A grin curled thecorner of his mouth. He angled a look at me. “Thanks.”
“Happy t’help.” Idropped my arm and took another swig of coffee. “So, at a glance,the two locations aren’t far from one another.”
He straightened andtook hold of two pencils and an elastic band. “It’s roughlyone-point-four miles between the two locations, which got mewondering if the Vampires kept things close t’home.”
“They have the wholeof London t’hunt in.”
“Yeah, but think aboutit. All the Ripper murders were in Whitechapel. He had a huntingground. Predators tend t’have an area they like t’hunt in, and yousaid this Luca guy was pretty important, so they definitely don’twant him t’stray too far from their crib?”
“Nest.”
He placed one pencilon the black dot and pulled the elastic band, placing the secondpencil on the red dot. “So, with all that in mind, it would makesense that they hunt in an area where it’s easy for them to taketheir victims back with them and so forth.”
I watched as he drew aperfect circle starting and ending on the red dot.
“There’s morenightclubs in this area, for one, so more vulnerable drunk human.”He placed the pencils and band on the counter and pointed at thecircle he had drawn. “So, would it make sense t’check this radius,especially because these two locations are so close together?”
I stared at the map,the hot mug cradled in my hands. “Y’know, you’re smarter thany’think.”
With only theknowledge that Heather had been directed to a nightclub, The Sphinxwould have been our starting point, but with no hint of indicationin which direction the Nest was, we would have been pretty stuckonce we go there. Sure, the idea was to search the area and widenthe search, but knowing that the spot where Nathan and Freddie hadbeen taken was so close by suddenly made this task a little morehopeful.
No such thing ascoincidences.
We could go in thewrong direction, or maybe the Nest had moved, or maybe the Vampireslived way on the other side of the city, but I couldn’t fault hislogic. The Leeches stayed around Dublin when they followed my auntand cousins over. Sure, they fanned out a little, wandered intotown and such, but they were never too far from us. So, it wouldmake sense they would hunt around their safe haven. Animals did itall the time.
I suddenly felt dumb.It all seemed so obvious, but I was only ever following orders, myfather telling me which areas to hunt or check.
“Thanks,” he repliedto my previous compliment.
“Not Freddie smart,but—” I flinched as the band weakly hit my forehead.
“I just figure it wasa starting point. London is huge, and with only the note t’go off…”
“This is-it’s great.”I raised my mug to him in a salute. “I think you might be ont’something.”
He seemed genuinelypleased with himself, like a schoolboy who had answered a questioncorrectly.
“So, what’s theplan?”
He moved over to theoven, opening the door and collecting the tray. The remaining threeslices of Hawaiian pizza lay on the black metal, the cheesebubbling slightly. My stomach rumbled.
“We patrol the area,and we find a Vampire, and then we get it t’take us to theNest.”
“That easy, huh?” Heslid the pizza off the baking tray and onto a large plate which heput down in front of me.
“They won’t willinglytake us to the Nest. They will need some persuading.” I patted theblade on my hip.
“So, let’s say theytake us.” He placed the tray on top of the stove. “Then what? Iimagine there’s going t’be more than a couple of Vampires inthere.”
“We sneak in and lookfor Heather. Kill any Vampires that attack us.”
“That still doesn’tanswer the part about there being a load of Vampires in there.”
I placed my mug on thecounter and picked up a slice of pizza, blowing across the surface.“They won’t all be in. They will be out hunting. We will befine.”
“Easy for you t’say.You’ve been doing this for years.”
“And you have alltheir strength and speed. All you have t’do is react and defendyourself.” I took a bite of my pizza. “Besides, I heard you goingt’town on the punch bag last night. So don’t tell me you don’t havea decent right hook.”
A sheepish lookcrossed his face. “Yeah, we may need to replace it.”
***
In theory, the radiusidea had been great, but practically, it wasn’t working as well. Wehad spent hours looping the perimeter of Nathan’s pencil border,which happened to be the heart of central London. A place I hadnever been to, which was yet another slap in the face at howisolated my life had been. I lived like an hour or so away byplane, and I had never travelled to London before. It seemed crazy.Wasn’t that an unwritten must-do on the bucket list of anyone wholived in the UK or Ireland?
Regardless of thefact, I didn’t have longer than a few seconds to take in the sightof Big Ben, Number 10, Downing Street, or even Buckingham Palace asI circled round and round the selected area, closing the circleuntil Nathan and I once again met across the road from theSphinx.
He looked deflated aswe came to a halt. “Elle, we’ve be doing this for hours.”
“We just need t’find aVampire.”
“It’s proving ratherhard.”
“They should find youeasily.”
He looked confused.“They should?”
“You’re—” I gave himan apologetic smile. “—one of them. Or rather, you’re a differenttype of them, and you escaped them. If they get a whiff of you,they should take notice.”
“You may haveexplained this as we left the house.”
“I didn’t want yout’stress.”
“Me, stress?”
We had done the firstsweep together, which had taken just under two hours. I had thensuggested we split to cover more ground, which would have been fareasier for him considering Vampires could be rather fast. That’s ifhe even knew how to be fast.
Splitting up had mademore sense, but after almost six hours, my hope was runningdry.
“I just don’tunderstand.” I glanced across at the nightclub Heather was lastknown to have visited. “Logistically, we should have at least comeacross one by now. This is London, for God’s sake. The UK Colony isapparently rather large, and there’s so many people out.”
London nightlife had apulse, and it was easy to see why the Vampires would have
