A Vampyre's Daughter

by Jeff Schanz

  He once again examined his bucket. Satisfied, he stood up and let the goat wander off. He and Lia began to walk out of the barn. Brandt had finished as much of the story as he was willing to tell, but Lia was giving him an expectant look, hopeful that there might be more.

  As they both closed the barn doors, she asked excitedly, “What happened then?”

  Brandt didn’t want to be rude, but the full story was an acutely sore subject. He was reluctant to even share the beginning of it, but that part was innocent enough. He faked a smile and tried to think of a way to politely refuse.

  Lia noticed his apprehension and, as she had so accurately done before, made the correct assumption. “I’m so sorry. I am asking too much. You don’t wish to tell me more. I understand.”

  Brandt looked at Lia’s deflated face and wished he could say, “No it’s fine. I’d love to tell you.” But it wasn’t fine. And he didn’t want to tell anybody. It wasn’t so much the telling, it was the reliving.

  “It’s ok,” said Brandt. “But, yeah, I’m not ready to talk about the rest to anybody. Sorry.”

  Lia nodded slowly and stared out at the ocean. And to recent form, her mood made an abnormally quick change. Her face now looked drawn and wistful. “You’ll have to excuse my eagerness. I don’t hear many new stories here. There’s no one to talk to. I have my books, but they speak to me silently. I long for a human voice.” She paused, probably realizing that she was doing far worse than asking Brandt for more: She was guilting him. Her hand covered her mouth as she faced Brandt. She was simpering and trying to hide her shame. “Oh, listen to me being pitiful. I am making it worse, aren’t I? I’m terrible”

  Brandt had felt guilty for saying “No,” but seeing her be self-conscious about feminine persuasive power through pity and guilt, he held back his own laugh. He said, “It’s like telling a starving puppy he can’t have my cookie.”

  For an instant, she looked like she might laugh too, then a sudden pinched look came over her face. With a stern tone, she said, “You equate me with an undernourished dog?”

  Brandt was stunned. “I, uh… Oh, no, I didn’t mean…” He was both aghast that he had somehow offended her with an innocent joke, and perturbed that it was that easy to offend her with an innocent joke.

  A moment later she took the lump out of his throat as she burst into twittery laughter. She grinned and pointed at him. On anyone else, the grin would’ve have been roguish. On her, it was simply charming.

  “You little…” he started, and knew he shouldn’t finish. Instead, he dipped his fingers in the goat’s milk and flicked it at her.

  Considering she was completely covered from head to toe except for her face, and at worst two whole drops made it to that face, her intentionally vaudevillian look of shock and offense was even more comical. She made an equally comedic angry smirk as she snatched up one of the eggs from her pouch and held it up threateningly.

  “I dare you,” said Brandt.

  Wavering, she first looked like she didn’t actually dare, and then decided that she could dare. She threw the egg.

  Brandt didn't know many women that had accurate aim throwing things, but the egg was on target for his face before he could register that Lia had done it. The egg hit him in the forehead before he could decide to duck. She was not only accurate but fast. He stood dumbstruck with egg on his face – literally.

  “Uhhh,” he said, lost for words.

  Lia immediately threw both hands up to her face. She looked ashamed but was laughing. “You – you dared me to,” she squeaked.

  Brandt blinked deadpan as egg yolk slid across the bridge of his nose. Lia’s cream-colored skin was turning bright pink from laughter. Brandt reached up and sloughed off some of the egg, cupping a considerable amount of it in his palm. He slowly, stiffly walked toward Lia. Her hands lowered to just her lips. She mouthed, “I’m so sorry,” shrinking back.

  Brandt examined the egg in his hand. “You know, there are starving children in China. Puppies too.” He was relishing her anxiety of retaliation. “Sooo wasteful. I should really share.” Standing directly in front of her, his submerged grin was slowly rising to the surface. He held up his palm.

  “No, no. You wouldn’t. You won’t,” she said, not for a moment believing her own statement.

  Brandt made a pretense of considering a choice, then he smeared Lia’s face with the leftover egg. She didn’t even block his hand. She just closed her eyes and scrunched up her face. He painted her cheeks and with the transparent goo and cocked his head to review his handiwork. She shivered a little, her pink cheeks shining brightly from the oozing egg.

  “Ok, ok, ok,” she begged, her lips twitching from the effort to keep from laughing. “Are you finished?”

  He smirked and said, “Almost.” There was a glob on his forehead, so he grasped her head in his sticky fingers and pressed his forehead against hers. The egg made a sickly squishing sound and squirted a little across both their eyelids. She grimaced, still holding in laughter. He let her go and said, “There. We’re even. And we’ve completed the ritual of the egg squishing. Now we’re blood brothers, or engaged, or something.”

  He regretted the words before they even left his mouth. He was thinking of the funny stories of ignorant travelers to isolated tribes that unwittingly made social faux pas by giving someone eating utensils, or a piece of food, or doing something fun to express friendship, and finding out that they had either been knighted, promised their lives, or married their women by accident. It was a careless thing to say “engaged,” even if it was meant in jest.

  Lia gave him a curious little squint, but defused the moment by saying, “I think it only means that we both need to get cleaned up.”

  “Are you calling me dirty?” said Brandt, happy to roll with the direction change.

  Lia shot him her charming little rogue grin, then turned and walked back to the house. She patted the pouch hanging from her shoulder. “Don’t try anything. I have the rest of the eggs.”

  “I’m sneaky,” said Brandt, following her.

  She almost laughed again. “No, not really.”

  Touché’. Brandt was going to need to keep a notebook with diagrams in order to figure out this girl. Lia was far more than she seemed. In so many ways.

  The breakfast was only adequate to curb Brandt’s hunger, not quench it. He was hesitant to tell her that he was going to need something more substantial for lunch. To her credit, Lia seemed to guess as much, and as she cleared their plates, she said, “We should get you some meat for your lunch. I’m sorry. This wasn’t enough.”

  “It’s great for now. Really, thank you.”

  She nodded and seemed mollified.

  She had looked comfortable enough in the previously abandoned kitchen, which made Brandt adjust his theory that she never used the kitchen at all. Just apparently not often. He had tried to help, but she insisted he stay seated. His help at the goat pen and barn were enough of a strain on his body for a whole day, she told him. Brandt didn’t agree, but didn’t outwardly argue the point.

  Lia said she had other things to do, and for Brandt to do whatever he wished, just preferably take it easy.

  Since his wrappings were still snug and holding, and he had spent enough time confined inside, he decided he would roam around the island. As he had noticed before, the flat, traversable area was fairly small and didn't take too long to comb. Besides simple exploring, he was looking for anything he missed in his earlier panicked escape effort. But there were no docks, ramps, or stairs anywhere that he could see. He didn't retry the little cove he had found. Another attempt at climbing down to that should come much when his body could handle the stress. For now, he was content to casually walk around and just view things. The island was indeed beautiful, despite its isolation, or perhaps because of it. His nervous energy and feeling of wasting time were fading a little, but only a little. He hated doing nothing unless it was keeping hidden on a recon mission. He
needed purpose. Here was just solitude and nature. One needed to appreciate both, or go crazy.

  His ankles had been pushed to their limit, so he decided in order to remain outside he would just sit somewhere until either his energy waned, or he just got too bored. Anything to stay out of bed. He sat on a low stone wall that extended from the house, which was far enough away from the cliff to be safe, yet close enough for an excellent view of the ocean. The late morning light flashed in the wave troughs, occasionally illuminating a sea lion's head or a porpoise fin. He wasn't certain, but he thought he caught the white plume of a whale's blow off in the distance. Watching carefully, he waited for the telltale fluke to appear, or another blow, but saw neither. The effort of scanning the water for another whale wasn't rewarded. When he turned away from looking at the water, he noticed that the reverse image of the light speckles had been burned into his retinas. He blinked them away eventually and continued his lookout, mindful not to stare at any one place too long.

  His mind was turning its cogs and wheels to tell him that there were things that needed to be addressed and reconciled. Or at least revisited. But he felt his brain was untrustworthy until he got over his concussive symptoms. For now, he’d simply go with the flow and figure out his next moves in bits at a time.

  He noticed a few boats off in the distance. Probably fishing vessels. Commercial cargo and passenger ships likely used the waters further south. Nothing he saw sparked any concern.

  He took a deep inhale of the sea air. There were a lot of things to think about and he had been ignoring them. For a little while today it was nice to do nothing more than talk with a pretty girl and stare out at the pretty water, and have a decent meal. His caveman brain would be satisfied with those accomplishments.

  Something distracted him from his musings and he turned to the sound. It was Lia approaching with a dead chicken dangling from her hand. She smiled as she approached. She wore a butcher’s apron that had a large splatter of blood on it. Usually, butcher’s aprons were bloodiest in the midsection, about the height were a cleaver and a tabletop would be. Lia’s was much bloodier across her chest. Maybe she didn’t have a butcher’s block to work on and used something else to kill chickens with. Regardless of the morbid implication smeared across her apron, she held up the dead chicken proudly.

  Her normally pale and creamy skin was almost pink now. He had seen her turn pink earlier when she was laughing and embarrassed, this time she was simply being cheerful. Maybe a few hours in the sun had given her a little burn. Pale people always found out those lessons too late once their skin started to hurt and peel. Since she wore so much protection from the sun, it seemed odd that she would let herself get that exposed all of a sudden. But who knows?

  She waved the dead chicken at Brandt like it was a bag of money. He nodded with a quick smile and got up to follow her into the house.

  * * * *

  Three men climbed up from a 38-foot Chris Craft boat that idled next to a massive yacht. One man was a dark-skinned black man, and the other two were Caucasian. They clambered onto the yacht’s deck as the boat’s driver fastened a rope around one of the yacht’s cleats, and stayed in idle. The three men didn’t wave or acknowledge the ride. They climbed the stairs to the second level and entered the open sliding door to the yacht’s observation room.

  The room was well appointed in stylish leather chairs, ornate fabric couches, and carved wooden tables. Most of the furniture looked antique, yet in perfect condition. It had an imperial French flair like it was stolen from a chateau in Marseilles, although the condition of the furniture looked better than the ones that were actually in French chateaus.

  A long-haired man in a dark grey suit sat by himself in one of the larger antique chairs. He held a crystal glass in one hand that was half full of a deep maroon liquid. He bade the men sit down.

  They did. They didn’t bother with any kind of relaxed pose. No crossed legs, no leaning back. All three sat at attention. They stared at the grey-suited man without any greeting or questions.

  The grey-suited man let them stare at him for a moment, then shifted his own seating position to be able to face them better.

  “So?” he said simply. His voice was smooth but predatory.

  One of the three visiting men, the black man, spoke up. “We lost all three men.” His own voice was harsh and raspy.

  The grey-suited man stayed stationary, showing no emotion or acknowledgment to hearing the other man. After a moment he asked flatly, “How?”

  “He blew up our boats.”

  Again, the grey-suited man made no emotional acknowledgment. He was like a seated statue. Finally, he sighed slightly and looked at his glass. He twirled the liquid within. “Did he survive?”

  “We found no one. Just wreckage.”

  Grey Suit nodded slowly. “But I take it that you don’t believe he’s dead, Tobias?”

  Tobias, the spokesman for the three visitors took a long pause and briefly glanced at one of his conspirators. He eventually shook his head. “No evidence either way. But…” Tobias paused again and considered his words carefully. “But, when we scouted the area, we found something we thought may be of importance to you.”

  Grey Suit took a long protracted sip from his glass, savored the flavor, then focused his gaze back on his guest. “I thought as much, or you wouldn’t have come out here to bother me with reports of failures that should be corrected before I ever see you again.” His voice had a hint of some indistinguishable accent. Grey Suit ground a guttural sound through his tight throat before he spoke to his guest again. “And?”

  “There was an island nearby. There’s a house on it. A big house.”

  At first, the grey-suited man looked annoyed that Tobias’ news was so mundane. Then something dawned on him and his eyes narrowed. His refocused stare bore into Tobias. Grey Suit shifted forward in his seat.

  “Go on,” said Grey Suit.

  “At first, we were interested in it because we wondered if there might be witnesses. And if Dekker did survive, he might have made it there. So we looked up the island’s information. It’s called Makal. And it’s been privately owned for almost a hundred years.”

  The long-haired man in the grey suit was still interested but wasn't enthralled. He flared his fingers out to say “so what?”

  Tobias explained, “We’ve been looking hard for your target, but we’ve only been looking inland. This island actually fits the criteria you outlined. It might be worth looking into by itself. We should check out other islands as well to see if Dekker made it to any others. But we should definitely check out that one.”

  Grey Suit still looked impatient. Tobias glanced once again at his compatriots, then met Grey Suit’s gaze again. He wasn’t sure what else to add.

  Grey Suit eventually sat back and once again twirled the liquid in his glass. His jaw seemed to stiffen as he spoke. “I hear guesses, but not a lot of information.”

  Tobias said, “I’ll need permission to pull my resources in order…”

  Grey Suit sent his glass sailing into the opposite wall with the speed of an arrow. The crystal shattered and painted the cabin wall red. Grey Suit made no change of emotion other than the small exertion when he threw the glass. “Is this too difficult a task? Should I find someone more capable?”

  Tobias stiffened. He inflated his large chest. “No. We can handle it.”

  Grey Suit nodded. “Good. Get it done.”

  There didn’t seem to be an invitation for further conversation, regardless whether the three men had more to say and ask. Tobias stood and nodded at his compatriots. They also stood.

  As they turned to leave, the grey-suited man said, “There is a single vial of elixir for each of you on the table over there. I will withhold the rest until you return with better information.”

  Tobias nodded and all three men collected the offered vials. Then they began to walk back out to the deck.

  On the way, they passed t
wo crew members awkwardly handling a large bundle wrapped in a white sheet. The sheet was stained with copious amounts of what looked like blood. As the three men walked by, the bundle was tossed overboard and made a heavy splash into the water.

  The three men didn’t pause on their way back to the waiting boat.

  CHAPTER 5

  Lia wasn’t as confident a cook when it came to meat. Eggs were no problem, but spicing and cooking a chicken, plus plucking and cleaning it, was not in her wheelhouse. Brandt's Iowa farmer buddy had lent his knowledge of chicken preparation, as well as goat milking, so Brandt took care of the prepping, spicing and cooking, but needed Lia's help obtaining further ingredients.

  It turned out that the locked pantry wasn't locked after all. The latch was just rusted solid. There wasn't much of anything inside the pantry besides a bag of salt which seemed to have kept well and a basket of old potatoes which didn't. Lia picked some tomatoes, onions, and peppers from her garden, and something that might be a cucumber. He did some dicing to each one of the garden items and made a topping for the chicken once it was cooked.

  Cooking the meat was an adventure. Though the kitchen had the usual appliances, including a stove and oven, none of them worked. With no gas or electricity, the appliances were useless. There was no telling why they were even there, but that would be a story for another day. Brandt ended up building a fire in an outside fire pit and they cooked the chicken over an open flame. Though that kind of cooking had become nostalgic for campers, it actually did the trick just fine. Brandt spooned the fresh garden salsa over the chicken and wished Lia bon appétit. If he was the only one eating, which he originally assumed, then he wouldn’t have bothered with any flourish. But Lia was enthralled with his preparations and culinary skills, and seemed eager to try the finished product, so he decided to do it up for both of them and make it as nice as possible with the limited resources.