by Ruby Loren
“I’d better make it a quick one. There’s someone coming by to see if they’ll reinstate the bar’s licence today. I also need to think of a new name for the place…” He rubbed his stubble and looked at January. “How about ‘The Black Unicorn’?”
“How about, no,” January said and passed him his coffee. “That sounds like some stuffy pub. You want people to come to this bar, don’t you?”
“I was kidding,” Ryan said, downing his scalding coffee and leaning in to kiss her. “I’ll see you later.” He walked towards the door and then stopped. “It’s the baking competition today, isn’t it? Knock ‘em dead! Actually, don’t. They might mark you down if your cooking had that effect.”
“Thanks a bunch,” January said, shooing him away.
She added some frothed milk to her black coffee, more as a distraction than anything else. Ryan’s words hadn’t done anything to calm the butterflies dancing in her stomach. It was ridiculous. She was the leader of a pack of shifters, she’d killed vampires twenty times her age, and here she was panicking about a local baking competition. It wasn’t even the proper competition! It was the first round… sort of like an audition for the real thing.
“You’ll get through it just fine. You’re good at this and you’ve prepared!” She told herself. By her feet, the cat meowed its agreement. Or maybe he was just asking for more food.
After applying for the competition, along with Danny and Lucy, she’d received a brief that had instructed her to prepare her best sandwich cake recipe for the entry round. The entrants had to bring their own ingredients but be prepared to bake their cakes there. In true Bake Off style, the organisers of the competition were planning to film the main event and sell the video for charity. January figured that the ‘bake on site’ rule was also meant to discourage people from popping down to M&S for their ‘homemade’ entry. In the very old days of village baking contests, that wouldn’t have been an option.
She started to collect her ingredients from around the kitchen, only pausing to look at her handwritten recipe once, just to be sure. She knew the cake off by heart – it was her best one after all – but today was a day where she wanted to be a hundred percent sure. I hope the judges like chocolate! She thought, while cramming several different bars into her bag. Her favourite cake wasn’t exactly an original idea, but it was a classic done so well that she thought it deserved to be famous. Perhaps after this competition it would be! Hold your horses, January thought with a smile.
“Time to hit the road. Wish me luck, Simon!” She told the small black cat, who studiously ignored her. January was starting to think she might in fact be a dog person.
January put her bag down for a moment while she felt along the shoe rack for her boots. She pulled the right boot on and then took it straight off again when her foot hit something that felt like paper. She reached in and pulled out a crumpled piece of A4.
“Don’t eat the cupcakes…” She read, frowning at the unfamiliar handwriting. Her first thought was that Ryan had left it in her boot as a joke, but she knew what his writing looked like, and this wasn’t it. I guess it’s meant to be a warning, she thought, realising that the baking competition and a mysterious note relating to cake were likely to be connected. But how had it got in her shoe and who had left it?
January folded the paper up and slipped it into her pocket, determined to solve that mystery later. Right now, she had a cake to bake.
“Vanilla cupcake? They’re gluten free!” January looked down at the plate of innocent looking cupcakes being held out to her by the sparky looking girl wearing a Hobbling Cake Off t-shirt.
“Thanks, but I’ve got a bit of a hangover today. Cake probably isn’t my friend,” she said, picking the wrong excuse in her brief panic over the cupcakes. She added what she hoped was a ‘we’ve all been there’ smile.
The girl frowned. “Aren’t you a contestant who’s going to be baking a cake today?” Her face told January exactly what she thought about having a hangover on the day you were entering a competition with a prize as important as the one being offered here. January sincerely hoped she wasn’t one of the judges. Fortunately, she rushed off to impose cake on another newcomer.
January stared after the plate, wondering if there really was something wrong with them. She supposed she should have done something, like accidentally spilled them on the floor, but how much credit could she really give the note? It might not be referring to these particular cupcakes, or it could be Ryan’s idea of a joke… maybe he’d just disguised his handwriting. She bit her nails, the nerves from the cake competition and the potentially poisoned cupcakes all getting to her. She decided the prudent thing to do would be to focus on baking the best cake she could. Everything else could wait.
“What are you making?” Danny asked when he arrived carrying his own bag of ingredients. January could see a ginger root sticking out.
“Just a chocolate cake. I thought I’d play it safe, but I’m not so sure now…” January looked around at the other bakers who were already getting their ingredients out. She could see piles of edible flowers and mysterious foreign looking liquors. It was definitely making her feel like her chocolate cake was too run-of-the-mill.
“I’m betting half of these people are hoping their fancy ingredients will cover up the fact they can’t bake to save their life,” Danny said, knowing exactly what to say. “I’m making a classic, too. It’s a version of a rum and ginger cake but in sandwich cake form, so it’s lighter.”
January tilted her head, her mind still on other things. “Did you eat one of those cupcakes?”
Danny shook his head. “Nope. Gluten free also means flavour free, in my experience.”
January nodded, secretly feeling relieved. She hadn’t had a chance to warn Danny and she would have felt like an idiot explaining her reasons why.
“Bakers! Please find your workstations and set up. The baking audition begins in five minutes.” The promotions girl had ditched the cupcakes and was now armed with a megaphone. January looked around the room to see if there was anyone that looked like a judge, but as far as she could tell, it was just the bakers and the promo girl - who also appeared to be running things.
All too soon, the cry of ‘ready, steady… cake!’ had been shouted over the megaphone. The next two hours passed by in a blur of chocolate and buttercream. There were still ten minutes left on the clock when January added a few final chocolate curls to her cake and knew that it was done. Did it look like an elegant chocolatier’s masterpiece? No. But it was homey, and January knew it was going to taste damn good. She’d given this her best shot and all she could do now was hope that the judges agreed with her.
Her eyes skated around the room, looking at what her competitors had produced. Danny was adding some piped buttercream whorls to a cake so well risen, it was making January think her own sponge was inadequate. Lucy’s cake was a monster, too. She was currently painstakingly applying some delicate sugar-work lattice to the top of the caramel drizzled icing. It looked amazing, but January had her reservations as to how it would taste.
She could see a few of her other competitors panicking, as their cakes came out lopsided or flat. Some were loudly blaming their ovens, but January suspected it was their overly fancy recipes with multiple processes that were the real problem. A few of the bakers were nowhere near finished! Others had been more successful, and January even saw a chocolate cake she thought might rival her own, that had been baked by a motherly looking woman. January grudgingly thought that she looked like the ideal owner of a cake shop.
“Stop caking!” The promo girl yelled through the megaphone.
January tried not to wince. Her hearing was way more sensitive than her competitors’. There was a tense sort of silence as everyone looked down at their cakes.
A horrible retching noise cut through the air. January turned in time to see a man in his thirties with thinning hair double over and shower his cake and one sitting next to it with the contents of his stoma
ch. January instinctively covered her own cake, even though he was too far away to affect her.
“I’m so sorry,” the man said through further retches. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
It was at that moment the door opened and a man and a woman, who could only be the judges, entered the room and witnessed the pandemonium.
It was quickly decided that the man who’d been sick would be disqualified, but the other baker who’d had their cake ruined would automatically go through to the next round. There had been some grumbling when that announcement had been made, as everyone knew that there were only ten places in the real competition and there were close to twenty bakers at the audition. That was one place already taken by someone who might not even deserve it! But then, no one was about to offer to try their sick-coated cake.
“We’d like you all to leave your cakes where they are and exit the room. When we’re done, you may come back and see if there’s been a card left by your cake. That’s how you’ll know if you’ve got through to the final,” the woman - who looked about as similar to Mary Berry as a chocolate sundae to a side of beef - said. January hoped that somewhere, beneath her hairspray glued helmet of dark hair and permanently pursed lips, there lurked a fan of chocolate cake. Judging by her exceedingly slim waistline, chocolate wasn’t often on the menu. January wondered who had picked the judges. At least the male judge looked chubby. I bet he likes chocolate! January thought and then chided herself for judging on appearance. For all she knew, the skinny woman might be able to pack cake away from dawn ’til dusk.
“Can you believe that was allowed to happen?!”
January found she was walking alongside Lucy when she made her way out of the room.
“What was that man thinking being sick like that? He was only two cakes away from mine and he made the biggest mess. I only hope my cake hasn’t somehow been tainted…”
“I’m pretty sure he didn’t plan to be sick, Lucy,” January replied, not sure if she would be able to put up with the other girl’s opinions today.
“Don’t be so sure! He must have realised his cake wasn’t good enough to get through and was then deliberately sick on it, hoping that they’d pity him and give him a place in the next round.”
Lucy’s dark eyebrows had knitted together into a single brow, January noticed.
“I think he just ate most of those cupcakes they were handing out earlier. You know, the gluten free ones that no one else wanted to touch? When he was sick you could smell the amount of vanilla they’d put in those things to cover up the bland, blandness of gluten free cake,” Danny said, appearing at January’s elbow.
Lucy looked deflated.
“Was he the only one who had any?” January asked Danny, who shrugged.
“No idea. There were still loads left on the plate when I came in. He’s the only one I saw with any. Do you think there was something wrong with them?”
“Well, he was sick, wasn’t he?” January said, being careful to make it sound like it was just an obvious observation to make.
The note in her boot was still tucked away in her pocket. She was starting to think that whoever had written the warning had indeed known something about those cupcakes.
That meant someone had poisoned them on purpose.
“A lot of people are taking this competition very seriously, aren’t they?” She voiced her thoughts aloud and then regretted it when half the room turned to look at her. “I just mean, it’s a life-changing prize, isn’t it? It was never going to be friendly.” She blushed, hating the scrutiny.
It would be life-changing for her too if she were to win. It was just that her life seemed to be so full of other potentially life-transforming issues, that this baking competition actually felt small and unimportant. January didn’t know how she felt about that.
“We’re all finished up. I have to say, some of those cakes were absolutely fantastic! In all my years as a food critic, I’ve not tasted better.” The male judge smiled around at them all. “Others missed the mark somewhat,” he added, leaving everyone in a state of panic. Whose cakes had been fantastic and whose cakes had fallen short? There was a mad rush as everyone tried to cram through the door at once to find out.
January was one of the last to make it back to the work station. It wasn’t until she was right in front of her chocolate cake, with her heart almost jumping into her mouth, that she saw the small envelope. She felt a rush of relief, as her fingers extracted it from the iced side of the cake. The judges had promised that cakes which had been marked this way meant the baker had made it through to the competition round. She looked across at Danny and he waved his own envelope. January’s face split into a grin. They were both through!
“Oh, you got through, too.” Lucy had come up behind January, also holding an envelope.
January tried to not look too surprised. Either Lucy’s baking had finally improved, or when the male judge had said some cakes had missed the mark, he’d meant they were actually inedible.
January opened her tiny envelope, curious as to what was inside. A small slip of paper was the only contents. She drew it out and saw a curly number one printed there. Danny looked over her shoulder and made an impressed sound.
“Mine was number two. I guess that means you won this round!”
5
January was still buzzing from her Cake Off victory when she got up on stage at The Black Heart Blues Club that night. She even smiled at the lead singer, Cherri Fine, when she took her place in front of the microphone. The bottle-blonde rolled her eyes in response. January stuck her tongue out behind her back when she turned to face the audience. She heard their new drummer laugh.
“Pretend you didn’t see that,” January said to the small - but tough looking - girl.
Leah flicked the fringe of her light brown pixie cut to one side. “See what?” She said with a wink.
January had only met Leah the week before at band practice, but she had to admit, Mike had made a good choice. She’d had enough previous experience in cover bands to mean she practically knew their whole set by heart already. Her style was rockier than Lewis’ had been, and January found that the two of them meshed really well – just the way drums and bass were supposed to in a band. With a bit of luck and practice, they might even develop more groove than your average rough and ready covers band. January was kind of looking forward to that.
“Good luck!” January said, right before the drummer grinned and smashed straight into ‘I Love Rock and Roll’. Apparently luck was not needed.
The band finished their first set to an average amount of applause, despite the stadium-rock-worthy performance Leah had just given. January wasn’t sure whether her ears would ever recover, but she knew a good drummer when she heard one. Unfortunately, your standard audience members never noticed things like drums. They focused on the singing.
Tonight, that wasn’t a good thing.
“What’s up with Cherri?” January asked when Mike came their way to put his Les Paul back on its stand.
“God knows,” he said, shaking his head. “It would be nice if she could hit the right note once in a while, wouldn’t it? Maybe she went out last night and is still hanging, or something.” He shrugged at January and moved on to where Leah was crouched down, adjusting her bass pedal.
“That was fantastic! You were great in rehearsals but what you just did… it was something else! How are you not a professional?”
January bit the insides of her cheeks to keep from laughing.
Leah looked up from the pedal she was fixing and saw Mike’s grinning face. “Um… I guess I’m just happy playing other people’s songs and scraping by while having as much fun as possible? You know… minimal work and maximum play?”
Mike nodded like she’d just said the smartest thing ever. “I could not agree more! We’re so similar!”
January tried not to snort. Mike was a bank manager who was hyper-focused on advancing up what he called ‘the ladder to success’. She w
asn’t quite sure how he managed it, given his happy go lucky nature and the ponytail, but he was definitely not a minimal work, maximum play type of guy. His hair and the band were the only ways in which he expressed any personality at all.
“I need to go make a call,” Leah announced, raising an eyebrow at January when she passed her by, before walking out of the main entrance.
At least that was one thing off January’s mind. Leah knew full well how Mike felt about her and was dealing with it in her own way. January just hoped poor Mike was ready to be let down.
“Where’s Cherri?” She asked Mike, who jabbed his thumb towards the back room, not willing to look away from Leah’s retreating figure.
January knew the singer had probably gone out the back to smoke. Someone should probably ask her if she’s okay, she thought, knowing full well that that someone probably shouldn’t be her. Bonding experience, January lied to herself.
She walked through the tiny room backstage, where they’d left all of their instrument cases, and headed for the partially ajar fire door. She was about to walk through when she saw something glimmer out of the corner of her eye.
She stopped dead.
A streetlight outside shed just enough light that January’s eyes could now pick up the thin line of razor sharp wire that had been stretched across the doorway at the same height as her neck.
She froze, wondering if this was the first attempt on her life. Every muscle in her body went taut. She silently tuned her senses to try and hear if anyone else was nearby. Was she being watched? After a few seconds of silence, where all she could hear was Cherri inhaling and exhaling smoke, January relaxed a little and decided to inspect the would-be garrotting wire.
It had been attached to the doorframe with sticky tape.
All thoughts of professional killers flew from January’s mind. Instead, she was left wondering if it was someone’s idea of a joke. Perhaps the wire wasn’t even sharp. She reached out a finger and winced when it parted her flesh. It was unbelievably sharp! There was no doubt that someone had intended this wire to cause harm - possibly even death - but attaching it with sticky tape was not a mistake any seasoned killer would make. January was baffled.