Ship of the Dead: The Templar Series

by Debra Dunbar

  “Because we don’t do that sort of thing.” She glared at him. “There have to be nearly a hundred thousand people on this island and we are only eight. There is no need to kill, even if we discount the malnourished slaves from our food chain. It will take us a while to gain the trust of the islanders, to make allies, and to establish reliable sources of food, but we don’t need to kill.”

  “Then why are you so hungry?” Soeh asked her. “Why did you feed from JanJak twice, and would have a third time? Why not someone else?”

  “I don’t know the island yet and I’m not very good at approaching strangers and seducing them. I go out alone each night, but sometimes I can’t get anyone to let me approach them. The slaves avoid me, the mulattos are wary of a lone woman, and the French don’t always like me. I won’t attack anyone, they have to come to me willingly. As for JanJak, I have fed from others. I only take a little from JanJak each night, not enough to harm him. I like him. I like seeing him every night. He’s not just food to me. I won’t harm him.”

  Soeh frowned. “You have trouble finding food, yet your family doesn’t help you? If one of us were struggling, we’d assist. In fact, all the food we appropriate is evenly divided.”

  Madeline met Soeh’s gaze. “In the past, yes. We’ve just come out of a war where nearly all of our family were killed, just came off a boat where we thought we wouldn’t survive. We’re on a strange island. We know no one, and any social currency Aubin had back in Paris is worth nothing here. The rest of my family isn’t doing much better than I am. We’re laying the groundwork for a symbiotic relationship with a steady and regular supply, but it takes time.”

  “And you’re starving,” Adeyemi added. “How long until you snap and kill? Who is to say one of your family hasn’t already done so? You were starving and killed the sailors.”

  “No! There are so many people on this island that if we get to that point, we can take blood by force, but still not kill. We don’t want to do that because murder leads to us being hunted and killed.”

  “I thought you said you were immortal.”

  She squirmed. “We don’t age or get ill, but there are a few ways in which we can be killed. And if we put fear into the hearts of the island residents, then they will hunt and kill us. It’s happened before. It happened in Paris once, before I was turned. Leonora calls it the dark times.”

  Leonora. There was at least one other woman in this Balaj. “I know you want to protect your family, Madeline, but the only way to do that is to turn over the killer to me. Otherwise these hunts you fear will come to pass. I will track your family down and one by one kill them.” Adeyemi leaned close, his eyes locked on the vampire’s. “I am no one’s prey. Don’t think your superior strength and speed will save you. With our magic, we will render you and your family harmless, and I will take great pleasure in delivering to them the most painful deaths possible.”

  Fear flickered in her eyes. Adeyemei waited a moment for his words to sink in before he continued. “I believe what you say, that most of your family want a peaceful existence with us on the island. If you turn the killer over to me for justice, I will give your family this peace. I promise to leave them alone as long as none of them kill again. This is your choice, Madeline. Give me one killer whose actions threaten the safety of your family, or see them wiped out one by one.”

  After delivering the threat he waited. Finally she broke eye contact, looking down at her lap. “Do you have any of the bodies?”

  “Yes.” Where was she going with this? Did she have some magic that would draw the killer in through his victim?

  “When we feed we leave a scent mark on the human. It’s so we know not to feed from the same person too often. It’s also so we know if there is a favorite human who is claimed by one of us. If I can see a recent victim, I can pick up this scent and know which of my family killed them.”

  That was better. Melky’s body hadn’t yet been brought in, and the others were buried, but Ronil was still alive. Adeyemi nodded to Soeh, and she vanished, returning a few moments later accompanied by Boukman. Both were helping Ronil who looked as if he were unable to walk unassisted.

  Madeline watched the dark-skinned fierce woman, the one they called Zoe or something like that, and the old man with his crazy lamb’s-wool hair and wild eyes. They were assisting a man into the room. The survivor certainly looked as if he’d been fed aggressively from. He had all the signs of someone who had been intended for complete exsanguination but had been saved from death by an interruption serious enough that caused the feeding vampire to flee.

  She glanced at the younger man, their lidè as they called him. He was the one in charge, their Master, the one who she was absolutely certain wouldn’t hesitate to kill her if she made a wrong move. He intimidated her like no one had since she’d been turned, even more so than Master Albin. If she had any hope of getting out of this alive, she’d need to do as he said.

  “Bring the man closer to me.”

  She’d known the moment the man walked through the doorway, but there was more at stake here than surviving this night. Maybe, just maybe, this lidè and his family in the mountains could help them. Maybe these humans would be the allies they’d hoped for. They were strong, resourceful. They had a man of magic. They had a charismatic leader they’d obviously follow to the ends of the earth and back. Her Balaj needed humans like this, and hopefully she could prove to them that an alliance with vampires could be mutually beneficial.

  The two others brought the survivor forward, removing the bandage from around his neck.

  “This is one of the men your family attacked. Besides, JanJak, he is the only survivor.” The lidè’s voice was cold and hard.

  Judging from the look of fear on the survivor’s face as he stood before her, he hadn’t experienced the same enjoyable experience she’d given to JanJak. Madeline leaned forward, inhaling deeply. “Can you turn him a bit? I need to see the bites.”

  The survivor’s eyes widened, but he complied, the other two helping him to kneel down in front of her. She frowned, looking at the puncture marks, then inhaling again.

  “That wasn’t me. That wasn’t any of us. If the same creature killed the others as attacked this man, then we’re not to blame. This isn’t us. This isn’t even a vampire bite.”

  “It’s the same,” the fierce woman argued. “It’s the same bite that JanJak had. You lie.”

  They thought she was lying to protect her family. They’d seen her drink JanJak’s blood.

  The lidè moved closer as the survivor scooted out of the way. “I want the killer. And if what you say is true, you need to convince me of your, and your family’s, innocence. Otherwise you will all pay for these deaths.”

  “What makes you so sure that one of your family didn’t do this?” the fierce woman added. “Your Master Aubin stole something, risking the lives of your entire family. He’s killed. Maybe he now has a taste for death.”

  It was time to take a chance on these people and hope that they believed her.

  “I can tell.” Madeline looked down at her lap, then up again, meeting the lidè’s eyes. “We have a venom that gives pleasure to our victims, but as I said, it also leaves a scent on their body and in their blood. That man has little blood left, but the scent that is on him is not from my family. It’s not even from a vampire.” She paused for effect. “But I know that smell. I have seen your killer. I saw her just last night, and there’s no mistaking that odd smell. I don’t know what she is, but by her smell she’s not human and she’s not vampire.”

  “Who then?” The lidè exchanged a glance with the old man. “Where did you meet her?”

  “In the town by the dry-goods shop. She looked like one of the Tainos. She was old and hunched over with a gnarled walking stick that had red flames carved into the handle.”

  Adeyemi left Soeh in charge of their prisoner, telling her to kill the woman if she so much as blinked the wrong way. Then he and Boukman walked all the way to the gate, hop
ing that the vampire couldn’t hear them at that distance.

  “What do you think?” Adeyemi believed the woman was telling the truth, but even if she or her family didn’t kill the men, they were still dangerous. One didn’t allow a poisonous centipede to live in one’s shoe just because it hadn’t yet bitten.

  “I think that she is the youngest member of her family, and that she feels especially vulnerable.” Boukman stroked his gray beard in thought. “We could use this to our advantage. JanJak clearly is enthralled with her, and I get the impression that he is more than just a convenient source of blood to her.”

  Adeyemi narrowed his eyes. “She is fast. She moves silently, and I think her loyalty to her family isn’t particularly strong right now. If we offer her sanctuary, or perhaps assist her in securing a consistent food source, she could help us in our raids as well as help us track down this killer.”

  Boukman nodded. “There are some logistics to work out. I don’t know how many would need to feed her, and how often they could safely do so. And of course they’d need to volunteer.”

  Adeyemi remembered the expression on JanJak’s face as the woman bit him. “I don’t think that will be a problem. But that’s for the future. Right now we need to find out who this old woman is who killed our men.”

  “We can use that as our leverage with the vampire. Tell her we won’t set her free or provide her any food until she agrees helps us track the killer down. If her senses are that good, she should easily be able to find this old woman.”

  Adeyemi hated to threaten her. In his experience, threats only went so far. And as he remembered from his time on the plantation, threats sometimes only made someone dig in further. “I’ll speak to her. We could eliminate her and her family, but I would hate to do that and have these killings continue. We’d be doing away with possibly the only person who could help us find the murderer.”

  “And I have some ideas what this creature is – the one who might be responsible for the murders,” Boukman said.

  Adeyemi looked back at his house where the vampire woman sat under guard. He hoped so, because he’d be spending the night awake ensuring this vampire didn’t escape and kill any of them. “Who? One of the French with poisoned darts? Some other creature from across the waters.”

  He nodded. “No. This is a Taino folktale, one that I always worried could be true. We possibly could have a soucouyant on the island.”

  Boukman couldn’t be serious. That was just an island legend, an old woman transformed at night to go in search of prey. “But we haven’t seen a fireball. Don’t soucouyants always travel as fire?”

  “Not fire that burns or shoots across the sky like a star in flight. The soucouyant is a wisp of red-gold light, flickering like a fire as she darts along the ground and slips through windows and doors.”

  Like a red lizard. Adeyemi reflected on Boukman’s words, not completely ruling the idea out. “These vampires arrived recently. The timing is in alignment with the murders. If we have a soucouyant on the island, then we would have had deaths before. One would hardly appear from nowhere, and normal humans don’t suddenly become soucouyants. There would have been other deaths.”

  Boukman shook his head. “Maybe not. Like this woman said about vampires, soucouyants can take blood without killing. Victims awaken thinking they’ve been bitten by an insect in the night. Unlike the vampires, there is no enjoyment, and soucouyants are born – they never were human. Other than that, they are similar.”

  “So why would a soucouyant kill?”

  Boukman tapped a finger against his lips. “She is sick and lacks control, or perhaps is pregnant and needs more sustenance than before? Possibly she knows the vampires are in town and feels threatened by their presence.”

  That made sense. Adeyemi again looked back at his house. “This soucouyant is trying to frame the newcomers, so they are hunted and she has the island once again to herself? Madeline said they feared being hunted, that in spite of their immortality they had vulnerabilities. Perhaps there is a soucouyant that is taking advantage of that fact.”

  Boukman followed the other man’s gaze. “That, my friend, is exactly where my thoughts lead.”

  Chapter 3

  Adeyemi stood over the woman, waiting for night to fall. Close to dawn she’d begun to panic, insisting that if they didn’t let her go that they needed to put her somewhere that the light couldn’t reach her. He’d been inclined to discount her pleas but her terror had been so real that he’d complied. They’d tied her in the back corner of a root cellar, and then something even more strange had happened. Madeline had turned to him, her eyes huge, and told him that she was trusting him with her life.

  “I don’t know you. This might be the last minute of my life. I might never awaken again and I need you to know that my life is completely in your hands. If sunlight touches me, I’ll die. If you come down here during the day and see that I’m dead, leave me until nightfall. Don’t take my body into the light or I’ll never awaken again.”

  Fanged blood-drinking people, four of his men dead, a possible soucouyant, and now this tale of corpses awakening as long as no daylight touched them. He’d asked Boukman, and the man had confirmed that there were circumstances where the dead could walk again, so after posting a guard over the root cellar and getting some sleep, he’d crept in to see for himself.

  She was dead, slumped in the chair against the ropes that bound her. Her skin was cold, and waxy. No breath came from her nose or mouth, no heart beat in her chest. If she hadn’t warned him, he most definitely would have taken her body outside to prepare for burial. What would have happened? Would it have turned to dust? Burst into flames? Or would she just not awaken in the evening?

  So he left her, a dead body among the vegetables, and went about his day only to return at sunset and watch.

  “Boss, this is crazy,” Soeh said. She’d insisted on coming with him just in case the magical bag around the woman’s neck failed and she awoke with the strength of ten men and the speed of the wind.

  And awaken she did. Her chest moved, her lips parted as she began to breathe. She continued to have no heartbeat, but after a few minutes she stirred, sitting upward on the chair as her eyes fluttered open.

  Relief flooded her face, and her lips turned upward in a sad smile. “And now you know my secrets. Immortal, but killed by a ray of sun.”

  “That’s a pretty significant loophole in your contract for immortality,” Adeyemi commented. “I assume you vampires hide during the day so your enemies can’t kill you. And of course, at night you would be impossible to kill.”

  “Not impossible, but difficult. And, of course, you’d have to catch us first. I let my guard down, but now that I know you have these magical bags, I’ll be prepared next time.”

  He shrugged. “Who’s to say we’ll ever let you free? Maybe this night will be your last. Now that we know your secrets, we’ll be prepared and able to take down the rest of your family.”

  Her face tightened as she raised her chin. “That would be foolish of you. I’m the only one who can help you find the murderer. I want to strike a deal – my freedom for my assistance, and a peace between us.”

  That was what he was hoping for. “How can we trust that you speak for your family? And how do we know you truly can, and will, help us find the murderer once we set you free? You could just slip into the shadows and vanish.”

  “I won’t. My family is on the edge of starvation. If you can assist us in developing a stable and reliable supply of blood, we’ll vow not to kill your people, to help you find this murderer, and partner with you in other matters. We’ve done it before. In Paris, we had these sort of arrangements with several of the guilds. We’d gladly work with you for the betterment of both of our families.”

  “If you lead us to the murderer and we can prove that she is guilty, if you and your family help us kill her, then we will consider a partnership.”

  She smiled. “Do you know how to kill her? She’s not huma
n, nor is she vampire. I have no idea what her vulnerabilities are.”

  “Our magic-user, Boukman, believes the killer is a soucouyant. If so, she’ll turn into fire at night and go to find prey. Once she is fire, we can kill her.”

  “I don’t know anything about soucouyants, but the old woman I met in the street was stronger than a human. She told me to get off the island, so I’m thinking the she is trying to force us to leave or put us in danger of being hunted by killing these people openly and framing us for the deaths. I’ll lead you to her, then you can do the rest. I only ask that I be allowed to feed before we go so I’m not so weak. I promise I won’t hurt whoever volunteers.”

  JanJak would happily volunteer, but the man had already given enough blood the last few days. Finding another volunteer would be problematic. The others knew about the killings and would be scared of this strange woman who drank their blood. He’d need to offer them compensation, or they’d be here all night arguing over who was going to let this woman drink their blood.

  “One donor only. And if you hurt them I’ll kill you. Understand?”

  She nodded, wide eyed. “Understand.”

  “Soeh will be accompanying us back to town to find this soucouyant along with Boukman.”

  Madeline raised her eyebrows. “Zoe?”

  “Soeh.”

  “Zoe?”

  “Soeh,” the woman snarled, taking a step forward.

  Adeyemi put out a hand to stop her. “It’s okay. Her French is strange. It’s no wonder she has difficulty pronouncing your name.” Who knew how garbled his own name would sound.

  “Zoe,” the vampire announced. “And the magic user is Boukman. My lover is JanJak. And you are…Lidè. What exactly does that mean?” the vampire asked.

  “Chef? Patron?”