It’s too dangerous.” She looked out across the crowd of people. “We have a plan. We’re going to round up all your children on a boat and take them to a secluded island.” One woman in the crowd started to cry into her husband’s shoulder.

“They won’t be able to hurt anyone there,” the second teen tried to explain to the mass of people. “Your kids will be allowed to live without being a danger to society. It’s the best possible outcome.”

“I don’t care about society!” A tall thin woman yelled from the crowd. “I just want to see my Billy.”

Laura crawled away from Isabol to Rachel’s feet, and grabbed at her black jeans. “Please,” she begged.

“If your child were to lose themselves to bloodlust and kill someone they loved,” Rachel tried to explain to the woman, “they’d be forever lost to the darkness.”

“I wanna be there,” Isabol told the teen vampire. “At the docks. When the boat leaves.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

Isabol nodded. “That’s why it’ll just be me. No one else. I’ll report on the story as it happens, and my word will be trusted by everyone else. I’ll make sure people can see for themselves with our cameras that things are as you say. Otherwise how do you really expect anyone to trust any of this?”

Rachel nodded. “Alright.” She said.

“And me,” Laura said, shaking Rachel’s pant leg. “Please.”

Rachel’s brown haired friend bent down beside the grieving mother. “Miss? My name is Shawna Dixon. The mayor’s daughter?” Laura nodded, though her eyes were vacant. “We’re gonna have a system set up that will let you skype with your children on the island, and keep up with how they’re doing. You’ll be able to see your children again.” She looked out into the crowd. “All of you.”

The look Rachel gave her at that moment made it seem like that hadn’t been part of the plan before their impromptu press conference.

Shawna stood up. “That’s all the question’s we’re going to take for now. We have a lot to accomplish before night fall.” As Shawna turned her back on the crowd, she embraced Rachel. The two held each other tightly, and Isabol thought she heard Shawna tell her vampire friend, “You were amazing.”

Then they kissed.

Isabol looked to her cameraman to find him looking back at her.

“Are you getting this?”

*     *     *

Ian paused on the shot of Rachel and Tanya kissing, their faces blown up on the large TV in the living room of their headquarters. Behind him Gordon was talking to Tanya. “You want me to invent you jungle skype?” Gordon asked the student council president. It was lunch time and the whole gang had returned to their Townhouse HQ. Rachel and Tanya had arrived shortly after they’d caught the breaking news report.

“You think you can pull something together that will act like what I said?” Tanya asked him. “It would need to survive the elements out in the forest. Something that could generate its own power. It’d have to be easy enough for the kids to figure out and maintenance themselves.”

“I’m gonna have to hit Home Depot,” Gordon said, “Gonna need solar panels, a generator of some kind, maybe one of those Tesla home batteries. I’m gonna need a strong computer rig, with a good satellite receiver node.” He seemed to be pricing things out on his fingers, reaching the limits on his hands and then starting over. Ian tried not to look, his mind on something far different.

“I’m gonna need at least… a lot of money.”

“Money’s not a problem,” Tanya  said, handing Gordon a credit card. He looked at it closely.

“Shawna Dixon,” he read the name out loud. He looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “The mayor’s daughter did you say?”

Tanya put her hands on her hips. “I still prefer Tanya. We good to go?”

“I’ll need Andrew’s help with this stuff,” he told the student council president, nodding across the room at the nerd.

“Why would you prefer Tanya?” Andrew asked, from his spot on the couch. “Shawna is a sexy awesome name.”

“Yo,” Gordon snapped in front of Andrew’s face to shut him up. “We’re also gonna need someone who drives.”

Mike passed Gordon and collapsed onto the couch beside Andrew. “We’ve seen this one already,” he told Ian though Ian ignored him. He didn’t even realize he still had the remote in his hands. All he could see was the kiss between Tanya and Rachel. “Is there any sports on?”

Rachel sat down on the hardwood floor beside Ian. Reaching out she touched his shoulder. “Are you okay?” He shrugged her hand off his shoulder and tried to inch away from her.

“You’re kissing her the same way you kissed me,” Ian said to her, and everyone else in the room when silent. Even Erika in the corner, cleaning the gun she no longer had ammo for, was now watching Ian and Rachel.

“Whoa there Hugh Grant,” Tanya said, crouching down on Ian’s other side. “There might be more important things right now than our soap opera love triangle.”

“We had sex,” Ian told her, getting to his feet. She rose with him. “In a bus shelter.”

“I heard,” Tanya told him, patting him reassuringly on the shoulder. “Good job on losing your V card.”

He slapped her hard across her face. At least as hard as he could muster. She stopped in her tracks and raised a finger. “Did you…” she started to say. “Did you just slap me?”

Bilal got off the couch. “We have any popcorn?” he asked the room, heading for the kitchen.

“You could have anyone you wanted,” Ian said angrily. “You had to take from me the only girl that has ever meant anything to me.”

“Ian,” Rachel said. “It’s not like that.”

“Listen to me you ungrateful shit,” Tanya said, grabbing Ian roughly by the neck and pushing him effortlessly into a wall. “For some stupid damned reason you mean the world to that amazing woman over there.”

Ian could barely comprehend what Tanya was telling him, partly because his head hurt from Tanya knocking it hard against the wall.

“Shawna Dixon!” Rachel yelled her name. Andrew gave a little satisfied squeal, and both Ian and Rachel threw him a dirty look. Tanya didn’t take her eyes off Ian’s face. Everyone around was a little too interested in their private fight.

“Ooo good one,” Tanya said after a moment, letting go of Ian. “Use my real name when you’re mad at me. That’s original. What about him?”

She pointed at Ian and he looked at her for any sign of compassion. “Rachel?” he said begging her.

She growled in frustration, and stormed upstairs to the second floor of their townhouse. Watching her go, Tanya swore in frustration and punched at the wall a little too close to Ian’s face.

“Jesus,” Ian said, cowering.

“Do you have a shower?” Tanya asked across the room to Erika. Erika pointed awkwardly towards the stairs Rachel had just stormed up.

Bilal sat back down on the couch with his bag of popcorn. “Is it over?” he asked.

*

Rachel spotted an open window in what she assumed was Jon’s room, and could hear his heart beat on the other side of the wall. Poking her head through the window, she found Jon sitting on the roof of his townhouse. It was a small section of roof, just below the rest of the roof, slanted enough for rain to slide off, but flat enough to sit on and look out.

Rachel joined him, opening her cane into an umbrella as she stepped out, and the two of them sat in silence for a long moment.

“This is where you hang out?” She asked him, glancing across the suburban streets they could look down upon from their high vantage.

“I like to get away sometimes,” Jon told her, his reddish blonde hair shining in the intense sun. Despite how heavily the sun was beating down on Rachel’s umbrella, there was still a chill in the air. Rachel could see Jon bundle his jacket closer against his arms. “Sometimes being around a lot of people can be a little overwhelming.”

“I get that,” Rachel said quietly.

‘It’s just like, with all the people,” Jon continued to explain anyway, “It’s hard to track? The headaches they get…”

“Yeah,” Rachel said. “It’s okay.” Her powers were the same way. Sometimes when she was surrounded by all those heart beats, it was hard for her to focus on anything but food.

Jon nodded.

“Are you going to be okay?” Rachel asked Jon. He nodded again.

“So you told the world,” he said to her. “I-I didn’t have to keep your secret long.”

“Yeah I did,” Rachel said with a laugh. “And no you didn’t.”

“It’s not going to make things easier,” Jon told her.

“No,” she told him. “But I find people are generally better at dealing with the truth than finding out they’ve been lied to.”

“What about your soap opera love triangle,” Jon asked Rachel.

“You heard all that?” Rachel asked him. She supposed they’d been talking so loud someone wouldn’t need vampire hearing. “I guess I dealt with that pretty badly.”

“I don’t understand,” he said. “You care for both of them? Why not just pick one and stay friends with the other? It’s okay to care about your friends, isn’t it?”

“It’s not that simple,” she said. He looked at her, and it almost seemed like he was judging her, but she wondered if perhaps he was just trying to understand. “I dunno. In the moment, having sex with them felt like the right thing to do. I’ve been spending so much time trying to fight my vampire urges to feed, I think I might have other vampire urges too.” She looked at the roof, and specifically didn’t meet Jon’s penetrating gaze. “How do I know though? Which wants of mine are really me and which wants are just the monster trying to feed?”

“That sucks,” Jon says, and Rachel finally looked at him, only for him to avoid her gaze.

“Yeah it does,” she said. “But the kissing. I like the kissing. I wish Tanya was right. I wish we could all just love each other and all that hippie crap. I never thought that was what I wanted. Maybe it’s just the vampire in me. I’m compelled to build a coven of human worshippers at my feet or some such Dracula shit.”

“I’ve never really actually been kissed by a girl,” Jon said, and he met her gaze. “I guess I’m not exactly the best person to talk to about this kinda stuff.”

Rachel leaned in and kissed him on his lips, surprising him but letting the kiss hang for a moment. She didn’t know exactly why, but again it was something she wanted to do, and she couldn’t see any harm in it.

“I don’t think I want to be a part of a soap opera love square,” Jon said when they parted lips.

Rachel giggled. “I think if you keep adding people it just becomes a circle.”

“It was nice,” Jon told her, almost scientifically analyzing his sensation. “I think I understand your point of view a little more now.”

Rachel giggled again. “That’s good.” She said. Jon was really weird. But Rachel kind of liked that about him. He reminded her of herself. She squeezed his hand. “You let me know if you’re ever not okay,” she told him, “right? We’re all here for you. It’s not just you and Erika, you have all these wonderful friends now.”

“Trust me,” she said with confidence, “they’re the best.”

“Rachel!” Tanya called from the hallway. Rachel wondered if the school council president had seen her kiss the new kid, but from her disinterested look Rachel had to assume she didn’t. She was naked but for a towel around her torso, and another she was using to dry her hair. “I’ll be ready to head out in five!” she called across the room through the window.

“I’m coming down,” she called back. She looked back at Jon. “You wanna come with me?” she asked, offering the pale freckled teen her hand.

He shook his head. “I think I’d rather stay up here,” he told her, nodding to himself, as if he was trying to convince himself as much as her.

“Suit yourself,” she told him.

She followed Tanya downstairs as she pulled a tight pair of jeans under her towel and dropped it on the stairs. When the two women stepped into the living room, Tanya still hadn’t gotten her shirt completely over her head, and she flashed the entire gang her upper body.

“AH!” Bilal exclaimed, and most the boys looked away. Rachel spotted Erika in the corner, though, and she had a smile on her face.

“Thanks for the change of clothes,” Tanya said, sliding the dark red t-shirt over her breasts. “It’s a little tight.” The shirt clung tight to her, and the button on the jeans didn’t quite meet.

Tanya just shrugged. “Never said I was skinny. None of your bras would fit either.”

“We noticed,” Bilal said sourly.

“It’s too bad,” Erika said across the room. “My stuff looks amazing on you.”

“Thanks,” Tanya said, looking around. “Where’s my combat boots?” Mike pointed to under the lamp without even having to look, slipping on shoes of his own by the door. “You ready to go Rachel?” The school president gave a smirk to Ian, and Rachel saw he gave her a sour look back.

“Actually,” Rachel said, “I think I’ll take Erika on this one.” Erika looked up in surprise, and it was pretty clear she didn’t want to go.

Tanya stepped forward, almost threateningly close to Rachel. “You’re kidding me with this, right?” she hissed. Everyone in the room was watching them again.

Rachel looked at the ground. “I just think it might be dangerous where I’m going. Erika can better take care of herself…”

“Yeah?” Tanya said aggressively. “Look at me when you say that.”

Rachel looked at her and immediately Tanya backed off.

“I’ll come,” Erika said, stashing her gun in her belt.

“Aren’t you out of ammo,” Rachel asked her.

Erika stopped. “Well yeah,” she said, “but if I don’t take it with me I’ll feel naked.”

“You do know guns are illegal in Canada, right?” Bilal asked from the couch, where he was packing up his backpack. Rachel caught another glaring battle between Tanya and Ian, this time he was seeming pretty smug as he was drinking down a cup of orange juice.

“Tanya,” Rachel said to her friend. “You’re in charge of everything else while I’m gone. I’ll see you tonight at Bronte harbour. If possible I want you guys to get there before me and set everything up. The crew of the boat need to know what to expect. We need to focus on safety first.” Rachel wanted to make sure her next point was heard by everyone. It was most important. “No one dies tonight. The world will be watching.”

“You know the problem when the world starts watching?” Erika asked Rachel in a whisper. She looked at the older woman and shook her head. “Sometimes it decides to get involved.” Erika gave Rachel a sideways glance that she supposed was supposed to imply a kind of warning.

“Thanks?” Rachel said, not really getting it.

Ian made a clatter as he slammed his glass on the counter and grabbed for his Jacket. “Mike,” he called across to the door. “You’re with me. There’s something I wanna grab before tonight.”

“Uh,” Mike said, confused. “I was just about to go with Gordon and Andrew.”

“They can go with Tanya,” Ian said, not looking at her.

“Hello,” Tanya said with a wave of her hand. “I thought I was the one in charge here.”

“Then you can take charge with them,” Ian told her, looking at her feet. “Meanwhile I gotta get something with Mike.” He looked to Rachel. “It’s important.”

“Fine,” Tanya said, and Ian joined Mike by the door. “Bilal. You wanna go with Ian or us?”

Bilal slung his back pack onto his shoulder. “I’m going to period four,” he told them angrily. “Or did you all forget about school. You know that place where we’re learning how to survive in the real world.”

“Bilal,” Mike said. “All this IS the real world.”

“I’ll see you all tonight,” Bilal said, opening the door. “I’ll be there for slaying child vamps or whatever we gotta do. But school comes first.”

Rachel and Erika followed him out the door.

“You do know that’s not the plan right?” Erika yelled over to him.

“Bite me!” he yelled back.

Erika looked at Rachel as they made for her large SUV. “Was he talking to you or me?”

Rachel smiled at Erika as she zipped up her bulky camo jacket to protect from the cold. It also did a good job to hide that she was packing heat. “It was you. He’d never say that to me.”

They both had to take large steps to get into their respective sides of the car. Closing the door behind them, the two girls were sitting higher now than they usually stood. It was a weird sensation. But one Erika seemed to take in stride, brushing back her shoulder length brown hair behind her ear.

Like Jon, Rachel could see a lot of herself in Erika. More than just their black hair and pale skin, Erika had a darkness to her too. She had something she seemed to be trying to hold back. She also seemed ready to fight harder than anything to protect the people she cared about. Rachel could really relate to that.

“Is Jon going to be okay?” she asked Erika.

Erika frowned. “In Jeopardy, do you always start with the thousand dollar question?” Erika turned on the car, and then quickly shut off the radio before it could blare any music. Slumping back in her seat, Erika seemed to have a hard time answering the question.

“I thought it would be a simple yes or no,” Rachel admitted.

Erika drummed on the steering wheel. “My… um… Well she was my ex I guess, but more than that. She was my best friend.” Erika paused again, and closed her eyes, as if trying to remember how something looked. Or someone.

“She was my only friend,” Erika continued, “She was my whole world. Out of military school I was this total loner, right?”

“Sounds totally different than now,” Rachel told her.

“I was living alone. At sixteen,” Erika told her. “Had my own job, no adults telling me what to do. I partied constantly. Kissed boys I shouldn’t.”

Rachel looked up from the spot in the dashboard she had been staring intently at. “I thought you were into girls,” Rachel admitted.

“Just Vicki,” Erika said. “Well maybe not just Vicki. I dunno, back then I was just into having fun and staying out of trouble. But only like just.”

“And then Vicki changed you?” Rachel asked.

“No,” Erika said with a laugh. “I changed her.” Erika nodded and smiled. “Oh I corrupted her. She’d never smoked pot till me.” Erika winked at Rachel and she giggled.

“She had these abilities,” Erika explained, her eyes closing again, squeezing shut so tightly as if what she wanted to see in her memory was just out of reach. “They were like tricks. We thought it was fun.” She shook her head. “I thought it was fun. She took it a lot more serious.” Erika pointed at her forehead. “The headaches.”

“God I loved her,” Erika said. “God she was my everything, we were going to be together forever. Like fucking Siamese twins or something. But like with sex and stuff.”

“That’s a weird way to describe your relationship,” Rachel admitted quietly. She wasn’t quite sure how they’d gotten to all this after she’d asked if Jon would be okay.

“She went to the doctor about the headaches, and the Synesthesia.” Erika explained, getting back on the point. “They put her on the experimental drug. It started to do things to her.” Erika clutched the wheel so tightly her knuckles turned white. “I’ve been a lot of things in my life,” she said. “But military school taught me how to never be helpless.”

“When it came to Vicki though, there was nothing I can do, right? I did everything I could, everything I had it in my power to do. And it was all for nothing.”

“She wasn’t okay,” Erika said, putting the car into reverse. “It was only a matter of time. At first it was just headaches.”

“It’ll be different with Jon,” Rachel said. “My friends are pretty good at doing things we shouldn’t be able to do.”

“You mean like shipping sixty vampire children out of a suburb in the middle of the night without killing anyone?” Erika asked, turning on her car’s GPS. “Speaking of that, where are we headed?”

“We’ll check their last known location first,” Rachel told her. “Then I’ve got a couple other spots in mind. There’s only so many places that many children can sleep during the day without risk of being stumbled upon.”

*     *     *

Hana stormed into their house, angrily slamming the door behind her and awakening her husband from what must have been a relaxing afternoon nap.

“DID YOU KNOW!” Hana screamed at her husband in the family room as he was slow to get up.

“Oh no,” he mumbled to himself. “Has Jacob been having sex?”

“Not that!” Hana yelled. “Where’s Rachel?”

“Oh that,” he mumbled and she got in his face. “She’s at school.”

Hana laughed, almost hysterically. “She’s not,” Hana said convinced. “She’s not at school. Have you turned on the TV today?”

“No,” John said, running his hand through his messy head of hair. “I’ve been kind of in a writing mode today. I haven’t showered either. But I did manage to write seven pages this morning.”

“She came out,” Hana said. “On live television, she came out.”

John put his hand over his mouth. “That she’s a lesbian?”

“No!” Hana yelled at her husband. “Jesus Christ John, get your head out of the gutter. She came out about being a vampire.”

“Oh,” John said, lowering his hand. “That.”

Hana frowned, but behind her eyes was an anger far more fierce. “So you did know.” She said angrily. Turning, she stormed up the stairs.

John ran to the bottom of the stairs to yell up after her, “I only just found out.” She ignored him. “I didn’t know how to process it, let alone how to tell you.”

“You know what I don’t get?” Hana said, returning to the top of the stairs. “As soon as Rachel was born it’s always been you and the kids against me. Why is that? Why are you always on their side?”

John didn’t have an answer. Hana threw up her hands in anger and stormed off.

“Dammit.”

*     *     *

“You’re way is bullshit,” one of the children swore at Stacy, crossing the front foyer to the door. “I’m not feeding on rats,” he said defiantly.

“You don’t have a choice,” Stacy told him. “We’re not feeding on people. Not anymore. I’m in charge now.”

The boy crossed his arms. “And what if I just leave?” he opened the door and started to step outside, but the rays of sun hit his skin and immediately he started to redden and burn.

“Ah!” he screamed, hiding back inside, and shutting the door quickly.

“Because it’s still day out there, for one.” Stacy told him. “Look…” she tried to remember his name, and looked to another kid for help.

“Phelps,” the kid told her.

“Look Phelps,” Stacy said, “If you kill again you’ll only bring more attention down on us. Your only choices here are to toe the line and follow my rules, or I put a stake in your chest.”

Phelps glowered at her. He opened the door again, and his eyes scanned the outside.

“Hey you!” He yelled to a kid on the sidewalk likely walking home from school. “Come here kid!”

Stacy went to the door. “Stop it,” she warned Phelps.

The boy on the sidewalk, younger even than Phelps, pointed to himself. “Me?” he asked.

“Yeah!” Phelps yelled. “Get over here!”

“Don’t!” Stacy warned the kid. “Just keep walking.” The kid ignored her and started to approach them. “Dammit. Go away.”

“Come on, boy!” Phelps said threateningly. “Come a little closer. I have a secret I wanna tell you.”

Phelps reached out through the doorway at the kid as he reached the steps. The kid was so close now.

Black fingerless gloves grabbed Phelps’ hand, and Stacy recognized the person they belonged to as Jacob’s sister. “That isn’t happening.” Rachel told the vampire boy Phelps, and pushed him into the house, closing the door behind them. She was wearing her skateboarding pads again on her elbows and knees. Wrist protectors over her gloves seemed to give her a heavier fist.

“How’d you find us?” Stacy asked the older vampire. They’d changed houses in the night after their fight. She had hoped Rachel wouldn’t have to find them again, but she was starting to feel like keeping control over this many vampire children was a greater task than she could handle on her own.

“You guys are starting to have an MO,” Rachel said, gesturing at the abandoned house they were inside. Stacy supposed it wasn’t too different from the other abandoned houses the kids had tried to hide away in. “I’m here to take you away from all this.”

Stacy tensed up, wondering if Rachel meant she was going to kill all of them. Perhaps that was all they deserved.

“There’s an island,” Rachel said, pulling out her phone and showing them a picture of a small green island surrounded by water. “Gordon found it. It’s small but has a wide variety of species. Large cats and other predators. You’ll be able to hunt whatever you want. Live free. You won’t have to hide anymore. It’s secluded. A remote part of the Caribbean. No one goes there.”

“It sounds amazing,” Stacy told the older vampire.

“I don’t wanna fight all you guys again,” Rachel said, looked deeper into the house at the rest of them. “I’m hoping you’ll come peacefully with me.”

“Isn’t the Caribbean really sunny?” Phelps asked Rachel disbelief in his voice.

“There’s a lot of tall trees,” Rachel told him. “Most of the island is covered in shade.”

“All we have to do is go a night without feeding,” Stacy told the house of kids. “We can do that right?” She looked to Phelps for an answer.

He finally nodded.

*     *     *

Gordon was impressed at the size of the boat, as they pulled up to Bronte harbour. It was the only ship currently in dock, a large rusted transport vessel. The kind of ship capable of carrying hundreds of large shipping crates.

Grabbing a cart from the side, he piled as much of the equipment on it as he could, and followed Andrew and Tanya up the ramp. There was a young woman waiting for them at the top of the ramp, no older than nineteen. She had black skin, darker even than Gordon’s, and a sweet smile on her face.

“The stairs to the cargo hold are that way,” she said, pointing to the front of the ship. “My name is Nadine.”

“Are you the captain?” Tanya asked her, joining her on the deck of the ship.

“No,” she said with a laugh. “He’s on the bridge.” She looked towards the back of the boat, at the large structure that Gordon supposed led to the bridge of the ship. “I’m his mate.”

“His mate?” Gordon asked with a raise of his eyebrow.

Nadine laughed. “It’s not as sexual as it sounds,” she told him. “It’s purely professional in fact. I’m his second in command.” She was dressed in baggy fisherman’s jeans and a rain jacket that was many sizes too large for her.

“How does a girl as pretty as you get a job on a ship like this?” Andrew asked, helping Gordon get the trolly over a bump in the ramp. Gordon would have poked fun at Andrew for being a flirt, but he had the same question. The dweeb just got to it first.

“I’ve always wanted to be a sailor,” Nadine told Andrew, laughing. “You guys will think it dumb, but ever since watching Pirates of the Caribbean, I’ve wanted to sail the seas. Turns out this was the easiest way for someone like me to live out my dream.”

“That doesn’t sound dumb to me,” Gordon said, letting Andrew take the cart towards the cargo bay.

Nadine leaned in close to Gordon and whispered, “One day I’m gonna captain this ship.” She smiled up at him, and he smiled back at her. “Gerricks been really nice. Training me and stuff. Teaching me all I need to know to one day replace him. He’s a good man.”

“Did anyone warn you about our cargo?” Tanya asked the sailor.

Nadine nodded. “The guy on the phone said they would be hungry?”

Gordon shrugged. “That’s one way to put it.” He pointed to the open top of the cargo bay. “That’s going to have to be closed during the day,” he said. “They don’t like the sun.”

“We usually keep that closed while we’re in transit,” Nadine assured him. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”

*     *

The sun was already setting by the time Rachel and Erika pulled up. Their car was full of the youngest children, and Stacy was leading the rest over the rooftops. They’d be there soon.

Rachel was impressed by the size of the ship, obviously Tanya’s father had spared no expense. Now that he had a serviceable solution he must have been throwing everything he could at the problem to make it disappear.

She got out of the car and opened the back seat to lift a young brown skinned girl into her arms. Another car had just pulled up before them, and Ian was getting out of the passenger seat as Mike lifted the trunk.

“We’ve got blood here!” Ian yelled to Rachel and the kids. “Pigs blood. Some beef maybe. Bags of it.” Sure enough, there was a cooler in Mike’s trunk that must have had hundreds of bags in it. Together the two boys lifted it out of the car and dropped it on the dock in front of Rachel.

“That was good thinking,” Rachel said to Ian, and he gave her a thin smile.

“For whatever good it does” he muttered, his smile fading, he turned away from her to make it up the ramp, passing Tanya and the reporter from the protest as he went. Rachel noticed that Tanya had too put on pads. Hers were bigger than Rachel’s, some almost seeming more like hockey pads. She also had her baseball bat strapped to her back.

“So you made it,” Rachel said to the other woman on the ramp, as the children at her feet grabbed hungrily at the blood bags.

“Isabol Teung…” The reporter began, offering Rachel her hand.

“Voice news,” Rachel finished her sentence. “I remember.” She didn’t shake the woman’s hand, instead grabbing a blood bag and offering it to the child in her arms. The girl took the bag, and sharp teeth sprung from her upper lip. She bit into the bag and started drinking hungrily.

“Jesus,” Isabol said, and she pulled out her cellphone to film the children hungrily drinking away at the blood.

Rachel moved to stop her, but Tanya held out her hand. “The parents wanna see their kids, right?” she said to Rachel. Rachel nodded agreement.

“Kids!” a woman yelled from on the ship. She stormed down the ramp at them. “No one told me nothing bout no kids. You turn your asses around and march back off this dock cause we’re not doing it.”

Tanya intercepted the woman. “They need our help.”

“Who is this?” Rachel asked Tanya.

“I’m Nadine,” the woman told Rachel over Tanya’s shoulder.

Tanya reiterated, “She’s Nadine.”

“Cool,” Rachel said, getting frustrated. “Who’s Nadine?”

“These kids really need your help,” Tanya told Nadine, ignoring Rachel’s question.

Nadine watched the kids feeding away on the blood bags. “What the hells wrong wit em?” she asked, scrutinizing the one in Rachel’s arms. “My momma was just callin me, goin on some crazy rant about vampires. I told her, I was like “Momma, get your ass off the damn phone and stop believing every damn thing ya see on tha teevee.”

The child in Rachel’s arms dropped the now empty blood bag, blood drizzling down her chin.

“I need ta call my momma back,” Nadine told them, heading back up the ramp. “You all can just keep doin what you were doin.”

“I like Nadine,” Rachel told Tanya.

“Yeah she’s alright,” Tanya agreed. “We should get these kids into the cargo bay. It’s to the front of the ship.”

“Thanks,” Rachel muttered. “There’s more kids coming.”

“Yeah,” Tanya said with a sigh, as if she’d planned to stay outside. She pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “I’ll wait here for them.”

Rachel looked up at the dock scaffolding that surrounded the boat, likely used to move shipping crates in and out of the hold. Lights on the metal scaffolds snapped on as the sun crossed the horizon and they were bathed in temporary darkness. The darkness didn’t last long, as the boat was flooded with artificial light.

The light even flooded through the open top into the cargo hold below where Rachel found Andrew, Bilal, and Gordon had been setting up blankets and pillows.

“We’ve tried to make this place as comfortable as we could,” Andrew told Rachel, gesturing around. “There wasn’t a whole lot we could do really.”

“It’s perfect,” Rachel told him. She beaconed for the young kids to follow her in. “There’s more kids on the way,” she said to Bilal and Gordon. “Can you help them find their way down here?”

Once they were alone, Andrew pulled out his phone. “So you’re gonna kiss me next?” he asked, and Rachel looked at him in surprise.

“How did you find out?” Rachel asked him.

Andrew turned his phone around to show her his text from Jon. Rachel kissed me. It was nice.

“We’re friends,” Andrew said, almost as if he were bragging. “He tells me things. I hear it was nice.”

“Well you know,” Rachel said teasingly. “I was thinking of kissing you, but now I guess I never will.” She turned to leave Andrew with getting the kids situated.

“Aww,” Andrew complained from behind her. “Come on! No one’s down here. I mean besides all these kids. Now’s our chance! No one would ever know. Again, besides all these kids.”

Still ignoring him, Rachel called up to the deck above them. “Hey Nadine!” She yelled. “I wanna talk to the captain.” She needed to give him the coordinates, and make sure he knew all the rules with keeping them safe.

“Alright,” Nadine called down to her. “Come on up then.”

Rachel stepped through the metal hatchway, and up the metal staircase. The ship was like one big rusted metal maze, but one that wasn’t too hard to find your way around. Back out on the deck, Rachel opened her umbrella as she joined with Nadine.

“I’m gonna wanna interview some of these kids,” Isabol was telling Gordon and Tanya as Bilal was helping some of the new arrivals down into the hold.

Stacy approached Rachel, leading the last of the children with her. “This whole boat is for us?” she asked Rachel, excitement in her voice.

“You bet,” Rachel told her. “Can you get the rest of these kids down below? And then I think this lady here will want to ask you some questions if that’s okay.”

Stacy nodded, and gestured for the rest of the kids to follow Gordon and Bilal down the steps.

“And no eating people!” Stacy called after them. “Blood bags only!”

“She means that,” Bilal said to the kids, careful not to get too close to any specific one. “My blood is off limits.”

“Come on,” Nadine said, and she led Rachel to the back of the ship, opening the door into the bridge tower. “Up these stairs is my favourite part of the ship.” They climbed the steps slowly as she talked. “Something about all the different controls, and buttons and switches. I didn’t think I’d ever understand what they all did. Turns out a lot of em are redundant.”

They reached the top of the stairs, and Nadine opened the hatch. “Captain?” Nadine called into the bridge. The lighting was dark and ominous, and Nadine stepped carefully inside. “Captain Gerrick?” There was no response. Nadine made for the grey haired figure in the dark slouched over the controls.

Rachel could see in the dark far better than Nadine could. As she stepped in she could already tell the unnatural way that Gerrick had been left against the controls. She could see the knife wounds. She could smell the blood. On top of it all, she could hear that his heart wasn’t beating. But someone else in the room had a beating heart.

Rachel turned to the back of the bridge, on the other side from where they came in. A man in red robes was standing there ready in ambush, a dagger held tightly in his hand.

“Nadine!” Rachel called. “Get back!”

“No!” Nadine yelled as she got to Gerrick and pulled him away. “No! Please god no. Gerrick. Gerrick wake up Gerrick.”

“He’s not going to wake up,” Rachel told her quietly, not taking her eyes off the man. It was obvious he knew where they were, and was watching them intently. But how well could he see them? Not as well as she could see him. Did he know she knew he was there?

“You don’t unnerstand,” Nadine said, weepingly openly as her tears fell over his body and mixed with his blood. “’e was like a father to me. More den my bastard dad eva was.”

“Who are you?” Rachel asked into the darkness. She drew her sword.

The man in red robes frowned, drawing a second dagger from his jacket. Rachel remembered Erika saying that they had a lot of weapons concealed under there. “No vampires shall leave this boat tonight,” he said angrily, almost spitting his words like a curse on her. Moving from his spot in the corner, he came at her, slashing down with his weapons. She blocked his attack but he kicked her in the side and immediately began putting more flourish into his blades.

Rachel swung her weapon like mad, blocking one knife and then another. One blade snuck through and cut Rachel’s arm.

“Jesus,” Nadine said, reaching over the controls and flicking a switch. Suddenly the bridge was bathed in bright light.

“Ah!” the man screamed, covering his eyes. Rachel’s adjusted just fine. She stabbed him in the chest, and with a flourish she pulled her blade out and cut his head clean from his neck.

The head hit the control panel Nadine had just been working, and plodded to the ground at her feet. Nadine screamed and took a step back, looking up at Rachel. “That the guy who just killed Gerrick?” she asked.

Rachel nodded. “I think so.” She reached down and wiped her blade on the man’s already red robe.

Nadine leaned over the head and spit on it. “That’s fer killin my old man.”

Rachel gave the older woman a smile and a nod which she reciprocated.

*     *     *

“You’ve done an amazing job here,” Isabol said, her phone set up on a tripod to record them as she interviewed Gordon and Stacy. “The work you teens have put into facilitating this transfer of these kids. I don’t think their parents could possibly do enough to thank you.”

“We aren’t doin it fer thanks,” Gordon told Isabol. “We’re just doin the best we can.”

“And I helped,” the nerdy boy named Andrew said, pushing in front of them on the deck and waving to the camera. “Hey mom. I’m just here saving the world. Again.”

“Just a reminder,” Isabol said into the camera, “That’s here aboard SS Lincoln. Where I’m standing amongst the bravest kids I’ve ever met. Now Stacy, you were turned into one of these vampires. Can you tell us a little about what that’s been like?”

Isabol thought she spotted movement above Stacy’s head. She looked up in time to see Rachel step out onto the railing around the bridge. On it she could look out at the whole of the ship spread out before her.

“WE’RE UNDER ATTACK!” She yelled loudly to everyone on the deck, pointing across the ship to a man in red robes climbing over the railing by the front of the ship.

“Hey!” Isabol yelled at the man, and she wasn’t the only one. Further down the ship from her, Erika pulled a pistol from her waist and squeezed the trigger. The gun clicked twice but nothing happened.

“Dammit,” Erika yelled in frustration, throwing the pistol at the man in red. The gun bounced off his head, disorienting him for just a moment, long enough for Erika to cover the distance between them and engage him in a fist fight.

A noise in the sky caused Isabol to look up, and it was a good thing she did as she spotted two more men in red climbing the scaffolding above them. They dropped down quite a distance to the deck, landing effortlessly on their feet. It was only then Isabol noticed they were holding rope lines that they promptly released. These men were very well equipped.

Isabol took a step back, but Stacy growled and pounced on one, tearing at his throat. The other pulled a gun out and pointed it at Isabol. “No vampire may be allowed to leave the ship!” He yelled loudly to the rest of his men, wherever they were. “Kill all the sympathizers too.”

He was about to squeeze the trigger on his gun when his hand was bashed aside by a baseball bat. Tanya swung the bat around in her hand and bunted the man in the face with the end of it. His gun went off, the shot hitting the deck and exploding in a wash of white light.

“UV bullets,” Andrew leaned in to explain to Isabol. “Really effective against vampires. Not so much against us.”

The man Tanya was fighting got another shot off, this one hitting Tanya in her shoulder pad. It exploded in light, but she barely noticed. Swinging her bat around again she clocked him in the head so hard he did a flip over the edge of the open cargo hold, down the easily three stories to the bottom of the hold. The thud he made reverberated back up to them. “Hole in one!” Tanya yelled down into the hold back at him.

“Have you ever actually played baseball?” Mike yelled up to her from the hold where he and Bilal were trying to keep the kids calm.

“No,” Tanya called down. “Was that not right?”

Another man in red landed in front of them from above, brandishing a dagger menacingly. He slashed at Tanya, and Tanya blocked the metal blade with the steel of her bad. It glistened off with an uncomfortable ring.

“What is happening?” Isabol yelled to Andrew as he led her away from Tanya. The mayor’s daughter tried to block another of the man’s attacks, but he feinted low and stabbed at her leg. Luckily all he got was her knee pad. With his knife tangled up, he grabbed at Tanya’s bat and proceeded to try to push her over the edge into the hold.

“We’re fighting,” Andrew told Isabol, leading her toward Erika. Isabol looked back in time to see Stacy bite at the man’s ankle and Tanya was able to pull away from the edge with Gordon’s help. “I always find when there’s fighting, and you’re a non-fighting type like us, it’s best to stick with someone who can fight.”

Erika was still struggling with her man, even as a second man came over the railing to join in. The second man swung at her, and she dodged the punch easily even though she hadn’t even been looking in his direction. Kicking out, she knocked him back over the railing and overboard into the water.

The first man she was fighting reached into his red robes for what looked like a couple daggers holstered inside.

“You wanna know the problem with carrying a jacket full of toys?” Erika asked the man, reaching her hands into his robes and pulling out two of his guns. “I get to play with them too.”

She shot the man in the chest, and the shot exploded in light. The man dropped to the floor as Erika brandished her pistol in disappointment. “Dammit, I hate these guns.”

The man in red got back up, swinging, grunting angrily. There was a smoking bloody gash in his chest where she’d shot him. Swinging his blades around, the man came in hungry for revenge. Without even a look Erika shot the man twice in the face. Again he dropped.

“Get up from that,” she told him as Isabol shrieked at the grisly sight.

Andrew would have tried to calm her down, she assumed, but his mouth was just as open in shock. Across the deck Isabol noticed Ian running for the bridge. She tugged on Andrew’s arm and pointed.

“Ian!” Andrew called across the deck at him. “Stay here with us!” Ian ignored them, and disappeared into the bridge tower. “I wonder where he’s headed in such a hurry.”

*

Ian took the stairs two at a time. He had to get to Rachel. It was about the second floor when he came upon another man in red.

“Shit,” he said, trying to dodge past the man. The man slashed at him with a blade, and pushed him backwards into a second floor hallway.  He pressed up against the wall as the man raised his blade above his head. Suddenly there was a flash of movement and Rachel had slipped to Ian’s side.

“Leave my friends alone,” she said to him, blocking his blade with her own. She grabbed his arm and flung him the entire length of the hallway. Hitting the metal ground hard, he rolled and somehow ended up back on his feet.

“You came for me,” Ian told her.

“Always,” She said, and she kissed him on the lips.

“Aww how sweet,” the man in red said, reaching into his jacket and throwing out dozens of what looked like throwing stars. Every single one of the handfuls of little bladed stars missed their mark and embedded instead in the walls around Rachel.

“I wanna say you missed,” Rachel told the man, “but I’ve seen every movie ever made. What do these things do?” Suddenly the hallway was bathed in a fwash of blinding light as each of the little ninja stars lit up the hallway with UV rays.

Rachel screamed and shrunk into her hoodie. The light was everywhere, blazing down and burning at her skin. She crouched into a ball, covering herself best she could.

“Rachel!” Ian screamed. He knew there was no way he could grab all the little lights from the wall in time for Rachel to kick the man’s ass. Unless…

Ian left the hallway, stepping out onto the second floor railing. He looked down at where Tanya and Gordon were fighting off a different man in red. “Erika!” he called across the ship at her. There were shots from above, and he looked up at where men in red were shooting down at him.

He shrinked into the doorway, but tried to ignore them as he yelled out again. “Rachel needs you up here!”

“I’ll be right up!” she called back, seeming to search the boat quickly for the fastest way up. “Gordon!” she called to the man as Stacy and Tanya were able to bring down the man they were fighting. “I need a boost.”

Ian looked up again at the men in the scaffold, and noticed they were launching what looked like drones into the air. Each drone, it seemed, was equipped with a little UV spotlight. “Mike!” Ian called down into the cargo hold. “Bilal! One of you get those cargo doors closed!”

“Will do!” Mike yelled from below. Ian looked away in time to see Gordon at the base of the bridge tower make a platform with his hands. Erika planted her foot on his hand and jumped off him, grabbing the railing at Ian’s feet and pulling herself up.

“I’m here,” she said, pulling her pistols from her belt. Ian led her back into the hallway where the man in red was now standing over Rachel, about to impale her on his sword.

“Calm your tits, lady in red,” Erika taunted, shooting at the man. He blocked the shots with his blade but took multiple cautious steps back. Quickly taking in all the little lights buried into the walls of the hallway, Erika burst into a flurry of shots, taking out each little ninja star one fwash of light at a time. In moments the hallways was dark again.

“The world will be rid of the darkness that is your kind,” the man in red said as Rachel rose.

“Maybe,” Rachel admitted to the man. “But it won’t be today. And it won’t be by you.” He slashed at her and she dodged it, punching him in the face. He stumbled toward Erika, swinging at her, but she twisted herself easily aside and grabbed his arm. She broke it at the wrist and he dropped the sword in pain. He tried to kick out at her, but Erika blocked the leg as Rachel punched the man hard in the face. Erika slammed that same face hard into the wall of the ship, and the man was down for good.

“We’re bad ass,” Erika said offering Rachel a high five. Ian offered them both a high five and they both accepted.

Rachel turned on him. “You saved me too,” she told him. “Like I saved you earlier. We save each other. That’s how this works.”

“Yeah I guess I did,” Ian said with a satisfied smile. His smile then turned to a frown. “I’m still mad at you.”

Rachel rolled her eyes and stepped past him. “Yeah yeah,” she said, “get in line.”

She stopped in her tracks suddenly, and cocked her head to the side. “You guys hear that?” she asked them. Neither of them made noise, both straining to hear what Rachel could hear.

“Sounds like just a passing helicopter,” Ian told her, assuming it was likely nothing.

“It’s not passing,” Rachel told him, continuing for the stairs. “It’s been getting steadily closer for the past fifteen minutes.”

*

The helicopter soared over the ship, its blades spinning loudly as the large UV spotlight under the cockpit lit up and bathed the entire ship with blindingly strong UV light. Andrew cowered from it, the light feeling hot even on his human skin.

The effect was only amplified tenfold for Stacy, who screamed in agony and dived into the cargo hold.

“Get those doors closed!” Andrew called down into the hold.

“We’re kinda busy!” Mike screamed up at him, and Andrew could see that two men in red had gotten down there. He was trying to keep a barrel between him and them, but his struggle seemed to be futile.

Tanya spotted one of the zip lines the men had used to try to get into the hold. “I’m going down there to back him up,” she said, jumping from the deck and grabbing onto the line to swing her way down to the bottom.

“Damn that was bad ass,” Andrew said, watching Tanya go.

“Okay,” Isabol said to Andrew. “But you told me we were supposed to stay with the people who could fight.” She tugged on his sleeve and Andrew turned to see that three more men in red had landed on the deck. That seemed to be the rest who had been shooting at them from above.

“Ah hell,” Gordon said, joining them. “Jus’ stay behind me. I’ll die first and then I won’t have to watch how pathetically you two die.”

There was a bang from the bridge tower as the hatch burst open and Erika stepped out, guns blazing. She took down two of the three men in blasts of light as Rachel slipped from the doorway to take out the third guy. She immediately slipped on past to the cover of a crate as the helicopter passed overhead and swung down low around the side of the boat.

“Mike!” Andrew called into the cargo hold again. “I have an idea for taking out that helicopter. Meet me up here.” The cargo doors were already closing, and Andrew stepped away from the edge. “Hopefully he heard me.”

Andrew started rummaging through his bag.

“What are you looking for?” Isabol asked him.

Andrew pulled out a beaker of molten glowing liquid. “This,” he told her, brandishing it with success.

“What’s that?”

“You ask a lot of questions,” Andrew told her, though he supposed as a reporter it sort of went with the territory. “It’s something I acquired during my last run in with these guys.”

“Who are they?” Isabol asked, surprised that he’d fought them before.

“Oh,” Andrew said, looking up at her. “I don’t know. They didn’t bother to say last time either.”

Mike came out from the stairs that led to the cargo hold. Raising a hand, he covered his eyes and joined Andrew. “What’s your plan?” he asked the nerd.

“You remember last year when the mayor of Mississauga had you cast that spell for her?” Andrew asked Mike. The baseball player nodded.

“I’ll never forget that day,” he said. “It wasn’t so much casting a spell as it was throwing a beaker of cold.”

“Well if that’s the same as an ice spell,” Andrew said, passing Mike his bottle of molton fluid. “Then I grant you the mighty power of a fireball.”

“Aww,” Mike said with excitement. “No way.”

“You think you can hit it with that?” Andrew asked. “You only have one chance.”

Mike scanned the sky for the helicopter and spotted it. It was swinging back up over the bridge, and was coming in for another pass.

“I’ll wait for it to come back around,” Mike told them. “I want the chance to be perfect.”

The helicopter did as Mike had hoped, swinging around close and shining its light directly down at Rachel.

“DO it now!” she screamed at Mike. He reared back his arm and threw the beaker with everything he had. The beaker smashed directly into the nose of the craft, and the molton liquid splashed across the windshield. It began eating its way through the cockpit and the helicopter burst into flames as it careened into the lake.

“Yes!” Andrew cheered and hugged Mike. “You did it!” It had been every bit as awesome as he’d hoped it would be.

“Hey,” Rachel’s voice called from across the deck. “Where’d the rest of the bodies go?” Sure enough, all the men they’d been fighting had disappeared around them while it seemed they’d been distracted by the careening helicopter. There was only random puddles of blood to suggest anyone had ever even been there, and that they’d been fighting at all.

“Did you hear anything?” Andrew asked and Rachel shook her head. “Well that’s a neat trick.”

“The bridge!” Rachel said with a snap of her fingers. “You check on the cargo hold. Quick!”

*

Rachel made it to the bridge with Ian and Gordon hot on her heels. “Nadine,” she said to the woman who had bundled her captain up in his jacket.

“Nadine,” Rachel repeated. “I’m so sorry I have to ask you this. But can you still transport these kids where they need to go?”

Nadine shook her head. “Manning this ship is at least a two man job,” she insisted. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Rachel told her.

“I’ll go,” Gordon said, raising his hand and offering to volunteer. “Someone’s gotta set up all that equipment anyway. Make sure it all works. I can do that and help her get this boat there and back.”

“I’ll go too,” Ian offered, though it didn’t sound like a question. “I need some time away to think. I might be able to help.” Rachel looked at Ian, wanting to beg him not to go. Tell him he was being dumb. But she had to let him follow his heart. The look he gave her told her he’d made up his mind.

“You do what you feel you need to,” Rachel told him, giving him a hug. “I’ll still be here when you get back.”

*     *     *

“It was at the scene behind me here,” Isabol said into the camera, standing on the docks of Bronte Harbour the very next day, “where sixty vampire children set sail in a large shipping barge off to a new world where they might live free from the risk of hurting others.”

“No one knows the origin of the men in red robes who attacked the ship late last night,” Isabol continued, “but one thing that is clear is that no matter what dangers threaten the residents of this sleepy Canadian town, they have a team of protectors watching over them. Dedicated to keeping them safe. Not because it’s their job, but because they think it’s their responsibility. This is Isabol Teung of Voice News, Signing off. Back to you Brian!”

“And cut,” she said to her camera man who hit the necessary button. “Now let’s get out of this town before something eats us.”

*     *     *

“Not because it’s their job, but because they think it’s their responsibility. This is Isabol Teung of Voice News, Signing off. Back to you Brian!” Nathaniel turned off the TV as the members of the board began filing into the meeting room.

“Are you our one o’clock?” one man asked, sitting down at the long rectangular table.

“I am now,” Nathaniel informed the man, as the last board member of the company stepped into the office and Cory Spencer shut the door behind them. “Your company runs twenty five of the largest museums in the world.  You have agents spread around the globe searching for mysterious historical artifacts.”

Nathaniel sat down at the head of the table. “I want to discuss you all giving me a controlling share of your company. Shall we talk price, or should I begin by slaughtering a couple of you until the rest are willing to comply?”

Next time on Urban Fantasy:

The mayor calls in the favour Rachel agreed to, and more school gets skipped. This chapter was the climax to Act One, and I’m not sure yet how I’m gonna go from here. Will I publish this as a book in itself? Will I continue it, as it seems to be the least popular of my three stories. I just don’t know. Any feedback I get would be nice. But definitely more great things are coming to 99geek.ca like…

Next Month on patreon.com/99geek Adrift Homeless Chapter 5

Tameka’s mother has gone crazy, and the second great war has broken out in the deep desert. Suma has a secret weapon up her sleeve, however, and the Hymalious City troops do not know what to expect. This too will be the concluding chapter of Act One.