fantastic food. Florencia explained
as she cooked that she had gone to culinary school and intended to open her own restaurant,
but that working for Clyde had given her the opportunity to earn the capital she needed
to finance the venture.
“Three more years of this,” she said, flipping the omelet in the skillet with the
kind of practiced ease I had only seen in movies and TV shows, “and I should have
enough to start Mama Flora’s. I have my eye on an old restaurant near the pier. If
the market holds steady, I’ll have everything I need, and Mr. Seabreeze has promised
to help with the negotiations and decorating.”
Sara and I congratulated her, though we both raised our eyebrows at her blithe mention
of Clyde’s promise. Though he was clearly the type to showboat, if he kept his word
and was truly so good to his faithful employees, perhaps he wasn’t quite the mercenary
we had assumed.
Royce had proven to me that not all vampires were evil, mindless beasts, and that
they were capable of being compassionate. We hadn’t had the opportunity to get to
know Clyde, so considering he had been backed into a figurative corner due to this
zombie infestation, it was possible we had thus far only seen his worst side. Granted,
I was pissed about the cell phones being confiscated, but not entirely surprised.
At first, Royce had also been a bit of a manipulative dick, which was part of why
it had taken me so long to see that he wasn’t such a bad guy. I imagined it might
be the same with Clyde. We were nothing special to the vampire. Just another couple
of “dumb humans”—only good for food or entertainment, if that much. He didn’t respect
us yet, so he saw no reason to treat us as anything other than pawns. Now that I had
played the Other games of dominance and grandstanding for a few rounds, I was confident
I could find a way to show him that Sara and I had teeth.
Close to noon, we were munching on some snacks while we hung out in the den with the
big screen. As we were trying to get into daytime TV, someone showed up with a depressingly
thin file folder containing the information Clyde was willing to give us about the
zombies, and an envelope delightfully thick with cash.
After storing the envelope in one of Sara’s bags, we opened the file on the sprawling
kitchen table to see what was inside and spread everything out. There wasn’t much.
A list of missing and dead vampires, a few blurry pictures, and a couple of handwritten
notes describing what surviving human servants had seen. Though it took some doing
to figure out what the shaky scrawl spelled out, we had a rough picture of the situation
before long.
Though they were, of course, frightened and disoriented by what they had seen, their
stories were clear enough. Most of the descriptions involved great numbers of the
walking dead—and there was no doubt that’s what they were, considering the way the
survivors wrote of stink and rot—shoving them aside to reach their vampire masters.
The accounts didn’t include the handwritten notes of what happened after. The pages
were missing, or had been deliberately removed. Instead, there were a couple of photos
clipped to the back of the folder, standing mute testament to the massacre that must
have taken place.
I’d never seen a body torn apart before. Though I’d been in the room while a pack
of werewolves had torn apart a vampire and a mage, feasting on their remains, I had
kept my eyes closed so I wouldn’t see anything I’d never be able to unsee.
And now, nightmares of those pictures—the chunks of missing flesh, the shredded flaps
of skin, and the gleam of white bone set in a pool of crimson—would haunt me for the
rest of my days.
Sara grew very pale next to me, but we both somehow managed to keep from barfing.
We quickly shoved the pictures and accounts of the survivors back into the folder,
then moved on to the
as she cooked that she had gone to culinary school and intended to open her own restaurant,
but that working for Clyde had given her the opportunity to earn the capital she needed
to finance the venture.
“Three more years of this,” she said, flipping the omelet in the skillet with the
kind of practiced ease I had only seen in movies and TV shows, “and I should have
enough to start Mama Flora’s. I have my eye on an old restaurant near the pier. If
the market holds steady, I’ll have everything I need, and Mr. Seabreeze has promised
to help with the negotiations and decorating.”
Sara and I congratulated her, though we both raised our eyebrows at her blithe mention
of Clyde’s promise. Though he was clearly the type to showboat, if he kept his word
and was truly so good to his faithful employees, perhaps he wasn’t quite the mercenary
we had assumed.
Royce had proven to me that not all vampires were evil, mindless beasts, and that
they were capable of being compassionate. We hadn’t had the opportunity to get to
know Clyde, so considering he had been backed into a figurative corner due to this
zombie infestation, it was possible we had thus far only seen his worst side. Granted,
I was pissed about the cell phones being confiscated, but not entirely surprised.
At first, Royce had also been a bit of a manipulative dick, which was part of why
it had taken me so long to see that he wasn’t such a bad guy. I imagined it might
be the same with Clyde. We were nothing special to the vampire. Just another couple
of “dumb humans”—only good for food or entertainment, if that much. He didn’t respect
us yet, so he saw no reason to treat us as anything other than pawns. Now that I had
played the Other games of dominance and grandstanding for a few rounds, I was confident
I could find a way to show him that Sara and I had teeth.
Close to noon, we were munching on some snacks while we hung out in the den with the
big screen. As we were trying to get into daytime TV, someone showed up with a depressingly
thin file folder containing the information Clyde was willing to give us about the
zombies, and an envelope delightfully thick with cash.
After storing the envelope in one of Sara’s bags, we opened the file on the sprawling
kitchen table to see what was inside and spread everything out. There wasn’t much.
A list of missing and dead vampires, a few blurry pictures, and a couple of handwritten
notes describing what surviving human servants had seen. Though it took some doing
to figure out what the shaky scrawl spelled out, we had a rough picture of the situation
before long.
Though they were, of course, frightened and disoriented by what they had seen, their
stories were clear enough. Most of the descriptions involved great numbers of the
walking dead—and there was no doubt that’s what they were, considering the way the
survivors wrote of stink and rot—shoving them aside to reach their vampire masters.
The accounts didn’t include the handwritten notes of what happened after. The pages
were missing, or had been deliberately removed. Instead, there were a couple of photos
clipped to the back of the folder, standing mute testament to the massacre that must
have taken place.
I’d never seen a body torn apart before. Though I’d been in the room while a pack
of werewolves had torn apart a vampire and a mage, feasting on their remains, I had
kept my eyes closed so I wouldn’t see anything I’d never be able to unsee.
And now, nightmares of those pictures—the chunks of missing flesh, the shredded flaps
of skin, and the gleam of white bone set in a pool of crimson—would haunt me for the
rest of my days.
Sara grew very pale next to me, but we both somehow managed to keep from barfing.
We quickly shoved the pictures and accounts of the survivors back into the folder,
then moved on to the
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