Jen and Kevin swung onto the view deck, dripping wet. "Got

'em al, boss," Jen cal ed to Riley. So some people must have tried to swim for it. I hadn't noticed.

I looked around for Fred. It took me a while to find him. I final y realized that I couldn't look directly at the back corner by the vending machines, and I headed that way. At first I felt like the rocking ferry was making me seasick, but then I got close enough that the feeling faded and I could see Fred standing by the window. He smiled at me quickly, and then looked over my head. I fol owed his gaze and saw that he was watching Riley. I got the feeling that he'd been doing this for some time.

"Okay, kids," Riley said. "You've had a taste of the sweet life, but now we've got work to do!"

They al roared enthusiastical y.

"I've got three last things to tel you - and one of those things involves a little dessert - so let's sink this scow and get home!"

With laughter mixed in with the snarls, the army went to work dismantling the boat. Fred and I bailed out the window and watched the demo from a short distance. It didn't take long for the ferry to crumple in the middle with a loud groan of metal. The midsection went down first, with both the bow and the stern twisting up to point to the sky. They sank one at a time, the stern beating the bow by a few seconds. The school of barracuda headed toward us. Fred and I started swimming for shore. We ran home with the others - though keeping our distance. A couple of times Fred looked at me like he had something he wanted to say, but each time he seemed to change his mind. Back at the house, Riley let the celebratory mood wind down. Even after a few hours had passed, he stil had his hands ful trying to get everyone serious again. For once it wasn't a fight he was trying to defuse, just high spirits. If Riley's promises were false, as I thought, he was going to have an issue when the ambush was over. Now that al these vampires had real y feasted, they weren't going to go back to any measure of restraint very easily. For tonight, though, Riley was a hero. Final y - a while after I would have guessed that the sun was up outside - everyone was quiet and paying attention. From their faces, it seemed they were ready to hear just about anything he had to say.

Riley stood halfway up the stairs, his face serious.

"Three things," he began. "First, we want to be sure we get the right coven. If we accidental y run across another clan and slaughter them, we'l tip our hand. We want our enemies overconfident and unprepared. There are two things that mark this coven, and they're pretty hard to miss. One, they look different - they have yel ow eyes."

There was a murmur of confusion.

"Yel ow?" Raoul repeated in a disgusted tone.

"There's a lot of the vampire world out there that you haven't encountered yet. I told you these vampires were old. Their eyes are weaker than ours - yel owed with age. Another advantage to our side." He nodded to himself as if to say, one down. "But other old vampires exist, so there is another way that we'l know them for sure... and this is where the dessert I mentioned comes into play." Riley smiled slyly and waited a beat. "This is going to be hard to process," he warned. "I don't understand it, but I've seen it for myself. These old vampires have gone so soft that they actual y keep - as a member of their coven - a pet human."

His revelation was met by blank silence. Total disbelief.

"I know - hard to swal ow. But it's true. We'l know it's definitely them because a human girl wil be with them."

"Like... how?" Kristie asked. "You mean they carry meals around with them or something?"

"No, it's always the same girl, just the one, and they don't plan to kil her. I don't know how they manage it, or why. Maybe they just like to be different. Maybe they want to show off their self-control. Maybe they think it makes them look stronger. It makes no sense to me. But I've seen her. More than that, I've smel ed her."

Slow and dramatic, Riley reached into his jacket and pul ed out a smal ziplock bag with red fabric wadded up inside.

"I've done some recon in the past few weeks, checking the yel ow-eyes out as soon as they got near the area." He paused to throw us a paternal look. "I watch out for my kids. Anyway, when I could tel that they were moving on us, I grabbed this" - he brandished the bag - "to help us track them. I want you al to get a lock on this scent."

He handed the bag to Raoul, who opened the plastic zipper and inhaled deeply. He glanced up at Riley with a startled look.

"I know," Riley said. "Amazing, right?"

Raoul handed the bag to Kevin, his eyes narrowing in thought.

One by one, each vampire sniffed the bag, and everyone reacted with wide eyes but little else. I was curious enough that I sidled away from Fred until I could feel a hint of the nausea and knew I was outside his circle. I crept forward until I was next to the Spider-Man kid, who seemed to be at the tail end of the line. He sniffed inside the bag when it was his turn and then seemed about to hand it back to the kid who had given it to him, but I held my hand out and hissed quietly. He did a double take - almost like he'd never see me before - and handed me the bag.

It looked like the red fabric was a shirt. I stuck my nose in the opening, keeping my eyes on the vampires near me, just in case, and inhaled.

Ah. I understood the expressions now and felt a similar one on my face. Because the human who had worn this shirt had seriously sweet blood. When Riley said dessert, he was dead right. On the other hand, I was less thirsty than I'd ever been. So while my eyes widened in appreciation, I didn't feel enough pain in my throat to make me grimace. It would be awesome to taste this blood, but in that exact moment, it didn't hurt me that I couldn't.

I wondered how long it would take for me to get thirsty again. Usual y, a few hours after feeding, the pain would start to come back, and then it would just get worse and worse until - after a couple of days - it was impossible to ignore it even for a second. Would the excessive amount of blood I'd just drunk delay that? I guessed I'd see pretty soon.

I glanced around to make sure no one was waiting for the bag, because I thought Fred would probably be curious, too. Riley caught my eye, smiled the tiniest bit, and jerked his chin slightly toward the corner where Fred was. Which made me want to do the exact opposite of what I'd just been planning, but whatever. I didn't want Riley to be suspicious of me. I walked back to Fred, ignoring the nausea until it faded and I was right next to him. I handed him the bag. He seemed pleased I'd thought to include him; he smiled and then sniffed the shirt. After a second he nodded thoughtful y to himself. He gave me the bag back with a significant look. The next time we were alone, I thought he would say aloud whatever it was he had seemed to want to share before.