vampires were victorious. Such was the end of the Vryloka.
Or, perhaps not.
“How can we be sure?” I asked.
Laucian shrugged. “We cannot. We may only know when they come for us.”
I glared at him. “Laucian, how does one prepare for an attack of a legend?”
“Indeed. The Vryloka are not troubled by daylight as we are. They have many of our strengths and few of our weaknesses.”
“Surely we outnumber them?”
Laucian pulled a face. “I would like to hope so, but have you considered why it has taken them so long to attack? It has been ten years since the fall of the Underworld.”
I sagged. “So they can build their numbers.”
“That is what I fear. Picking off vampires here and there over the last decade to join the swelling ranks of their army.” He sighed. “In which case, I have to thank you for making that more difficult for them. You have made the majority of vampires inaccessible out here, upon the ocean. And because you all live together, in distaste I might add,” he paused as I rolled my eyes. “I assume someone would notice if your vampires started to disappear.”
“It is not as if we take register every evening,” I admitted with a shrug. “But people would soon notice if their favorite sex buddy went missing.”
Laucian gave a thin smile. “What a convenient way of keeping tabs on everyone under your protection.”
“What about your people?” I asked.
“I have already lost someone,” Laucian replied, picking up the photo of Luc and looking at it with what amounted to detached fondness. I was not certain if the expression upon his face was true or for my benefit. He looked up at me then. “If the Vryloka are building their way up through the ranks, it is likely I will be next.”
“You?” I asked.
He nodded. “They will come for me before you.”
“If we are guessing their tactics correctly and if any of this is actually real.” I sighed. More ‘ifs’ than I liked to see in a sentence. “Can we be sure they are targeting people of importance?”
“Not sure,” Laucian admitted. “But do you not find it odd that Luc and this other vampire were not turned into Vryloka themselves? I believe the Vryloka wanted us to find the bodies.”
“Why?”
“As a warning of sorts.”
“A warning of what?”
“That such vampires are not the ones they are after. They have bigger plans.”
I nodded, grimly. “Thank you for coming here, Laucian, I appreciate it.” He had not had to warn me, but we were both the last of our kind—master vampires—and he had felt it his duty. Though we might have always had our differences, I could rely on Laucian to do his duty.
He accepted my gratitude graciously. “I hope, now that you are aware of the threat, you will take the correct course of action.”
I pricked up my ears at that. “The correct course of action?”
“Well, yes,” Laucian shrugged as if such a correct course were obvious. “You have three ship-loads of useless vampires…”
“I would be very careful how you use words like ‘useless’,” I fired the words back at him, my anger giving them heat.
“What word would you use then?” asked Laucian with a casual shrug that did not befit him. Nothing Laucian did was casual. “Unless you plan to seduce the Vryloka and screw them to death, then what good are these vampires of yours?”
“Firstly, they are not ‘mine’.” I pointed out. “They belong to themselves. I just gave them a home where they could do as they pleased. Secondly; at least they live in the real world. At least they are protected. Such is more than the disciples of Laucian can say.”
“My people know how to conduct themselves in a fight.”
“Dueling pistols at dawn?” I suggested with a well-timed yawn. “If the Vryloka have been preparing for ten years, they have also been learning about how the world has changed since they were last here. You have not done so for centuries.”
“If this,” Laucian indicated all around him with a gesture of repugnance, “represents the ‘modern world’, then I think I have done right to shield my people from it. Your vampires could learn much from mine. That is what I have come here to tell you—that you and I should work together.”
“Work together?”
He leaned across the table urgently. “We should not wait for them, Sinjin. We should go after them ourselves. We can track them down and we can kill them.”
Although I was still angry at his characterization of my ‘useless’ vampires,