Page 71 of Silent Stalker
“I guess that is what it was, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. Drinking so much blood would have let you recover in the ground, and the volume of good blood would have made you heal faster. That’s also why you hadn’t emerged in a state of bloodlust. Most of the newly turned are quite ready to hunt, which is part of why I’m quite careful with my new offspring. It’s much easier to prevent bloodlust when you wake them gently and comfort them. Once they’re more awake, I get them to drink from the bottle. It’s much like having a child when a young vampire wakens for the first time. They’re often sluggish, confused, and thirsty. Then they start waking up properly.” Emerick checked the navigation panel before eyeing the buildings we drove by. “Ah, there it is. That eyesore on the corner.”
Which buildings in the neighborhood weren’t eyesores? “I bet we could buy this whole place out for cheap and turn it into something even swankier than around the penthouse. Or at least improve it so it’s not a good candidate for use as a location in a horror film.”
Emerick parked his Civic along an empty stretch of road. “This area does have an atmosphere, doesn’t it?”
“As a place people go to be murdered,” I muttered.
“I would like to take a moment to remind you that you are a fierce huntress, a vampire capable of killing ruthless killers.” He got out of the car, waited for me to follow, and raised a brow at me. “How many miscreants did you stake and drain here?”
“At least two. They tasted foul.”
After shooting a glare at me, he locked his car. “Why are you worried about the atmosphere? You’re the one who has probably done most of the killing here. Much like Harlem, most people in this area have left. Of course, this is a much smaller area, only consisting of a few blocks. That is why it’s such a likely spot for this miscreant brood we’re hunting.”
Right. With my tendency to leave bodies around, I guess I counted as the reason the place had quite the atmosphere. “If this group was operating here, you can’t blame me for anything for the rest of the night.”
“That is reasonable.”
Several other vehicles belonging to members of our brood parked nearby, and Ben waved as he got out of his car. “I’m impressed you didn’t run off the moment an opportunity allowed.”
“Which one of us are you talking to?” Emerick asked, tilting his head to the side.
“You.”
“Why would I run off?”
“You want to dodge meeting Pepper’s mother after a close encounter with her father,” Ben replied.
“I do?”
“You do.”
I blinked. “Ben, are you trying to tell Emerick we should run away?”
“Well, I was trying to imply we’d be much more comfortable if you two did not go on this venture,” he admitted. “We’d rather you run away, perhaps to a hotel for a few hours, while we handle this unpleasant business. We have concerns.”
“About?” I asked.
“This could be a trap,” Ben stated in a cool tone.
I stared at him. “If it’s a trap, do I get to stake and drain miscreants? Because frankly, every outing we’ve gone on has led to disappointment and a dire lack of meals. I’m exceptionally disappointed in the lack of actual hunting I’ve gotten to do. I don’t feel like the Silent Stalker right now. I feel like the Spoiled Stalker, who gets to go home, drink nice blood, have dessert just about every night, and otherwise indulge in a variety of ways. I need to earn my keep. I haven’t even gotten to do much lawyering, and the hunting I’ve done has all been live captures. And rightfully so on them being live captures, but this is disappointing to me.”
“I do believe my wife is in a mood to murder,” Emerick stated. “I am quite sorry I have not been able to appease her base need for some violence against those who woke her vampiric nature. I am pleased she wasn’t so brutally turned, however saddened I am by the circumstances of her nature.”
I recognized when the men ganged up on me, targeting one of my less savory habits. “I think I’ve done well. I didn’t murder my father.”
“Did you even put serious thought into it?” Emerick asked.
“Not really,” I confessed. “As I rather like being alive, I’m even forgiving him for some of the shittier parts of my childhood. Understanding the why of it helps. I’m sure therapy will help with the rest. I am blaming him for my desire to stab someone right now, though. I’d like to stab a miscreant. I can’t really bring myself to stab someone undeserving.”
Emerick circled his Civic, placed his hand on the small of my back, and gave me a nudge in the direction of the vacant building we were to investigate. “Were any of the other sites traps, Ben?”
“No,” Ben replied, and he heaved a sigh. “We’ve found evidence of usage in the form of old, dried blood and a few bodies, but they’re otherwise empty. They’re being investigated. Mr. Francis’s list is good, however. So far, everything has been a hit in some fashion, but they’ve all been abandoned.”
“I see the brood has been busy, if you’ve already determined these places are empty before we even arrived at our target.” Emerick shrugged and continued herding me towards the front entry of the warehouse. “Have the police been notified?”
“We are going to notify them as soon as we confirm if this place is abandoned. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to verify if it is empty. They have been leaving the bodies out on the floor. Judging from the decay, we’ve assumed the ones that weren’t capable of being dumped were staked and left to rot.”
