I said to Tony, “Tony, I need the GPS coordinates for the Kipawo fed to my phone please, update it every fifteen minutes.”

  Tony replied, “What’s going on?”

  I replied, “Long story, but we believe Callie is on that ship, but we don’t have enough proof to involve the coast guard yet.”

  Tony said, “Will do boss, be careful.”

  His worry warmed my chest, “Never. That’s a good way to die.”

  Tony laughed, “Fair enough.”

  Lisa smirked.

  I said, “I could have tracked the ship without it, but we need to show how we tracked the ship. Umm, I got nothing on the reason we went to the docks. C.I.?”

  Lisa shook her head, “Why would a confidential informant call us about it, or even know to look.”

  I sighed, “Okay, Jason calls us, we sent Jeris to scry. Scry comes up negative, which made us believe she was taken against her will and was being held captive behind wards. Sure, she could have been shagging a mage, but after investigating we didn’t believe she wouldn’t call home and let her father know. I’m sure she isn’t pure and pristine, but just based on her room there’s no indication she’d be thoughtless or rebellious.

  “And then we…” I trailed off. We had a good beginning to the story on why she was thought kidnapped, and assuming we didn’t die we had a good ending for the story and to bust up a good portion of the ring, but the middle kind of fell apart. We just needed to connect she was taken, to we found her scent on the docks, and we’d be golden.

  It was also annoying me that I could already be there, but I had to leave them all in cages for another few hours or so. Our boat would easily chase down a container ship, but it would take time.

  Lisa finished my sentence, “Went to jail for perjury?”

  Wise ass.

  I smacked her arm, and she giggled, “Protecting you is a pain in the ass.”

  I shrugged, “Fair enough, but if I wasn’t a dragon that needed protecting, we wouldn’t have a fucking clue where she was.”

  Lisa nodded, “True. Do you think you broke the ward, or just pushed through it?”

  I frowned, “Pushed through it.”

  She sighed, “Alright, forget that idea. I was thinking we could have Jeris try again, but if the ward is still there that won’t work. We also don’t have CCTV access yet.”

  Right, I bet the truck that took them could be tracked to the docks with a minimum of effort, but the cops wouldn’t do anything until the forty-eight hours were up. Investigations of this nature weren’t our usual thing either, usually we were given a target to track down or protect, not a victim to find.

  Lisa said, “Jeris, I want you and Cerise to canvas the bus and train station with a picture of Callie. See if anyone recognizes her, then take care of that ward. Tony, put in a request to the businesses nearby Rapid Pulse, see if they’ll share any video footage with us for the last forty-eight hours.”

  Tony and Jeris answered that they would.

  Tony asked to Lisa and myself, “Don’t we already know where she is?”

  Lisa said, “Yes, but we want to gather evidence and do our due diligence. We’ll explain later.”

  Lisa turned to me and said off the comms system, “We’ll just tell them when we knew she was taken, we decided to check nearby business video to look and see who took her, while we canvased the docks and public trans systems to make sure she was still in the city.”

  I frowned, it was weak, but it was better than nothing. At least it explained why we’d check the docks.

  “The timeline is going to be off.”

  Lisa shrugged, “They’ll have no reason to check our date stamps on when we looked for information on the ships. It’s going to take us several hours to catch that ship anyway. They’ll be too busy debriefing twenty-four victims so that they can go after the club owners and the other cities in the ring, they won’t be studying our story too closely.”

  “What about Tony?”

  Lisa frowned, “Do you trust him? Jeris and Cerise won’t notice the inconsistencies, we’ve kept them out of the discovery loop.”

  “I think so. We may not have a choice.”

  Lisa shrugged, “We can either tell him the truth, or just tell him about me skirting the law and getting the info from the club owners, and we were filling in the blanks for a legal audit trail.”

  “Let’s play it by ear, I don’t know that I want to lie to him, at all. He’s kind of the information hub for our business, and something like this might come up again. Still, knowing the truth about me could put him in danger.”

  Lisa nodded, and I checked my phone as we pulled into the port. He’d already sent us our target ship’s speed, bearing, and current GPS coordinates. It wouldn’t be hard to plot an intercept. We got out, and jumped in our boat, which would be tiny next to the large container ship.

  We cast off the lines, and then got moving.

  Boarding would be interesting when we caught up...

  Chapter Sixteen

  It would take almost six hours to catch up, our boat moved a little faster than twice the container ship’s top speed. When we caught them around four in the afternoon, we’d still be well within two hundred miles of shore, so still in American waters when we called the coastguard.

  Now all we had to do was take down about twenty people, who were probably very well armed with guns and magic, and who would see our little pleasure boat coming long before we got close enough to board via one of their hulls ladder rungs.

  I spent some of the time scrying, to verify their numbers. We were facing twenty-two well-armed humans with automatic weapons, along with one mage and two shifter bodyguards. By dress, the latter three were passengers, and not part of the crew. We had to assume they were all in on it.

  I also checked on their passengers a few times. I was willing to let them sit in cages another six hours to protect my life and secret, but if any of the men went to sample the merchandise so to speak, I’d drop on them like a ton of fucking bricks.

  Maybe sexual slavery and rape pushed my buttons so much, because it was so common to my kind. People didn’t tend to think that way, because sirens were beautiful and female, and most didn’t really think about the fact a man could be raped, but they could. I could easily enthrall and take any man I wanted, either permanently or even through a lighter temporary enthrallment. Then again, maybe it pushed my buttons simply because the men that raped women were evil and weak, worth less than the dirt stuck to the bottom of my shoe.

  Regardless, the whole thing disgusted me. It was probably a bit of both. They both deserved my contempt, and they reminded me about my race’s failings.

  I wished we could let them know rescue was on the way, but we couldn’t even do that. It would be disastrous if suspicious details of my abilities came to light from their stories.

  Lisa asked, “What’s the plan?”

  “Take prisoners, kill only if we have to. If we manage to sneak up on them, I can try to sing as many as I can asleep, if not we do it the hard way. It won’t be hard to knock out the humans, and we have enough silver cuffs for the two shifters and the mage.”

  Lisa grinned, “No, the hard part is avoiding all the bullets.”

  I asked, “We could board when the ship’s just a couple of miles away. Once we have control of the cargo ship and cut the engines, we can get our boat and bring them the rest of the way together, then call the coast guard and let the victims out.”

  Lisa nodded, “That might be safer than going up a straight ladder on the side of the ship, while trying to dodge bullets from directly above.”

  I snorted, “Probably.”

  Lisa sighed, “You lead us from group to group via their songs. It’ll be more accurate than my nose out on the open and windy sea. But I get half the takedowns, or I’ll kill you myself.”

  I laughed, “Yes, dear. But only if I can’t get them with my song.”

  She nodded grudgingly in agreement.

  Fighting humans would be interesting, I was too used to double tapping an opponent to soften them up for the takedown and cuffing. That would kill a human. I also wasn’t foolish enough not to think they wouldn’t be dangerous enemies, guns were a great equalizer. Sure, speed and strength were both good advantages, but they outnumbered us by ten to one. The best way to do it was one at a time.

  She grinned, “We’ll stick them in cages for safe keeping.”

  I snorted. Sounded fair to me, but I wasn’t sure it would go over all that well with the coast guard.

  We tried to relax until we caught up, but the waiting chafed on both of us…

  I opened up a large scrying window into the engineering section of the container ship, and then sent my magic through, and created a sheet of ice against the nearby wall, connecting them to facilitate both magical transport and communications.

  Then we stepped through and onto the ship. I heard all forty-nine songs including the women prisoners, some of them were quite faint through all the metal walls. The mage and two bear shifter guards were in the pilot’s cabin up top, none of them were near the prisoners for the moment. Three were extremely close, within the large engine room we just entered.

  I started to hum a soft tune. Putting someone to sleep wasn’t an immediate process, and if anything made their adrenaline spike it would fail. It involved draining their vitality to the point I could switch them off like a light. If I went too fast, they’d feel something was wrong and their bodies would fight back.

  The three men hit the ground, and I moved toward the first.

  Lisa grunted, “You’re going to take all the fun out of this.”

  I laughed, and zipped tied him while Lisa took his weapons, and we moved to the next. Just a couple of minutes later, we had those three taken care of, and their weapons stashed safely out of reach. We’d come back for them later to move them into a cage, but they’d sleep a long time if no one tried to wake them.

  Three down, nineteen humans and three supernatural beings to go.

  We quickly moved up two decks, and about a quarter of the way toward the bow of the ship. Most of the rest of them were closer together. I slowed down and we moved more cautiously and quietly when eight of those songs became extremely loud. I was partially acquainted with the layout of the ship with all the scrying, and I believed the eight of them were in the galley.

  I started to sing lightly, and to move all eight of them towards sleep. Some had more vitality than others, and it was when the third one fell asleep and their weapon fired, that the other five yelled in anger and alarm.

  What had the idiot been doing with his finger in the trigger guard on a weapon with the safety off?

  Lisa breached the door, and I was right behind her. I dove to the left and rolled as Lisa went right. When I came to my feet, I knocked one of them out with a punch, and I heard another scream as Lisa kicked in his knee and stole his weapon.

  I ducked down as the last three opened fire. I couldn’t dodge bullets, but we were both fast enough to dodge human aim, mostly. I felt two impacts against my armor as I took down my second, and I broke his hand as I ripped the weapon out of it. When I checked, Lisa had taken down the last two.

  Lisa smirked, “Three to two.”

  I shook my head, “Eight to three. I’m totally winning.”

  She scowled, “That sleep bullshit doesn’t count.”

  I raised an eyebrow, “Bitch.”

  She snickered, and we zip tied eight more and hid their weapons two compartments down in a cabinet. I used water to fill the keyhole and lift the tumblers, froze it, locked it, and left the ice in there. That was kind of useful. They wouldn’t wake up, shouldn’t wake up, but better safe than sorry.

  We still had half the crew to go, plus the last three, but we also had a problem. The siren went off, and I heard all the songs moving our way.

  “They must’ve heard the gun shots.”

  Lisa asked sarcastically, “You think?”

  I snorted, “I’m surprised you’re upset, I won’t be putting anymore to sleep.”

  Lisa grinned, “Good point. Are you okay?”

  I shrugged, “Fine, the armor and enchantments held, and the impact bruise already healed.”

  Shifter healing came in handy, it used to take me a day for the bruises from a gunshot to heal.

  I groaned, “The mage and shifters are headed for the captives.”

  Lisa growled, “Fuck, let’s move. He may be planning to get rid of the evidence. Which way?”

  The situation was rather fluid, but I moved us quickly toward the hold that had the young women locked up. I hadn’t told Lisa yet, but close to a third of them were extremely young teens, and not even close to eighteen. It turned my stomach, but I had to focus on the songs, and the half ass knowledge of the ship to get where we were going.

  I pointed through a hatch, and I held up three fingers. It was my turn to breach, and they were about halfway down a long thin corridor. I sang the confusion song, opened fire above their heads, and ran my ass off. I was hoping that would confuse and scare them enough to slow down their reactions and let me close. It almost worked. One of the three managed to point their weapon in our general direction, but a gun went off behind me and a red spot appeared between his eyes, his blood and brains sprayed out behind him.

  The last two I took down hard with punches to the temples. Hopefully they wouldn’t die, but I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it either. We were doing the best we could, and Lisa’s kill had probably saved me from being hosed down by automatic weapons fire.

  I’d have probably survived it, if he missed my brain pan.

  It only occurred to me then that I could have sung a pain song instead, which would have taken them all down to the ground and given me the time to close. I wasn’t used to my new songs yet, and I had my fighting habits.

  “Ten to four,” I said smugly.

  She growled, “Cut it out, cheater. Four even.”

  “If you say so,” I said mock dubiously.

  She spanked my ass, and then zip tied the two live assholes to a pipe along the wall, while I tossed their weapons into a room and closed the hatch. Good enough.

  “Harder,” I said mock breathily, although in truth it had felt kind of good, my body was already tingly from the adrenaline of a real fight. It’d been too long, and that one wolf shifter had been a joke to take down on our first day. Even if I’d been icy and took it seriously, I’d never really felt like I was in true danger.

  She snickered, “Slut.”

  I winked and then headed down the corridor at a good speed.

  “The last eight humans are together a deck above us, and they’re going to miss us and get to the galley.”

  She sighed, “So we’ll be back up to thirteen?”

  I nodded, “Can’t be helped, the mage and shifters are almost with the victims, we can’t afford to take the time to intercept. Might still be eight though, those five won’t be easy to wake up, and they’ll be weaponless anyway.”

  Lisa asked, “You sure we need these three alive?”

  I shrugged, “The cops might, these ass wipes will have the contact information for the other side of things, and they may even know about other ports elsewhere. The static sites might be in total ignorance about the rest of the trafficking ring, but the couriers have to at least have two points of contact to share.”

  Lisa sighed, “Fine.”

  My heart was humming and steady, and I was ready to get it done as we approached the hallway that led to the hold the cages were in. The mage was a bit ahead of us coming from the other direction, and they would get there first. Hopefully he wouldn’t start roasting them right away or something.

  “Of course, if the mage is killing the women, feel free to aerate his head.”

  Lisa said in a faux dreamy voice, “I love you.”

  I snorted as we rounded the corner, and then pointed at the open hatch ten feet away. Fair was fair, it was her turn to breach. My fingers barely brushed her ass cheek when I tried to spank her as she ran by, bitch was fast…

  Chapter Seventeen

  The mage yelled, “Don’t move or the bitches die,” as Lisa yelled, “Freeze fuckwit,” as I ran into the hold behind her.

  The hold was fairly large to contain the six rows of ten large sized kennel cages. The two shifters held two of the women by their throats, and the mage was a few feet in front of them, with a fireball in his hands.

  Lisa looked frozen, and her arm was shaking with anger. My guess as to why she hadn’t shot yet was the wards in this room, which came down on me like a ton of bricks. I knew I could resist it, but also knew if I started to glow these assholes would need to die. It was an ugly thought, killing to protect my own secret and to keep myself safe, but the women were in a certain amount of danger right now.

  Of course, they’d see it to, what would I do then? Yeah, we were pretty much in a standoff, one I could end but I hesitated to do it.

  The mage sneered, “How many of you are there, and how the hell did you get on this ship?”

  Lisa said, “It’s just us and your mother, but she’s busy with the humans in the galley though. She said something about trying again, to get it right this time around.”

  I snorted, mother jokes?

  The mage shook his head, “Kill them and get two more, maybe the bitch will answer then.”

  That was my queue. I resisted the wards and started to sing. It was such a beautiful melody, contrary to the results, as the mage and two shifters fell to the ground screaming in pain. The mages fireball was snuffed as he lost concentration and his spell. No one could say I didn’t learn from my mistakes. I still didn’t like it, I was torturing them, but I’d be damned if I let the shifters snap those girl’s necks. Point was, I wouldn’t be doing this to win every fight, I truly was torturing them, and felt a little sick over it. Even if these bags of dicks deserved it.

  Lisa put her gun up, and muttered, “You are one scary bitch,” in a sweet loving voice. She moved to the shifters, and quickly put silver cuffs on them, stripped their weapons, and threw them in a cage and locked the door. I released them from my song, and their bodies collapsed and shook. She took her time with the mage, she couldn’t kick or abuse him herself because of the wards, so she was making me do it. She stripped off his robes and jewelry, and then put him in the silver cuffs that would suppress his magic.