Page 39 of Silent Stalker
“Considering their current state, it may be several weeks before it’s safe for other vampires to enter the same room with them. Right now, they’re so weak they’re incapable of attacking other vampires, who are bringing them blood. They’re so focused on acquiring the blood needed for their bodies to heal that they’re only somewhat aware of their surroundings. The information we’ve gotten has been during their more lucid moments. Once their bodies recover enough for them to hunt, they will enter a state of bloodlust, which takes time and care to ease. As they recover and are in better health, true therapy can begin. Unfortunately, this process might take months, depending on the severity of their treatment and how much they remember. At current, Pepper requires minimal therapy due to her amnesia. Should memories of the trauma be restored, we expect it will require extensive long-term therapy. We’re quite open about therapy requirements in the brood. Longevity is often detrimental to mental and emotional health, and the older vampires must take steps to remain stable. Humans were never meant to live forever, and there are consequences of longevity. Modern times are, simply put, much easier on a vampire’s soul. Assistance with these problems is much easier to obtain, and the legitimacy in broods assists with this.”
“So, you’re saying disbanding of broods would create a major rise in violence?”
“It would result in a vastly higher number of fugitives hunting humans, most of whom are incapable of defending themselves against a vampire. Broods are not just for stability and controlling violent tendencies. Broods help prevent most vampires from going fugitive in the first place. Why hunt humans when blood can be readily obtained through legal channels? Vampires began life as human and maintain many human traits. What is being done to these vampires is abhorrent to brood vampires. The broods plan to deal harshly with whomever is behind this.”
“This Jeremy Breckenan fellow?” my father asked, and I heard the tap of my father drumming his fingers on his desk. “I have been investigating his connections to my operations, and he has been working under several falsified identities, working to infiltrate my operations.”
Color me unsurprised. One day, my father might learn to trust less in his superiority. I made a note on my tablet to go break dishes on a wall. Emerick glanced my way, and I showed him the screen.
The corner of his mouth twitched.
“That’s part of why I wanted to speak with you, actually. As it has become apparent there is a preternatural attempting to interfere with my operations, I wanted to acquire more information on how the preternatural handle their business dealings. Human methods, I feel, simply don’t work on vampires and other long-lived species.”
Had someone hit my father with a clue bat? I would have thought a battering ram would be required before he realized his methods wouldn’t work on everyone, everywhere. My awareness of my father’s general ruthlessness worried me.
If he thought he could get away with it, I had no doubt he would ally himself with men like Jeremy Breckenan, with no true care of the consequences. Had his employees, like me, grown to the point of outliving their usefulness? My father had worked on taking advantage of my disappearance, placing accusations in the court system to garner some favor or sympathy.
How had my reappearance changed his plans?
I made a note to ask Emerick about it later.
“The tactics do work the same on non-preternaturals with one notable exception,” Emerick admitted. “The older vampires, such as myself, have watched the world change over hundreds of years. This learning can’t be easily duplicated. We have a stronger understanding of how society changes, like it or not. We plan for not just five or ten years in the future, but hundreds of years in the future. We play a longer game, as we have a longer lifespan. In my case, while building my brood and my personal wealth is important, I have friendly rivalries with other vampires. Which one of us can become the wealthiest in a new and modern endeavor?”
“That sounds rather cordial. Not what I was expecting.”
“Yes, it’s quite cordial for the most part. We have rules to our games, of course. For example, I have a thriving livestock industry as one of my personal sources of income. I entered a friendly competition with another preternatural. Everyone benefits; my operations help stock broods with blood, and it is part of how I keep score. I have a second livestock business meant specifically for my brood, which is outside of the game I’m playing with my associate. So far, I am winning, but he is a challenging opponent. The end result is everyone has won, because we have thriving livestock, good sources of blood, and drive local economies where our farms are located. As the quality of blood is critical for us, we also lead in terms of animal treatment as well.”
“And what of these brood rivalries we hear of?”
Emerick scowled at the phone. “Broods have rivalries, and we sometimes wage war among ourselves if given reason, just like humans. At heart, we’re humans. We’re just stronger, faster, and more predatory than when we were born. We do not mystically cease being human because of the magic that makes us. We are different from humans, yes, but we all started like you, human. Some of us were humans with other powers, which are passed down to our offspring in turn, but we retain many of our human mannerisms, personalities, and what makes us, at heart, a human being. Pepper, for example, is stronger, faster, and more inclined to show her aggression than before her turning, but she is as she was, simply more refined.”
Another sneeze struck, and I blew my nose.
“As well as more prone to sneezing on me,” Emerick added in a wry tone.
Considering I had inflicted my germs on the tablet rather than him, I grinned at how he played my father. I wiped up the tablet, wrote a note to sanitize everything and myself once the meeting concluded, and sipped at my tea.
“I have noticed she’s rather quiet.”
“Her throat hurts, she’s quite tired, and the only reason she’s out of bed is because she dislikes when I leave her sight when all isn’t situated as she likes. Right now, she’s making friends with her cup of tea, hoping it will work some magic on her. She’ll feel mostly better by tomorrow night.”
“When would be a reasonable time to learn more about my employees and their probability of recovering from their trauma?”
“I’ll have someone give you daily updates, but I expect it will be at least a few weeks until real progress is made. Unlike Pepper, who had been able to hunt on her own, these vampires were grossly mistreated, and that will take a great deal of time to recover from. Psychologically? I’m not sure. As I said before, this is not something we’d do to another vampire. We prefer more humane methods of dispatching those who break our laws.”
“Then I’ll wait for more word tomorrow. I will be sending over some papers by courier tomorrow night. If you could look them over, it might benefit us both. I have gone through my operations to attempt to guess what might catch the attention of these fugitive vampires, and these files are what I suspect are the core of the problem.”
“I’ll be waiting for those papers, and I will let you know if your guesses bear weight. In the meantime, keep a close eye on your employees, and if any do go missing, let us know. We’ll begin hunting for them, hopefully preventing history from repeating itself.”
“I’ll be in touch,” my father promised, before hanging up the phone.
I checked to make sure the call had disconnected, which it had. “That whole call was strange.”
Like me, Emerick checked to make certain the call had ended. “I’m sure he was trying to figure out if we knew anything about your mother’s disappearance. As we would have no reason to believe anything else had gone wrong within his household, keeping to his employees would make it appear as though we are in the dark regarding your mother—and certain elements of life in his household.”
“Like the possibility me and my mother had been given vampiric blood for a long time.”
“Yes, precisely. While he could be a vampire and doing an excellent job at hiding his nature, I don’t believe he’s the vampire responsible for turning his employees.”
