23. Seriously, Dude
Chapter 23
Seriously, Dude
Cargo hold—Moments later
H enry stared at the phone he held. Too many shocks in a short period. “I will call you again when we reach our room.”
Father Matt nodded. “I’ll be waiting.”
“You should see the look on your face, dude.”
Henry disconnected the vidcon and raised an eyebrow. “ You’re the street urchin who turned him?”
“Is that what he called me?” Jill laughed. “I was staying in Downtown Los Angeles because the waves were flat—you know, no action.”
“But why there?”
“The homeless there are so easy to feed on, and a couple of old cemeteries are nearby, and I’d sneak into one of them at night. So there I was, fat and happy, hanging with the other street kids, and this dude in a collar keeps trying to talk with me. He’s preaching all the Bible stuff, you know, pushing to get me into a group home. I told him to fuck off. Only he didn’t. He followed me one night to the cemetery. I couldn’t, like, let him see me go to sleep. The sun was about to rise, and I didn’t have any choice.”
Anger growled through Henry’s chest. “So you turned him?”
“Hey, I fed enough to mesmerize him, thinking maybe he’d pass out and forget, then I could dump him somewhere and pick a new crypt for the day. But his heart gave out too fast. Something must’ve been wrong with his ticker.”
Father Matt had never mentioned a heart problem. Could turning him have been an accident?
“Anyway, it didn’t feel right to let him die, you know, him being a priest and all. So I turned him.”
Henry clenched his jaw. “Upstairs. We should continue this in private after I’ve spoken with Father Matt again.”
“What about my surfboard?”
Henry glanced over at the long board, which sat on a stand outside the shipping container. He didn’t care if someone stole the damn thing, but in all fairness, perhaps they should pack it away. The board’s presence might cause security to investigate, alerting them to the intruder’s existence, and make getting Jill off the ship more difficult.
Cerissa held up her palm. “How have you been out in the open without ship’s security noticing?”
“I mesmerized them.” Jill grinned. “They’d show up, I’d bite them, then send them back, under a compulsion to forget me and unable to tell anyone. Free dinner for me. Yay!”
Henry understood the technique, but resented the disdain she showed for mortals. Still, he didn’t want crew members stumbling onto her presence, so they needed to conceal her belongings. “Rolf, please put the surfboard inside the container and lock the door.”
Cerissa whispered in his ear, “Let me check for silver stakes, just to be sure.”
Too many coincidences—they were on the same ship as Jill shortly after someone delivered the threatening stakes, and Jill’s child was a Hill resident. All these connections gave Henry pause. “Do it.”
When Cerissa emerged from the cargo container, she shook her head and mouthed, “Clear.”
He wasn’t certain if he was relieved or still suspicious. Once they put away everything hinting at Jill’s presence, he draped his sports coat over her shoulders to hide the handcuffs. “We are leaving those on until we’re sure you won’t attack us again. Please do not try anything,” he said as they led her along the hallway. “We just need to discuss this in a less public space.”
“Look, dude, I’ll go with you. And if these make you feel better, fine. Just talk to Matt. Then you’ll chill out.”
Henry didn’t respond, but with him and Rolf flanking Jill, he walked them out of the storage area, up the stairs, and into the elevator, with everyone else following.
When they got back to Karen and Rolf’s suite, Antonio spoke first. “What’s your plan?”
“We must speak with our friend further.” Henry’s next step depended in part on what Father Matt told him, and whether he could trust Jill to be on her best behavior without restraints. He was wary after her initial fight reaction. “But she will no longer feed on passengers. We’ll see to that.”
“Then, if it’s all right with you, I’ll get back to my regular medical duties—unless you want me to remain for the discussion. I realize I’m the one who asked for your help, but given you have a connection with her maker, perhaps the appropriate course is for you to have a conversation with him on your own and let me know later.”
The doctor’s sensitivity meant Henry would be free to speak openly with Father Matt. “Yes, thank you. I’d prefer that.”
Antonio nodded. “Call if you need extra supplies to accommodate her needs. I can provide at least one feeding each day.”
Cerissa motioned toward the suite door. “We’ll update you once we figure this out.”
With Rolf’s assistance, Henry escorted Jill into the bedroom, and Karen followed. Henry said nothing when Karen fished out some silver chain from her luggage and a pair of large leather gloves. They looped the chain around the handcuffs and fastened it to the bedframe, then turned on the television and left Jill watching a nature program, after raising the audio loudly to mask their voices. They returned to the living room where they could talk with Father Matt in private.
Henry gestured to the coffee table. “Rolf, your laptop?”
Moments later, the videoconference began again. Henry sat on the couch, facing the camera, too many questions racing through his mind. “Hello, father. We have Jill restrained in the next room—she attacked us when we approached her—and she cannot hear us now. She claims not to be part of any community. I had assumed that your maker was unknown to you—that she abandoned you at the Buddhist monastery without identifying herself. Can you tell us more?”
“I knew who she was, but the residents of the monastery didn’t. She stayed long enough to make sure they’d take me, then took off.”
“So what happened? She told us from her point of view—”
“Did she tell you she was one of the street kids I was trying to convince to stay at the shelter? I followed her one evening, because I thought a drug trafficker had trapped her in the sex trade, and I wanted to help her escape that life. Instead, she went into a cemetery. You’ve heard of the old saying, ‘curiosity killed the cat’? Well, I was curious—if she wasn’t meeting a John, what was she doing there? Drugs? So I tailed her into the cemetery and found her lair.”
Henry breathed out a relieved sigh. So far, their stories matched. “She said she fed so she could mesmerize you, but your heart gave out.”
“Funny, she never told me what happened, but I had a history of heart problems at a young age. I have the vaguest recollection of a sharp pain in my chest, and she offered me her wrist. I drank, and that’s the last thing I remembered before waking up dead.”
“I am so sorry,” Henry said.
Father Matt shrugged. “It is what it is. Fortunately, she kept me in the crypt with her. The next night I woke ravenous. She had managed to procure some blood bags—they still had the red cross symbol on them and were extremely fresh. She then took me to a bus stop, and we rode the bus to Santa Monica. It was all surreal. I was still hungry, and the smell of live mortals was maddening. But she kept a firm grasp on my arm, and I knew that if I moved from my seat, she would overpower me. When we got to Santa Monica, we walked a short distance to the monastery. She spoke with their spiritual leader, and then told me to remain there, and she left.”
Henry’s mouth hung open. How could she abandon him so soon after the turn? Henry had made only one child, Christine. The emotional connection, especially at first, tightly tied maker and fledgling together. In the early days, he’d been unable to separate from his child for long, let alone abandon her. “She did not stay to train you?”
“No, the leader adopted me. He was a Hindu priest before being turned.”
“Wait.” Cerissa leaned over Henry’s shoulder to come into view. “You said it was a Buddhist monastery.”
“It started as Buddhist, but the vampires who lived there came from many religions. I was lucky they had a no-kill policy.”
“How old was she when she made you?” Henry asked. From her fingernails, hair, and dialect, he guessed she’d been turned in the 1960s, but maybe she was older than that. A maker had to be over two hundred to guarantee the survival of their offspring—the risk of creating an unstable vampire was too great if they weren’t.
Father Matt chuckled. “I’m fortunate I didn’t turn out mentally ill or worse. She’d only been vampire a few years when it happened.” On screen, he adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses, the frames hiding the scar on his eyebrow from a car accident when he was still mortal. “I credit Gokul with helping me transition as well as I did. He gave me his blood, keeping me fed, and in between, we meditated for hours as he taught me the nature of what I had become. He didn’t allow me to wallow in self-hatred. He was convinced we are an expression of Shiva, and as such, part of the greater order of God. His faith in our essential rightness made it easier for me to accept my new state.”
Henry recognized some of these teachings from prior conversations with Father Matt. “Jill’s treatment of you does not speak well for her. What do you know about her? Is she at risk of going rogue, or is she merely unaffiliated by choice?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say she has an attachment disorder. She has never bonded with another, either mortal or vampire, and belongs to no community. She is only interested in three things: surfing, blood, and sex, in that order. If you track her history, you’ll find she hangs around Malibu or Doheny Beach for a while, and then disappears for years. She’s spent time in Australia and Hawaii—wherever there is good surfing. But eventually, the local community will ask her to leave. She tends to sow discord and will manipulate and use others to get her needs met.”
Rolf narrowed his eyes, canting his head. “Why has she not been destroyed?”
“By our laws, she has done nothing wrong. She’s an irritant, she indulges regularly in live feeding, but never kills. She avoids those areas where live feeding is banned and doesn’t poach another’s mate—again, she does nothing that would warrant staking.”
Henry shook his head, unable to make sense of Father Matt’s story. “Why haven’t we heard of her before?”
“You aren’t part of a beach community,” Father Matt replied. “All the beach communities know her and tolerate her.”
“But as an unaffiliated, she’ll be destroyed if she doesn’t join a community soon.”
“I suspect her maker’s community will give her nominal membership to cover her.”
“Who was her maker?” Henry asked, wondering who’d let her loose on unsuspecting mortals.
“Fred George, out of Huntington Beach.”
“That old pervert?” Rolf said.
Fred was over forty when he was turned and well known for liking his mortals underage. He’d almost gotten his community in trouble because of his appetite for high school students, and it’d come to the attention of the other treaty communities. They’d finally given him an ultimatum—stop it, or they’d stake him.
“They say Jill was his last underage paramour,” Father Matt explained. “She was a surf chick, if I have the lingo correct. She ran away from home and was sleeping on the beach when she hooked up with him. After her nineteenth birthday, he turned her, kept her around for a few years, and then dumped her.”
“The asshole,” Rolf said.
“He isn’t a nice man. And her current emotional state reflects his treatment of her, although I suspect her family of origin had abused her and she was living with mental health issues when he first seduced her. I’ve pieced together parts of her story over the years, and it isn’t pretty.” He sighed. “Bottom line: don’t trust her with any secrets. She will use them against you. She’s manipulative and selfish. But once fed, she’ll behave herself for the most part. She can follow rules for short periods, and won’t live feed if you clearly tell her it’s not acceptable and she’ll be punished for doing so. She hates being locked up.”
“Thank you, father,” Henry said. “I am sorry to make you relive that story.”
“It’s not a problem, Henry. I’ve always wondered why you’d never asked before.”
“I did not want to intrude. And I truly believed you didn’t know your maker’s name.”
“It’s no intrusion. Let me know if I can be of any further help.”
Before he could say goodbye, Henry felt Cerissa lean against his shoulder.
She appeared in the camera’s field of view. “Would you like to speak with Jill?”
“No, thank you. It’s kind of you to suggest it, but she’s told me on more than one occasion she wants nothing to do with me. She and I have no maker-child bond, and I came to terms with her abandonment many years ago. If you’ll excuse me, I have a client due any moment now. Goodnight.”
The screen went blank. Henry sat in silence, feeling grateful no one spoke. He wasn’t sure which was worse—never bonding with your maker or living as he had tied to Anne-Louise for over two hundred years. Thank God Anne-Louise had finally let the bond die. Still, he couldn’t imagine the feelings of abandonment Father Matt must have experienced.
“Hey!” Jill broke the quiet, yelling from the other room. “What’s happening out there? I’m hungry.”
Cerissa turned to Karen. “Where did you hide your supplies?”
“Under the wet bar—the cabinet.”
“I don’t want her to see the pouches. After what Matt told us, I don’t want her to connect us with Biologics Research Lab, I don’t trust her. So what can we pour the blood into?”
If Henry hadn’t been in such a shaken state over Father Matt’s revelations, he would have laughed at what Karen found—one of the souvenir boat drink glasses. She rinsed it out at the wet bar and poured a heated pouch of dark wine into the orange tulip-shaped vessel and stomped over to Rolf, offering him the plastic glass. “You take it to her. I’m not going near her when she’s hungry.”
Rolf nodded and carried the drink into the bedroom, Henry following him. Cerissa and Karen hung back by the doorway.
Rolf held the cup to Jill’s lips, and she drank ravenously, draining it. “That’s really fresh for donor blood. Do you have another mortal in this suite or what?”
Henry scowled at the insult. “There is no blood slave. We have a better way of preserving packaged dark wine.”
“Do you have more? You stopped me before I could feed tonight.”
Rolf nodded, then handed the empty cup to Karen, who went back to the wet bar to refill it.
“So, what did Matt tell you?” Jill asked.
Henry huffed out a breath. “He corroborated your story.”
“If he did, why am I still chained to this bed? You two pervs or something?”
Henry ignored the attempt to bait him. “Before we let you go, we need your commitment that you will stop live feeding on the ship. It’s causing problems for the ship’s doctor.”
“Bummer. I love cruises—plenty of food wherever I look, all night long. Chinese, Italian, Japanese, even American.” She laughed. “Any time I feel like a bite, there’s fast food everywhere.”
Henry cringed, even as Cerissa’s icy anger blasted through the crystal. He’d already guessed she wouldn’t approve of Jill’s response. “We will provide you with blood for the remainder of the trip, all that you need, until we reach Oahu.”
“Are you sure? I have a pretty good appetite.”
“It will not be a problem.”
“Cool, dude. You have a deal. Are you staying on the island?”
“Yes, we’ll disembark in Honolulu.”
“Then I’ll give you surf lessons in exchange, if you want them. I’m not a freeloader. I pay my way.”
Henry chose not to debate her assertion, even though she’d been freeloading off the passengers. “Rolf and I will discuss your offer, and we will let you know if we are interested. In either case, we will still supply you with blood. And you will join us in the sleep cabin, so that we ensure you are well fed upon rising.”
“Sleep cabin?”
“We have an interior room on a lower deck, where we are undisturbed during the day. You will sleep there too for the duration of the voyage.”
“I don’t know. You might try to take advantage of me. There are two of you.”
“We aren’t interested in you.” Rolf snorted. “We have our mortal mates.”
Jill curled her lip at him. “Don’t get all gnarly about it. If you’re cool, I’ll be cool. Uh, I’ll still be able to hook up with passengers, right? If I don’t feed on them?”
“You are an adult.” Henry stared at her sternly. “As long as they consent, and you do not feed, you may do what you want.”
Karen strolled in carrying another tulip glass of blood and handed it to Rolf.
Henry clasped Rolf’s shoulder, stopping him before he held the cup to Jill’s lips. “If you will tell me where the key is, I will release her, and she can feed herself.”
Karen reached into her pocket and gave Henry the key. He released Jill and carefully backed away. He still wasn’t convinced she wouldn’t come up fighting again. Instead, once free, she took the cup from Rolf and chugged the dark wine. “God, that feels good.” She shook her hair in a way that reminded Henry of a horse shaking its mane. “I wonder if the guy in eight-twelve is still awake.”
“You do not have time for that. Sunrise will be upon us shortly. We should show you where the sleep cabin is.”
Jill stretched and yawned. “You’re probably right, dude. Lead on.”
Rolf kissed Karen goodnight and motioned to Jill. “This way.”
She slid off the bed and followed him.
Cerissa tugged on Henry’s sleeve, stepping aside. “Something about her seems off,” she whispered. “I see what Matt is referring to. Perhaps you need a chaperone?”
“Rolf and I will be fine. Do not worry.” He pulled her into a hug, pressing his lips to hers.
Breaking from the kiss, Cerissa clung to him for a moment and brought her mouth to his ear. “Then I can’t wait until tomorrow evening.”
“Until then, mi amor .” He stepped back and bowed to his wife, then left to escort Rolf and Jill to the sleeping cabin.
The last thing he’d wanted on his honeymoon was a third wheel. He already had Rolf and Karen, but they were a choice that made sense—if not for Karen, Cerissa would be alone all day and eat alone every night. Their friends were arguably a necessity.
Jill was not.
They’d reach Oahu within a few nights. He could tolerate monitoring the surfer until then. At least she had nothing to do with the silver stakes and wasn’t a threat. As his thought finished, tremors of trepidation crawled down his spine and a shudder ran through him, the reaction coming out of nowhere.
What the hell is that about?