The Death Thief

Epilogue

I was surprised to see Calista admiring the brick facade of an old vacant building along main street during my morning walk. It'd been a week since Derosiers' exile and during that time, no one had seen Calista or Matias.

Not that anyone had been worried. The few feeders that remained with Matias, had been given a hefty allowance and rooms at the hotel, which were booked under an indefinite stay. Their presence outside of Derosiers' old mansion, solidified the prevailing assumption that Matias and Calista were locked away inside the grand manor enjoying a sort of honeymoon.

"Good morning," I said as I approached the blissfully ignorant Calista.

"Good morning," she replied with a breezy smile that sealed her eyes in happy semi circles. "Heading to Hen's?"

"How'd you know?"

"Just because I haven't been around, doesn't mean I haven't heard about what's going on in town. You've been making a habit of skipping out on Spencer's breakfasts. Which is a shame because he makes the best omelettes." Her lips may have questioned me, but her eyes hid a knowing smile.

I cleared my throat and looked to the large window before us and the "For Rent" sign tacked on to it.

"So what finally brought you out and about?" I asked.

"We've been trying to decide how to proceed," she replied, graciously accepting my request to drop the subject. "Certainly we'd like to get married, but we decided it would be best to settle some things before celebrating."

"Like what?"

"Well, we could live off of Bernadette's inheritance for a couple centuries, but I'd be bored out of my mind," said Calista with a roll of her eyes. "So we've decided to start up a little grocery store, I suppose, and I need to find a location for it. We'll need refrigeration units though and I'm not sure this building is best suited for that." She tapped a finger as she considered the space before her.

"What kind of grocery store?"

"Did you know that when you get someone cremated, that only bone composes the ashes?" she asked, turning back to me.

"Uh, no, I guess I didn't know that."

"All organic material gets vaporized, the fires are just that hot. Well, I got to thinking, what a terrible waste that is. I mean, that's food I could be eating!" She threw her hands out in frustration, but took a breath and continued. "Matias thinks he might have some contacts outside of town that we can work with for setting up a crematorium in a nearby city. They'll harvest the deceased flesh and organs for us and burn the bones for the ashes. No human family will be any the wiser because they're getting exactly what they would have gotten had it been a typical cremation."

"Well," I said reflecting on that notion, "I suppose that's fair. I mean, if it is just destroyed anyways..."

"Exactly!" She pounded her fist into her hand, a determined smirk on her face. "Zombies don't have to go hungry. I'm certain that this is the answer Raid and the others have been looking for ever since they were banned from harvesting out of graveyards. Too dangerous nowadays, you know. Cemeteries have far too much security now."

"Ah, I see," I said, nodding my head. I still didn't quite see. I had only been there for a little over a week and I still hadn't adjusted to the shift in my worldview, but these strange things had slowly become rather reasonable.

"And we're going to help the vampires too," she said, with slightly less enthusiasm. "Matias wants to set up a fund with a vampire investment firm in the city. He's headed there tonight to work out all the specifics, but we'll use the proceeds from the fund to sponsor feeders. They won't necessarily belong to anyone, but they'll be required to donate blood whenever it's humanly possible and we'll keep the blood in our store for lower income vampires to purchase at a reasonable price."