Let Them Eat Stake: A Vampire Chef Novel

by Sarah Zettel

  “What?” cried a whole Greek chorus.

  What!

  Feet thundered across wood, out in the dining room at first, and then overhead. I leaned a knee up against the cupboard. The door went still. Trudy was looking from the warrant to me, to the warrant again. I met her gaze. She could give the whole thing away right then. But she just marched back out into the dining room, papers in her fist.

  “Well, ain’t this just a hoot and a half,” muttered Reese.

  “Yeah.”

  Feet tromped down the stairs again, a whole parade of them.

  “I don’t believe you!” shrieked Deanna

  “As your mother pointed out, Deanna, you need to get control…,” said the man.

  “That is enough.” Mrs. Alden’s words were colder than a vampire’s touch.

  “Now look…”

  The door to the dining room swung back hard as Deanna pushed her way through, tears streaming down her outraged face. I grabbed her arm, firmly. “Is everything all right, Ms. Alden?” I asked loudly for the benefit of the ears listening from the dining room. For Deanna, I jerked my chin down toward the cabinet.

  Deanna’s eyes flipped open. I nodded.

  “No! It is not all right!” She pulled away from me and shouted so her family could hear every word without having to make an extra trip into the kitchen. “My grandfather had my dinner party raided, and now Henri and Jacques have taken off, and we’ve lost…something valuable!”

  Grandfather? Now it was my turn to freeze, and I did so, with my hand in the air as if it were looking for something to clutch. Grandfather?

  I didn’t have much time for fear and shock to really set in, because just then, the taller of the ICE suits shoved open the porch door again, letting in spring breeze and traffic noise.

  “You!” Deanna’s hand went up. A fireball the size of an ostrich egg burned in her palm. Power thrummed through the kitchen, and her hair stood out from her head, crackling with energy.

  “Holy sh…!” Shorter Suit slammed against Taller Suit’s back just as Taller Suit shoved his hand under his jacket in a gesture familiar to everyone who’s ever watched a TV cop show.

  I snatched up the nearest bowl of duck soup and dashed it in Deanna’s face.

  “Bitch!” she screamed.

  “Calm down!” I roared back. “You do not try to set fire to ICE!” Yes, I said it. I was having a bad night, okay? “And you!” I rounded on the Suit brothers. “Why aren’t you out chasing vampires?”

  Shorter Suit swore and holstered the flashlight he was carrying. Reese swore and pulled steak off the grill. I swore and handed Deanna a dish towel to help with the rivers of reddish broth pouring down her cheeks and dripping from the ends of her hair. Then, I swore and dumped potatoes into the colander. Fortunately, they were going to be mashed; otherwise I’d have to get really mad at somebody because they were now thoroughly overcooked.

  “You sure he went through here?” Taller Suit asked me and Reese. Innocent as an ex-army enlisted lamb, Reese nodded. I dumped the potatoes from the colander back into the pot, so I could keep my face averted. “Okay. If he circles back, you’re going to tell us, right?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. Fortunately, he didn’t stick around to register my lack of poker face.

  Deanna mopped broth off her face, taking a layer of rouge and mascara with it. She glowered at Shorter Suit as he pushed past me to disappear back into the dining room. I smelled smoke and warming broth. I gripped the bride-to-be’s hand and shook my head hard, at the same time wondering what I’d do if she actually turned her internal flamethrower on me.

  But all Deanna did was wipe her eyes one more time. “I’m going to wash off,” she informed me, her voice very low and very tight. “When I get back, no more games—do you understand?”

  With an icy calm that would have done her mother proud, Deanna walked straight through the door to the back stairs.

  My head fell back. “Anybody else?” I demanded of the universe at large.

  “Um, Chef?” said Reese.

  The dining room door was swinging open one more time. My heart swelled painfully in the base of my throat and, slowly and reluctantly, I straightened up.

  That was how I got my first look at Lloyd Maddox in the flesh.

  13

  I’d spent a fair amount of time watching Lloyd Maddox on Internet videos and assorted news shows, sort of like you watch the approaching train when you’re standing on the tracks. I’d never been able to reconcile the fact that this demagogue, who had it in for my brother and his kind in the worst possible way, was sweet, funny, smart Brendan Maddox’s grandfather.

  When you hang around vampires, you get used to people with the ability to exude an air of menace, but even Anatole would have had a tough time matching up to Grandpa Lloyd. Age had turned Lloyd’s hair white and settled his eyes deep into their sockets, but not so deep you couldn’t immediately see they were still clear and sharp. Wind and sun had burned the man’s skin a permanent tawny brown and creased it with an entire atlas’s worth of lines. The bones underneath that weathered face, though, were hard, sharp, and strong.

  “You’re Charlotte Caine,” he said slowly.

  “And you’re Lloyd Maddox.” I forced my spine to draw me up to my full height and, believe me, my spine protested. It would much rather have collapsed into a jellylike heap. “Can I help you?”

  Maddox looked over my head to Reese. Only when he realized there was no authority there did he lower his gaze back to me. If I hadn’t already been predisposed to dislike this person, that would have done it.

  “Yes, you can help me.” Lloyd Maddox’s attention was heavy, like a good, sharp cleaver. “You can tell me where Gabriel Renault and that other one, Jacques, actually went.”

  “Sorry,” I said, because that word could cover a lot of ground while still remaining content-free.

  Maddox looked at Reese again. I didn’t want to take my eyes off Maddox, so I couldn’t see what Reese was doing, but there was plenty of clattering involved. Then, Lloyd Maddox smiled, and my cowardly spine tried once more to collapse under me. He had Brendan’s smile, if Brendan had suddenly decided to take a walk on the dark side. Maddox strode across the kitchen, and I wondered frantically how to create a distraction. Did I have anything hot I could spill? But he passed right by the sink and headed for the basement stairs.

  Clearly, Reese had let his glance drift in a certain misleading direction. I rounded the counter to stand beside him. “Never should have doubted you,” I murmured, prodding at the resting steaks with careful fingers to test for doneness.

  “No, Chef.”

  The door from the dining room swung open again. This time it was Brendan. With him came a shorter, older, paunchier man who had to be related to Deanna.

  “You okay in here, Charlotte?” Brendan asked. I nodded, and Brendan gestured for the paunchy man behind him to come forward. “This is Scott Alden. Uncle Scott, this is Charlotte Caine and this is her sous-chef, Reese Turner.”

  So this was where the girls had gotten their coloring from. Scott Alden scrutinized me with bland brown eyes from behind a pair of square, tortoiseshell glasses. His brown hair was fading and thinning, and his white oxford shirt was buttoned all the way up to the neck. The tie was solid blue, the cuff links gold squares, and the wedding ring on his hand was a plain, thick gold band. From what Robert Kemp and Google told me, members of Congress and foreign princes lined up to ask this man to handle their fortunes, but the image he projected was of a stolid, boring, if high-level, nerd. On the subway, I wouldn’t have looked at him twice.

  “Chef, I am sorry about the uproar.” Scott Alden had a good handshake, nothing false or tentative about it. Now that he was putting some effort into it, I could detect a certain charm about him, the kind that came with knowing you looked like a fish out of water, and you were comfortable with the joke.

  At his side, Brendan was giving me a hard look. I flicked my eyes toward the sink. Brendan underst
ood immediately and didn’t turn his head to confirm.

  “We’re going to have to apologize to you both,” Scott Alden was saying. “As you may have guessed, we’re having an emergency here, and the dinner’s been cancelled.”

  Now, I hate wasting food, especially good food that I’ve put work into, but I can understand how an ICE raid puts a damper on a party. Reese, though, looked at the steaks as if he were watching a crime in progress.

  “Is the family going to want something…?” I tried.

  Mr. Alden glanced over his shoulder toward the now-silent dining room. “Maybe in a little bit. I am truly sorry about this. My father-in-law…”

  On cue, heavy footsteps sounded on the basement stairs, climbing up to join us without any unnecessary hurry.

  “Speak of the devil,” breathed Scott Alden. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling. I didn’t dare look at Brendan right then, or Lloyd would have caught me laughing. As it was, when the Maddox patriarch reappeared, he ignored both Scott and Brendan and stalked right up to me. Brendan moved a half step closer to me. Lloyd Maddox’s frown hardened.

  “We’re going to talk, you and I, Chef Caine.”

  I hate being loomed over, and it brings out all kinds of attitude. “Anytime.” I met Maddox’s gaze. This time nothing collapsed. “I’ll be here all week.”

  “Lloyd?” said Scott before his father-in-law could get another dig in. “I think Adrienne wants a word.”

  “I imagine she does.” Lloyd took his time weighing his options, and he made sure we all saw him doing it. Should he pick this fight now? No, we were not worth the trouble—not yet anyway. Lloyd pulled back and started for the door, but he stopped to look over his shoulder.

  “Are you coming, Brendan?”

  Brendan did not move. “In a minute.”

  The look Lloyd flashed Brendan right then made me glad I didn’t have anything sharp in my hand. Fortunately, he let Scott Alden herd him out of the kitchen before I could remember exactly where I’d laid my paring knife.

  “You got it in here?” Brendan murmured to me.

  I gave his hand a quick squeeze. “We’re good. You got it out there?”

  He grimaced but nodded. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  The door swung shut behind Brendan, and the kitchen went quiet again. The scents of beef, spilled consommé, and roasted fennel hung in the suddenly quiet air. Reese scowled. “We wouldn’t have had to take this gig if you’d set us up with a truck in the first place.”

  “Just cook, Reese. I’ll deal with the clients.”

  “Yes, Chef. Except the cooking’s done and the clients ain’t eating.”

  There’s nothing worse than a sous who’s got a point. I drummed my fingers on the counter and stared out at the softly lit garden. I looked toward the back stairs and then at the garden again. Carefully recessed electric torches outlined the pathway through the neatly groomed shrubs. Nothing I could see moved out there. From the looks of it, the show was over. “All right, Reese, you head out. I’ll take care of things here.”

  “You sure?”

  “No.” I glanced toward the cupboard under the sink, then turned my back on it. “But it’ll give me one less thing to keep track of. Maybe you can check in on Nightlife on the way home and just give me the heads-up if there’s anything I should know about?”

  Reese bowed his head, clearly feeling the burden of my request. “Chef,” he said. “I’d do anything for you, except spy on Zoe.”

  “You’re not spying.”

  “Fine, you call her and tell her that. Then I’ll stop by.” Reese hung his chef’s coat and apron on one of the hooks by the side door.

  “I cannot believe you did this!” A voice rose from the next room. It was Mrs. Alden.

  “I didn’t do anything,” replied Lloyd Maddox. “If ICE received an anonymous tip, it was not from me.”

  Reese was looking from the door, to me, and I swear he mouthed Truck at me before he intelligently and discreetly slid out the door.

  “It was petty and spiteful and…” Mrs. Alden’s voice was growing shrill.

  “And it was not my doing, Adrienne.”

  “Then how did they know to come tonight, when Gabriel and his friends just happened to all be in the house?” inquired Brendan coolly.

  “You’ve had three vampires here for over a week. Perhaps there’s a concerned citizen on the block,” Lloyd said, matching Brendan’s cool tone perfectly. It was more than a little creepy.

  “You promised you wouldn’t interfere,” Mr. Alden snapped. “I had your word!”

  “If I had wanted to get rid of Deanna’s nightblood, you can be sure, I would not have alerted the government to the fact,” Lloyd replied. “I am too old to start leaving a paper trail.”

  So, if this freak show wasn’t Grandpa’s doing, who made the call? And why? My fingers were drumming the counter again. This was getting to be a habit. For one moment I wondered if it had been Brendan who called in the tip, to get Henri Renault away from me. I dismissed that. If there was one thing I knew, it was that ICE raids take time to organize. This little drama had been planned weeks ago.

  And that meant whoever did put in that tip had known the date and time of the Aldens’ private party.

  “Where is Deanna?” asked Scott Alden abruptly.

  “She ran out through the kitchen,” said Mrs. Alden wearily. “I expect she’ll be back when she discovers she can’t cry Gabriel’s way out of ICE custody.”

  “All right.” Scott Alden sighed. “Maybe we should just all call it a night? Lloyd, we can talk about this in the morning.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” replied Lloyd. “You’ve shut me out of the entire conversation regarding this disastrous marriage. I don’t see why I should agree to help you sort out your problems with a group of illegal undead.”

  “No one is asking for your help with anything,” said Mrs. Alden. “I just…Never mind. Go home, Papa.”

  Maddox replied, but so softly, I couldn’t hear the words. A moment later, footsteps crossed hardwood. Doors opened and closed. Then, Deanna’s silhouette descended the outside stairway that curved from the balcony above down to the garden patio. The bride-to-be eased herself through the kitchen’s French doors. She barely spared me a glance as she hurried to the sink and yanked open the cupboard. Gabriel Renault rolled out and unfolded himself. In an eyeblink, they had their arms wrapped around each other.

  “He’s gone,” Deanna breathed. “It’s okay. You’re okay.” She buried her head against his shoulder.

  If I hadn’t already believed there was a real connection between these two before, I did now. I turned away, intending to give them their moment.

  “Thanks,” Gabriel said behind me after what turned out to be a very long moment. “I really appreciate it.”

  “We appreciate it.” Deanna stood close beside him now, both her hands wrapped around one of his. “Sorry about the fire and everything.”

  “Glad I could help.” I just hoped they couldn’t see me wondering if I’d done the right thing.

  Fortunately, my feelings seemed to be the last thing on Deanna’s mind right then. “What’re we going to do about Henri?” Deanna squeezed her fiancé’s hand. “And Jacques? They just rounded everybody up like…like…” Metaphors failed her. “I’m going to kill Granddad!”

  “We’ll figure something out.” Gabriel kissed the top of her head.

  “Um…,” I said, uncertain whether I was about to cross a line. “If you need one, I know a good lawyer.”

  “You do? Really?” cried Deanna.

  “Really. Rafe Wallace.”

  “Rafe Wallace?” Gabriel repeated. “I’ve heard of him, I think.”

  “He’s a pretty big name. He…did some work for me and my brother.” In fact, Rafe’s one of the best paranormal lawyers in the city. He’s also one of the most expensive, but somehow, I didn’t think his billable rate was going to be an issue for a member of the Alden family. I
pulled my phone from my purse, copied Rafe’s number down on the notepad on the counter, and tore off the page.

  Deanna seized the paper and Gabriel’s hand. “Thank you!”

  “Yes, thank you.” Gabriel’s relief was palpable. Because he was a vampire, I mean this literally. It rolled off him in a sweet cloud, and I could feel the tension unknotting from my shoulders. “I owe you for this.”

  “We both do,” said Deanna emphatically, but then she turned away as if I’d ceased to exist. “We should call now,” she said to Gabriel.

  But Gabriel hesitated. “Deanna…let me handle this.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Look, chérie. We talked about Henri, and the past. I don’t want you dragged into anything that might come up because he’s tried to pull a fast one.”

  This was definitely not meant for me to hear. I tried not to listen, but that would have been a lot easier if either one of them had remembered I was standing right there.

  “Just let me take care of it.” He squeezed Deanna’s hands. “You take care of your family.”

  “Don’t tempt me,” she muttered. “All right. If you insist.”

  I stepped away, shuffling things on the counter. Gabriel noticed and grimaced.

  “Come on.” He smiled gently and kissed Deanna’s forehead. “Let’s give the chef back her kitchen.” Deanna’s brow smoothed out a little, and together they hurried out toward the back stairs.

  “Good luck,” I said as they disappeared.

  Voices still rose and fell in the dining room. I could make out Brendan’s and Mrs. Alden’s, and Scott Alden’s. The volume, however, had dropped down to the point where I couldn’t make out the words from where I stood by the cooktop. Knowing Brendan would give me the rundown later, I tried not to listen to the murmurs and rumbles. Instead, I surveyed my bowls and plates, allowing myself my own moment of regret for the wasted labor. The steaks were the worst of it. Reese had outdone himself. They were exquisite; perfectly seared on the outside, pink and juicy and full of flavor inside. They could be used as a base for something else tomorrow, but they would never be this good again.