Chapter Fifteen
The following evening, Denne re-formed on the cabin’s front stoop to do her nightly robe-for-parka swap before she headed for Sal’s.
It was around quarter of five, not that she needed to worry about the time.
Unlike vampires, Shadows could go out in the day, and in the past ten years, there had been plenty of times she’d been grateful for that fact.
The idea of being trapped indoors or underground while the sun was high in the sky sounded like a prison sentence. Not that she’d left her private quarters at the palace today.
Heading inside, she stalled.
Nothing. Her parents had said… nothing… when she’d gone to see them last night.
She’d been braced for all kinds of conversation and revelation, but what had she gotten? Her mother working on the ancestor regression codex that had been her sacred project for the last year and her father convening with Julia Child in the royal couple’s private kitchen.
Oh, sure, they’d chitchatted about the restaurant, the blizzard, the humans who’d shown up, demanding to meet about buying some of the Territory’s land. That was it.
After the totally uneventful check-in, she’d headed for her own quarters and taken a shower. Where she’d stayed under the hot water for an hour. It had been around dawn when she’d finally fallen asleep, and she’d woken up surprised that it was almost dark.
“Parka,” she muttered.
Swapping the royal purple robe for her North Face, she told herself going to Sal’s was better than sitting around and stewing. And she would have believed it. If she hadn’t gutted an asshole in the parking lot the night before.
But at least she’d be dealing with a different problem at the restaurant, right?
As she stepped back out into the snow, she closed her eyes, intending on dematerializing to where she garaged her truck.
“No truck,” she said aloud. “I don’t have my goddamn truck anymore.”
Like a blackjack dealer was serving her face-ups, snapshots from the drama came at her in sequence: Young woman in the blue dress. The vinaigrette. The very pointy hi-how’re-ya by that awful-colored Beamer.
The clearing down by the river.
And the vampire who had shown up.
The image of that male standing there in the gray sweatshirt and those jeans, his pale blue eyes locking on hers, the wind rustling through his silky hair, felt far more permanent than it should have been.
What the hell did she care about a stranger she’d met for how long? Fifteen minutes? Twenty, tops?
Except the fucker was like a ghost jumping out from behind corners, even with everything else that was going on.
Shoving him out of her mind—again—she closed her eyes and breathed slow and easy.
The centering attempt didn’t help her concentration.
There wasn’t a lot of wind tonight, so instead of going deep inside of herself so she could travel in a scatter of molecules into Caldwell proper… all she heard was the humming.
Popping her lids, she glared off to the north.
The goddamn humans and their data servers.
Over the last few decades, an entire city of buildings housing AI engines and the aggregators of information that fed the models had grown up around the s’Hisbe and the tonal disruption was the kind of thing that you didn’t notice until you did.
And then you could hear nothing else.
Noise pollution wasn’t just jet airplanes and highway traffic. This shit was like the whole world had tinnitus.
Grabbing her earbuds from her pocket, she shoved them into her head, and waited for the noise-canceling to kick in—
Ah, silence. Manufactured or not, it was better than the hmmmmmmmmm.
Just as she was about to dematerialize, she had one more thought about that male who’d stepped free of the trees down by the river and not stopped talking at her: Even before she’d shot him, there’d definitely been blood on his clothes.
Was that stretch of forest some kind of community dumping ground for dead bodies?
And here she thought she’d been all smart and strategical, as the saying went.
By some grace of the stars—or more like habit, really—Denne managed to go molecular and travel through the cold to Sal’s. As she re-formed in the shadows just outside of the parking lot’s lights, she wondered what the hell she was going to do about that BMW—
It was gone.
“Fuck.”
The word was repeating in her head as she let herself in the restaurant’s back door and peered cautiously into her plain-Jane office. But come on, like the consequences of her actions last night was some kind of trespasser she could avoid if she were just sneaky enough?
Nothing was out of place or unusual. The desk with the laptop and phone was where she’d left it, her office chair, too.
There wasn’t much else in the little room, except for the beat-up bulletin board and its single faded, off-kilter New Yorker cartoon that had been pinned on the cork fifty years ago.
She glanced down the hall toward the kitchen. The brisk chatter of the cooking staff and the scents of onion and garlic being sautéed in pans were nightly staples in her life now, and she tried to imagine not coming here anymore. The pang of nostalgia was a surprise.
“Maybe paperwork will cure that,” she muttered as she went around and sat in her chair.
The door in from the parking lot immediately opened again, and as soon as she heard the stomping of the boots, she knew who it was.
“You’re going to wear that mat out,” she said over the thumping.
Willie popped his head around the corner and smiled. “Hi, honey. I’m home. Are we doing better tonight?”
No. “Yes, but we were fine yesterday. Hey, could you ask Marco to come down here for a sec?”
“Sure.” The man leaned against the concrete jamb. “But first, I have to confess something.”
She plugged her elbows into the top of the desk and thought, Finally, someone else’s problems. “Tell me everything—wait, let me guess. You fired your florist—I know it’s not the chef because you’re having Marco do the food.”
Willie fiddled with the black bow tie at his skinny neck. “So this is my last night working before the wedding.”
“You want to leave early again? It’s fine, I can cover—but I told you not to pull shifts this week—”
“So I’m not going to have a chance to say this in person after tonight.” He hesitated. Then offered her an apologetic version of his smile. “But Nick and I really want you to be there on Saturday.”
Ducking the man’s eyes, she focused on a liquor order write-up that’d been put on her laptop, and absently noted that there were two more bottles of vodka than usual on the list. Oh, right. There had been that poker convention in town so—
“You could just come to the ceremony.” When she glanced up, Willie shrugged with plaintive optimism.
“Obviously, you’re going to pass on the reception.
But you could, like, pop in, give us a hug, and blow out of there.
And listen, we truly don’t blame you about the reception—even though you’re going to miss Marco’s dinner, which is a sin.
We’re talking twenty minutes—thirty, tops.
And then you come to us, tell us you love us and you’ve never seen more beautiful flowers, and you’re off. ”
Tilting back in her squeaky chair, she rubbed her eyes as she tried to pick which of the standard no-can-do’s she typically used.
He waited until she dropped her fists into her lap: “I mean, I know you’re a vampire and everything, but you don’t have to worry about the sun this time of year.”
Her heart stopped. What the fuck. Had Marco somehow figured something out last night—
Willie swiped the air and giggled. “Joking about the vampire part, even though you’ve always turned down our brunch invitations. I’m trying to keep things light.” He got serious again. “Because I don’t want you to see how important it is to me for you to be there. For Nick, too.”
“I honestly don’t know why my presence matters to you.”
The human recoiled, and almost caught the hurt expression from taking over his face. “Oh. Okay. Ah—”
“Willie, look—”
He put his hands up. “No. No, it’s cool. Like, I get it, yeah. Crowds are… bad.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Don’t worry, and let’s forget I asked. I’ll go get Marco for you.”
As the man disappeared, she dropped her head and cursed. Working here was just supposed to be a favor for her father, a hold-the-reins until he could come back and ride the stove without a lot of questions from humans. She didn’t actually care about this place or the people.
Really. She didn’t.
And holy hell, the urge to bolt and never return was so great, she curled her hands on the worn arms of the office chair and started leaning forward.
“You wanna see me, boss?”
Pulling herself together, she stared at Sal’s head chef.
The man looked exactly the same, dark hair slicked back, no stains on his whites, belly round as Santa’s.
As with her office, she expected him to be different, but like her actions last night were going to make a horn sprout in the middle of his forehead?
Before she could figure out how to ask about the BMW without asking, Marco came forward and put a little plate down in front of her. “Your fave.”
Denne deflated at the sight of the most perfect crepe she’d ever seen.
“Right off the pan and I made the chocolate inside myself.”
Unexpected tears made her blink quick as she went for the fork. Cutting through the delicate, golden brown wrap, the interior melted in a glorious, slow rush of flavor. The first bite was heaven. The second was even better.
“You seen the news today?” Marco said conversationally.
“No?”
“Two-bit gangster with a history of dumb shit was found dead down by the river. Guess somebody got a little ahead of himself and some friends of his took care of the problem. Ain’t that life when you get what you asked for.”
Denne continued eating, even as things got harder to swallow. “Any leads on who did it?”
“Nope, and with CPD resources being as tight as they are, nobody’s prioritizing a bad guy who got what was coming to him.”
“Hmm. Yeah.”
“Anyway, you needed sumthin’?”
“Ah, yeah.” She put the last bite into her mouth and started scraping the leftover chocolate with the side of the fork. “The restaurant’s paying for all the food this weekend. For the wedding.”
From out of the corner of her eye, she caught Marco’s half smile. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah, least we can do. Willie’s been here how long?”
“Fifteen years. Since he was workin’ summers as a busboy during high school. He grew up at Sal’s. They’re gonna be real grateful to you.”
She put the fork between her lips and drew it out slowly. “It’s the right thing to do. God, Marco, this was amazing. It really hits the spot.”
The moment she put the utensil down, he ambled forward and picked up the plate. When he got back to the door, he glanced at her.
“You okay if I add some lobster to the menu? Willie mentioned offhand that it’s Nick’s favorite, but they was sticking to their budget.”
“Anything they want. It’s a special day.”
“Good.” Marco kept his smile in place, even as his eyes went dead fucking serious. “You know what I like about you, Denne?”
“It is not my charming personality, that I know for sure,” she muttered.
“You always do the right thing.” As her eyes flashed to his, Chef nodded once. “Always.”
As the man walked off, she leaned back in the chair once again, and the squeak went right through her ear and into her brain like an ice pick.
God, if she’d had a window, she would have pitched the damn thing right out into the snow—
Denne’s head whipped up like someone had shouted. “The knife. Oh, shit. I left the knife last night.”