A Vampyre's Daughter by Jeff Schanz (free novel 24 TXT) 📖

with a pretty girl and stare out at the pretty water, and have a decent meal. His caveman brain would be satisfied with those accomplishments.

Something distracted him from his musings and he turned to the sound. It was Lia approaching with a dead chicken dangling from her hand. She smiled as she approached. She wore a butcher’s apron that had a large splatter of blood on it. Usually, butcher’s aprons were bloodiest in the midsection, about the height were a cleaver and a tabletop would be. Lia’s was much bloodier across her chest. Maybe she didn’t have a butcher’s block to work on and used something else to kill chickens with. Regardless of the morbid implication smeared across her apron, she held up the dead chicken proudly.

Her normally pale and creamy skin was almost pink now. He had seen her turn pink earlier when she was laughing and embarrassed, this time she was simply being cheerful. Maybe a few hours in the sun had given her a little burn. Pale people always found out those lessons too late once their skin started to hurt and peel. Since she wore so much protection from the sun, it seemed odd that she would let herself get that exposed all of a sudden. But who knows?

She waved the dead chicken at Brandt like it was a bag of money. He nodded with a quick smile and got up to follow her into the house.

 

* * * *

 

Three men climbed up from a 38-foot Chris Craft boat that idled next to a massive yacht. One man was a dark-skinned black man, and the other two were Caucasian. They clambered onto the yacht’s deck as the boat’s driver fastened a rope around one of the yacht’s cleats, and stayed in idle. The three men didn’t wave or acknowledge the ride. They climbed the stairs to the second level and entered the open sliding door to the yacht’s observation room.

The room was well appointed in stylish leather chairs, ornate fabric couches, and carved wooden tables. Most of the furniture looked antique, yet in perfect condition. It had an imperial French flair like it was stolen from a chateau in Marseilles, although the condition of the furniture looked better than the ones that were actually in French chateaus.

A long-haired man in a dark grey suit sat by himself in one of the larger antique chairs. He held a crystal glass in one hand that was half full of a deep maroon liquid. He bade the men sit down.

They did. They didn’t bother with any kind of relaxed pose. No crossed legs, no leaning back. All three sat at attention. They stared at the grey-suited man without any greeting or questions.

The grey-suited man let them stare at him for a moment, then shifted his own seating position to be able to face them better.

“So?” he said simply. His voice was smooth but predatory.

One of the three visiting men, the black man, spoke up. “We lost all three men.” His own voice was harsh and raspy.

The grey-suited man stayed stationary, showing no emotion or acknowledgment to hearing the other man. After a moment he asked flatly, “How?”

“He blew up our boats.”

Again, the grey-suited man made no emotional acknowledgment. He was like a seated statue. Finally, he sighed slightly and looked at his glass. He twirled the liquid within. “Did he survive?”

“We found no one. Just wreckage.”

Grey Suit nodded slowly. “But I take it that you don’t believe he’s dead, Tobias?”

Tobias, the spokesman for the three visitors took a long pause and briefly glanced at one of his conspirators. He eventually shook his head. “No evidence either way. But…” Tobias paused again and considered his words carefully. “But, when we scouted the area, we found something we thought may be of importance to you.”

Grey Suit took a long protracted sip from his glass, savored the flavor, then focused his gaze back on his guest. “I thought as much, or you wouldn’t have come out here to bother me with reports of failures that should be corrected before I ever see you again.” His voice had a hint of some indistinguishable accent. Grey Suit ground a guttural sound through his tight throat before he spoke to his guest again. “And?”

“There was an island nearby. There’s a house on it. A big house.”

At first, the grey-suited man looked annoyed that Tobias’ news was so mundane. Then something dawned on him and his eyes narrowed. His refocused stare bore into Tobias. Grey Suit shifted forward in his seat.

“Go on,” said Grey Suit.

“At first, we were interested in it because we wondered if there might be witnesses. And if Dekker did survive, he might have made it there. So, we looked up the island’s information. It’s called Makal. And it’s been privately owned for almost a hundred years.”

The long-haired man in the grey suit was still interested but wasn't enthralled. He flared his fingers out to say “so what?”

Tobias explained, “We’ve been looking hard for your target, but we’ve only been looking inland. This island actually fits the criteria you outlined. It might be worth looking into by itself. We should check out other islands as well to see if Dekker made it to any others. But we should definitely check out that one.”

Grey Suit still looked impatient. Tobias glanced once again at his compatriots, then met Grey Suit’s gaze again. He wasn’t sure what else to add.

Grey Suit eventually sat back and once again twirled the liquid in his glass. His jaw seemed to stiffen as he spoke. “I hear guesses, but not a lot of information.”

Tobias said, “I’ll need permission to pull my resources in order…”

Grey Suit sent his glass sailing into the opposite wall with the speed of an arrow. The crystal shattered and painted the cabin wall red. Grey Suit made no change of emotion other than the small exertion when he threw the glass. “Is this too difficult a task? Should I find someone more capable?”

Tobias stiffened. He inflated his large chest. “No. We can handle it.”

Grey Suit nodded. “Good. Get it done.”

There didn’t seem to be an invitation for further conversation, regardless whether the three men had more to say and ask. Tobias stood and nodded at his compatriots. They also stood.

As they turned to leave, the grey-suited man said, “There is a single vial of elixir for each of you on the table over there. I will withhold the rest until you return with better information.”

Tobias nodded and all three men collected the offered vials. Then they began to walk back out to the deck.

On the way, they passed two crew members awkwardly handling a large bundle wrapped in a white sheet. The sheet was stained with copious amounts of what looked like blood. As the three men walked by, the bundle was tossed overboard and made a heavy splash into the water.

The three men didn’t pause on their way back to the waiting boat.

CHAPTER 5

 

 

 

 

Lia wasn’t as confident a cook when it came to meat. Eggs were no problem, but spicing and cooking a chicken, plus plucking and cleaning it, was not in her wheelhouse. Brandt's Iowa farmer buddy had lent his knowledge of chicken preparation, as well as goat milking, so Brandt took care of the prepping, spicing and cooking, but needed Lia's help obtaining further ingredients.

It turned out that the locked pantry wasn't locked after all. The latch was just rusted solid. There wasn't much of anything inside the pantry beside a bag of salt which seemed to have kept well and a basket of old potatoes which didn't. Lia picked some tomatoes, onions, and peppers from her garden, and something that might be a cucumber. He did some dicing to each one of the garden items and made a topping for the chicken once it was cooked.

Cooking the meat was an adventure. Though the kitchen had the usual appliances, including a stove and oven, none of them worked. With no gas or electricity, the appliances were useless. There was no telling why they were even there, but that would be a story for another day. Brandt ended up building a fire in an outside fire pit and they cooked the chicken over an open flame. Though that kind of cooking had become nostalgic for campers, it actually did the trick just fine. Brandt spooned the fresh garden salsa over the chicken and wished Lia bon appétit. If he was the only one eating, which he originally assumed, then he wouldn’t have bothered with any flourish. But Lia was enthralled with his preparations and culinary skills, and seemed eager to try the finished product, so he decided to do it up for both of them and make it as nice as possible with the limited resources.

One of the island’s mysteries was about to be solved. Does Lia actually eat? Of course, it was a stupid question. Unless she was a zombie, vampire, or robot, it was a given that she would need consumable nourishment. Brandt had accepted that Lia and her father were peculiar, and maybe had some odd diet, but he wasn’t willing to question whether they ate food in some fashion. Maybe all they ever did was drink goat’s milk straight from the bucket, or chewed on fruit or vegetables right off the vine, or mashed it all up in some vat somewhere and made blended smoothies that they secretly slurped on when no one was looking. He had no idea. But any living person ate something. And even though he didn’t doubt it, it would be nice to check off “Lia eats food” in the notebook of weird shit he needed to start writing.

Another smaller thing to jot down in the aforementioned notebook was Lia’s momentary mental block on how to use her utensils. She got it right in the end, but there was some strange examining and comparing of the fork, knife, and spoon before she tucked in. She only ate a little of the chicken, but seemed to enjoy it just fine and smiled at Brandt in between chews. Brandt could even understand her rusty memory of utensil functions, considering if he was the one alone on an island he might forego forks and knives too, and just eat from his hand. She seemed to realize that her momentary bewilderment with her silverware might look odd, and once the meal was done, she blushed a little.

She was still a healthy pink and blushing made her look almost pastel. Her whole skin tone change was yet another oddity that should be added to the “weird-shit” notebook. It wasn’t a sun-baked pink, just a good, old-fashioned baby face pink. Brandt wanted to ask, but thought mentioning that she had been really pale before might be rude. She obviously had a serious concern about her skin if she wore outfits that blocked the sun. So, maybe he should build up to that question.

After lunch was over, Lia asked Brandt if he liked to read books. And what was his favorite kind of book?

He thought for a second, then answered, “You know, I haven't sat down to a good novel in a while. I pecked at some thriller a few months ago, but haven't finished it. I honestly don't know where the book is.” He was about to say that he thought his brother had it, but he refrained from mentioning his brother yet. There didn't seem to be a reason to hide the fact that he had a brother, something inside him just wanted to keep it to himself for now. “I used to like mysteries, but I haven't had the time in a while. I always wanted to read more classics, just never seemed to get around to it. And you?”

“I love them all. I read absolutely everything.”

“Well, I’m sure there’s some things you don’t like.”

She shook her head vigorously. “No. Anything and everything.”

“Come on.” He made a doubtful face. “Anything? Like an encyclopedia