Page 28 of Death Dance

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?”

My father’s gaze fixed on the ancient cruise ship, which was lit up bright as day as workers prepared for her journey. “It’s easier to ask what industries I don’t have involvement with, young Emerick. For as long as men have sought ways to become wealthy, I have been accumulating my fortunes. Take these piers, for example. How did I get space at a pier for this ship on such short notice? It’s simple. I own these piers. I have an agreement with the local port authority for keeping my operations legal, but only ships I wish to be here may be here. The empire you know of was built for my daughter’s sake. I built my cruise liner empire for Benoit’s sake. Alisander’s empire is made of jewels ethically eased from the ground and sold for excessive amounts to the ridiculously wealthy. Jewels from those mines rest upon the heads of queens and kings around the world. Eugene’s empire is in the hospitality field, featuring prestigious hotels, resorts, and places people go to capture happiness for a while. Of course, my spoiled sons have made their own way rather than take over the empires I built for them, but should I secure my final rest, I will have done my duty and provided for all my children. Should I have another child, which is unlikely despite my daughter’s prodding, I will build them an empire as well.”

As a child, there was one hotel we had frequented often, and I’d loved the place; it had boasted a play area where hotel staff would keep an eye on the children of guests. “Is that hotel in Delaware one of yours?”

“It is. I had it built shortly after your birth, as I knew you would need other vampires keeping an eye on you when I could not. When I was in meetings with your mother, we’d host them there so vampires in my brood could watch you interact with their human children—the girls who were present were children of friends and relatives of vampires. It allowed me to socialize you with other children safely. And if you did start showing fang, one of my brood could attend to you as needed. You never did show any fang, and as you loved the visits to the playroom, we often made excuses to have those meetings.” My father offered me a gentle smile. “You were a remarkably sweet child, especially for a child of a vampire—especially for being a vampire. Every time we had to rein you in, I think it hurt us far more than it hurt you.”

I considered his point of view, and after a while, I could accept and acknowledge the truth of his words. “I would like to remind you that I rip off the heads of miscreant vampires for a living, and I drink them dry of their blood before accepting sinful amounts of money for having had the pleasure of killing them.”

He chuckled. “Sweet doesn’t mean helpless. If you were to rank her viciousness to the undeserving, how would you rank her, Emerick?”

“Kittens are more dangerous. Cotton poses more of a material risk to life and limb. Limp noodles whipped at the unsuspecting are more likely to leave a mark.”

I gasped over the ruthlessness of his reply. “Excuse you, Mr. Lowrance!”

“Where’s the lie, Mrs. Lowrance? I’ve seen you catch spiders and release them outside because you couldn’t bear the thought of killing it for being a spider.”

I scowled. “It was a daddy long legs, and it was just doing its job. I just gave it a new job to kill bugs outside rather than in our bedroom, and then I got bug spray and killed every non-spider in our room with ruthless ferocity. I only spared one bug. The rest fell to my prowess.”

“The other bugs hitchhiked from the branches and dared to bite you.”

“We need to do a full spraying of the penthouse. Any bugs biting me is unacceptable. I am the biter here, not some stupid insect.” I directed my ire to my father and pointed at the ancient cruise ship. “Scrap her and you will regret it for tens of thousands of years, old man.”

My father burst into laughter. “I already told your brother to work on the project. Just don’t come crying to me when you find out you want to keep a royal pain in the ass floating, because while she is beautiful, she is a royal pain in the ass. She costs a fortune, she requires frequent dry docking, and she enjoys vexing me.”

“I couldn’t care less, Dad. If we have to dry dock her yearly for a thousand years, so be it.”

“Should she come to a premature demise on this venture, I will have her rebuilt for you,” my father offered. “I can’t promise she’ll survive this venture, but should she, you may have her for however long she makes you happy.”

“Emerick, find me some new miscreants to drain dry and claim the bounty for. Our new daughter is expensive, and I need money.”

My father bowed his head, lifted his hand, and rubbed his temple. “For as long as she is in service, you don’t have to worry about her bills. She pays for herself. That is how a profitable business works. I keep the ships that make profits and decommission or sell the ones that don’t. And I suspect, should she no longer be serviceable as a cruise ship, she will have a bright future as a floating museum ahead of her, especially if we allow patrons to spend the night aboard her and treat her as a hotel a few times a year. I will find a way to keep her legacy alive if that is what you wish for her.”

I narrowed my eyes and considered the ship. “Emerick, can we host the ball on the ship? Can we reenact a cruise as though we were sailing back when she was new?”

“I’m sure the ship has been significantly modernized, but we could dress the part readily enough, I suppose. Why?”

“Wouldn’t it be fun to have a grand ball on a ship? Like back on the Titanic except with no close encounters with icebergs?” I smiled at the elegant ship, marveling over all the many years since her commissioning. “Can we take a tour of her, Dad?”

After narrowing his eyes, my father sighed, checked something on his phone, and dialed a number. “Sorry to bother you, Alberto, but it seems my daughter has become the Eclipse’s biggest fan and wishes to see if she is as magnificent on the inside as she is on the outside. If the state rooms haven’t been assigned, I fear my daughter and her husband are going to insist on traveling to Europe aboard the vessel. If they’ve been assigned already, punt someone to a different suite, and I’ll make certain they understand their place.”

My father would, and I rolled my eyes over his attitude. Rather than call him out on it, I waited for him to finish his call. Once he hung up, he said, “In good news for my sanity, cabin assignments haven’t been made yet, so we will tour the state rooms and you will pick the one that will be reserved permanently for your use. If you pick my state room, I will pick a new one. I am not telling you which one it is because you will take it because you can.”