A Vial of Life

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ibrahim came to us and informed us that the second boundary had been erected. Then it was time to deal with the merfolk we had left guarded by the other vampires. I arrived on the stretch of beach to find that most of the creatures had come to by now. Some had been bound, an attempt by the vampires to keep them in check. The latter all looked relieved to see me as I approached.

“So?” Ashley, who’d remained as one of the guards, asked, hands on her hips. “What are we going to do with these creeps?”

I was tempted to instruct the witches to hover the merfolk over the hunters’ ships, still floating outside, and give them a nasty surprise. But of course, that was not the most tactful way of handling the situation.

In the end, I just had the witches transport them to the shore of a deserted island situated on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. I was certain that now that they knew where The Shade was, it wouldn’t be too difficult to find their way back, especially if we had others still lurking within our boundaries who could call for them. But for now, this was the best we could do. In the meantime, we had to double down and try to figure out how to purge our water of any remaining merfolk. And until we did that, we were stuck with this hostile environment, feeling like prisoners on our own island.

Chapter 10: Rose

Caleb and I considered going to the meeting that my father had called in the Great Dome, but since they would only be discussing what we already knew, I didn’t see any real reason for us to be there. I was aching for my brother as it was, and hearing the whole story repeated all over again would only end up making me more depressed.

So I suggested to my husband that we skip the meeting. Since our honeymoon, we had moved into our own treehouse. It was near my parents’, and within the area of the Residences in general, but far enough away for us to feel like we were living alone.

I was still in the process of moving my stuff out of my old room in my parents’ penthouse. It was amazing how much I had accumulated over the years. I found objects under my bed that I’d forgotten I even possessed. The room was jammed with gifts from my eighteenth birthday combined with Caleb’s and my wedding. My bedroom was large, but we’d received so many generous gifts, they had barely fit in my room. We had moved much of that to our new place already, but there still remained at least two loads’ worth of stuff. I couldn’t wait to hang up the painting of The Shade’s Port that Anna and her family had created for me.