Blessed

  I only hoped that the new hire restricted his hunting to bad vampires.

  Zachary made a few newbie mistakes — confusing the Chianti-marinated wild mushrooms with the lamb’s liver (which, granted, was served with mushrooms of a different variety), forgetting who’d ordered what at table ten, briefly hitting the weeds once his fourth party was seated.

  Nobody complained. Zachary’s tips were outrageous. He seemed good-naturedly resigned to all the attention, even when a petite dark-haired girl (who he later referred to as “a one-night lapse in judgment”) slapped him hard across the face.

  By midnight, five women, two men, a zombie of ambiguous gender, and a couple in their midfifties had all propositioned him, shamelessly and in front of me.

  It was entertaining, watching the restaurant swoon. But frankly, I preferred my men with a little more hair on them.

  Because of the distraction that was Zachary, I’d worried that Freddy’s debut entrance as Chef Sanguini would be anticlimactic. I shouldn’t have.

  It wasn’t just the black silk suit and fake fangs. It was in the curl of Freddy’s lip and the come-hither aggressiveness of his stride. He had a cynical edge that Zachary didn’t. An impishness juxtaposed with high-brow breeding that Bradley could’ve only hoped for. Freddy projected nefarious charm and unapologetic regality.

  He didn’t prattle on. He didn’t spout hypocrisy about entering freely or of one’s own will. He raised his wineglass as if it were a challenge.

  “Welcome to Sanguini’s,” Freddy began. “To the prey, I say, welcome to your last night among the living.” He met my eyes. “To the predators, I say, welcome home.”

  Then Sergio fired up the instrumentals to “Nessun Dorma” on the speakers, and Freddy burst into song — gorgeous, soaring song — and brought down the house.

  Swinging a heavy arm around my shoulders, Sergio leaned in. “We did good?”

  I laughed and kissed his cheek. “We did terrific!”

  A half hour or so later, a young woman in a navy suit flagged me from a nearby two-top. She had one of those (probably fake) artfully placed moles over her upper lip that supermodels referred to as a beauty mark. Her similarly dressed companion wore his light brown hair in an outdated mullet, much in the fashion of a ’90s country pop star.

  “May I help you?” I asked, realizing that they matched Detective Zaleski’s description of the couple that had been asking around about Brad.

  The woman gestured to Freddy. “That’s not him, and he’s not in the kitchen.”

  “Who?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Where’s Bradley Sanguini?” her companion demanded, grabbing my hand.

  And there it was: the lingering question.

  What with my own superpowers, I didn’t feel especially vulnerable. But I didn’t appreciate the attitude, either. “Bradley Sanguini was make-believe. The individual who played that role is no longer employed here.”

  “Let go of her,” Zachary said from behind me.

  “This is why we have bouncers,” I whispered, glancing over my shoulder. “The big, burly, hairy men — go fetch them.”

  Yanking my fingers free, I addressed the table in a grown-up voice that would’ve made Kieren proud. “Sanguini’s strictly forbids any touching of the staff.”

  In fact, Sergio had instituted the policy earlier this evening because it had become a hassle trying to discourage guests from running their fingers through Zachary’s hair.

  Zachary himself had made no move toward the werebears. “Quincie, I think —”

  “Excuse me,” I said, turning. “You haven’t even filled out a W-2 yet. Is this some kind of male ego thing? Do you have a problem with working for a teenage girl?”

  “Me?” Zachary exclaimed. “Really, no. I’d happily pick up your dry cleaning if that’s what it took to get the job done.” His gaze flicked past me. “Oh, crap.”

  When I turned to look, the two-top had been abandoned. “Where’d they go?”

  “They disappeared,” Zachary replied, “literally.”

  More like dissolved into mist.

  After tipping out the bussers and bar, I touched base with APD while Zachary grabbed a bowl of linguini, a loaf of Italian bread, and a glass of Pinot Grigio, and met me in the private dining room. “Did you know those two?” he asked. “The real vamps?”

  “Never saw them before.” I took a sip of porcine blood from my U.T. sports bottle and opened Frank to take notes. “You?”

  Zachary speared some romanesco broccoli. “They were after . . . What was his name?”

  “Brad,” I replied, noticing he’d sidestepped the question. “Also a . . . you know.”

  “They didn’t seem especially into you or the restaurant beyond that.”

  True. They had flagged me over, though. “You don’t think we’ll see them again?”

  Zachary shrugged. “When it comes to your kind, I’ve learned not to assume.”

  Bristling at the your kind, I demanded, “How do you know what I am? How does Nora? And Freddy, does he know, too?”

  “We’re sort of in the business of knowing.” Zachary twirled a forkful of linguini. “Don’t get me wrong. Nora’s a first-rate chef. You saw how well Freddy worked the crowd, and I’ll try not to drop food on anyone. But it’s fair to say we’re tapped into the goings-on of the underworld.”

  “And cryptic answers?” I replied, writing it all down anyway.

  Zachary didn’t take the bait. “This Brad, he’s the one who —”

  “Killed me?” I suggested, though what he’d done was worse than that.

  Zachary’s voice softened. “Nora mentioned that you two weren’t on good terms.”

  I had no intention of rehashing everything that had happened.

  “And you don’t associate with other vamps?” he added.

  I shook my head. “Really, no.”

  Zachary seemed to consider that. He downed a few more forkfuls of pasta before gesturing at Frank. “They have electronic things that do that, you know.”

  “It was a gift from Kieren.” I hated the catch in my voice. “You won’t meet him. He, um, transferred to a prep school up north.”

  Zachary stared at me for a minute. “Yeah, I had someone who . . . transferred up, too. Now I just hear things. My friend Joshua, he keeps me posted on how she’s doing.”

  Oh. Zachary was in love with someone, someone he’d lost, too.

  For a while, we sat quietly together. I toyed with my dangly, red-drop earring. Zachary polished off his veggie linguini and a full loaf of Italian bread and washed it down with white wine. Then he ducked out, and I smiled when he returned with another full serving of the same meal. It reminded me of Kieren.

  Zachary’s voracious appetite, combined with his astonishing reflexes and the way he looked, meant he had to be some kind of shifter. A big Cat probably, given his height, grace, and build. The golden brown mane suggested a werelion. True, he had no shadow of a beard, no hair on the backs of his hands. But Ruby was a Cat of the Cougar-ish variety, and in human form, she hadn’t been noticeably hirsute, either.

  There was something he wasn’t telling me. But Zachary had a quality (apart from the looks) that was irresistibly likable.

  A moment later, he asked, “What is it, Quincie?”

  “What is what?”

  “The reason you’re sitting here with me instead of hovering over cleanup.”

  “I do not hover.” Actually, I did. “Well, now that you mention it, I saw what you did in the park the other night, and given that I’m —”

  “I’m not hunting you,” he said. “I’m here to help save your soul.”

  So that was the deal with the Chicagoans. Just what every undead teenage restaurateur needed — Jesus freaks! “And the vampire you torched, was he an atheist?”

  “It wasn’t like that. Protecting you and your friends was all that mattered. That vampire . . . his soul had eroded away a long time ago. There was nothing left to save.”

/>   “You’re sure you don’t want lunch?” Miz Morales touched up her frosted plum lipstick. She had a rehearsal dinner in Round Top tonight and would be gone until late Sunday.

  I’d only been living here for eleven days, but already, her leaving reminded me of when Daddy would go on trips to academic conferences and archaeological sites. The Morales house had started to feel like home for real.

  “Quincie?” she prompted.

  As Meghan squeezed yellow mustard onto her third chili-cheese dog, I replied, “Nora served up hearty leftovers last night after close.”

  “And you’re still full?” Miz Morales pressed, twisting the lipstick tube closed.

  “Pretty much.” Not really.

  She let it go. “Roberto will be here if you need anything. Well, he’ll be glued to the U.T.–Tulane game, but you know . . . Next weekend we could go shopping —”

  “Thing is,” I said, trying not to hurt her feelings, “I don’t want to redecorate Kieren’s room. I miss his books.” Leaning against the counter, I added, “Without them, it’s like he’s more gone somehow.”

  Miz Morales grabbed her purse. “Wolves have secrets —”

  “I get that.” I felt bad trying to manipulate her, but it’s not like I was outright lying, and there were lives at stake. “But with those old texts . . . I don’t even know how to read German or Latin or Tsalagi or Hindi. Really, Ye Olde English is beyond me. I miss the smell of the books, though.”

  “I know what you mean,” she said in a gentler tone.

  Miz Morales smoothed the cub’s hair. “I have to go to work, but you can play with the dogs or watch football with Daddy, and Quincie will be here most of the day.”

  Meghan looked up at her. “Can I go to Didi’s house? Or Ethan’s? Or — ?”

  “How about you make this easy,” her mama answered, “and stay here?”

  Meghan glared at me and pushed her plate away. It was an impressive show of bravado, coming from someone so small.

  My fault that she didn’t feel safe in her own home.

  After Miz Morales drove off, I confirmed that the still-pouting Meghan had curled up on the white leather sofa in the great room and was watching superhero cartoons with her stuffed toy bunny, Otto. Then I made my way back upstairs to Kieren’s room.

  Nora had said that Dracula was loosely based on truth. The fact that Vice Principal Harding had checked out both copies from the school library only seemed to back her up. The Chicagoans might be religious loons, but that didn’t mean they were totally off base.

  Not that — given the arcane nature of Kieren’s research books — I imagined that a well-known classic novel, available in most libraries and bookstores, held the key to undoing Brad’s mass-infection effort. But it might be useful for background info.

  In an Undead 101 sort of way.

  I logged on to my laptop and found a searchable site with the text. First, I skimmed an accompanying article long enough to learn that the story had been written in letters, diary entries, newspaper articles, a ship’s log, and something called a “phonograph diary.” Then I started in on the novel myself, taking notes in Frank.

  The story begins with Jonathan Harker, a young English lawyer. He’s traveling from England to Castle Dracula in the Carpathian Mountains.

  On one hand, he’s organized and thorough in writing down the details of his trip — Mrs. Levy would award him an A for journal entries.

  On the other, he seriously cannot take a hint. A hysterical old woman gives him a rosary for protection. Other peasants cross themselves, point two fingers at him (to guard against the evil eye), and mutter words like Ordog (Satan), pokol (hell), stregoica (witch), and vrolok and vlkoslak (werewolf or vampire?). Dogs howl outside his window, and he’s having “all sorts of queer dreams.” But he goes to the castle anyway. Idiot.

  I paused to dig my English journal out of my backpack, grabbed a pen, and retreated with my laptop to Kieren’s water bed.

  I scribbled as much as I could remember about my own recent “queer dreams” — dancing with Bradley on Sanguini’s dance floor, his cool mouth on the creaking twin bed in his basement, my kissing the blade of the bowie knife in his foyer.

  Then I began reading again.

  Along the way, Jonathan takes a coach ride from hell, complete with howling wolves and a ghostly driver who can mysteriously control them.

  “Enter freely and of your own free will,” Dracula finally greets him.

  Brad had used that line — “Enter freely and of your own free will” (or some variation of it) — on me twice. Not long after we first met at Sanguini’s, and again when I went to his house.

  Black-on-black wardrobe aside, nobody would mistake the count for a sex symbol. Dracula is an old, scrawny, tall, and thin man with “waxen” skin, red eyes, a hook nose, and sharp white teeth, mostly hidden by his long white mustache and pointed beard. He has a heavy accent, bad breath, long fingernails, and hairy palms.

  His manner is courtly, though. Aristocratic.

  The visit starts off cozy, and I’m charmed by how much Jonathan misses his fiancée, Mina. But before long, Jonathan figures out that he’s a prisoner, that he needs to be a lot more careful shaving, and that the castle’s other residents are three ruby-red-lip-licking, baby-eating, voluptuous female vampires with silvery, musical laughs.

  In Frank, I noted that Dracula looked younger after drinking blood and had a thing about sleeping on dirt. Neither clicked with what I knew about the undead, but Nora had said the novel was only “loosely” based on truth. I wished I knew which parts were “loose” and which were solid. What I wouldn’t have given for Kieren’s personal library. Not to mention Kieren himself.

  “Why do you miss him so much?” a voice whispered. “So much more than me?”

  I walked in on Clyde snacking on crickets and watching coverage of the U.T.–Tulane game in Sanguini’s break room. “Did Nora say you could eat those?”

  In reply, the Possum crossed his high-tops on the coffee table, leaned his head back on the floral sofa, and dropped another squirming insect into his mouth. “What do you think?” he asked before swallowing.

  “I think that’s disgusting,” I said, feeling only vaguely hypocritical. Taking a seat beside him, I downed another spoonful of the surprisingly tasty porcine-blood-and-raspberry gelatin that Nora had concocted for me.

  “When are we trying the hex-removal spell again?” Clyde asked.

  “Because it went so well last time?” I shook my head. “Detective Zaleski was right. We don’t know what we’re doing. We might make things worse.”

  “What’s left then? Prayer? Because —”

  I patiently explained what Nora had told me, adding, “So, I’m reading Dracula to try to find out —”

  “That’s your master plan?” the Possum replied. “Homework?”

  “And what genius idea do you have?”

  Clyde didn’t have an answer, not that I’d expected one. I saw no reason to explain that studying Stoker wasn’t the sum total of my working strategy. I’d been trying to feel out the Chicagoans, trying to gauge whether we could confide in them. It was hard, being subtle, what with time running out. But I wouldn’t repeat the mistake that I’d made with Bradley, not with so much and so many at stake.

  That said, it seemed best to leave Clyde out of it. At least for the time being. The Possum’s interpersonal skills were even worse than mine.

  During the commercial break, I asked, “Do you suppose that, wherever he is, Kieren’s following the ’Horns this season?”

  Clyde shot me a look. He popped another cricket into his mouth, swallowing it whole. “You never talk about him.”

  I shrugged, finishing off my Jell-O. “Neither do you.”

  “I’m a guy. It’s different.”

  What was it with people? Everyone wanted me to talk, share, bond — first Meghan, then Mrs. Levy, and now Clyde.

  I snagged the remote from the table and lowered the volume. “What’s your poin
t? You think I’m deficient because I haven’t gone catatonic?”

  “Catatonic?” he shot back, fishing out another insect. “Try panting. Wasn’t that you trailing after that Zachary guy last night?”

  Was that what this was about? “I do not pant.” I set my empty bowl on the coffee table. “For your information, Zachary’s in training. He needed my help.”

  “Sure he did.”

  I started to say that I followed all the new-hire waiters in case they got weeded, but it’s not like I owed some sophomore part-time dishwasher an explanation. “What do you know?” I replied. “You were in the kitchen all night.”

  Clyde held up the jar, selecting his next victim. “I see things. When Zachary came in to drop off and pick up his orders, you were always right there, chirping at him.”

  I could not believe he’d just said that! Maybe Clyde and I had never been close. Maybe Kieren had been our only real connection. But I’d thought we were starting to become friends. “You honestly think I don’t care that Kieren’s gone, that after spending our whole lives as friends, I’ve already moved on to some other guy?”

  “Give ’im hell, baby!”

  My fangs came down. “You think . . .” I narrowed my red eyes. “You think that inside I’m just singing, ‘La, la, la, Kieren who?’”

  Clyde glanced at me, dropped his cricket, and scrambled off the couch. “Whoa!”

  “You do, don’t you?” I went on, snatching the abandoned insect from the cushion as I stood to face him. “Well, you know what, you little weasel?”

  I crushed the bug and felt its guts ooze between my fingers. “It’s all I can do to think about anything else. Kieren’s bedroom is now my bedroom and his bed is my bed and his parents are my parents and his little sister —”

  “I get it, I get it!” Clyde raised his hands in surrender. “Relax.” He took a breath. “You stay here. I’ll go get you some more ungodly disturbing Jell-O.” He paused. “You might want to wash your hands first.”