The girl gaped at him. Her mouth closed and opened again as she struggled to comprehend what she was looking at. I heard Dani’s feet hit the deck behind me. The wind blew at my back again and I caught a whiff of fresh salt-water, so strong I could hardly pick out the brine-tinged scent of water elemental.

He stopped behind me and whispered, “I think it would be better if I went in. You got this?”

“Yeah.” Out of sight, out of mind, as they say. It would be easier to talk the girl down if Danio wasn’t standing around, freshly soaked from the ocean. And he certainly couldn’t dry himself off in front of her. “Take Mariana with you.” I could hear her heart pounding and knew she needed to be calmed down.

“Come on,” Danio said gently.

“Dani, I’m so sorry,” Mariana whimpered.

“It happens. Let’s go.”

Dani had to grab her by the arm and pull to get her to walk. Mariana looked like she wanted to just stand on the deck and watch the unfolding debacle. Dani met my eyes, concerned, as he pulled her by me. I nodded once. I’d handle it. They vanished inside; the non-magic girl stared after them, still in shock.

My mind was racing. Great, now we were on the verge of a secrecy breach. What were we going to do? Okay, so I technically knew what we were supposed to do. MES had very clear guidelines about how to proceed in this sort of situation. Then again, this was a bit out of the ordinary. Step one was to report the incident, but that begged the question: who the hell did we report it to? We were on a ship in international waters. Should we contact someone in Mexico, since that was where we had been last? However, we were en route to Panama, so that one seemed logical too. I wasn’t sure which country we were closer to either. Then again, since we were the only magics on the ship, which was carrying American passengers, it made sense to assume that the incident would fall under our jurisdiction. In which case we’d have to report back to our home office. I wished I had taken a little more time to study the protocol in this situation before we left. Of course, I hadn’t counted on being involved in a secrecy breach in the middle of the ocean. I wasn’t entirely sure there was a set protocol for this sort of thing.

Then there was the issue of what would happen after reporting the incident. The girl would, of course, need a memory potion. Easier said than done. In hindsight, it would have been a good idea to bring one, although memory potions didn’t have a very long shelf life. But then, in my opinion, the need for a memory potion presented an entirely new complication: a moral one.

MES procedures were very old, most of them outdated. And, quite frankly, from a time when the ends justified the means. That made MES an interesting place to work sometimes. There were a small amount of magics who followed those policies to the letter and weren’t afraid to sacrifice a non-magic—sometimes literally—for the sake of secrecy. Thankfully, most of us preferred to take a more relaxed approach and bend the rules if need be. I found that most agents looked the other way if the procedures were loosely followed, as long as all of the right boxes were checked and our existence remained a secret.

In this case, I really didn’t want to jump the gun and force a memory potion on the girl. If I had known she was there half a minute earlier, or if Dani had taken just a bit longer to get back on board, I might have been able to pull a couple of vampire tricks on her, but it was too late now. The problem was that we were in a notorious potions cartel area. I was sure that the vast majority of the potions were safe, but really didn’t want to take that risk, especially with a memory potion.

Luckily, I wasn’t alone. In fact, the best Senior Field Agent in our region was with me. I could tell that TS was thinking just as hard as I was, but all at once his emotions switched as he got an idea.

“Right, I’ll call Jon,” he said.

Perfect. I nodded to him and projected my approval. He had hit right on the perfect solution. We had to report it. If, God forbid, this escalated, we’d be in major trouble for not reporting it right away. If we contacted anybody in Mexico or Panama, we’d get a potion of questionable quality, and they’d probably send a water elemental, or ask Dani to go get it, and we’d have it by morning. Then we’d have to administer it, even though we still had a chance to calm the non-magic girl down. She’d never, ever come up with ‘water elemental’ from what she had seen Danio do. I wasn’t sure why, but elementals had been lucky enough to avoid the hype among non-magics that vampires and werewolves fell victim to. It was much easier for them to mess up and come up with a cover story. One slip of my fangs and ‘vampire’ was the first thing a non-magic would say.

If the girl didn’t link this to magic, and we could get her to not talk, there was a chance we wouldn’t need a memory potion at all.

I smiled as TS hurried up the stairs. Jon would feel the same way about the potion. Unlike the local authorities, or anyone who was on-call tonight at home, Jon would trust us to handle it. Sometimes, being among the youngest agents in the office was very annoying. Even though I had over thirty years of experience, I still got treated as a kid sometimes. I couldn’t complain though, Dani got nearly as much grief and he was over eighty. I doubted either of us would get the level of respect our experience should have earned us until we were one-hundred. If we decided a memory potion was unnecessary, Jon wouldn’t argue. And, if we called him, we were still following procedure by reporting the incident right away. But, Jon was all the way in New York and probably asleep by now. We’d technically have no choice but to make the decisions ourselves if he didn’t answer the phone. He wouldn’t get in trouble, we wouldn’t get in trouble, and the non-magic girl might not be subjected to a potentially dangerous potion.

Crap. Jon would answer the phone. He kept his cell phone right by the bed. If he was asleep, the ring-tone would wake him or Fend right away. When he saw it was TS calling, in the middle of the night, he would be sure to answer. And then, any excuse we had for delaying the memory potion was gone.

“Wait. It’s late, email him,” I said. TS turned to look at me and I sensed curiosity. “We can handle this until he gets it.” He nodded and I felt a rush of understanding. On the same page as me, perfect. He hurried up the rest of the stairs and I sensed him moving farther and farther away. Now, to see if I could spare the non-magic a dose of memory potion. “Jennifer, right?” I asked. “I’m Thomas.” I considered giving a fake name, but then if she didn’t need a memory potion that would be a huge mess later on. I was bound to keep running into her on the ship. Could this get any worse? “What brings you out on deck?”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

She leveled a fierce glare at me. It was almost funny. I didn’t get glared at often. “Dani just fell overboard, and you’re going to stand there like nothing happened?”

“Nothing did happen,” I said shortly.

Her brow furrowed in irritation. “Dani fell off the ship, into the ocean, and climbed back up again! I saw it with my own eyes!”

Oh man. She had seen it. She had seen everything. I groaned inwardly. Twelve freaking days into the trip and we had already screwed up. Big time.

My hesitation only made her angrier. “So don’t lie to me,” she snapped. “What just happened?”

“Nothing. Forget about it.” I didn’t think it would work anymore, but I was not prepared for her answer.

"If nothing happened, then what is that guy going to email Jon about?"

I bit back another groan and became aware of the wind still blowing at my back. Great, she heard it all, too. So much for the advantage of super-hearing. I sighed.

“All right, tell you what,” I said, hoping to stall for time. “I’ll explain things after I hear back from Jon.” Maybe she’d lose interest or we’d get a chance to come up with a better plan. Or, worst case scenario, we’d keep her quiet until we got a memory potion.

“Explain now.” She waited a moment while I tried to come up with something that would placate her. She didn’t wait long enough. "Explain now, or I'm going to start asking around until I find someone who will."

She was smart. And astute. I was sure she was only saying that because she knew it was exactly what we didn’t want. Then again, there was no way to be certain it was just an empty threat. She very well could start talking. Then, in spite of the chill from the wind and rain, my back started to feel warm. Oh no. Charlie was thinking exactly what I was. If she started talking we’d have a huge secrecy situation and there was a chance we’d all get in trouble for being careless. Given that he was technically the one at fault, Danio would get the brunt of the punishment. And you did not make a threat, even an empty one, that involved anyone a fire elemental loved.

"Go ahead.” Charlie’s eyes were blazing angrily. "Dani's safe and dry by now. You've got no proof, and none of us are going to back up your story."

Charlie was a fantastic agent and great at his job. But, his duties involved preventing secrecy breaches, not dealing with non-magics after they had already happened. Unfortunately, none of us were involved in that particular department.

"Char!” I said sharply. I had one shot at getting his attention before his temper flared out of control. Thankfully, he heard me. His eyes calmed a little and he clenched his jaw. I could tell he was just aching to keep yelling at the poor girl until she promised to keep her mouth shut.

Jennifer had no idea she was literally playing with fire. "You're just going to let him boss you around?" she demanded.

Charlie’s eyes flashed again. I saw his fists clench, but he had himself under control now. To be fair, I outranked him and could boss him around, if I were so inclined. Not that I’d explain that to Jennifer.

I stepped between Jennifer and Charlie, giving him a chance to calm down, and unbeknownst to the non-magic, keeping her from being set on fire. She fearlessly held her ground. It was funny, and a little odd. I was used to people giving me a wide berth. Very few magics are willing to go head to head with a vampire during a disagreement. Dani was just about the only person I knew who wasn’t afraid to get in my face. Then again, he was at the top of a very short list of people who I never wanted to get into a fight with. Jennifer had no idea what I was capable of.

I took a moment to study her. She was actually quite pretty. True, her hair was a mess from the rain and wind, but I never liked overly-styled hair anyway. Her eyes, which were blue, were narrowed in irritation. And she was a little shorter than me. I couldn’t really make out her figure under her sweatshirt, but I had a feeling it was a nice one. She looked like she was going to say something again. I quickly cut her off.

"If you want an explanation at all, you'll wait until I hear back from Jon. And in the meantime, you'll keep quiet." I could still feel the heat emanating off of Charlie. I needed to get him inside and calmed down. Then, I needed to get a chance to sit with them, without her around, to figure out what to do. The longer we stood out on deck with her, the more cemented in her memory this would be. If we had to give her a memory potion, and that seemed likely now, it was going to have to be strong. Especially considering how spirited she was.

She actually laughed at me. "Is that a threat?"

It was. There were still magics out there who advocated total memory wipes, or even death, for non-magics who found out about us. I didn’t think any of those procedures were common in this region, but you could never be too careful. I had to end this.

I summoned up an innate vampire ability and added a magical punch to my words. "Don't. Tell. Anyone," I hissed.

Her eyes widened in alarm as it hit her. I hadn’t put a tremendous amount of power behind it, but I had used enough to knock her down a few pegs. I heard a sudden intake of breath from Char as the magic hit him too. I heard Jennifer’s heart speed up. And then, she straightened up, took a deep breath, and glared fiercely at me.

“Fine!” she snapped. My jaw actually dropped. She should have still been recovering. She shouldn’t have been talking at all! "If you promise that you'll explain everything after this Jon guy talks to you, then I won't say anything."

My God, she was strong-willed. It took some serious resilience to stand up to the power in a vampire hiss. I felt a sudden sense of admiration for the non-magic girl. It would be a shame to risk messing her up with a memory potion. She wasn’t just smart, she was tough. And now I knew that she was going to need a very powerful memory potion.

I heard a soft whistle of surprise from Charlie. "Man, she's got some spice. I felt that from here."

"Deal.” What else could I say? That would keep her quiet for now. I had a feeling she just needed something to satiate her curiosity. "We'll talk tomorrow, then. Goodnight."

Before she could reply, I turned and headed quickly, but not so fast she’d notice, up the stairs to Deck Five. I knew Char would take advantage of the sudden end to the conversation to go to Dani and Mariana.

I reached out my senses, like trying to hear a distant sound, to figure out where TS was. Going away from me and… down? Shoot. I jogged to the nearest staircase and started back down to Deck Four. It wasn’t long before I sensed him coming back in my direction. I headed into the empty corridor and walked down the long stretch of student rooms, toward the staircase he was on. A moment later he appeared in the corridor. We met partway.

“Emailed Jon,” he said the moment we fell into step next to each other. “I take it you couldn’t talk her down?” I shook my head. “You hissed.” It wasn’t a question; he had sensed it.

“She’s a tough one. It’s going to be a strong memory potion.”

“Bugger. I was hoping…”

I concentrated on a feeling of disappointment and agreement, instead of answering verbally.

We were almost to Danio and Mariana’s room when a now familiar smell hit my nose. I stopped and sniffed. TS did too. He nodded at the door we were next to and projected curiosity to me. I nodded. So, Jennifer’s room was right here. That was convenient. I put my ear against it and listened. Silence. I strained and was fairly sure I could just make out the sound of two people breathing.

“Well, it doesn’t sound like she’s talking. Yet.”

We continued on, and I filled him in on what he had missed. Then I rapped against Dani’s door. He opened it almost immediately and we went in. Mariana was sitting cross-legged on the bed, looking miserable. Charlie was sitting on the couch, thankfully much calmer. Dani sat down next to him and turned toward me expectantly.

“She is very certain of what she thinks she saw,” I said.

“Which would be?” asked Dani.

“Exactly what happened.”

“Drought.” He inclined his head in Charlie’s direction. “I hear she’s stubborn.”

I nodded. “That’s one word for it.”

“I’m so sorry,” Mariana said. “I didn’t mean to—”

“I said forget it, calf,” said Dani. He grinned at her. “You can’t say you didn’t enjoy shoving me off of a ship.”

Mariana flashed him a weak smile. “What do we do?”