Page 63 of Silent Stalker
His laughter startled me even more than his willingness to handle my stake. “It isn’t my fault you decided against looking deeper than the surface, Penelope. In your desperate drive to prove your place and your capacity to function as my heir, you never noticed how I showed you my approval. The decision to only see the negative has never been my fault. In truth, it’s not yours, either. That’s your nature. You have always established your worth based on another’s beliefs rather than your view of yourself. I had hoped to break you of that, but perhaps you truly needed another method to allow you to shine—and a severe case of vampirism.”
“Aren’t all cases of vampirism severe?” I asked, furrowing my brow while thinking about my father’s words.
With a sickening feeling growing in my gut, I realized he was right. Others had always defined my value.
I grabbed a cookie, shoved it in my mouth, and guzzled down some milk in a futile effort to mask my dismay.
“I was under impression vampires are lactose intolerant, one and all,” my father said in a mild tone.
Emerick chuckled and sat, gesturing for my father to follow his lead. “She’s more lactose intolerant than most, too. Her tolerance is zero. It’s lactose-free, as I’d rather she not decorate our penthouse with evidence of why she should not tango with regular pizza.”
“I dodged food for almost a year because my first attempt to eat after deciding death wasn’t really for me involved pizza. With extra cheese.”
My father’s brow rose higher.
“It really hadn’t ended well, so I assumed vampires couldn’t eat anything at all. Then I decided if I had to deal with being a vampire, I’d take down asshole vampires with me when I went. But then this asshole came around.” I gestured at Emerick. “Now I have to do things differently.”
“Including sleep in a proper bed instead of keeping bats company,” Emerick shot back.
“That is one of the better parts of the whole domesticated vampire thing,” I admitted. “I am not allowed to run around feral anymore, so I have learned to embrace general domestication.”
“Through taking over an entire brood?” my father asked, his tone incredulous. “You couldn’t run around as a feral vampire, as you say, so you decided if you had to become domesticated, you would take over a brood?”
I shrugged and went back to work on cutting the branch into sections suitable for carving new stakes, careful to put aside the twigs I thought might withstand becoming tiny stakes a match for my favored toothpick. “I mean, look at my Emerick. Why wouldn’t I accept domestication if I could snag him and take over his brood at the same time?”
“That is not how it went,” Emerick muttered.
“I’m choosing to ignore the whole rooftop scuffle and the cuffs. I did not like those cuffs. At all.”
“I didn’t want to be bitten by a half-wild, possibly rabid vampire I thought was male until you showed up, definitely not male.” Emerick cleared his throat, and I suspected he struggled to keep from grinning at me. “I was quite pleased when I determined you were female and free from rabies.”
In his shoes, I would be pleased, too. “But are you sure I’m actually free from rabies?”
The glare Emerick shot my way promised retribution in some form. I grinned back at him.
“I have long believed she might be a carrier of rabies. When she was seven and discovered she enjoys rare steaks, she bit me in her effort to steal mine. While she had always been a rather stubborn child, I had not expected her to attack me so she might try my dinner. We had to have a rather lengthy discussion about why it was not appropriate for children to bite people. I am grateful you learned to stop biting after a few months and some intervention from your mother. She found my plight rather amusing. Warranted, as I have never been an easy husband to cope with, although she handled me at my worst with more grace and dignity than I, perhaps, deserve.”
Unlike Emerick’s manner of speaking, my father’s antiquated choice of words set me on edge, and I struggled with the urge to hiss at him.
What the hell was going on?
“I see you’ve decided to play your hand, Mr. Francis. As you’re doing your best to annoy your daughter, I’ll jump to the chase. How many birth certificates have you forged over your long life?”
My father’s pleased smile stunned me. “I see you have been doing your due diligence. Excellent. I’ve had many, as you surmised. When did you notice something was amiss?”
“You didn’t ask the questions I expected when you inquired about your wife.”
My father waved his hand. “She filed for divorce two months ago, which I agreed with. We have kept it quiet because I was waiting for her to decide how she wanted to approach single life before someone solved the problem for me. I believe your maker resolved that problem for me? That is my first guess. Why else would every member of the Lowrance brood be easily accounted for? Kennwick’s brood might be involved—likely is involved—but they, too, were easily accounted for. Every vampire of every brood involved was accounted for. I will acknowledge this, young Emerick, you did very well with that display of power. I did as I did to ensure you were appropriately serious.”
“So it’s true. You started feeding me vampiric blood as a child? Your blood.”
“It did not work quite as you thought. It was more of a problem I needed to solve. You were born predisposed. You died your first death at less than a day old, and after you rose, you kept trying to bite your mother. So instead, with some encouragement on my part, you bit me before nursing from your mother. As you had died at home, we had intended to keep you for another day before going through the burial process. You turned three hours after your death. All those vampires did was rouse your nature and magic. Thanks to my efforts, you never grew your fangs, and you were always resilient against sunlight. It tired you, but that was all. I may have worked a little magic to help you with the sun. The rest? I disguised through giving you more than your fair share of work. That made it easy to disguise your fatigue.”
My eyes widened, as did Emerick’s.
“I came because of the little boy. Thanks to having cared for my Penelope, I may be able to help you with the problem you face. When he first rose, I had some theories, but none I was willing to test on a child. But then Penelope died and rose, and so I had no choice but to test and experiment. Someone would notice—and I would not put my wife through losing our child a second time. I refused to lose her a second time.”
“Mother knew?” I whispered.
