Fangs in Fondant

by Melissa Monroe

  “Miss Pratt wants to see your mother. Do you have any idea where she’s teaching tonight? I really haven’t the faintest idea anymore, and you know she never tells me these things.”

  “She’s at the community center tonight,” Maddison whispered, glancing nervously between Priscilla and her father. Priscilla was willing to bet good money Maddison had been scolded or guilted into compliance by Olivia before she’d left for the evening.

  “Ah, good,” Timothy said, turning back to Priscilla with a pleased smile. “She should be there for about thirty minutes, I’d imagine. That’s plenty of time.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. I walked.”

  Timothy’s smile disappeared. “In this cold? You’re joking, Priscilla.”

  “Afraid not, sir,” she replied with a forced smile. “The van is for company use only, and I’m off the clock until ten tonight.”

  “I don’t want you walking back in this weather,” he insisted. “Give me a minute to get on shoes and a coat. I can drive you.”

  “Really, you don’t have to—” Priscilla began.

  Maddison cut them both off. “I can drive her, Daddy. I need to practice anyway.”

  Timothy raised an eyebrow at her. “You sure? The roads might be slick.”

  “I’m fine, Daddy, really.”

  “And Priscilla? Does she count? I don’t want you getting pulled over on a technicality.”

  Maddison actually rolled her eyes at that. “Priscilla is 350 years old, Dad. I think she qualifies as a legal adult by this point.”

  “Three-hundred and fifty-five,” Priscilla corrected. “But who’s counting?”

  Maddison leaned up to kiss her father’s cheek. “Watch a sitcom, okay? Dinner should be done soon. Turn off the oven when the timer goes off.”

  “All right. Drive safe, pumpkin,” Timothy said, lifting a pink coat from the rack. He offered it to his daughter and Maddison took it gratefully.

  “I will.”

  Maddison slipped on a pair of snow boots and a scarf before donning the coat. She didn’t speak until the door had closed firmly behind them.

  “You’re only going to make her mad, you know,” Maddison said. She sounded tired. Perhaps defeated was the better word.

  “I know,” Priscilla said with a sigh. “I’m not aiming to do it, but you’re probably right. I need to speak to her about what happened at Robshaw Inn, though. It feels like she’s been avoiding me.”

  “She has,” Maddison said, crossing over to the beige sedan waiting in the drive. “She’s really upset, Priscilla. Matthew Porter turned up on our doorstep this morning demanding the down payment back. Kierra’s father is on the warpath.”

  “He didn’t show up on my doorstep,” Priscilla said, opening the passenger door with a frown.

  Maddison sighed. “Of course he didn’t. They’re going to use the cakes for the funeral, and even if they weren’t, do you really think Matthew is going to march right up to his wife’s alleged murderer and demand money back?”

  “I didn’t kill her,” Priscilla snapped, mostly on reflex. She felt worse the moment the words left her mouth. Maddison buckled her seatbelt in total silence, lips thinning into a hard line.

  They pulled out of the drive and onto the street. Maddison could see as well as Priscilla in the dark, but still flicked on the headlights. Some things you did for the safety of others, rather than for yourself.

  “My mom didn’t kill her either,” Maddison said, taking the next corner too fast. They slid a little before straightening out. “But you’re going to go out there and accuse her of murder.”

  “Not accuse,” Priscilla hedged. “It’s not like that. I need to ask her questions. Those were her signature mints—”

  “Not anymore, they’re not.” Maddison’s voice cracked like a whip in the interior of the car. It was startling enough that Priscilla’s excuses wilted and died on her lips. Maddison had never raised her voice. Ever. Not in the five years Priscilla had known her.

  “What do you mean?”

  Maddison shook her head wearily, her anger already melting away. She came to a stop at the four-way and waited for Mr. Peckman’s restored Model-T to trundle through the intersection. “Just be careful, Priscilla. She’s touchy right now. That payday was supposed to go to our mortgage payment. My dad just got home from a double shift and they still don’t know how they’re going to pay for it.”

  Priscilla’s intestines writhed like agitated snakes in her abdomen. She felt the odd urge to throw up. Her eyes pricked like they wanted to cry, but of course, she couldn’t. Tears were superfluous to a vampire. She’d only be able to produce enough to cry if she was well-fed at all times. Almost no vampires in the world could afford to eat that well anymore, without killing.

  Priscilla rubbed her eyes to dispel the sensation, hoping Maddison would interpret it as tiredness. She doubted it would fool her companion. Maddison was more perceptive than most people gave her credit for.

  “I’m sorry,” Priscilla said, voice cracking on the way out. She felt absolutely wretched. She hadn’t realized the Baker’s financial situation had become so precarious.

  Maddison smiled at last. “I still don’t regret working with you on those cakes, if that’s what you’re worrying about. It saved my parents having to cut out something to pay for blood. I hate it when they do this. I can go for longer without than they can.”

  “You shouldn’t have to starve,” Priscilla said, hands balling into fists at her sides. She was suddenly furious at herself. Olivia was her friend. How could she have let it get to this point? “You’re their child. They’re not going to let you suffer.”

  “That’s what everyone seems to forget, isn’t it?” Maddison said quietly. “If my sire hadn’t stolen me from my family, I’d probably be a grandmother by now. I’m 63, Priscilla. I’m not a child anymore.”

  “And I’d be in a grave, nothing but dust, if my sire hadn’t come along,” Priscilla said. “We are what we are.”

  “And we shouldn’t have to suffer for it,” Maddison hissed. “Blood should not be that expensive. And rich, entitled jerks like the Cunninghams should not be able to push people around.”

  “I’m going to make this right,” Priscilla whispered, more to herself than to Maddison.

  “Good luck,” Maddison said with a sigh. “The fundamental nature of people hasn’t changed in the 60 years I’ve been undead. I don’t see it changing tomorrow.”

  They pulled into a parking space outside the courthouse, opposite of Fangs in Fondant. The community center was on the square, located on the side with the gallows and stocks. Priscilla had always thought it a strange choice, but didn’t say so as Maddison unbuckled her seatbelt and pushed open her door.

  “I didn’t realize you were such a pessimist,” Priscilla said.

  Maddison’s answering smile was brittle. “A realist, I think. I’ll walk you to the building, Priscilla. Please don’t mention anything I said to Mother. She’ll be upset with me as it is.”

  “I promise,” Priscilla said, unbuckling her seatbelt. She reached for the door handle, but Maddison had already circled the car. Maddison opened her door with another faint smile and offered her a hand out.

  “I’m going to make this better,” Priscilla promised, this time giving the girl solid eye contact. “I promise.”

  “You’re going to have to be subtle about it,” Maddison said, helping her out. Priscilla shut the door behind them and they started down the street. “Mom and Dad don’t like charity.”

  “I can do subtle,” Priscilla said, stuffing her hands into her pockets.

  Maddison snorted. “You have many talents, Priscilla Pratt, but subtlety isn’t one of them.”

  It would have to be. Priscilla had a murderer to catch and several names to clear. Lives might depend on it.

  Chapter Five

  The community center took up most of one side of the square. Once upon a time it had been a meeting house and a church. It had been abandoned as the latte
r after a few centuries, and as such it was safe for Priscilla to enter. The consecration had long ago worn away, leaving the ground as mundane as the rest of the square.

  Priscilla was silently grateful that the group had elected to hold its meetings in the evening and outside of Bellmare Baptist Church. It was a popular destination for small groups because the church didn’t charge a fee to use the space.

  “So what’s going on?” Priscilla asked Maddison as they approached.

  “Mom’s teaching night classes for extra money,” Maddison informed her, stopping just short of the community center. The windows were warped and yellowed with age, and Priscilla sincerely doubted that Olivia would have been able to tell it was a woman lurking outside the window, let alone her daughter. Still, Maddison didn’t seem keen to take the chance.

  “I’m really sorry about that,” Priscilla began again. “If there’s anything I can do to make it up to you—”

  “I’m not the one you need to apologize to,” Maddison said, glancing at the door. Warm amber light spilled from the windows and lit the snow at their feet. “You’d better go in. Mom can’t toss you out if she’s in the middle of class, but she will if you burst in at the end.”

  “Right.” Priscilla gave Maddison a quick hug. “I’m sorry.”

  “Go,” Maddison said, giving her a playful shove toward the door. Priscilla stumbled a few steps and then finally turned away. Maddison was right. She was stalling.

  Priscilla took the stairs two at a time and only a few seconds later found herself in front of the peeling doors. If she listened, she could make out Olivia’s voice through the door. She took a deep breath, seized the knob in both hands, and shoved her way into the room before she could take the coward’s way out and walk home.

  Olivia paused mid-sentence and every eye in the room shifted to Priscilla. She had the sudden and strong desire to melt through the floorboards to escape the attention. Instead she forced a smile and said, “Sorry I’m late.”

  Olivia’s glare could have melted glass. Not for the first time, Priscilla wondered how it had gotten to this point. How had they come to dislike each other so much in such a short amount of time?

  “I wasn’t expecting you, Priscilla,” Olivia said coolly. “You said you weren’t going to make it.”

  “Change of plans,” Priscilla said, smiling too widely in her effort to appear nonchalant. A few people in the front row cringed away from her fangs. “What did I miss?”

  “Not much,” Olivia said. “Sit down.”

  Priscilla slipped a twenty into the Tupperware container on the front table and then made her way to the only empty seat in the very back row. Priscilla pulled out her notebook and then raised her eyes expectantly to the front of the room. Olivia’s gaze lingered on her for just a few seconds, but it was enough to convey the seething anger in her eyes.

  “As I was saying,” Olivia continued, as if she hadn’t been interrupted. “This is just the base recipe. You can add anything you like to it. For example, for springtime weddings, I like to add a little bit of orange extract for a little extra zing.”

  Olivia poured a capful of extract into the bowl and kneaded the mixture inside of it. Then she powdered the wax paper-covered desk liberally with granulated sugar and plopped the whole thing onto its surface.

  Priscilla felt very ill-prepared as every other woman attending the class withdrew a similar lump from a bowl and placed it on sugar-covered wax paper. She could only watch as her peers began to roll out the mixture and began to cut shapes from it.

  Ah. So that’s what Maddison had meant. Her mother wasn’t the only one who could make Kierra’s mints anymore. And if what she’d gathered from Tim Baker was right, Olivia had been teaching this recipe for a while.

  Instead of sitting in the background feeling foolish, Priscilla withdrew a small notebook from an inner pocket of her coat. She knew about three-fourths of the class by sight and began to scrawl their names onto the page. Heath Brewer, Verity Richfield, Henrietta Carlton, Martha Stout, Vivian Lockhart, and more. By the time she’d scribbled down the last name she knew—Gloria Newmont—Olivia was explaining the best way to store the mints.

  The time passed slowly, or at least that was Priscilla’s perception. There was little she could do to participate, and she didn’t want to anger Olivia further by jotting down her prized recipe, no matter that she’d paid for the privilege of doing so. When the tedium became too much to handle, she began to doodle idly on the next page of the notebook. What it was she ended up sketching, even she couldn’t tell. Drawing hadn’t been a skill set she’d learned in her human life, and she apparently had little talent for it anyway.

  “Is that a moose?” Olivia asked, a note of humor in her voice despite her apparent irritation. Priscilla jerked reflexively away from the sound of her voice and drew the notebook closer to her body.

  “Relax,” Olivia said, settling into the vacated chair next to her. The class was emptying, and Priscilla was surprised that the clanking of bowls and the scraping of chairs against the hardwood floor had not alerted her that Olivia had finished. She supposed she could only be grateful that Olivia hadn’t slipped out the door after her students while she’d had the chance.

  “It’s supposed to be a car,” Priscilla said with a frown. “I’m going to repaint the van soon and wanted to see where the logo fit best. Is it really that bad?”

  “I didn’t know the rusted abomination you call transportation had antlers,” Olivia said with a snort of laughter. “Something you’re considering for the holidays, Pratt?”

  “Oh, hush,” Priscilla said, flipping the notebook shut. She shoved it back into the coat pocket and was intensely grateful for her inability to blush.

  Olivia’s face hardened after a moment, all traces of good humor gone as soon as they’d come. She glanced at the door and waited until the last of her students had filed out before she spoke.

  “You have a lot of nerve bursting in here like that. If you wanted to talk to me, you could have called.”

  “Would you have picked up?” Priscilla asked.

  “Probably not,” Olivia said.

  “There’s your answer.”

  Olivia’s expression fluctuated wildly in the space of just a few seconds. Irritation was the first emotion to flit across her face, followed quickly by a sudden defensive stiffening of her shoulders, a guilty look, and finally one of resignation.

  “Okay, fine. You have me there.”

  Olivia drew herself up to her full height. It wasn’t as impressive to Priscilla as it might have been to someone else. She’d gotten used to being the tallest person in any room for centuries and had to contend with men’s reactions to it. Olivia didn’t stand a chance unless she could somehow file her rolling pin into a stake. It was hard to intimidate someone when you were average height and weight for your age.

  “How did you know where to find me?” Olivia asked, eyes narrowing to slits. “If you called Maddison again, I swear to God, Priscilla—”

  “I walked to your house, knocked on your door, and asked for you,” Priscilla said, cutting her off before she could work herself up to a good rant. “Your husband invited me to stay until you got home, but I thought you’d prefer to hash things out without eavesdroppers.”

  Olivia considered it a moment before letting out a gusty sigh. “I suppose you’re right. This is between us. So what was it you wanted?”

  Priscilla shifted in her chair so she could face Olivia head on. She didn’t want to come across as insincere or teasing. “I wanted to know if you’d go out for a drink with me.”

  With nothing but the radiator in the corner making a sound, Priscilla could pick up on the sudden elevation of Olivia’s heartbeat. It thrummed in the relative silence like the beat of a bird’s wings. For the life of her, she couldn’t figure out what had made Olivia so nervous. She thought back over the last minute of conversation, looking for any clue, just as Olivia broke the silence.

  Olivia raised one perfec
tly plucked brow at her and said, “I thought you didn’t drink ... wine?”

  Priscilla let out a half-strangled laugh and had to cover her mouth, lest she flash fang. It was moments like these that made her remember why she and Olivia had become fast friends in the first place. “Dracula, hmm? Someone is leaning on their high school reading lately.”

  “Well, you know. When the opportunity presents itself, I can’t resist.”

  Priscilla smiled wistfully and just barely resisted the urge to seize Olivia’s hand in her own. People today were so much more squeamish about expressing friendly affection. “I’m not asking you to be a donor, Olivia. I wanted to see if you’d go with me to Branigan’s Tavern. I think they’re open the rest of the week. Ghost tours and whatnot.”

  Olivia’s eyes darted every which way, as if searching for an escape route. Priscilla was almost sure she had her answer when Olivia’s shoulders slumped and she whispered, “A drink sounds nice, thanks.”

  “Let me get the van,” Priscilla decided after a few moments of silence. “Just in case I need to drive you home.”

  “I’m not going to drink that much, Priscilla. Don’t you have any faith in me?”

  Olivia smiled tightly and stood, brushing herself off. The woman at the table next to her had somehow managed to get granulated sugar all over Priscilla’s gray wool coat, despite the fact she’d been sitting at least three feet away.

  “I try not to have too much faith in anything, Olivia,” Priscilla said, striding toward the door. She held it open for Olivia with a grin. “Faith is bad for a vampire’s health.”

  Branigan’s Tavern wasn’t what most people expected. Drinking establishments today tended to be so much larger than the pubs and taverns of yesteryear. The bars were usually long and wrapped around a stylish display of bottles, backlit by soft colored light. In many establishments there was a place to dance or to play games before you were too tipsy to stand up.