Page 85 of Night's Reckoning
“I heard something.”
“Something?”
“Meet me in the hold.” She rose to her feet and pulled on leggings, then slid into the flat shoes parked near the door and opened the hatch. After poking her head out, she scanned the area. She smelled humans. Other vampires. Engine oil. Blood. Seawater—
Blood.
Senses on alert, she stepped into the passageway and focused on the scent of blood. She was a vampire, and blood drew her even if it was old. This blood was not old. It was fresh, and it was human.
The passageway from the hold led her through the lower deck where storerooms lined either side. Footsteps approached from the top deck. They came down the stairs. Ben appeared, wearing basketball shorts, a T-shirt, and no shoes.
“Tenzin?”
She put a finger to her lips. She pointed to a storeroom door on the port side, and Ben walked silently toward her. She knew what they’d find before Ben pushed open the hatch.
The body was lying on the floor, the neck mangled and limbs splayed at unnatural angles. It was a young woman—one of the university divers—but Tenzin didn’t know her name.
“Meili.” Ben crouched down and put a finger to her neck.
“She’s dead, Benjamin. I don’t hear even a weak heartbeat.”
“Dammit.” He stood and gripped his hair in his hands. “Dammit! She was one of the first divers on the wreck. It was her first maritime site. She was working on her PhD. She learned to dive so she could complete her dissertation with original research.”
Meili’s eyes were wide and lifeless. She was also soaking wet. The seawater overpowered every other scent except the blood. Her clothes were soaked in it, as was her hair.
“Fabia is going to be heartbroken. She and Meili had already exchanged email addresses. Meili wanted to work on her English, and Fabi wanted to consult on her paper. Fuck, Tenzin, this is awful.”
Tenzin had a difficult time feeling grief for most humans. Their lives were so short—it made little difference to her that this one had only lived for twenty-some years instead of eighty. Many humans received far less than that. But the violence of the young woman’s attackdidanger her.
“She wasn’t attacked in her sleep,” Tenzin said. “Her eyes are open.”
“Whoever killed her probably used amnis.”
Tenzin leaned against the bulkhead. “The list of suspects isn’t long. It’s not longer than one name for me.”
Ben stood. “Who?”
“Johari.”
“Johari?”
Tenzin shrugged. “Who else?”
“How about Kadek? Or Cheng?”
Tenzin cocked her head.Really?
Ben grimaced and shrugged.Okay, probably not Cheng.
He asked, “Can you sense any particular amnis on her?”
“No. Look at all the water. No scents are going to survive over that. Maybe a water vampire could get something, but I can’t sense it.”
“Okay,” Ben said. “Why don’t we call everyone down here and see what they say? Maybe Cheng will get something.”
Tenzin raised her eyes. “You want to invite everyone down to a murder scene to see what they have to say?”
“It’s not her murder scene. I guarantee she was killed somewhere else.” Ben knelt next to her again. “How much blood is gone? Can you tell?”
