One of them was Olivia the dancer.
"There," Thomas said quietly. He turned his head to Elaine. "There they are, and they're fine. Check them out for yourself."
I stood up, my joints creaking, and studied the women. "Olivia," I said.
"Warden," she said quietly.
"Are you all right?"
She smiled. "Except for a muscle cramp I got in there. It's a little crowded."
Elaine looked from the women to Thomas and back. "Did he hurt you?"
Olivia blinked. "No," she said. "No, of course not. He was taking us to shelter."
"Shelter?" I asked.
"Harry," Elaine said, "these are some of the women who have gone missing."
I digested that for a second, and then turned to Thomas. "What the hell is wrong with you? Why didn't you tell me what was going on?"
He shook his head, his expression still a little bleary. "Reasons. Didn't want you involved in this."
"Well, I'm involved now," I said. "So how about you tell me what's going on."
"You were at my apartment," Thomas said. "You saw my guest room wall."
"Yeah."
"They were being hunted. I had to figure out who was after them. Why. I got it, at least well enough to be able to figure out who they were planning to kill. It became a race between us." He glanced at the women and children. "I got everyone I could out of harm's way, and brought them here." He tried to move his head and winced. "Nnngh. There are another dozen at a cabin on an island about twenty miles north of here."
"A safe house," I mused. "You were taking them to a safe house."
"Yeah."
Elaine just stared at the women for a long moment, then at Thomas. "Olivia," she asked. "Is he telling the truth?"
"A-as far as I know," the girl answered. "He's been a perfect gentleman."
I'm pretty sure nobody but me caught it, but at her words, Thomas's eyes flashed with a cold and furious hunger. He may have treated the women gently and politely, but I knew that there was a part of him that hadn't wanted to. He closed his eyes tightly and started taking deep breaths. I recognized the ritual he used to control his darker nature, and said nothing of it.
Elaine talked quietly with Olivia, who began making introductions. I leaned against a wall - unless maybe, since we were on a ship, it was a bulkhead - and rubbed my finger at a spot between my eyebrows where a headache was coming on. The damned oily smoke smell from the nearby ship's sputtering engine wasn't helping matters any, either, and -
My head snapped up and I flung myself up the stairs and onto the deck.
That big ugly boat had been moved from its moorings - and now floated directly beside the Water Beetle, blocking it from the open waters of the lake. Its engine was pouring out so much blue-black oil smoke that it could not have been anything but deliberate. A choking haze had already enveloped the Water Beetle, and I couldn't see beyond the next row of docks.
A figure hurtled from the deck of the boat to land in a tigerish crouch on the little area of open deck at the rear of the Water Beetle. Even as I watched, its features, those of an unremarkable man in his midthirties, began to change. His jaws elongated, face extending into something of a muzzle, and his forearms lengthened, the nails extending into dirty-looking talons.
He faced me, shoulders distorting into hunched knots of powerful muscle, bared his teeth, and let out a shrieking roar.
A ghoul. A tough, dangerous opponent, but not impossible to beat.
Then more figures appeared on the deck of the other ship, half veiled by the thick smoke. Their limbs crackled and contorted, and a dozen more ghouls opened their mouths in earsplitting echo of the first.
"Thomas!" I shouted, half choking on the smoke. "We've got a problem!"
Thirteen ghouls flung themselves directly at me, jaws gaping and slavering, talons reaching, eyes gleaming with feral bloodlust and rage.
Fucking boats .
Chapter Twenty-One
I have, in general, not had fun during my service as a Warden of the White Council. I have taken no enjoyment whatsoever in becoming a soldier in the war with the Vampire Courts. Doing battle with the forces of...
I was going to say evil, but I'm increasingly unsure exactly where everyone around me falls on the Jedi-Sith Index.
Doing battle with the forces of things trying to kill me, or my friends, or people who can't protect themselves is not a rowdy summer adventure movie. It's a nightmare. Everything is violence and confusion, fear and rage, pain and exhilaration. It all happens fast, and there's never time to think, never any way to be sure of anything.
It's awful, really - but I do have to admit that there's been one positive thing about the situation:
I've gotten in a lot of extra practice at combat wizardry.
And ever since New Mexico, I had absolutely no reservations about ripping ghouls apart with it.
The nearest ghoul was the closest threat, but not the greatest opportunity. Still, if I didn't lay the smack down on him in a hurry, he'd rip my head off, or at least tie me up long enough for his buddies to mob me. Ordinarily, I'd have let him eat a blast of telekinetic force from the little silver ring I wore on my right hand, the one that stored up a little energy every time I moved my arm, and which was useless after being employed.
I couldn't do that, because I'd replaced the single silver ring with three circles of silver fused into a single band, each with the same potential energy as the original silver ring.
Oh. And I had one of the new bands on every finger of my right hand.
I raised my staff in my fist, baring the rings to the ghoul, and as I triggered the first ring snarled, "See ya!"
Raw force lashed out at the ghoul, flung him off the end of the Water Beetle, and slammed him against the front of the ship blocking us in with enough force to break his back. There was a rippling crack, the ghoul's battle cry turned into an agonized scream, and he vanished into the cold waters of Lake Michigan.
The first of his buddies was already in the air, boarding the Water Beetle just as the first had. I waited a half second, timing the arc of his jump, and before his feet touched down, I hit him just as I had the first one. This time, the ghoul flew back into a pair of its buddies, already in the air behind him, and dropped all three of them into the drink. Ghouls five and six were female, about which I did not care in the least, and I swatted them into the lake with two more blasts.
So far, so good, but then four of them all leaped together - probably by chance, rather than design - and I knocked down only two of them. The other two hit the deck of the Water Beetle and flung themselves at me, claws extended.