I looked over the pics as he talked. “How about security on the creek side?”

“Minimal. You swimming in?”

“Something like that. If we can prove that he’s—”

“You’re in luck. The system just went inactive and was reactivated. He’s gone to ground at pappy’s place. And while I’m being helpful, a call just went out to the local law that a man was seen shooting a pistol into a houseboat on Lake Junaluska.” The connection ended.

“Funny guy.” I closed the phone, pulled the silly velvet jacket on against the chill, and fired up Fang. I can’t kill vamps if I’m in jail for malicious mischief or felony vandalism. If there is such a charge. I wasn’t in a mood to find out.

When I was safely away from the houseboat I’d killed, I stopped Fang, and speed-dialed my pals, the paddlers. Neither answered, but I left a message for each. “I’m going after a vamp. I need transportation down Cataloochee Creek at dawn. If you can meet me at the river before sunrise, call. I’ll need to hit land here.” I gave the GPS of the destination—Thomas’ place.

I figured that Thomas hadn’t picked his first night of freedom and daytime lair by a coin toss. Cataloochee Creek was home, an emotional attachment to the human world, as much as any place would be home to a vamp so far gone in bloodlust that he believed humans were nothing but dinner.

Before dawn, I turned off I-40 on to the road—loosely defined—and started down into the Cataloochee Valley. The roadbed was worse than I remembered, maybe because it was so dark, I was running on no sleep, two shape-changes, and hadn’t taken in enough calories to fuel the shifts. I had finished off most of the leftovers in Evangelina’s fridge, but after the spell in the basement, I hadn’t thought to eat, which was weird, for me. Now, I was hungry and worried; Beast was still nowhere in my mind. She didn’t appear, not even when I concentrated on the herd of elk in the park. She hadn’t thought anything snarky at me, or even milked my conscious mind with her claws since the bright light and disrupted spell in the hedge of thorns. Nothing. Nada. If she were still alive inside me, wouldn’t she make some kind of comment?

Cataloochee Creek’s boat access in the national campground provided easy access to the waterway. I parked and wandered through the dark, trying to imagine the land back when it was farmland, rich crops on the valley floor, or timberland, all the trees gone, the earth laid bare, back when it was family land, more isolated in some ways, less isolated in others. Beast had lived in these mountains back then, but she still wasn’t offering anything interesting, no insights, no memories, no thoughts, not even when I heard an owl hoot, lost and lonely in the distance.

I got back two affirmative texts from the paddlers. They were on their way. Dave asked if I had proper clothes. I was wearing more than undies, so I wrote back, “Yes,” but had a feeling I was missing something. Waiting for dawn, I took shelter under a covered communal picnic area. And it started to rain, tiny drops, stinging and sharp as ice picks. In seconds it was a deluge. Great. Just freaking great.

Trying to stay dry, I checked the security schematic of Stevenson’s house. Ran through some possible scenarios. Zipped up my jacket against the chill. I accessed the Naturaleza’s personal history to discover that the man held a black belt in karate, aikido, and kendo, which meant that if he had access to swords or long-blades, things could get dicey. Good thing I was planning to shoot him before I got close.

Mike arrived at the park first, cutting his engine and coasting the final distance to park. Quiet hours were advertised, which I had busted to heck and gone with Fang. When he spotted me in the dark, he pulled a two man raft from his truck and turned on an air compressor, inflating the raft in minutes. Mike was wearing a wetsuit with a dry-top over it and looked cozy. Even with my enhanced skinwalker metabolism, I was shivering. I figured that denim and velvet weren’t the “proper clothes” Dave had meant. And my wet-weather-riding gear was in storage in the same place as my fighting leathers. Dang it.

Dawn was still a glint in Mother Nature’s eye when Dave arrived, coasting down as Mike had done. At least they had good camping manners. He grinned and shook his head when he saw my bedraggled state, tossed me a poncho, which I pulled over my head. He hefted his hard boat and an armload of gear and carried it to the creek bank. He and Mike discussed the water flow—which was rising fast in the rain—the rapids and flat-water sections, and moments later, I was being instructed on raft safety. “And don’t poke a hole in the raft with the knives or the shotgun,” Mike said, tossing me a flotation vest. I figured the vest might come in handy if I went over while wearing so much steel. I had never weighed my gear, but swimming with it all would be hard. Or impossible.

“Or the pointy boots,” Dave added, with a sly smile. I looked down at my Luccheses.

“Damn, girl.” Mike boomed in his version of a murmur. “You go over and those boots’ll fill up and weigh you down till you drown. What’re you planning to do, paddle or ride a bull?”

“Both,” I said, thinking about the danger of going up against a vamp on his home turf.

Dave skirted up and slid into his small boat, secured himself into the craft and pushed off into the current, nimble as a duck. In contrast, I crawled into Mike’s raft like a landlubber, sitting on the bolster and inflated side wall as instructed, tucked my five-inch-toed boots into the crack as ordered, and took a beginner’s class in paddling as we drifted downstream in the dark.

“I’ll scout,” Dave said over the roar of rain. Both men looked tense, as if this little trip was dangerous or difficult. And maybe it was in the dark. In the flood. And sudden wind.

This gig wasn’t looking so promising now, and I almost said to beach the boats and hike back. But my cell vibrated in my pocket with a text from Reach. I read, trying to protect the delicate electronics. “Couple missing from karaoke bar. Car in lot. LEOs found blood. Waiting for security footage.” LEOs were law enforcement officers. The bar was just off the highway that Thomas Stevenson would have taken to get to his homeplace.

We took the first rapid, the boat tilted, and I slid my body into the raft bottom. “That’s nothing, girl. We got big water ahead.” I nodded to show I’d heard, but before I could speak, the heavens opened up, proving that the previous hard rain was nothing. Rain pounded down, on the raft, the men, raising a mist on the creek, overriding the sound of rapids. The M4 and blades made sitting impossible, and I half kneeled, hanging on to the ropes at the sidewalls. I held on for dear life as the water whipped and whirled and dunked the raft, and I got more soaked than if I’d actually swam to the site, and I tried to breathe without getting rain and river into my lungs. Twice I called out to Beast, but still she didn’t answer.

As indicated by the GPS data, the address of Thomas’ family farm was hard river right, up a hill, about a hundred yards from the creek, invisible in the storm. “There’s nothing there,” Mike called over the white-noise of drumming rain on land and on river. But I could smell vamp and human blood.

“It’s there,” I shouted back. “Let me out.” With a gesture that sent the raft whirling and swirling to scrape on shore, the river guide beached the small craft. The smell of blood was carried on the chilled breeze, diluted by the pounding downpour. I crawled out of the small raft, my boots full of water, my jeans wet, my body filled with a fine tremor from adrenaline and the cold. I pulled off the poncho and tossed it into the boat bottom.

“Get to the other side of the river. Wait for me where you can see this bank. If I’m not back in hour, get out of here. It means I’m dead. If anyone else comes to shore, or if anyone comes back to shore with me, peel out and get downstream fast.” I handed him my cell. “Even if I call out for help. Even if I’m bleeding. Don’t come back here unless I’m alone and moving under my own power. If I don’t come back, hit SEND to call Leo Pellissier’s right-hand man, George Dumas. Tell him what happened. He’ll handle it. Got it?”

Mike boomed out, “Paddlers don’t leave people behind.”

“If I’m not alone, it’ll mean I failed and he rolled me. If the vamp is still alive, rolls me, or kills me, it becomes Leo’s problem to take him out.” I wasn’t trusting Lincoln Shaddock for anything, even if I knew where to find him. Leo would have to figure it out.

Dave nodded and made a little skirling motion with his paddle, maneuvering his tiny boat back into the current, nimble as a duck. Mike sealed my cell into his waterproof dry-box and rotated his raft back into the current. I waited until both men had their boats secured on the far shore before melting into the trees, walking hunched over, making myself deer-sized, trusting in the ten-year-old security system to mistake me for the local fauna. Beast was still silent, but I have my own memories of the stop-and-go motion of deer, the slow stroll punctuated by quick dashes, to stop suddenly, unmoving.

Dawn, delayed by the heavy clouds, gave me just enough light to see my way, the trees and underbrush providing cover even as they dumped rain down my collar, my clothes hanging wet and heavy, the silver and titanium necklace icy on my skin. As I moved, I went over what I knew and what I could infer about the vamp I was here to take out, weighing my strengths against his, trying to stay mentally and physically loose and ready. Trying not to think about the empty place in my soul. Beast? She didn’t answer.

According to Reach, the perimeter of the house itself had decent security: cameras, motion detectors, and laser lights queued into a wailing alarm. But old motion detectors might be fooled, especially with the movement of rain and wind. Branches were swaying, rain was falling so hard it obscured my footsteps, even to my own keen ears, and filled my faint tracks with water.

Vamps aren’t dead to the world by sunlight. They had a hard time staying awake once the sun came up, especially the young ones, like a kid trying to stay up past bedtime and being pulled under by the lure of dreams, but unless injured they seldom fell over in an undead snooze.