“That’s dangerous stuff to be carrying around,” Deb said.

“So are you.”

Lena helped me into the car. “Were you able to get what you needed?”

“I hope so.” I reached into my jacket and retrieved the slightly damp and crumpled printout, turned on the interior light, and began to read. Half a minute later, I began to swear.

“The orders are straight from Thomas M. Hayes. The Commandant of the U. S. Coast Guard. They called it Operation Ocean Song.”

“Where are they taking the sirens?” demanded Deb.

“The Virginia facility, whatever that is. I put a tracker on one of them.” I kept reading. “There’s an entire paragraph about assessing the effectiveness of the vampires’ assault, and of the Coast Guard’s anti-inhuman weaponry. They were told to expect resistance, and to use whatever means necessary to execute hostile vampires.”

“And you let them,” Deb said quietly. “You stood there and watched while they burned those vampires to ash. You could have sent all three of those ships to the bottom of the ocean.”

I was too tired to be angry. “Yah, I could have killed a few hundred people and lost our shot at finding out what the hell is going on.”

“So what now? Shall we sit around some more while those assholes dissect their prisoners to find out how sirens work? Just like the Porters used to do.” Deb twisted around in her seat. “We saw children floating on those waves, Isaac. Every siren who died, every one who gets cut open, enslaved, or crippled by those monsters, that’s on you. You and your damned Porters.”

Lena frowned at that. “The Porters?”

“The commander of that ship had a JG-367,” I said. “There’s a good chance it came from one of us. A leak from the Porters would explain how they were so well equipped to deal with the vampires and the sirens.”

“So what the fuck are you going to do about it?” Deb demanded.

I held up the stolen orders. “We’re going to start by rescuing those sirens.”

Lena started the car and pulled onto the road. “It’s about five hundred miles to Virginia. We get on 95 heading north, and Isaac can catch up on his beauty rest. I’ll wake him up when we reach the state border, and he can pinpoint exactly where they’re going.”

“Can’t he track them now?”

I held up one hand, noting the faint ashen pallor of my fingertips. The more I manipulated so much raw magic, the more I’d char my own body in addition to the books. “Only if you want me to puke on you again. We know where they’re going. I just need a little time to recover.”

“And then what?” Deb’s mental pressure made my temples throb. Was she doing it deliberately, or had this kind of mental manipulation become habit? “More sneaking around and doing nothing, like an impotent, helpless—”