17. Le Havre was a jewel of his empire, one without compare.
SEVENTEEN
Le Havre was a jewel of his empire, one without compare.
In order to give Breckenan sufficient time to fall into our trap, it took us two weeks and a day to cross the Atlantic Ocean and enter the British Channel to reach Le Havre, France.
Some of the delays involved scenic detours to view islands close to shore and partake of Scottish, Irish, and British coastlines before we headed to the heart and soul of my father’s cruise operations in Europe.
According to Eugene, my father had dealings in every port in the world capable of handling a cruise liner—and by dealings, he either owned part of the port, owned significant chunks of the tourism industry in the port city, or otherwise dipped his hand in every part of tourism he could.
According to Alisander, my father was in the business of bringing people joy whenever he could, and he filled that need through offering travelers the best vacations possible.
In Le Havre, my father owned it all from the cargo port to the cruise terminal, working with the French government to keep operations smooth.
Sometime during my father’s long life, he’d gained French citizenship, and he operated the primary port on behalf of the public, ensuring safety and reliable transit and commerce.
Under his careful eye, Le Havre had weathered two world wars, numerous conflicts, and emerged strong and healthy every time. Damage from the wars had been repaired in record time, allowing trade to flow to Paris with minimal interruptions.
To my father, Le Havre was a jewel of his empire, one without compare.
Benoit basked in the glory of heading to the land of his birth, and he bounced around. In his excitement, he forgot how to speak English, talking with our father in French while my other brothers snickered. The crew had kicked my father off the bridge so the pilot could do his job in peace.
Rather than bring a fight to the cruise terminal, my father had directed the pilot to bring us into a dock meant for massive freighters. That way, when Breckenan did come at us, civilians would be safely out of the reach of the preternatural scum we hunted.
I appreciated his care and desire to protect the innocent.
I also appreciated his awareness that it would be more difficult to damage the cargo pier compared to the cruise terminal.
He’d had as many of the cranes removed as possible under the guise of replacement and maintenance during our voyage.
My father muttered curses, which boiled down the names of religious relics in French.
“They’re weird,” I commented to Alisander, shaking my head at the insanity. “Any news on our prey?”
“He’s here, waiting for us to dock,” he reported.
“Our contacts on shore report they are forty strong, and we have a few witches who are identifying those who have been preternaturally influenced. Those will be kidnapped if at all possible and freed from the enchantments. I can’t promise how well things will work out for them, but that’s the only mercy we can afford.
If we can take those specific people alive, we do. ”
“How will we know which ones were ensorcelled?” I asked, scowling.
Like everyone else aboard my ship, I was armed and dangerous. In addition to my javelin, the bowl, and my new opal stake, I’d brought out my strongest stakes for the venture in addition to a handful of new ones I’d carved from the apple tree.
With some help from the rest of my family and Emerick, we’d managed to carve almost five hundred stakes from the ruins of the tree. While mine were the most potent, the others were capable of stopping any vampire dead.
I wondered at that; age supposedly mattered when it came to stakes.
My apple tree had, for whatever reason, broken the rules.
I suspected I was the cause, although I had no idea what I had done to the tree. The why seemed obvious enough to me.
Above all, I wanted Breckenan dead and gone so I could move on with the rest of my life.
“And the bystanders at the pier?”
“There aren’t any,” Eugene assured me. “The local broods worked with law enforcement, and before Breckenan arrived yesterday, the locals were tipped off about a rather nasty preternatural event underway. The wise left. The rest have been sharpening their stakes. All those people down there? They’re here for the same reason we are—and that fool of a vampire doesn’t have a clue. ”
Emerick grumbled something under his breath before saying, “Or he’s so confident in his victory that he doesn’t care.”
“Oh, he’s definitely confident of his victory.
That’s how this one operates. He just doesn’t expect you, some middling vampire who prefers hunting money over blood, to be capable of organizing anything of significance.
From my understanding, he thinks you just bought a basic room aboard this ship before it departed. ”
I bristled. “Excuse me?”
My brother laughed at me. “It’s not my fault how Breckenan thinks.
I know better, you definitely know better, and you’re lucky our father agrees he’s not just some middling vampire incapable of doing anything of significance.
Breckenan is going to spring his attack as soon as the gangway is in place, and they’ll probably just jump from shore onto the boat, expecting to surprise us.
Frankly spoken, it’s going to be a slaughter.
” My brother peered over the edge of the ship into the dark waters below. “There are sharks down there.”
As I’d spotted some suspicious dorsal fins earlier, I agreed with him. “I’m making a point of not going into the water. I don’t even know what types of sharks live around here.”
“They’re mostly harmless. Alas, these are not regular sharks. They’re weresharks.”
I sighed. “First, I learn about werevipers. Because that’s not scary enough, there are now weresharks.” I glanced in the direction of the group of werevipers standing guard. “No offense meant, obviously.”
The women snickered and waved off my comment, and the leader of the lot of them grinned and revealed her sharp, pointy fangs.
“We are proud to be that which goes bump in the night, and we are most pleased your father saw fit to offer us an invitation to this party. It has been a long time since we have gotten to hunt vampires. These ones are vile even by our standards.”
Right. Most werevipers were not nice, had no idea how to be nice, and embraced evil with glee. A few exceptions, like Vanessa, existed. As Vanessa hated everything to do with sea and air travel, she remained at home guarding those who remained along with her fellow copperheads.
I had made a point of calling her several times during the voyage to check in and thank her for standing guard.
I forced my attention back to the werevipers crowding the deck, all of them in human form but wearing clothes designed to fall away when they transformed into their other shapes.
They could—and would—swallow their vampire prey whole after filling them with so much venom they had no chance of survival.
When I thought about it, my father’s view of the world terrified me even more than the formidable reptiles determined to make a mess of Breckenan’s day.
In my father’s world, as long as the evil made effort to pretend they could fit into society and avoid killing anyone without just cause, he left them alone.
In the case of Meridian’s band of werevipers, they behaved until they had a kill bounty, then they allowed the darkest elements of their nature to stir. I sighed. “I recommend against using any of these for breeding.”
“We have been granted offers of… non-lethal… procreation as part of our payment for today’s festivities, although we would have done it for the sheer joy of the slaughter.”
Of that I had no doubt. “Well, may you have an excellent meal. The more you fine ladies eat, the less disgusting blood I have to choke down today.”
They giggled at my commentary, and Meridian blew me a kiss. “You’re such a doll. There’s no need to upset your tummy with this lot. What we don’t eat, our cousins will, and they enjoy when their snacks are venom flavored.”
“I like my snack sweet and inclined to tuck me in bed after I’m done with him,” I commented, allowing myself a grin. “But should all go to plan, they will feast well tonight. May your venom be plentiful and your targets common and stupid enough to get into easy reach.”
“Charlie, I can’t believe you hid this jewel of a daughter for so long. We would have babysat her with delight,” Meridian called out, and she waved a fist at my father. “You’re a cretin.”
“You would have returned her as even more of a demoness than she already is,” my father countered.
I laughed at that. “I’m only a demoness if you’ve been bad and I’m thirsty. Otherwise, I’m almost as cute as my kittens.”
Klepto and Typhoon waited for us in our suite, and if something did happen to my beautiful ship, the crew would retrieve the beasts before abandoning my vessel to her fate.
My father’s orders had been clear: if something went wrong and the ship was at any risk of sinking, everyone was to get clear.
Ships could be rebuilt.
Lives couldn’t be replaced.
“If you want to babysit her while I’m out of town in the future, I don’t mind. Just return her in comparable condition, please,” Emerick requested.
In one hand, he twirled his new opal stake. In the other, he drummed his fingers against the more concerning of his new toys, an early copy of a Bible, which had a cover crafted from human skin.
Apparently, the skin had belonged to some religious figure during the rise of books over tablets and scrolls, and he’d requested that a Bible be bound in his mortal shell.
While curious, I had refrained from asking how my father had gotten a hold of the Bible, and I’d grimaced upon learning the best way to wield it was to get a good hold on the spine and give the victim a thwacking with it.
Judgement would be passed.
Those the Bible deemed to be worthy would be healed.
The rest would perish in holy flame.
As Emerick hadn’t been reduced to a pile of smoldering ash, he’d been deemed worthy enough to make use of the relic.
“Are you still worried over the Bible?” my husband asked.
“Yes, I am.”
“You’re planning on killing people with a bowl. Hitting them with a book seems mild in comparison.”
The bowl, which rested in a sling my father had made for it on my side, would give me my first gray hair.
When he’d given it to me, he’d neglected to mention it could, on its whim, float, glow, produce holy water, chime, and otherwise behave in ways unbecoming of a dish.
“I’m not sure if the book or the bowl scare me more,” I confessed.
“You are as wise as you are beautiful,” my husband complimented. “Personally, I am grateful this specific book did not see a need to erase me from existence. And should I cross paths with Breckenan, I will not hold back when I bitch slap him with it.”
I raised a brow at that. “Are we going for the forehanded or the backhanded bitch slap?”
“Forehanded. I want to see his head snap to the side before he gets reduced to a smear before me. The snap is less satisfying with a backhanded slap.”
“I see you have put thought into this.”
“I do hope they give us at least a little sport.”
“Famous last words again,” I muttered. “I’d prefer zero sport, their immediate eradication, and extra time tonight to enjoy our visit to France.”
“She makes a good point,” Meridian said, and once again, she showed off her fangs. “We should make bets on how quickly we can finish this.”
“Thirty minutes to clear them out, but Breckenan will make a run for it, requiring us to hunt him across Europe for at least three days,” my spouse announced.
I did not, under any circumstances, wish to hunt anyone across Europe for any number of days. “How about an hour, but we get to eliminate the entire lot of them without running around Europe.”
“Three hours, and we’ll be playing cat and mouse with the assholes in the docks because they’re weak prey, and weak prey runs.
” The wereviper hissed, and while soft, the sound captured everyone’s attention.
“Whoever is closest wins, and the other two must provide the winner with a gift. The gift must be something crafted. I weave blankets. You carve. I am sure we can create appropriate gifts for the winner.”
“I like this wager. What if we’re all wrong?”
“We will give each person wagering a gift.”
I liked the way the wereviper thought. “You’re on. I could use a new blanket, and new blankets made with love are the best.”
“Well, you will not be getting love from me , but you will get warmth and skill, that much I can promise,” Meridian replied with a rather sly grin.
“I am sure your husband can assist you with any love you might require. Personally, I don’t see the point in keeping the men after they’ve outlived their usefulness.
Men are delicious. I can go a whole week without needing another feeding after I’ve had one. ”
I burst into laughter. “I went a whole month on a single man once. He tasted disgusting, and the thought of dealing with yet another disgusting man turned my stomach.”
“You need to go for the lazy ones that are just a little plump but not overly fat. They have the best flavor. They get just enough exercise for the muscles to have good structure and sufficient fat content for flavor. I wonder if their weight changes their blood’s taste profile.”
I pondered that. “That would be an interesting experiment, I do confess. The next time I’m forced to hunt a miscreant, I shall begin recording taste profiles based on temperament, body type, and weight. For me, the more vile their behavior, the worse their blood tastes.”
“That’s sad. I find the taste of evil to be particularly delicious. Goody-goodies taste bland.”
I snickered and nudged Emerick with my elbow. “You hear that? You’d taste worse than even cardboard to her.”
“It’s not much, but I’ll accept my status as bland. She’s that much less likely to eat me when there are many delicious morsels coming our way. Do be ready, ladies. This party is about to get started.”