The house was quiet. Not the suffocating silence of fear, but something new. The rasp of a whetstone on steel from the lanai. The scent of salt and rope. The low murmur of her grandmother’s voice from the study. It was the quiet of a house holding its breath.

  Frankie stood on the lanai, the pre-dawn air cool and damp against her skin. The throbbing in her shoulder had subsided to a dull, persistent ache, a constant reminder of her failure, and of the rage that had been born from it. The rage was a clean, icy fire now, burning away the last vestiges of her despair. There was no more room for self-pity. There was only the plan.

  It was a crazy plan. A suicidal plan. But it was her plan, forged from the strange harmony of her two natures.

  She wouldn't fight Kimo on land, where his human guise gave him the advantage of surprise. She wouldn't fight him in the shallows, where he could use the chaos of the surf to his advantage. She would fight him in his own church.

  In the deep.

  She would go to the secret cove, his kapu place, his ritual site. And she would turn his own power against him.

  Her army prepared for battle.

  The lanai was a war room.

  A map spread under the lamplight. Dee Dee’s finger tracing a line. Knowledge as a weapon. She had found it, buried in a footnote in a book on ancient Hawaiian naval warfare. A description of a plant, the ?Auhuhu, its roots containing a powerful neurotoxin that, when crushed and released into the water, could paralyze the gills of a shark, stunning it, disorienting it.

  Dee Dee tapped the drawing of the plant. “It won’t kill him,” she said, her voice a low, intense hum. “But it should slow him down. Disrupt the flow of water through his gills. It’s like a flash-bang grenade, but for a wereshark.”

  The rasp of whetstone on steel. Her grandfather’s hands, steady and sure, sharpening the blade of a massive, old-fashioned harpoon.

  The scent of rope and salt. Her uncles, Noa and Paulo, their movements economical, their faces grim. No jokes. No lazy banter. Just the quiet pull and knot of their hands.

  Obsidian blades gleaming in the pre-dawn light. Ted sat on the steps, testing an edge with his thumb. His face was pale. His jaw set. He was terrified. And he was ready.

  “I still think I’m gonna trip and stab myself with this thing,” he said, his voice a low mutter, but the words lacked their usual self-deprecating humor. It was the gallows humor of a soldier before a battle.

  Frankie took a deep breath, the cool, flower-scented air filling her lungs. Her family. Her ohana. They were not just a source of love and belonging. They were a source of strength. She was not fighting for them anymore. She was fighting with them.

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  Her grandmother came out onto the lanai, a small wooden bowl in her hands. Filled with a thick, dark paste that smelled of the earth and the sea.

  “This will help,” she said, her voice a soft, calm anchor in the pre-battle tension. “It will dull your scent to the creatures of the deep. But it will not hide you from him. He has tasted your blood. He will always know you.”

  Frankie nodded, a silent acknowledgment. She stripped off her t-shirt, her back and shoulders exposed in the cool morning air. Her grandmother painted her with the dark paste, her fingers tracing ancient, intricate patterns across her skin. The paste was cool, and it tingled, a strange, electric sensation. It felt like she was being anointed.

  Prepared for a ritual of a different kind.

  “The ocean is a powerful force, mo?opuna,” her grandmother said, her voice a low, melodic chant. “It is older than the gods, and deeper than our knowing. It can be a gentle mother, and a raging monster. Kimo has forgotten this. He seeks to command it. To own it. But the ocean cannot be owned. You must not fight the water. You must become a part of it. Let its currents be your strength. Let its pressure be your shield.”

  Her grandmother’s fingers traced the last of the swirling, dark symbols onto her skin. The paste was cool, electric. Frankie looked down at her arms. They didn’t look like her own. They looked like weapons.

  Frankie’s voice was a small, vulnerable thing. “What if I can’t do it?”

  Her grandmother smiled, a small, sad, knowing smile. “You are a Rivera. You are a Pula. And you are something else entirely. You are more than enough.”

  Frankie looked at her friends. At her family. At the arsenal of ancient magic and modern courage spread out on the lanai. The pieces were all in place. The plan was set. The sun was just beginning to touch the horizon, a thin, bloody line of red against the dark water.

  It was time.

  She stood up, her body thrumming with a strange, terrifying, exhilarating energy. The fear was still there. But it was no longer her master. It was just fuel.

  “If I don't make it back…” she started, her voice catching.

  “Don’t,” Ted said, his voice firm, his gaze steady. He stood up, the obsidian spear held tight in his hand. “You’re coming back.”

  Dee Dee looked up from her maps, her eyes, behind her glasses, blazing with a fierce, unwavering loyalty. “We’ve got your back,” she said. “Always.”

  Frankie nodded, a lump forming in her throat. She looked from their faces to the ocean, to the secret cove that was waiting for her, a dark, hungry mouth. This battle would not just decide the fate of the island. It would decide her own. It would prove what she was.

  A monster, or a protector. Or maybe, just maybe, both.

  “I’m going alone,” she said, her voice quiet, but with an edge of command that surprised even herself. “The final part. He’s hunting me. It’s me he wants. I have to be the one to face him.”

  A chorus of protests rose, but she held up a hand, silencing them.

  “You’ll be my backup,” she said, her gaze sweeping over them, her strange, powerful family. “If I need you, I’ll call. But this is my fight.”

  Her grandmother nodded, a silent, solemn approval.

  Frankie steadied her fear, embracing the two warring currents inside her. The cold, predatory speed of the vampire. And the warm, resilient magic of the Pula. Vampire speed and Rivera resilience. Fangs and fists. She was ready. The fate of her family, of this island, was riding on her. And she would not fail them again.