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He nodded and headed out. I finished my hot chocolate, then grabbed the last toastie triangle and munched on it as I headed upstairs.
I shoved on sturdier boots—walking around the bush in anything less was basically an open invitation to be bitten by any snake nearby—then grabbed my phone and sent Aiden another text, letting him know what we were up to.
Meet you at the front of the gun clubcame his reply.Don’t proceed without me.
Maybe it was my overly active imagination, but his reply seemed a little terse, making me wonder if his mother had been causing trouble again.
I’d find out soon enough.
I grabbed a sun hat, then went back downstairs for the backpack. There was no way in hell I was about to go vampire hunting without aphysicalmeans of protecting myself. Jaqueline might or might not be capable of overwhelming us magically, but no dark mage, be she vampire or not, was immune to the effects of holy water or a blessed silver knife.
Monty, I noted with a smile, was already eating his cake—our version of a Boston bun, which, after taste-testing our first batch, he’d declared was quite passable.
By the time we made it across to the rifle range, Aiden was there and waiting. Monty pulled up beside his truck, then stopped and reached past to open the glove compartment. Inside were a couple of dark-framed, dark-glassed sunglasses onto which elastic had been tied.
“To keep them in place in the event of an attack,” he said, handing me one before tucking the other into his shirt pocket and climbing out of his car.
I shoved the glasses on, looped the elastic around my ponytail to keep them in place, then grabbed my pack and hat and got out. Aiden caught my free hand and pulled me into his arms. He looked and smelled tired.
“Hell of a night, hey?” I said softly, my gaze searching his and seeing the deeper flickers of frustration. His mom had definitely done or said something annoying.
“Always is when you’re dealing with the aftermath of a tragedy, whether it be big or small.” He dropped a quick kiss on my lips, then released me. It was then I saw he’d tucked sunglasses into his shirt, though his were fancier-looking than the ones Monty had purchased. “What are we searching for?”
“An old hut surrounded by trees with some sort of creek nearby.”
He frowned. “There’s only a couple of huts around here that are abandoned, and none of them are near creeks.”
“Could it have been a water channel? There’s enough of them scattered about the place,” Monty said. “Maybe what Liz heard was a farmer pumping water from one paddock to another.”
“Thereisan open gravity channel not far from here,” Aiden said, “and the old man who owns the nearby farm has been known to use it from time to time to move water down from his top dam.”
“Is the old man still alive?” Monty asked. “Has anyone checked on him lately?”
“We only tend to do welfare checks when someone reports that they’ve not been seen for a few days.” He pushed away from his truck. “This way.”
He headed past the newish-looking brick building. There were at least three cars parked on the other side of it, but no one visible on the range. Perhaps they’d retreated into the building’s no doubt cooler confines.
The trees beyond were sparse and offered little in the way of protection from the sun, making me doubly glad I’d worn a hat. The scrub itself was dry and patchy, but we followed what looked to be a roo path so avoided most of the weeds. After ten minutes or so, we found the water channel. It wasn’t as wide as the others we’d seen, but it was full of weeds and bone dry.
“Jason’s sluice lies that way,” Aiden said, pointing to the left. “I can hear water running so he’s obviously opened the gate.”
“If he’s opened the gate, that surely suggests he’s alive.” Monty stopped and swiped at the sweat dotting his forehead. “Unless, of course, it’s open because they’ve used him as a snack and there’s no one left to shut the thing down again. Is his place near the channel?”
“No, but the old shed and bunkhouse the shearers used to use isn’t far from here.”
“Is it a large bunkhouse?” I asked. “Because I only saw a couple of bunks and a few chairs.”
“That sounds about right. Jason never had a huge herd of sheep.” Aiden glanced at me. “Any idea how many vamps we could be dealing with?”
“Six or seven, max.”
“Which implies it’s probably not our main group,” Monty said. “Not if Maelle’s estimates were right.”
And they would be, even if she made it seem more of a guess.
“If the vampiresarethere,” Aiden said. “Will either of you be able to sense their presence before they sense ours?”
“That depends on a number of factors,” Monty said, “like whether they’re asleep or awake, and whether they’ve ringed the place with protections.”
