8. Emerick, fix this travesty, and fix it now!
EIGHT
Emerick, fix this travesty, and fix it now!
After conferring with some of the other vampires and Salania, we decided Breanna would take over a condo located on the third floor of the Lowrance estate. In order to get to her, Jeremy Breckenan would need to get through every other vampire in residence.
The condo, in Emerick’s opinion, was empty due to impending renovations, but he would deal with that problem later. To better defend our guest, my husband disabled the elevators, forcing us all to take the stairs.
The fire doors required keys to enter and took a great deal of effort to break through, more than even two or three vampires working together could muster.
Breanna would be as safe as we could make her.
I appreciated that.
With her employment confirmed and the woman off to bed where she could recover from malnourishment under Giovanni’s careful eye, we reconvened in the conference room to plan our assault.
I carved with a purpose, my determination to see Breckenan’s end secured strengthened from the knowledge of the woman he targeted.
Perhaps coincidence played a role, but Breanna’s return into my life changed everything.
I would die if needed to keep my friend from suffering as I had suffered.
Even without the direct memories of my experience, a deep part of me recoiled from what had transpired.
Some questions might remain unanswered, but I could live with the uncertainty if only the originator of so much misery came to an abrupt and permanent end.
I spent the rest of my night carving, hoping my work might help safeguard the brood and the woman in our care. As planned, Breanna called in sick.
Darius went to work as normal to maintain the charade and buy us as much time as possible. If we could pull the wool over their eyes for the weekend and make it through Breckenan’s first check with society unnoticed, traveling to Europe and setting a trap could be done.
One of my father’s uncles, armed with charms capable of piercing through Breckenan’s illusions, had isolated where our prey would go to check in with his operations before skittering back to his forest fortress.
Unlike Breckenan, Dagan carried trackers with him so we could monitor his location at all times.
He also took a satellite phone in case he needed to hunt our prey in the jungles of the Amazon.
While we waited, we schemed. My father brought his aged cruise liner into port, began the process of registering her for scrapping, and filed her final voyage across the seas.
She would be fully crewed by vampires almost as ancient as the Originals, and the guests, which numbered at over a thousand, were vampires and other preternaturals one and all.
On Saturday night, he took me to the pier to behold the aged jewel of his cruise line, and I sucked in a breath at the ship’s antique beauty.
In some ways, she reminded me of Titanic , sporting three instead of four smokestacks and painted in similar colors.
She also bore more modern frills, as rather than spew toxic fumes into the air, the stacks were elegant suites with blackened windows to maintain its old style.
Or so claimed my father.
“You’re scrapping her?” I asked for the third time, heartbroken such a beauty would be condemned to become bits of broken metal.
“She’s quite long in the tooth,” he replied.
“She’s been modernized seven times, she’s been in dry docking more times than I care to think about, and she has been prowling the oceans for well over a hundred years.
Most cruise ships do not make it beyond their thirtieth year, Pepper.
She is the oldest cruise liner still afloat—and in service. ”
I gasped at the thought of destroying a piece of history. “I refuse to allow this. Emerick, fix this travesty, and fix it now!”
My husband regarded me with a raised brow. “He’s your father. Ask him pretty please to spare the ship. He even might.”
Hmm. I narrowed my eyes. “Pretty please with a cherry on top? She’s too beautiful to recycle.”
“Do you have any idea how much it costs to dry dock a ship like her?” he asked in a curious tone.
“No, but she makes the perfect wedding and honeymoon venue, and if you don’t want her, you could give her to me.”
My father considered the ship, heaved a sigh, and retrieved his phone from his pocket.
He tapped at the screen before holding it to his ear.
“Boy, your sister is pitching a fit over the ship. Apparently, she now wishes to use it for her wedding and as a method in which to go on her honeymoon. Contact the scrapyard and convert the contract to a full restoration. Yes, I’m going to need magical restorations.
Make it clear the order for a replacement ship is still moving forward.
Ask them to maintain the scrapping contract until we dock in Europe to maintain our ruse.
I want the publicity from the potential scrapping; changing my mind at the first whiff of public outcry will do my business good, especially when I reveal her replacement.
Have the PR people get to work on a plan to use this incident to ultimately boost our reputation.
Make certain they understand that we’re putting the safety of our passengers above all.
Revive our Titanic heritage programs while we’re at it.
I am going to need all the passenger sales I can get if I’m going to dish out for this floating money sink. ”
I wondered which of my brothers was cursed to help our father with his cruise liner. I waited until he hung up to ask, “How many times a year does she need to cruise to earn her keep?”
My father sighed. “If I have a full ship, four usually suffices. She’s an easy keeper as far as cruise liners go.
She has excellent freeboard, her stability in rough seas is stellar, and unlike Titanic , Eclipse is a CAC 3 rated vessel; while she’s not a cargo vessel, when I had her built, I had Titanic in mind; I’d lost several friends to that doomed voyage, and I made certain it would not happen again, not on my watch.
When I had her constructed, I borrowed from icebreakers, and during her refits, I had the entire hull reinforced to withstand Arctic conditions.
That’s paid off a few times in the early spring.
I don’t tend to sail her during the winter, having her undergo renovations during those months.
I renovate a set number of cabins a year to keep her modernized on the interior.
She is also painted during the cabin renovations. ”
“You dry dock her yearly?” I blurted.
“It helps that I own the dry docking company and the shipyard where the work is done under a different alias,” my father replied with a smirk. “Benoit tends to handle those affairs for me, and I use illusions when I need to show up in person.”
Poor Benoit. “That poor baby now belongs to me, but you can operate her on my behalf and pay her bills.”
My father laughed. “You never showed any interest in the other cruise ships before. Why this one?”
“She’s beautiful. The other cruise ships are modern monstrosities.
They’re eyesores on the horizon. She’s… not.
” At a loss of how to explain the differences in my view of the ships, I shrugged, pointing at a nearby cruise liner, one that couldn’t have been more than a year old, sporting a waterpark on its top deck and towering over the pier.
“Take that thing for example. It looks like a gust of wind could knock it over.”
“She is surprisingly stable for a cruise liner,” my father replied.
“She cost me several billion to build, and she’s the newest ship in my fleet.
She has a max capacity of fifteen hundred people, and she’s significantly shorter than most modern cruise liners.
She has limited interior cabins; all cabins are spacious and made to be luxurious, and passengers pay excessive amounts for the privilege to sail aboard her.
She’s also wider, slower, and less agile.
However, unlike other cruise liners in her class, she’s significantly more stable, she’s less harsh on the environment, and she’s a CAC 2 rated vessel.
Like Eclipse , I won’t run her in the winter.
That rating is for if the worst happens rather than pushing my luck.
I have a few CAC 1 vessels for Arctic and Antarctic expeditions, but they are luxury exploration vessels set up to handle scientific ventures.
Those max out at twenty passengers plus crew. ”
My eyes widened. “Why do you have those?”
“People are willing to pay me forty thousand dollars for three weeks in the Antarctic, that’s why.
I also donate the ship’s operational costs for recovery operations.
Those are excellent tax write-offs. If you would like to go on such a venture, we can do so after your ceremony.
I make a point of cruising on my own vessels, often in disguise, to observe how well my employees are handling their work.
They know I do this, so I rarely have issues. ”
“Emerick?”
“If you want to sail around the world, I have no problems with this. We will need an internet connection, however.”
“All of my vessels have internet on board, and while it’s not as fast as one might prefer at times, it’s stable.”
“Stable but slow is fine. What other industries do you have your hands into, Mr. Francis?”