Page 26 of Silent Stalker
Kennwick choked. “You got them to give you the blood for fifty a bottle? How did you do that?”
Well, fifty a bottle seemed a great deal easier to swallow than hundreds of dollars a bottle. Relaxing, I sipped the blood. “Dare I ask which type this is?”
“Yours is actually a blend. It’s seventy percent cow blood, twenty percent veal blood, and five percent of both steer and bull blood. The cows are in a range of ages as well. The producer thought it would be wise, as every living thing has a different strength of magic based on age. As you had varied feeding, but mostly of males, we’re testing if we can stabilize your metabolism and health by rebalancing your intake of blood by gender. The chicken and standard cow blood we use is an equal mix of male and female animals, but the magic levels are low. Once we have stabilized the blood to be from an equal mix of male and female animals, we’ll start trying to lower the amount of magic being used. I started working on this a week ago, but the first bottles came in this morning. How many have you had?”
“She’s on her third,” Kennwick reported.
“Excellent. Pepper, we may have isolated a pattern for where the bodies are being dumped. How do you feel about a field trip out tomorrow night? You might even have an opportunity to break your nose again.”
“Can I skip the part where I break my nose?”
“That is preferred, but if there are multiple vampires out, I fear it will be too much for me to ask for, so I won’t ask it of you. I will be hunting as well, but perhaps not in a way that would permit me to stop you from breaking your nose again.”
I would never hear the end of having broken my nose. “Tell Ben he has to help me work on the not breaking my nose thing sometime in the near future, and I will do my best to maintain my nose’s integrity in the meantime. Can I go back to being a lawyer now? It’s a lot safer.”
“I have some work suitable for a talented, beautiful attorney after I finish my discussion with the gentlemen in the sitting room. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it more than I will.”
“Oh?”
“You get to update the brood’s legal documentation, for you must be added to everything.” With a smirk, Emerick swept out of the room.
“That ruthless feline,” I muttered, curling my fingers into claws and swiping at his departing back.
“It does explain much about him, doesn’t it?”
“It explains why a certain traitorous husband has not presented himself appropriately for my enjoyment!” I called out after Emerick.
“Ah, you are going to bring much joy to that old vampire’s heart. So, how do you like your turkey sandwich? Open faced?”
I licked my lips. “Slathered in gravy with mountains of potatoes and peas.”
“I see. You tear down mountains, and the flattened bread beneath them is used as a vessel for what little gravy survived the initial slaughter.” Kennwick returned to the fridge and retrieved another plastic container. “That explains the unusual amount of gravy occupying this fridge. Try not to make yourself overly ill, although if you make yourself a little ill, it will bring no harm and give Emerick something to do.”
“Okay, Kennwick. Why are you being all formal? That’s an Emerick thing. You were more relaxed at your house.”
“Yes, I was more relaxed at my house. It’s my house. I’m supposed to be relaxed there,” he replied in a soft tone. “It’s to play to the expectations of the mortals Emerick speaks with. We talk like this to toy with them and to leave the impression we are not as wise about the times as they think. It’s the sad thing about mortals, really. They are willing to judge by what they see and hear but not by what has been proven to be true. They have seen you hunt, so they know you are a predator. They have seen your work as a lawyer, so they know you are an intellectual. But they do not understand your other gifts, including your carving, so they believe you are only of value because you are a woman with a skill at hunting and can contribute as a lawyer as well. This will lead them to underestimate you—and us, as a whole.”
I blinked, as I’d recognized some of the people meeting with Emerick. “Really? Tricking people can be that easy?”
“It can be. What did you think of Emerick when you first met him?”
“The whole pinning me to the roof with stakes part of things was not enjoyable. A genuine stick in the mud, him.” According to the rather loud snort from the other room, the stick in the mud had heard me. I grinned. “He’s also in dire need of a babysitter, but at least he knows it and tends to take a reasonable adult with him when he goes out. Really, Ben needs a raise for having to be the reasonable adult so often.”
“He’s going to make you pay for that, Pepper.”
“But will he make me have a good time while he’s making me pay for it?”
“Sadly, you’ll probably love every moment of it, thus encouraging you to continue yanking on his chain as hard as you absolutely can. I will send him a consolation present so he might feel better about himself later.”
“If anyone had told me life would become so nice two years ago, I would have laughed in their face and called them a liar.” I hesitated, and then I shrugged. “Okay, I wouldn’t have, but only because I’d known if I had, I would have outlived my usefulness. I have to test the boundaries to see where they are, Kennwick. If I don’t know where they are, I can’t avoid them.”
“You will find Emerick understands this better than most, as all fledglings test boundaries. You’re right. How can you avoid the boundaries if you don’t know where they are? And while wise masters try their best to communicate where the more dangerous lines are, some things can only be learned through experience, such as you breaking your nose when you fought three vampires instead of the one you’re accustomed to.”
“I thought I did well,” I muttered.
“You did marvelously.” Kennwick came over and whispered into my ear, “Emerick is quite proud of what you accomplished, but he won’t express it because he does not want to encourage recklessness, but you did the best you could with the knowledge you have, and you did so with as much grace and finesse as possible for the circumstances. You have much to learn, but you’ll get there. Push for training lessons with Ben, and that will be a good start. Ben is wise enough to know the best way to protect you is to give you more tools to do what you will do, which is dive directly into trouble.”
“I couldn’t just let them kill those teens.”
