We were crossing a stone bridge over a river that flowed into the sea. It was all really pretty, but it was moments from full dark. We needed cover before that happened. “We need to not be out in the open,” I said.
Rodina leaned in against Nathaniel, smiling as if I’d said the best thing. “We’ll head for one of the churches that will keep the vampires out.”
“What about the Roanes?” I asked.
“You and your men have killed four of them already today.”
“How many more are there here?” I asked.
“Dozens,” she said, still smiling.
“We need a plan,” I said.
“Where’re Dev and Edward?” Nathaniel asked.
He was right. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, and then I did. Damian was fighting to stay with us, and not let her take him again, but he had all three of them touching his skin: Moroven, Keegan, and Roarke. He could fight off one of them, even two, but three . . . It was like they were trying to steal a piece of us. I stumbled and had to clutch at Rodrigo. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
Nathaniel answered, “Damian.” He’d thrown his arms around Rodina as if he were hugging her, which looked less suspicious than me clutching at just Rodrigo’s arm. Then Damian was gone, vanished from my mind, my heart. Moroven had captured him again. Damn it!
Rodrigo said, “Are you all right?” He was holding me around the waist; apparently I was closer to falling down than I’d realized. My skirt was not long enough for around-the-waist holding. He helped me stand up and pull everything back into place.
“She’s got Damian again,” I said.
Ru suddenly appeared beside us. “We need to keep moving.”
He was right. Nathaniel asked, “Did she take Damian over again because she knows what we’ve done or just because?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“There’s no general alarm yet,” Rodina said.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“We aren’t running,” she said.
“Good point,” I said.
We were walking like two ordinary couples with Ru as our third wheel on yet another quiet, picturesque street. There was a line of boats bobbing in the water along the quay with a blue building on the other side of the road that was apparently a seafood restaurant and a shop called the Lighthouse and the Fishman, respectively. There was fresh Irish seafood, or so the signs said. We walked without running. Rodina managed to giggle at something Nathaniel said.
Rodrigo said, “Do you want me to do the girlish laughter, while you pretend to be clever?”
I fought not to glare at him, which would have ruined the whole “touristy couple” camouflage. The best I could do was lean in and say, “Fuck you.”
He smiled as if I’d said something wonderful. I actually saw an older couple across the street smile at him. I lowered my face against his shoulder to hide the fact that my expression didn’t match. It made it look like I was cuddling against him. Great.
Ru had stopped walking and was staring down into the dark water. There was a seal in the dark water; you could just see it. It stared up at us with huge black eyes that reminded me of Roarke’s, except under the water like this it looked like a drowning victim. I whispered against Rodrigo’s neck, “Is it just a seal?”
“When they’re in seal form, you can’t always tell them apart,” he whispered back.
Ru knelt by the water and made soft sounds somewhere between growls, grunts, and purrs. The seal ducked underwater and vanished. Ru got to his feet fast. “That wasn’t a seal.” He was backing away from the water.
“Fuck,” Rodina said. She let go of Nathaniel’s hand and faced the water.
“What do we do?” Nathaniel asked.
The water, which had been quietly sloshing between the boats, began to boil with whitecaps, but there was nothing visible agitating the water. “Run!” Rodina said, and grabbed Nathaniel by the arm and started down the street. The rest of us followed. We got stared at by the few people still on the quiet street, but it didn’t matter anymore. It was too late to pretend. The seals threw themselves out of the water onto the street behind us. I saw one shiver, and it stood up a man, fully clothed and pointing at us. Fuck!
Rodrigo dragged me around the side of a building. In the distance, I saw a church. It would keep out the vampires when it got dark, but it wouldn’t keep out the Selkies now.
We had to scramble over a wall to get into the churchyard, and suddenly we were surrounded by tombstones. It was a graveyard. Nathaniel grabbed my arm. “Raise the dead. Raise zombies, Anita.”
“I’m not sure zombies will rise here.”
“Try,” he said.
“I’d rather not die with our new queen, not just yet,” Rodina said. “Try.”
“If they find us, we’ll hold them off,” Rodrigo said.
“We are your Brides now, Anita Blake. We must keep you safe and happy,” Ru said, and he moved into the darkness, vanishing into the shadows as if by magic.
Rodina moved the two of us into the shadows on the edge of the gravestones. “Do what only you can do, Anita. We’ll do what we are good at and protect our queen.”
“We need a knife,” Nathaniel said.
I’d thought she’d dig out the blade we’d used to kill the Roane in the Black Castle, but she handed me a clean blade from a sheath at her side. “And the one we used in the castle,” I said.