“How many more, do you think?” Brigid asked as they climbed down to the third deck.
“I don’t have any kind of map,” Anne said. “So we’ll have to check door-to-door, deck by deck, if we want to search everywhere.”
Brigid huffed. “If you were going to transport Elixir, where would you store it?”
Anne laughed. “That’s a joke, right? Pallets can be stored—” She broke off when she heard a thumping sound coming from below.
Brigid and Anne both looked down.
“No voices,” Anne said after a few silent moments.
“There’s no way to keep our steps silent on this bloody boat.” Brigid started toward the stairs. “Follow me. Stay behind.”
Brigid was about half her size, but Anne didn’t argue. She was well aware she wasn’t a fighter. She followed Brigid down the stairs and opened the door to the lower deck.
“Keys,” Anne said, coming to an abrupt stop and tugging on Brigid’s arm. “The crewman who tried to shoot us was wearing keys, but none of the doors so far have been locked.”
“Let’s go back,” Brigid said, climbing two decks up. “If we delay, that might confuse whoever is down there. Confused prey is better than expectant prey.”
PILED in one of the equipment rooms under the deckhouse, most of the humans were still sleeping when they returned. A few were waking and confused, so Anne put them under again. Her mental influence with humans was particularly strong.
“Found them,” Brigid said, raising a crowded ring of keys.
“Now we’ll see what they’re trying to hide,” Anne said, walking out of the storage room quickly.
There had been something in the crew that had spiked her hunger, even though she’d fed before they met with Oleg at the Cockleshell. She shouldn’t be feeling hungry. She hadn’t in days. The infusion of Brigid’s blood, combined with what she’d taken from Murphy, had put an end to the bloodlust that had plagued her.
But Murphy had taken her blood earlier that evening, and she wondered if she was feeling the effects.
“Anne?” Brigid waited for her in the hallway.
“I’m coming. Sorry.”
THE scuffling came from behind a locked door. No voices. But definitely footsteps. It was the only sound in the low-lit passage, despite the doors that stretched into darkness.
“This fecking door…” Brigid had been trying each key without success, but there could easily have been forty on the ring. Anne leaned against the opposite wall, watching her and keeping an eye out for anyone approaching. She wondered how long it would take Carwyn and Murphy to check the bridge.
“Shall I try?” she asked Brigid. “Just to give your hands a rest.”
In truth, Anne was worried that Brigid was so irritated she’d break the key off in her hand if she ever managed to turn one.
“No, I’ll calm down.” Brigid took a deep breath just as there was a creaking down the hall.
Anne turned her head.
It sounded like a door, but she didn’t hear footsteps except those coming from the locked room. Freighters were noisy places, and she couldn’t swear that it wasn’t the normal swell and shift of the metal on the water.
“Anne, stay here,” Brigid said, looking over her shoulder
“I’m just going to look. I can see that door cracked open. It’s probably just the shifting of the boat.”
“Do you think it could be another door to this room?”
Anne looked at the door that had cracked open. “Different number. I doubt they’d be connected. The ones on the deck above weren’t. It’s probably nothing.”
“Stay in the hall where I can see you.”
“Yes, mam.”
She walked down the passageway, hands braced on either side, enjoying the cool dampness of the air. When she got to the door, she pushed it farther open and peered into the dim compartment.
Anne saw a low light she hadn’t noticed when they walked past, but she thought the door must have been closed.
“Do you see anything?” Brigid asked.
“There’s a light, but no one that I can see. No footsteps.” She angled her head in, trying to get a better look. “The door probably opened when the ship—” The freighter tilted again, and the light illuminated a tiny figure huddled in the corner.
“Anne, what is it?”
“There’s a child.”
“No!”
Anne heard Brigid’s shout a second after she ran into the room, then the door slammed behind her, and Brigid’s voice was muffled by steel. Anne turned, expecting a threat, but there was only a slip of a man—hardly more than a teenager—staring at her as he leaned up against the door.
“It locks automatically,” he said in a heavy Eastern European accent. “You’re one of them. You can help us.”
The relief of a mortal opponent fled when she saw the glassy sheen of the man’s eyes. Then the figure at Anne’s feet threw off the blanket that had been covering it, and a gust of sweet pomegranate permeated the room. Anne’s fangs dropped with a piercing rush. Her throat burned. Her gut twisted in acute hunger. Desperate, raging hunger, as if she hadn’t fed in months.
Oh, Jesus, no. Anne bit back a growl.
“Please,” the young man said desperately, holding out both arms, which were littered with angry red bites. “Please, you have to bite us. It’s been too long.”