Let Them Eat Stake: A Vampire Chef Novel

by Sarah Zettel

  Well, that makes it unanimous, I thought as the man, the nightblood, Gabriel, pulled Deanna closer into his embrace. As I was turning my eyes away, my gaze caught on something else—another silhouette. This one stood on the second-floor balcony that overlooked the garden.

  Adrienne Alden watched the vampire lower his mouth to her daughter’s throat. As I stared from my little window, Scott Alden came out to lead his wife back inside.

  22

  Despite my best intentions, my eyelids pulled themselves open at nine fifty a.m. and refused to close again. Tired as I was, sleep had been a long time coming. I kept hearing the conflicted words drifting up from the garden. Don’t know why I love you…can’t help it…

  I was young once. I know what it feels like to have your hormones slam you up against the boards but not know why it’s happening with this particular person. Deanna was past that stage, though. At least, she should have been. And Gabriel was undead; he didn’t have hormones. Their romance had never made sense, but after overhearing that little scene, it was downright bewildering. I mean, the whole incomprehensible-love-stronger-than-the-both-of-us thing worked in movies like Brokeback Vampire, but in real life? Not so much.

  Then there was Adrienne Alden, just standing on the balcony watching the show, until her husband came and got her.

  It was all a little sad, and more than a little icky.

  I stared at the wall for a while before rolling over and staring at my borrowed room, closed door, and the watery Tuesday morning seeping in around the curtains. It was one of those heavy, gray, humid days where you just know things are not going to get any better any time soon. I did not want to get out of this bed. But I had a job to do. My guy was down there, cooking for a flock of Aldens and whoever else barged in today. The longer I lay there, the longer he was going to be on his own.

  I was on shift. I would show up. I would swear a lot and wonder what in the hell I was doing there. I might also seriously consider handing in my notice so I could go join my ex-writer friend on her chicken farm, but I would show up.

  It turned out Reese was not on his own. Deanna Alden slumped on a stool at the kitchen island, downing a glass of orange juice as if it were salvation in citrus form. Her sleeveless, scarlet top had a mandarin collar, but I could still see the fresh welts on her neck. The scent of hot butter and frying batter rose from the cast-iron griddle on the cooktop where pancakes lay in two luscious golden brown rows.

  “Morning. Sorry I’m in your territory,” Deanna said to me. “Late night and I’ve got to get out to meet the girls. We’re taking the out-of-towners on a shopping tour, and I haven’t got my going-away luggage picked out yet…” She sounded considerably unperky about this bride-oriented to-do list. “Are you married?” she asked me suddenly.

  “Never found anybody who could put up with me long enough.” It was pure coincidence that I right then flashed on a memory of Brendan’s fingertip under my chin and his invitation to leftover Chinese. I chose to ignore the smirk on Reese’s face as he got busy with his spatula, flipping perfectly crisped pancakes over onto their pale bellies.

  “I never thought I would either.” Deanna sighed. “It’s the best feeling in the world, knowing there’s somebody who wants to be with you forever.” That declaration would have gone over better if she hadn’t been eyeing the pancakes Reese piled onto a plate as if she were planning on marrying them.

  I crossed the kitchen to peer out the window to the dining room. Scott Alden sat alone at the table with a series of what looked like reports spread out in front of him. He sipped coffee, rearranged papers, and did not look up. While I watched, Mrs. Alden came in, dressed in a neat navy blue suit. She pecked him on the cheek and he smiled. She was gone without a word, and he still didn’t look up from his report pages.

  At the island, Deanna was layering the pancakes with thick slices of butter. Reese set the maple syrup down beside her. Two pancakes were left on the serving plate, and they were calling my name.

  I pulled one of the tall stools up to the island, bypassed the orange juice, and reached straight for the coffee thermos. “So.” It was the most original opening I could manage without caffeine. “Your sister says you and Gabriel met at a charity benefit?”

  This was a mistake. Deanna went from tired and starved to utterly furious in less time than it takes brandy to flare up when it hits a hot pan. “You’ve been talking to Karina?”

  My next words needed to be spoken very, very carefully, and probably while I was concentrating on making sure I smeared my butter evenly over every cubic centimeter of pancake. “I ran into her at Perception…”

  “She’s a liar!” snapped Deanna. “Whatever she said, she’s a liar!”

  Whatever she said? But Deanna wasn’t giving me time to get a word in.

  “Always the smart one, always trying to get me to magic for her. Come on, Deanna. Just a little of the witchy-woo. Who’s gonna know?” This was said in a spot-on imitation of Karina’s voice. “But then I’m the one who gets in trouble because she’d always rat us right out to Mom.”

  This was something I could completely sympathize with. “My brother used to get me to filch the extra Pop-Tarts, and then he’d eat them in my bedroom, so Mom never found the crumbs in his.”

  “Two sisters, and a grandmother with eyes like a hawk, and I never could learn.” Reese chuckled. “Oh, please, Reese! Just this one time, Reesey-Peesy. Had to go in the army to get away from them.”

  “Yeah, well,” mumbled Deanna around a mouthful of pancake. “Except with Karina, the whole point was to get me into trouble. I mean, that was why she introduced me to Gabriel in the first place…”

  Those words brought my train of thought to a screeching halt. “Karina introduced you to Gabriel?”

  “Oh yeah, you didn’t know? It was completely her idea. I should have known something was up when she decided to come to the Save Our Streets gala. She never does the party crap. Always says she’s got business, and Mom lets her get away with it, of course, because she’s not…” Deanna swallowed more pancake instead of finishing that sentence. But I bet the missing words were “a witch.” “She was there that night, though, and she brought Gabriel right up to me. She had plans. I could see them written all over her smug little face.” Deanna narrowed her eyes. “But it didn’t work out her way this time.”

  “Because you fell in love?” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  “So, what were the big plans?” Reese flipped a pancake onto Deanna’s plate and then another onto mine. “Karina’s, I mean.”

  Deanna shrugged and used her fork to push the fresh pancake into the center of the plate where it could soak up syrup and melted butter. “Don’t even remember now. Something with a weapons contract or the NIH or something for antivamp perfume. Something stupid like that.”

  “Antivamp perfume?” If there was a touch of incredulity to those words, it was because I hadn’t had enough coffee yet, I’m sure.

  Deanna just grimaced. “Karina likes to think she’s going to be the Bill Gates of the fragrance world. Got Dad to front the money for the labs and the office. I’ll bet he thought she’d just go away and play. But oh no, not Karina. She’s got ambition. She’s got to think big.” Deanna waved her knife, and caught a glimpse of the kitchen clock. “Crap, I’m late. Gotta meet the girls. Great pancakes. Don’t tell Dad anything I said about Karina, will you? He’d hit the roof. Or Mom. Thanks. ‘Bye.”

  Deanna grabbed keys and purse and was out the door before I could get my mouth shut.

  “Antivamp perfume?” I said. “A weapons contract for perfume?” The words came out as a croak. Because in my head I was seeing that little wrinkled scrap of a clue in Brendan’s fingers. The one that looked like part of a recipe, or a formula. I’d thought it was for a celebrity-branded perfume and Oscar had stolen it because he was a cheap bastard. But what if it wasn’t? What if it was a weapons formula, and he’d stolen it because it was worth millions?

  “Guess they f
igure the platoon won’t mind smelling like garlic,” said Reese.

  “It can’t be that easy.” I swallowed and coughed. “It can’t be. Somebody’d have done it a long time ago.”

  “Which would be why there’s a contract out for it.” Reese flipped some more pancakes off the grill to a clean plate and pushed them to me. “It’s not all that easy.”

  “And maybe Karina got the idea to go for some defense money after Brendan signed his security contract with the city.” I looked down at my pancakes and tried to remember I’d been starving a minute ago. I poured on a dollop of fresh syrup, hoping it would help.

  “Maybe she’s working with him,” suggested Reese.

  “Can’t be. Brendan would have told me.” I thought about that bitter, distinctly unperfumy smell Karina carried with her as we walked past all those closed laboratory doors. It was also distinctly ungarlicky. “But if Karina’s working on an antivamp contract, what’s that got to do with introducing her sister to Gabriel?”

  “Got me, boss.” Reese turned off the burners under the griddle pan and started untying his apron. He’d already moved on from the rich folks and their mysteries, and I envied him, deeply. “Can you cover here for a while? I gotta go make sure we’re good to go into production.” Like restaurant work, nine-tenths of catering is in the pre-prep.

  There was, however, one thing my sous and I needed to go over first.

  “Reesey-Peesy?” I drew the nickname out slowly, layering the syllables with import and relish. “There’s really somebody out there who calls you Reesey-Peesy?”

  Reese paused by the side door. “Yeah, well, there’s somebody out there who calls you, and I’m quoting here, ‘sweetie, darling, lamb chop chefy.’”

  I winced. “Okay. Okay. I won’t tell if you won’t.”

  “Deal.”

  I waved Reese away, ignoring his chuckles as I set about the important business of finishing my pancakes and coffee. The pancakes were perfect—sweet and fluffy, with lovely, crispy edges. The coffee was gorgeously strong. I began to feel less sorry about having woken up this morning. Unfortunately, my returning optimism encouraged my brain to try to shunt what I’d just heard from Deanna into the ever-shifting puzzle that was the Alden family. I mean, siblings always saw things differently, especially when it came to who got whom into trouble. But Karina’s insistence that Deanna was always pushing boundaries, and Deanna’s insistence that Karina was the one who was pulling her into trouble—this was something beyond the ordinary sibling double-vision. Then there was the fact that the little bit of list had taken on a whole new meaning.

  The house was so quiet, I could hear Mr. Alden rustling his papers out in the dining room. I wondered where Trudy was, and that got me thinking about her and Mrs. Alden, and Mrs. Alden reminding Trudy so sharply she was supposed to “take care of” the guest rooms. Then I remembered that some of those guest rooms held vampires, out cold for the day. These were vampires Karina Alden was really anxious to introduce to the family, according to Deanna, anyway. And Karina was maybe working on antivamp weapons contracts.

  I also remembered Jacques coming and going all on his own, and how he was supposed to be spending his days in this house, but maybe wasn’t.

  I looked up at the ceiling. I looked at the Peg-Board by the coat hooks, with its neatly labeled keys, including the bulky ring marked HOUSEKEEPING. I forced my gaze back down to my pancakes—my warm, fluffy, syrup-soaked pancakes. There was no reason whatsoever to rush away from a good plate of pancakes, especially not to tiptoe upstairs and root around in somebody else’s guest bedrooms, and especially when that somebody else could fire my ass, and probably should, for even considering that idea.

  I stacked used plates and silverware and dumped the whole clattering pile into the sink. I would clean. I would not think about guest rooms anymore. I had done all the breaking and entering I needed to do. I would think about lunch, and snacks; about confirming my catering staff and my orders with my suppliers.

  “Chef Caine?”

  I turned, reluctantly. Scott Alden came in through the door from the dining room, a stainless travel mug in his hand. “Would you tell my wife I won’t be back for dinner?” he said, refilling the mug from the thermos of coffee on the counter. “I have to get ready for the working group meeting. She’ll know what I’m talking about.”

  “I’ll tell her.” I paused. “Is Trudy still here?”

  “She’s gone over to her sister’s. One of the kids has come down with strep or something, and she’s helping out.”

  Mr. Alden covered his mug and walked out the side door to the porch, leaving me alone in the kitchen, and in the house, because the house was empty now, except for me and whatever unconscious vampires had taken shelter in the guest rooms.

  I rolled my eyes toward the ceiling again. “You’re tempting me, aren’t you?” I asked whatever deity looked down on fools, chefs, and women named Charlotte. “This is what temptation looks like.”

  Of course it was a bad idea. Of course I did it anyway—like you wouldn’t have.

  This was the first time I’d ventured onto the third floor of the Aldens’ house, and it was beautiful. Even more than the rest of the house, though, this was the close, heavy beauty of another era. To waist height, intricately carved walnut paneling covered the corridor’s walls. Above that, figured red wallpaper gleamed like silk and maybe was silk. If I’d pushed one of the button switches at the top of the stairs, I’d’ve gotten some extra light from curving brass lamps that looked as though they had been converted from gas to electric back in the day—way, way back in the day. The air hung thick and humid in that narrow hall and smelled of the rain falling outside. It was so quiet, I could hear the crunch of the Persian carpet fibers under my clogs.

  There were six doors total. I stood in front of the first door on the right for a long time, waiting for a noise, or anything, to send me running back to the kitchen where I belonged. But no noise came. I pulled out Trudy’s key ring, which I’d appropriated from the Peg-Board. I’d figured the nightblood guests might reasonably be expected to lock themselves in for the day. On the third try, I found the right key, and the cool, glass knob turned easily under my hand. Thick curtains covered the window on the other side, allowing through only the smallest slivers of sunlight. I stepped through and closed the door softly behind myself, then turned the lock again.

  The room smelled of fresh air and lemon furniture polish, indicating Trudy had been at work in there recently. As my eyes adjusted, I could see the furniture was a match for the corridor—thick and heavy and distinctly Victorian. Twin beds took up most of the space to my right. Matching dressers stood to the left. The beds, with clean white spreads on them, looked as pristine and innocent as if they’d just come off the set of a fifties sitcom. They were also totally unoccupied. In fact, the whole room looked unoccupied.

  I drifted over to the nearest dresser and pulled open the top drawer. It was empty. So was the drawer under it, and the one under that. I checked the second dresser, and the closet—all empty. I turned slowly, fingering the keys in my pocket. So, okay, the Aldens had a lot of spare bedrooms, and they weren’t using this one. Except, I kept remembering Mrs. Alden ordering Trudy to “take care” of the bedrooms and breathed in the chemical tang of fresh fake-lemon polish. Trudy had been in there, taking care of something. It might have been only the dust bunnies, but somehow I didn’t think so.

  Did Mrs. Alden want something destroyed or hidden? And just from whom was she hiding it?

  For a brief moment, I regretted I wasn’t really Nancy Drew. Especially with the dim light, this place looked perfect for hiding incriminating evidence. It ought to have secret panels or concealed compartments under the floorboards. But they didn’t cover finding hidden clues in culinary school, and I didn’t even know what I was looking for evidence of. The only genuine law-breaking I knew about for sure was the theft of that gun off the living room mantel. Maybe Little Linus had planted suspicions in my brain about
Oscar’s death, but even if Oscar had been poisoned, I was hardly going to find an empty bottle under the bed with a label saying DON’T DRINK ME.

  I did check under the bed, just in case. I didn’t find a bottle, or anything else—not so much as the smallest footprint of a dust bunny. From this I concluded that however much the Aldens were paying Trudy, it wasn’t enough.

  The knob on the next door I tried turned without the key. This had to be a family room. I told myself I should back away. It was one thing to be snooping on guests suspected of stealing. Snooping on the family was completely leveling up the whole plucky-girl-detective fetish.

  No, I didn’t listen to this very good self-referential advice either.

  The Victorian Age had been banished from this second room. When at home, the occupant went in for black iron frames, glass tables, and white gauze curtains, both on the queen-sized bed and the window. The carpet was modern beige, and my clogs sank in deep.

  Either Trudy hadn’t had a chance to get in there yet today, or this room was off limits. Clothes draped over all the chairs and the bed; mostly designer jeans and brightly colored tops. The dressing table was a battlefield of cosmetics paraphernalia, perfumes, and used tissues. I couldn’t picture either Mrs. Alden or Karina making a mess like that, let alone leaving it behind them, so this had to be Deanna’s room.

  This realization drove me to a moment of pure, girly curiosity. I opened the closet, and there, on a hook on the door, hung the wedding gown. It was a strapless sheath of pure white, trimmed around the waist and hem with silver filigree and clear sparkling stones that would match her engagement ring. Deanna would look like a million breezing down the aisle in that. The longer I looked at that lovely gown, the more depressed I felt, and I could not for the life of me figure out why. I should be angry, not sad. Add one more thing to the Makes No Sense pile.

  I left Deanna’s room and in the hall stopped once more to listen. The quiet remained unbroken, except for my fishing the key ring back out. The next door on the left was also locked, and the second key I tried opened it soundlessly.