Let Them Eat Stake: A Vampire Chef Novel (33 page)

Henri said they were setting up the Alden daughters? Daughters, plural?

“Yes, yes,” said Anatole impatiently. “Which came first, the change in Henri’s plan or the change in Gabriel’s attitude?”

“But what about Oscar?” said Chet. “He’s dead, and O’Grady’s giving the Aldens the eyeball. Why take the risk of murdering him?”

“It’s starting to look like Oscar found out something he wasn’t supposed to,” I said. “Given all the plans flying around, that might not have been too hard either.”

“And that fake ICE raid?” Chet added unhelpfully. “How’s that work into it?”

“They’re going to get us all killed!” snapped Jacques, whose own set of priorities did not include the death of random chefs. “Maddox won’t let me go when he’s killed Henri and Gabriel. They’ll call me back. They will. I’ll have to go, and I’ll die right beside them.”

“Except you don’t have to go back,” said Chet. “You can come with me. I’ve got a guest room you can use for the day. Then, tomorrow night you’re going to meet some friends of mine. We’ll help, I promise.”

Jacques gaped at him. He was shaking. I haven’t felt sorry for a whole lot of nightbloods before, but I felt sorry for Jacques right then. I was pretty sure he had told us what he knew of the truth, and I was pretty sure none of this was his idea.

“I’m on shift…,” he said, which only made me feel better about him.

“You
just quit.” Chet shot me a quelling glance, and this once I decided to let myself be quelled. “It’s a new night. Come on.” My brother put his arm around Jacques’s slumped shoulders and started leading him away.

“Chet?” I said to his back, and he grinned over his shoulder at me.

“U-hwos meetings,” he said.

“You-whos…Huh?”

“UHWOS. Undead Healthy Without Sires. It’s a support group for vamps who have lost their sires or are trying to leave dysfunctional blood-family situations. We meet every Tuesday. Jacques’s going to need a sponsor.” He tipped me a salute and walked Jacques up the street.

Anatole, on the other hand, laughed, long, loud, and hard. He spun away from me and spread his arms wide. “I love you!” he cried to the city at large. “Do you hear, New York? I love you!”

“Love you too!” came back the city echo. “Now shut the hell up!”

I found myself genuinely and honestly not knowing what to think.

“Considering a serving of humble pie, elder sister?” inquired Anatole, stepping up beside me.

“Crow,” I said. “Maybe pan-seared, with a red wine reduction.”

He smiled, mischief and humor sparking in his green and gold eyes. It felt comfortable standing beside him for that moment—way more comfortable than it should have. Worse, in the middle of talk of murder and blackmail and Maddoxes behaving badly, it felt safe. And I was looking in his eyes and seeing the secrets waiting there again, the secrets he would share if I moved a little closer.

My phone buzzed against my hip and I swore, but I wasn’t sure whether I was annoyed or relieved. I yanked it out and hit the button. It was a text message, and it was from Brendan.

home
now news call l8tr

Yeah, right.
I stuffed the phone in my pocket and faced Anatole. He had stepped away and folded his hands behind his back. The warmth around him was gone, replaced by a heavy, autumnal chill.

“Once again, I see I am too slow. Go to your Brendan, Charlotte. We will talk later.”

I laid a hand on his arm and then charged toward Sixth. “Taxi!”

I worked the old Jedi mind trick of promising a substantial cash tip to the cab driver. This got me to Brendan’s place in fifteen minutes. The elevator felt slower than Midtown traffic, and I was banging on the door and having a hard time breathing by the time Brendan opened it.

“Charlotte?” He peered sleepily at me and shoved his bangs back from his forehead.

“I get four text messages all night, and you expect me to wait for ‘call u later’?” I demanded. At the same time I noticed how he looked okay—as if I’d woken him up, but otherwise okay.

“Yes,” he said simply. “What’s the problem?”

“I…” I swallowed. “I don’t know. But you could have…” Lloyd Maddox was cleaning up loose ends, and Henri was running around without a keeper, and Oscar was so very dead and…and…

“Come in.” Brendan took me by the hand and led me into the living room where he sat me on the sofa. The papers, I noticed, had started encroaching there too. “And it’s okay. I know.”

He was trying to be soothing, and I found, as upset as I was, I wasn’t in the mood. “I’m glad it’s okay,” I said, but
most of my concentration went into pulling myself together. “What do you know?”

“I know Uncle Scott financed that fake ICE raid.”

“Scott?”
I pictured the high-priced nerd at his dining room table with his papers and his coffee and his self-deprecating smile. “Scott Alden? Karina and Deanna’s father?” The man I’d been told just wanted everybody to be happy.

“I don’t know that many Scott Aldens,” Brendan answered, shoving his hair back again. I’d definitely woken him up. Another time I would have said something about payback, but now was not the time. I would say something, later, when the force of his being okay wore off, and when I understood why nerdy Scott Alden had helped commit what I was pretty sure was a major fraud of some kind.

“I finally ran down the agents who pulled it off,” Brendan said. “He paid them fifty thousand to stage the raid and plant the appropriate paperwork in the ICE databases. They got another fifty if they, and any spare Renaults, vanished afterward. Unfortunately, one of my guys knows the guy who set up their new IDs for them.”

Scott Alden shelled out a hundred thousand for only one night’s work? I should have held out for more for the catering. “But
why
?”

Brendan gave a jaw-cracking yawn and scrubbed at his face. “Believe me, I spent a long time trying to find out. Unfortunately, Uncle Scott’s never been much of a talker. He just told them what needed to happen, and they just did it. I’m guessing it was so the theft could happen in the confusion.”

“But why would
Scott
Alden pay ICE to stage a raid so a vampire could steal something off the mantel? It makes no sense.” Especially when that little gun wasn’t even the Arall. Even if Scott didn’t know exactly what the Arall was, he’d have known what it
wasn’t
. Had Henri screwed up and grabbed the wrong thing? “Was it his idea, or did
somebody talk him into it?” Like Adrienne, or Karina? He’d been coming out of Karina’s office. Was that to warn her Brendan was on their trail? Or was it just to make sure she was on track with whatever antivamp formula she was developing? A defense contract, especially one for Homeland Security, could cover the amount shelled out for the fake raid a hundred times over.

Brendan cocked his head toward me. “I take it this wasn’t what you were going to tell me.”

“No. I’d found out something…really different.” Brendan waited for me to get it back together. I really didn’t want to. He liked his aunt. He didn’t like a lot of people in the family he spent so much time trying to pull out of the Dark Ages. I did not want to be the one to have to tell him this. I wanted to retreat, or lie. But that would be even worse. “I think your aunt Adrienne gave Deanna and Gabriel a love potion.”

Brendan didn’t do anything immediately. Then his eyes went distant, and he shifted his weight, straightening his back and getting ready for action. “A love potion?” he asked quietly. “Are you sure?”

I told him about the conversation I’d overheard in the garden last night, about hiding under the bed while Lloyd Maddox removed the class ring from Gabriel’s hand, and about the conversation I’d had with Trudy afterward. I also told him about how Jacques had essentially confirmed all my suspicions, conclusions, and nagging little fears.

Abruptly Brendan stood, but not with his usual grace. Jerkily, as if his gears had rusted, he stalked over to his paper-strewn desk and stood staring at a blueprint taped to his clean white walls. In one motion he tore it down and balled it up tight, tossed it away, and reached for the next one.

“Don’t!” I leapt across the room to grab his arm. “Don’t let them do this to you.” He wasn’t just tearing paper. He was giving up.

“You’ve
got no idea,” Brendan’s voice rasped in his throat. “No idea at all how hard I’ve worked, how hard I’ve
tried
. I’ve smiled and cajoled and bargained and compromised. I’ve put up with more of Grandfather’s everlasting shit than I ever thought I’d be able to. And it never stops.” He dropped into the desk chair and ran his fingers through his hair, as if trying to comb his thoughts back into his head. “It could have been great, Charlotte. I could have made this work.”

“You still can. Nothing’s…”

“Charlotte! My family is manipulating and murdering people using magic! You think people freak out about the vamp whammy? You wait until
this
hits the FlashNews. ‘City contract given to warlock embroiled in murder investigation.’”

“You didn’t do anything.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m the one getting the city money, and I’m related. I’m not surprised Grandfather’s trying to keep this quiet.” He thumped his fist hard against the chair arm. “What the hell did she think she was doing?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “Just when I think my family couldn’t get any stupider, they pull something like this. I’m going to renounce my loyalty oath, I swear. Let them all go to hell on their own.”

“Brendan…” I crouched down so we’d be at eye level, but he held up his hand.

“Don’t, Charlotte. Just…don’t.”

“Okay.” I eased back onto my heels. “But you ought to know, I’ll be hearing from Trudy soon. She said she’d do up an antidote for the love potion.”

Slowly, Brendan turned his face toward me, and it was rock hard. “You went to Trudy before you came to me?”

My mouth went dry, and I realized I was afraid. But the fear bled quickly away, leaving behind a bedrock of anger. Nobody talked to me like that—not even Brendan. “I didn’t think potions were your thing.”

“You
don’t know what my thing is!”

“No. Because you don’t talk about it.”

“Pot. Kettle. Sooty.”

I straightened up and faced him squarely. I was not one of his whining, bratty cousins, and he did not get to treat me like it. “You want to fight, Brendan Maddox?” My voice was soft and tight, and my fists were clenching the air. “We can fight, but I’m not doing this halfway.” I’d seen the Maddoxes polite, backstabbing arguments. That was definitely not how we Caines did things. “If you start with me now, we’re going to really get into it. Screaming, throwing things, the whole nine yards. You just say the word.”

Now I saw something new in his eyes, and my heart swelled painfully. Because Brendan looked confused. “Charlotte, what are you doing?”

“Trying not to scream, Brendan. Because if I’ve got to have an argument with you, that’s what’s going to happen.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I shouldn’t…I don’t…” He buried his face in his hands.

I stood there, watching the strongest man I’d ever met within an inch of breaking down, and I didn’t know what to do. It was true. We never talked about this stuff. I didn’t want to talk about it. I’d wanted him to be just Brendan when he was with me, not Brendan of the Maddox witch clan. I didn’t want there to be things in his life bigger than I was. And I’d believed that was what Brendan wanted too. Because of that, I had no idea what he was really going through, or what to do about it now that it had all hit the fan.

There are times in your life you really don’t want to find out you’ve been a selfish brat. They tend to be accompanied by wishing the ground would open up and swallow you whole.

“No, it’s my fault,” I said, gulping down pride and air. “What are we going to do?”

Brendan flopped back in the chair, letting his hands dangle between his knees. His face twisted up as if he weren’t
sure whether to laugh or yell. “You cannot tell me you did not have some kind of plan coming in here.”

“I did, but you’re going to say you don’t like it.” And I told him about the meeting with Henri that Anatole and Chet and I had agreed to on Nightlife’s roof, making sure I emphasized Sevarin’s offer to set up the sting, and Chet’s willingness to play backup, something I had to admit he was surprisingly good at.

“Charlotte…,” began Brendan as I stopped to draw breath.

“I know, I know. I don’t like it either, but I don’t know what else to do.”

“Charlotte…”

“I can’t let you be there, Brendan. You get that right? Henri will be able to sense you, and he’ll balk. If we’re going to find out what he’s got, we need to…What?”

Brendan had laced his fingers behind his head and crossed one leg over the other. “Just waiting until you’re done talking to yourself.”

I swallowed my snappy comeback. This really wasn’t the time.

“You’re right; I don’t like it,” Brendan went on. “But I also think you’re right that it’s the best idea we’ve got. It also covers the two areas I’d trust Sevarin absolutely on.”

“Two?”

His smile was small and it vanished quickly, but the light lingered in his eyes. “Sticking it to my grandfather and protecting you.”