Let Them Eat Stake: A Vampire Chef Novel (14 page)

The sound of conversation reverberated through the swinging door, indicating people had gathered around the hors d’oeuvres. The clock read nine—dinnertime. I set out the consommé for Trudy to take to the guests, keeping one eye on the potatoes while Reese lovingly dried and seasoned his steaks. Then, on the other side of the door, the sound of voices stopped dead.

I looked at Reese. Reese looked at me, and the door, and at me again.

A man’s deep voice said something. A woman’s answered.
The man spoke again. Brendan said something I couldn’t catch.

I will not go listen at the door.
I adjusted consommé bowls.
I will not go listen at the door.

“And you won’t either,” I said to Reese, who was looking at me again.

Reese didn’t even pretend not to know what I was talking about. “No, Chef.”

Neither one of us was surprised when Mrs. Alden pushed through the swinging door.

“Charlotte, we have one more for dinner.” She did not look thrilled. In fact, she looked as if she needed to quickly and efficiently disassemble somebody into his component parts. “Can you take care of it?”

I deferred to Reese, who mentally portioned and plated beef before nodding. “That will be fine, Mrs. Alden.”

“Thank goodness. I can’t imagine…” She cut herself off with a frown not meant for either Reese or me. “Thank you.” She walked out again. The door swung silently shut behind her, and I smelled smoke in her wake.

“That’s not good,” I said.

“Somehow, I’m bettin’ whoever showed up is not her best girlfriend.”

“No bet.” Voices sputtered to life out in the dining room. China and glass clinked, but slowly. It was a lot harder to turn away from that door and its inviting little diamond of a window than it should have been.

“This isn’t going to turn out to be one of those happy homes housing dreadful secrets, is it?” Reese held his palm over the grill to check the temperature. “Because if it is, I want time and a half.”

“Cook the steak, Reese. I’ll deal with the crazy rich folks.”

“That’s why you get your name on the jacket.” He started laying steaks on the fire. If there is a more delicious
scent than the first cloud of steam rising to accompany the sizzle of good beef, I don’t know what it is. “But I’ll tell you, there’s something weirder than usual going on here,” Reese went on as the last steak joined its brothers. “I mean, you’ve seen what’s weird about this kitchen, right?”

“Aside from the fact it keeps collecting vampires and witches?”

“Everything in here is brand damned spanking new. I mean everything. Dishes, appliances, glasses. There’s nothing in here older than a couple of months.”

“Huh. Well, maybe when Mrs. Alden was changing her closets for spring, she decided to change her kitchen over too.”

“Nobody goes clean sweep on a kitchen. Everybody’s got something they keep; old coffee mugs or the family recipe books,
something
. This place, it’s like being on the movie set of a kitchen. I’m telling you, it’s
weird
.”

I agreed it was weird, primarily so he would close down and focus on the steaks. Reese is from Chicago, where beef is a sacred thing, and he had prepared the rib eyes according to his most stringent standards. With Reese, you do not put anything other than a sprinkle of salt on beef lest you sully the purity of the meat, and you do not cook it one second longer than is utterly necessary. In fact, ideally, you show the cow a Bic lighter, and dig in.

Reese whistled under his breath as he stood before the grill, coaxing his steaks to their grandest height. I plated salad and ladled duck’s blood soup into bowls. Out front, the conversation rumbled on at a better pace. I started to relax and let the scent of cooking steak fill me with optimism.

Too damned soon as it turned out.

Movement caught the corner of my eye. Out past the patio lights, something flitted through the Aldens’ terraced garden. I jerked my head around and stared at the shadowed bushes. The silver and gold lights of Manhattan
glowed against the night sky like distant fireflies, and I saw nothing, except some waving branches. Somewhere, a car door slammed. Then, the house door slammed. Voices shouted. Reese froze, tongs raised.

Gabriel Renault, with brother Jacques right on his heels, barged through the swinging door in a cloud of cold and frantic fear.

“They’re after us!”

“In here.” I yanked open one of the empty cupboards under the sink.

Gabriel ducked down, knotting himself up with the kind of speed only nightbloods and yoga masters can manage. Jacques stared for one split second and lit out the French doors.

Running footsteps and outraged shrieks sounded in the dining room. I swore and kicked the cabinet door shut. The slam barely had a chance to fade before two bulked-out men in matching blue suits burst into the kitchen to find me stirring potatoes, and Reese bent over the sizzling steaks.

“Where’d they go?” shouted the taller of the suits.

“What the hell…!” Reese demanded.

“This is
your
fault!” screamed Deanna from the other side of the door. “You called them!”

“Where’d they go?” The shorter suit bellowed. Reese raised his tongs as if to point, but I held up my hand.

“Who’s asking? And what’re you all doing in
my
kitchen?” I am a chef. All kitchens I cook in are my kitchen. This is a rule.

“Deanna,
control
,” said Mrs. Alden from the dining room. “We need—”

“We do not
need
! I’m sick of this!”

“Oh, fer chrissakes.” The shorter suit yanked an ID wallet from his pocket and flashed it in front of my face just long enough for me to read
IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT.

ICE was chasing after undocumented nightbloods in a witch’s home? At some point, this was going to be funny.

“You can’t do this!” Trudy banged into the kitchen from the dining room and planted her hands on her hips. “If you’ve got a warrant, I want it on the counter, now!”

“And it’s another one!” Taller Suit yanked a sheaf of papers out of his jacket and tossed them to Trudy, who caught them as they smacked against her chest. He turned back to Reese. “Where are they?”

“Came and went about ten seconds ago.” Reese pointed his tongs toward the door to the side porch. Not that either one of us has ever dealt with ICE raiding a kitchen before. Yes, that is my story and yes, I’m sticking to it.

The ICE guys swore. Taller Suit yelled something into his sleeve as he slammed open the side door and vanished outside. I stared after them.

The cupboard door rattled.

“He’s got a passport!” Deanna was shouting. “They’re both registered! They’ll be out before morning!”

“That’s not all they’ve got, Adrienne,” said that man’s deep voice. Memory told me I’d heard it before, but it didn’t tell me where. “They’ve also just robbed your house.”

“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.

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?”