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with Priest. It hadn’t occurred to her that the vampires would be hungry. She stared intently at Tures and noticed the vampire’s cheeks were hollow and her eyes sunk into their sockets, but her skin was pink. She also noticed Sam’s blush. Tures had fed off her. Bryn read it in her expression and the sudden flare of desire. Sam’s expressions and moods were well known to Bryn. They’d been friends and lovers for over a century.
    â€œThen we should be at Loango to disembark tomorrow?” Bryn asked Tures.
    Tures shook her head. “I’m not stopping there. We will travel upriver to Matadi. I have a place to dock the ship there and the next two hundred twenty miles of the river are nothing but rapids and falls ending in Zongo Falls. We’ll take the Congo Railway which was just finished to Leopoldville where a missionary friend of Father Antonio’s works in the mission. He’ll book us on a steamship upriver as far as Stanley Falls Station where Stanley Falls breaks the river. At that point, the terrain will get very rough. The jungle is thick and the mountains spring out of the forest with rocky outcroppings and rock falls that require traversing or avoiding. One must know which is which.”
    â€œHow do you plan to travel? Do you use bearers or need a guide?”
    Tures shook her head, smiled and her fangs popped into view. Bryn shuddered. Tures had extremely long, sharp canines. The sight of Tures with her fangs extended was terrifying.
    â€œBearers we shall surely need, but guides no,” Tures said. “I have traveled this route many times.”
    As the ship slowly settled on the sea floor, Bryn moved to gaze in awe out of the huge windows with Fenix. She looked up and took Bryn’s hand. “Amazing, is it not?”
    The number of fish swirling around the ship was truly amazing. Sharks swam by lazily, large wide-mouthed fish, schools of shiny small fish and even several dolphins. The wild life fascinated all of them. A sudden burst of bubbles announced the opening of the hatch. A group of crew members including Father Antonio and Tures, who had disappeared from her post by the globes, shot past the windows so fast it was impossible to figure out which was which.
    â€œPack whatever you have you can take,” Bryn told Sam and Fenix. And make sure Brighthouse is ready to go as well.”
    â€œWhy is he going?” Sam asked.
    â€œHe’s interested in the fuel source. And we can’t leave him here, now, can we?”
    Fenix shuddered. “They’d surely eat him.”

Chapter 10
    When the vampires returned from their hunting trip, Tures took them to the mouth of the deep and wide Congo River. The ship surfaced and Bryn climbed to the top of the dome where there was a balcony wrapping around the deck for viewing. She stood on it feeling the damp, hot air of the Congo River basin ruffling her hair. The twin stacks of the submarine belched black smoke as the engine crew poured coal into the box to save the precious concentrated fuel they used when traveling underwater.
    Huge sandbars filled the mouth of the river. Tures carefully guided her ship through the maze of channels until they reached open water. The banks were green with thick jungle. They steamed past small villages on each side of the river until a bay opened up on the left bank. Three ships were docked in the bay and numerous smaller vessels plied the waters, either fishing or carrying people across the river and back and forth from the anchored ships.
    Tures called down to the crew. The anchors front and back were dropped, and the jolly boats on each side of the ship were lowered into the slowly swirling murky water and secured.
    â€œWe leave at dusk,” Tures said. “Traveling during the day is possible but very stressful for some of my crew members. The night train to Kinshasa leaves at eight and takes seven hours to get to Leopoldville. There, Father Antonio and the more