Page 65 of Silent Stalker
“He likes your style of parenting, and he has always respected what you have done for Edgar. It is hard running a brood, and merging his brood with yours would put him in a better position, beneath you but able to safeguard his vampires. It would be a good deal for him. I’ll make certain he understands I approve of the merger and would appreciate if he can keep a close eye on his little sister. When I show up to visit my children, they do bother to talk to me after they’re done trying to beat manners into me. For some reason, they end up bruised while I’m amused. Children can be quite silly, really.”
“How old are you?” I asked.
“Older than your Emerick by a thousand or two years, give a thousand years or so. Your Emerick is sufficiently aged to handle you, which is good. Emerick, she will be even more fierce than you expect, so I recommend that you surrender when you are fresh, as she will be quite difficult to contain. Her mother has fire in her blood, and Penelope has a vampire’s thirst to go with her mother’s fire. Her mother’s enough to tire me, and I wish your maker a great deal of luck for the next few weeks.”
“And that was way more than I wanted to know about my parents,” I muttered.
My father snickered. “Enjoy the chase. But now that we’ve addressed the important things, I may be able to offer some insight onto Edgar’s stunted development. It’s a matter of conflicted biology. When raising Penelope, we had to take extreme care to repress her vampiric nature. No fangs were allowed to show, and we disciplined her in such a way where she’d hide those behaviors. She had no idea why or how we did it. That was intentional. We essentially forced her humanity to the surface. When her more predatory side was allowed to show, such as when we were on a vacation away from watchful eyes and she was allowed show more of her natural tendencies, she would display odd behaviors, much like Edgar does. So, the trick to it is to feed him blood without waking the predator in him. He must have a mostly human diet, including foods containing lactose. You’ll have to start him slowly on the lactose with the enzyme pills, but you’ll know you’re on the right track when he produces the enzyme himself. By the time Penelope turned five, she could have any form of dairy she wanted because we had successfully repressed her vampiric heritage. We monitored her through lactose.”
“It’s that simple?” Emerick blurted.
“It’s hardly simple, but the premise of it is, I suppose, simple enough. Vampires are humans. If you feed the vampire sufficient blood in other foods or drinks, and the vampire heritage remains unaware of the predation, it sleeps, allowing normal human biologics to function as normal, including blood production and aging. Once the magic reawakens, the aging in prime halts, age may reverse, or so on. Thirty-five is the prime of human life, approximately. Penelope’s thirty-one is close enough. I would have preferred a few extra years, but she’d halted development at twenty-six.”
In a way, I appreciated that my father addressed Emerick, as it allowed me to evaluate the situation with a sense of detachment. I whittled at the twig, breathing deeply so I wouldn’t cut too deeply into the delicate wood. “You monitored me that closely?” I asked.
“Of course. I loathed the necessity of my actions after your disappearance. I considered bringing your brothers into it—and I still might. I am undecided how I will bring those vampires down, but mark my words, I will see their world burn.”
At a loss, I stared at Emerick.
“What is it, Pepper?”
“Is he the bad guy or not?” I complained, gesturing at my father with my knife.
“It appears that he is a very crabby ancient vampire who wishes to partake of violence in revenge for what happened to you. His status as a villain is determined by a few factors, including if you are in his way when he goes to make their world burn. Generally, I believe he will only be a villain for you when it’s best he plays the role of a villain, just like I will be a most dastardly villain when I crawl under the blanket tonight clad in my pajamas.”
“Ruthless,” I hissed at him.
“I will help you make a dietary plan for little Edgar, including the meals I fed Penelope from when she was three or four until adulthood. I had to adjust her diet over the years to maintain her alignment with her humanity to allow development. She stalled at the start of puberty for a year or so, as I found adjusting her diet to be particularly difficult then. It was, fortunately, easy enough to hide, as she hit a growth spurt as soon as I rebalanced her meals to be more appropriate and resuppressed her heritage. I would be more than pleased to help you with little Edgar.”
“After this issue with this brood is addressed. The damage is done, and if we don’t deal with this brood first, we will have far more dire problems on our hands. That there is a way, and it’s worked once, is a boon.”
“Penelope’s mother—”
Emerick held up his hand. “She rose without hardly any intervention, and as you suspected, is quite the handful for my maker. I believe they are both equally charmed, but the reality of the situation explains much about her readiness to throw in her lot with my maker. She wasn’t prejudiced against vampires at all. She’s been primed to admire them because of you.”
“I was not a good husband for her,” my father reminded Emerick.
Emerick raised a brow. “You were not? If you were such a terrible husband, then why would she desire a vampire right now? It seems to me you were a better husband and father than you give yourself credit for. Someone like Pepper doesn’t happen by mistake.”
“No, nothing about Penelope was a mistake. I merely wish I had identified the defect that killed her from before her first breath rather than until after her last. That I had a second chance to have a daughter is the greatest gift I could ever hope for, but make no mistake. I was often cruel. She knows this, as do you. Good intentions mean little. All her life, I forced her to believe I wanted a son rather than her, the gift she is. Had she not risen as an infant, things would have been very different.”
“She might very well be dead right now,” Emerick stated.
My father shook his head. “Penelope was so predisposed to vampirism that her mother required daily transfusions. For all intents and purposes, her mother may as well have been a vampire for the effort it took us to bring little Penelope into the world. That was not anticipated, mind you. I had been very careful not to expose her mother to my blood until it became obvious she needed help to get Penelope into the world alive. I will not ask another woman to go through such a risk for another child, at least not a mortal woman.”
The realization sank in that there was more than my father’s desperation to feed me at play. “I’m the reason my mother’s now a vampire?” I asked, a chill seeping deep into my bones.
“No, Penelope. You’re not the reason. Your mother understood the risks of having you, and she agreed to have some transfusions including my blood to help get you into the world, as we are the same blood type. I had no idea it would lead to addiction. We made that decision together. I made a point of hiding your mother’s addiction from her. It was simple enough to do, and the damage was already done. We wanted you, not another chance at some other child, probably a son. We wanted you, so we did everything we could to get you into the world alive. In that, your mother chose her fate, although I carry more than my fair share of guilt for the addiction and ultimately, her turning. But your mother has never feared or hated vampires, and I am of the opinion she would have made the request to be turned on her own. But she would have lied to Clarke, as that was our agreement. I plan on making it known she does not have to live a lie anymore. Neither do you, and neither do I.”
I would need many a long night to think about what my father and mother had done and why.
“I appreciate you telling us the truth,” Emerick said. “And for the advice regarding Edgar.”
“Of course. I would have preferred for some things to remain secret, but not at the cost of a child. I am not proud of the things I have done to get Penelope where she is now, but they were necessary. In that, I have done my job as a father. Could I have done better? I honestly don’t know. I did what I had to do. I was given a second chance, and I refused to waste it. But I will say this much. You are not wrong to make sure the children do not rise into a second life. I was unprepared for the sacrifice required to care for an infant who turned—and I am grateful that your mother doesn’t seem to remember much through the grief of your loss and the joy of your renewal. You would have killed your mother without remorse in those first few hours of your second life. I would not wish that reality on any parent. But we endured, and that is what matters. And all you managed was a single nip before you received your first meal of blood from me. Tell yourself that often when you are forced to do your duty in the future. It is better that the children do not rise.”
After a long, silent moment, Emerick nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Francis.”
“You’re welcome, Emerick. Do take the time to tuck her in. It’s the one thing I did do right. She sleeps better when she feels that the big bad monsters are standing guard and won’t get her while she sleeps.” With a flippant wave of his hand, which reminded me of the man who lived in my memories, my father left the conference room.
