Adrift-mxm

Chapter 25

His large paws were silent in the damp leaf litter. 

Ilio quickly but cautiously approached the beach from downwind, keeping low to the ground as he wove through the forest. He came across several vampires as he made his trek. The first was clearly a pirate, but Ilio decided to spook him anyways with a lunge and a snarl because he was likely a lookout and hadn't been paying attention to his surroundings at such important times. 

Needless to say, he high-tailed it back to the little port town, whimpering the entire way. 

How brave. 

The next one he came across, he handled much more carefully as to not alert any other vampires in the area. This man was clearly from one of captain Moral's crew, as he could faintly smell the man's scent coming from him. 

He was also dressed decently well, making him seem like someone of importance. Well, Ilio would just have to prove him wrong on that account. 

After stalking him on his evident perimeter walk for a few minutes, Ilio settled behind a large clump of thorn bushes, then waited until the man had turned back to retrace his steps before licking his jowls and inching closer. 

He counted each step with a flick of his ear until, finally, he forgot what number came next and simply decided to attack at that moment! 

The man was slow to respond, making Ilio think that he might have been a little drunk. Either way, he took advantage of his poor planning and after only a brief struggle, snapped his neck between his jaws. 

Ew...

Yep, definitely had been drinking but probably had a decent tolerance because they were a vampire. 

It didn't help, he thought to himself, slightly bored with the lack of challenges so far. 

The last vampire he encountered on his way, or really, vampires, were lounging about a few paces from the edge of the cliffs leading down to the beach. There were about five of them in total, and not a single one smelled any better than the pirate's on his mate's ship. 

He'd intended to simply charge at them and take them down in tandem, but the moment he'd darted from the bushes the group had all squealed like startled hogs and jumped right off the cliff!

That left him in his current predicament as he watched the vampires, now a good thirty meters below him, scrambling around like wiggling ants. A few appeared to have broken some part of their body from the abrupt fall, but the majority were scurrying about easily enough.   

He had no doubt that captain Morel was going to show up at any moment now, but there was nothing else he could do. Besides, it wasn't like he'd expected to make it to the boats without being spotted. 

Turning his head toward the ocean, he took in a calming breath of sea air, then tilted his head back and howled as loudly as he could. 

He knew that it wasn't what Inkani had wanted him to do. In fact, it was the exact opposite, but as he lowered his eyes back down to the boats moored by the shore, he knew that it had been the right decision. 

There were a lot more ants scrambling around now, too. His jaws yearned to start massacring them one by one, but for once, he didn't act on impulse. 

He wants me to come back to him now. I won't let him down. 

It had taken too long to get his man's attention as something more than a possible fur coat. He wasn't going to die now. 

Twitching an ear as it picked up the sound of people approaching from nearly all sides, Ilio bared his teeth at nothing in particular, then turned, took a step forward... and jumped!