The Jackal (Black Dagger Brotherhood - Prison Camp 1)

“Off to the barn?” she asked without looking back at him. “You’re a little early tonight.”

His reply was a grunt as he sat in one of the wicker chairs he had made himself.

Now she frowned and glanced over her shoulder. “You’re not going to work, then?”

Her grandfather took his pipe out of the loose pocket of his work shirt. The tobacco pouch was already in his hand. The filling of the chamber was a ritual that felt too intimate to witness, so Nyx lowered herself down on the top step of the stairs and stared out over the lawn toward the barn. The shcht of him initiating his old-fashioned lighter was followed by the sweet smell of the smoke, another familiar.

“When do you leave?” he asked.

Nyx twisted around. Unlike the screen door’s frame strike or the pipe’s aroma, her grandfather’s voice was not something that frequently registered. And it was such a surprise that the soft syllables didn’t immediately translate into words with meaning.

When they did, she shook her head.

But that was not her answer.

Her grandfather got to his feet and came forward, the puffs of sweet smoke released from his mouth rising over his head and lingering in his wake. She thought he was coming to address her, but he didn’t stop as he passed by. He continued down the steps and onto the fresh green lawn.

“Walk with me,” he said.

Nyx jumped up and scrambled to his side. She couldn’t recall the last time he’d asked her for anything, much less to be in his company.

They were silent as they progressed over to the barn, and he opened the side door, leaving the big bay panels locked in place. As she entered the cool darkness and smelled the wood shavings, Nyx was aware of her heart pounding. This was their grandfather’s sacred space. No one came in here.

Illumination flared overhead and all around, and Nyx tried not to gasp in wonder. Strings of little lights had been strung around the rafters, a galaxy of stars, and the other old-fashioned fixtures glowed golden yellow. As she breathed in deep, she couldn’t stop herself from going forward to the two sawhorses in the center of the bay.

A work of art was being constructed upon them.

Adirondack guide boats were a thing of the gracious past, first built in the mid-1800s to serve the sporting needs of the wealthy who came north to enjoy upstate New York’s lakes and mountains. Designed to accommodate two passengers and their gear, they were lower-gunwale’d and of broader beam than canoes, and they were rowed cross-handed from the center seat by a guide who had a set of oars.

Although so much had changed in the last hundred and seventy years, there were still those who valued the antiquated, beautiful glide of the handmade creations, and her grandfather made and serviced them for a small list of loyal customers.

Nyx ran her fingertips over the long, raw cedar laps that ran horizontally along the cedar ribs.

“You’re almost done with this one.” She touched the rows of tiny copper nails. “It’s beautiful.”

There were four other guide boats on sawhorses in the barn: two that had received their first coats of varnish, the honey color of the wood and graining coming through. Another one was just a skeleton. Another was being repaired.

Nyx pivoted around. Her grandfather was standing by his display of tools, the gleaming array of chisels, hammers, handheld sanders, and clamps mounted down the wall of the barn over a long work counter. Everything had its place, and there was no power anything. Her grandfather made the boats in the old way . . . because that was how he’d done it since he’d begun making them in the Victorian era. Same process. Same discipline.

“When do you leave?” her grandfather said.

As she focused on him, she realized she often dropped her eyes when he was around. Part of it was his preternatural self-containment, and her sense that he preferred not being looked at. Most of it was because she felt as though he could read her mind, and she preferred her thoughts to be private.

Maybe he could see into her thoughts, maybe he couldn’t.

She’d rather not know either way.

God, he’d aged. His hair was all white now, and his cheeks were hollowed more than she remembered, but his shoulders were straight and so was his spine. Surely they had more time with him. In vampires, you had to worry as soon as the first physical changes of aging started to manifest. The decline was usually lightning fast thereafter.

“Grandfather,” she hedged.

“Do not lie to me, young. There are others who must be considered here.”

He didn’t mean himself, of course. Posie was the problem, the thing that was holding everything up. As usual.

“At midnight,” Nyx said. “I want to leave at midnight.”