Текст книги "Home Improvement: Undead Edition"

Автор книги: Сьюзан Маклеод

Соавторы: Seanan McGuire,Rochelle Krich,Toni Kelner,Simon R. Green,E. e. Knight,S. J. Rozan,Charlaine Harris,Melissa Marr,Stacia Kane
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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

Justine’s eyes widened. “They’re . . . quick.”

WITH HER TEMPERbarely hidden, Alison turned to face the human who had caused such turmoil in the nest. “Oh, you have no idea.”

She was a perfectly serviceable human. Her hair was a soft brown, and her eyes were a glimmery blue. Like the rocks I can’t ever find.Alison tilted her head and assessed the woman further. She trembled some; fear was such a primal thing.

“I probably should go.” Justine’s voice quivered so slightly that it was almost unnoticeable, but Alison had spent centuries reading the nearly imperceptible cues of humans. Justine continued, “I simply wanted to stop in and let you know that there is no need for you to attend the meeting.”

She stood and then paused.

“Stay. I’d like to discuss the fence.” Alison stepped toward Justine. “My sister is surprisingly . . . normal. She dates males, works in some sort of . . . What is it you do, Chas?”

“Technical writing.” Chastity obviously heard the dangerous edge in Alison’s voice; she came to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Alison.

“Right. Tedious normal things. I, however, am not quite as civilized.”

“Alison.” Chastity reached out for Alison’s hand and pulled her away from Justine. She smiled reassuringly at the now visibly nervous human and said, “Please forgive my sister. She’s a bit overprotective.”

Justine looked from one to the other. “I don’t think I like your attitude, Miss Faolchu.” She visibly composed herself. Her shoulders straightened, and she smoothed her sleeves down. “I will be going now.”

“No. I don’t think you should, Justine.” Alison glanced at Chastity and said quietly, “Leash me or step back.”

Chastity shot her another quelling look, but she did not order her to stop.

Alison looped an arm around Justine’s waist. The ARB chairperson stiffened and attempted to pull away, but Alison kept her arm where it was. “Did Chastity tell you about the work Mr. Vaduva is doing? Today is his first day here, but we’re very excited about the project.”

At that, Justine paused. “ DamekVaduva? Here?”

“The same.”

“I’ve seen his work in Architectural Digestand Metropolitan Homeand . . . He’s a genius.”

“Would you like to meet him?” With her free arm, Alison gestured toward the stairway leading to the lower level.

“Justine has a meeting to attend,” Chastity said.

Alison glanced at her sister. “Of course . . . the meeting. Chastity is going to that meeting, too. Maybe you could ride over together. She’s hoping to petition the board for approval for the fence, so maybe you could discuss it on the way.”

Justine looked toward the stairwell. “I suppose I could miss one meeting.”

“I don’t think that’s fair,” Chastity said. “If you aren’t even there to hear my petition—”

“You can talk to me while I’m here,” Justine amended. “I was the only one objecting, but I can see now that you have good taste . . . perhaps, I could reconsider my stance. I mean, if Vaduva is here. He isreally here?”

“Come meet him. Then call your committee. Maybe afterward you can talk to Damek. He’s been nattering on about some architectural trip that he’s leading . . .”

“Damek. You call him Damek?” Justine whispered.

“We come from the same place.” Alison shrugged. “Not family, mind you, but we have an old connection.”

Alison saw Chastity stiffen at the mention of Damek coming from the same place, but she did not ask the question she so obviously wanted to. She wouldn’t in front of outsiders.

“Come downstairs, Chas.” Alison held out her free hand. “You should meet Damek.”

Silently, Chastity accepted Alison’s hand. She squeezed it briefly, and then she opened the door to the basement. “I’m glad we’re able to work this out, Justine.”

“Of course.” The ARB chair sounded positively friendly now. She smiled as she started down the stairs.

AT THE FOOTof the stairs, Chastity stood silent as Alison introduced Justine to Damek Vaduva. She wasn’t prepared for the way he looked at her; the familiarity of his assessment made her blush like a far younger Bori. He didn’t speak to her, not yet. Instead he listened as Justine gushed at him, senseless words about his artistry, about how she had tried to get an appointment but was callously rebuffed.

“It’s almost unfortunate,” Chastity said quietly. She caught her sister’s gaze. “You didn’t tell me he was from home. I didn’t know there were any traditional builders here.”

“You can tell me to cease,” Alison reminded her. “You make the final decisions.”

Chastity folded her arms and looked from the builder to her sister. “Mr. Vaduva?”

“Damek,” he corrected. “To you, I am only Damek.” He caught and held Chastity’s gaze then as he added, “It is an honor to work in your nest.”

“Their nest?” Justine echoed. “Oh, the house. In English, it is house. A nestis what animals have.”

Damek motioned for Justine to come closer to him, but his gaze remained fixed on Chastity. “Do you wish me to do this work?”

“Yes.”

There was a moment when neither Borinor builder moved, and then Damek turned to Justine. “Come here.” He pointed into the section of the wall that had been torn open. The drywall was gone, and a peculiar stone-and-wood structure was now alongside the original studs. The stone wall was already built almost knee-high.

“You see the beams. They are good beams. A structure must have the right support.”

Justine leaned forward and looked into the partially built wall. “I see.”

“No. You must come closer.” Damek stepped over the stone and stood in the opening. He laid one hand on the beam. “Inside is the support. This is where the strength comes from. In here.”

Then he stepped out and motioned for Justine to step into the opening. Obediently, she did.

“Look there . . . to the side.” Damek stepped closer, invading Justine’s space, and bodily blocking her exit from the partially built wall. He pointed. “Do you see the weakness of the beams? They need more support.”

Once Justine was looking away, Damek made a gesture at his side with one hand. Alison tugged on a rope, pulling a board from above Justine and releasing the sludgy mix Damek required. It poured over Justine, who shrieked as she lost her balance.

“You idiot!”

“Hold still.” Damek reached out with both hands, but instead of steadying her, he wrapped his hands around her throat and squeezed.

Eyes widened in fear, she stared at him as she clawed at his arms.

Once she crumpled, Damek looked toward Chastity. “You must hold her up.”

With one hand, Chastity pushed Justine backward until her shoulder was flush against the exposed beam behind her. Damek took Chastity’s other hand and put it on Justine’s throat. “Squeeze if she wakes.”

Damek knelt at Chastity’s feet and continued building the wall. He hummed softly as he worked, and he paused only to look admiringly at Chastity—who pretended not to notice.

Justine was walled in up to her hips when Chastity finally allowed her to stir. “What are you doing?” She pushed against Chastity’s grip. “Stop.”

“Support matters,” Damek told her with a frown. “My buildings . . . they never fall. You say you want to understand. You are learning a secret now.”

“No.” Justine slapped at them with hands caked in the clay mixture and scratched Chastity’s arms. Her fingernails gouged Chastity’s forearms, leaving behind tiny red cuts atop the thin scars already there.

“I share this secret.” Damek frowned. “Many years ago people understood. Now? Things have changed.”

Chastity nodded and shoved Justine more firmly against the wall. The ARB chair struck Damek and clawed at him, scraping her now-broken fingernails on his face. She grabbed Chastity’s wrists, bruising them. Damek and Chastity ignored her.

“They have. It’s not that I can’t appreciate the benefits, but I worry. The littles are so young, and this world . . . It was different before. I worry—” Chastity stopped herself.

Damek paused. “I understand.”

As they stared at one another, Justine shrieked and struggled against the stone, brick, and spell-laden mortar that now encased her legs. “You people are sick. You can’t dothis. People will notice. It’s—”

“People never notice. Sacrifice helps buildings,” Damek said.

“I won’t tell. I will sign your fence form and—”

“No,” Alison interrupted. “We needed someone with strong emotions. You are the right person for this job, Justine.”

There was a flash of sorrow in Chastity, but not so much that she would fail to do what must be done to keep her nest safe.

While Damek worked, he said, “People see that my buildings are good. They write the articles. Now, I build for people with money, and when it is important, I build some special things in the old ways.”

“No!” Justine tried futilely to dislodge the stones and bricks. “This isn’t happening.”

As Damek worked, the only sounds other than the grate of brick against brick or tool against stone were those of Justine’s mix of screams, objections, and pleas. Then, even those faded, and only the rhythmic scrape of tools remained.

Chastity watched the bricks as Damek built them up around the exhausted, yet still weeping ARB chairperson. Quietly, she spoke to Justine. “It is for the good of the community. You understand that, don’t you?”

Justine lifted her head and stared at Chastity. “You’re a monster.”

“Yes.” Chastity nodded. “Not so different from you. You wanted to protectyour community from fences and divisiveness . . .” Her words drifted away for a moment as she realized that she felt strangely sad. “I understand now. We both are trying to protect what we believe in. I have to protect my nestmates. The littles need safety, stability, a home . . . and you are helping provide that for them. Our home will be safe from any damage now. It cannot be broken into. Even our windows will not break.”

“You’re insane,” Justine said wearily.

Only her head was still exposed.

“No.” Damek lifted a trowel of mortar and carefully spread it on her face. “My buildings are safer. You make this building strong. Your rage. Your sorrow. Your death. It is good. Strong feeling from you and for you.”

He lifted several more trowels of mortar, and Chastity scooped it from the trowel with her fingers and packed it around Justine’s face and smoothed it into her hair.

The littles had come into the room at some point and now sat nestled against Alison’s body in the middle of the floor. Raven was tucked under one arm, and Remus was curled on the other side.

“You wanted to make a difference, to be noticed, to be important. You have been. You will always be important to us now, Justine.” Gently, Chastity covered Justine’s eyes.

The last couple of tears had left tracks in the mortar on the ARB chairperson’s cheeks. Chastity left them there.

She stepped back, looked at her sister and at the littles. Then she nodded to Damek.

Silently, he finished strengthening the building. Each brick and every stone he placed solidified its security and strength.

When he was done, the sisters and their young siblings went up the stairs, and Damek began humming again.

SEVERAL DAYS PASSEDas Damek continued his work in the house. On the third day, Chastity found another letter in the mail. Nervously, she clutched it in her hand as she read the first paragraph: The River Glades Community prides itself on high community standards. As such any and all exterior architectural alterations must receive approval of the Architectural Review Board. Please file the attached approval FOR FENCE CONSTRUCTION for your records.

She smiled.

“What does it say?” Alison came to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with her sister.

Chastity held up the paper so they could both read it. “They’ve approved our fence!”

Alison let out a whoop of triumph, and the littles came careening into the room.

“I told you it would all be okay.” Alison bumped her shoulder against Chastity’s. “The littles will have their safe home and safe play yard.”

“We owe thanks to Justine.” Chastity nudged her sister back. “And to you.”

Remus bumped his head gently against her hand. “Go catch yellow birds now?”

At that, Raven and Alison exchanged a worried look, but Chastity smiled at him and then said, “If you keep eating them, we won’t have any left.”

“Is a feeder though,” Remus complained. “Feeder is for food.”

Chastity laughed. “True. We need to mark the fence line anyhow. Come on.”

And the sisters led their younger nestmates into their soon-to-be-fenced yard.

Woolsley’s Kitchen Nightmare
E. E. KNIGHT

There’s a joke over in Europe that if you find yourself in America’s Upper Midwest, it’s time to switch your GPS. Any reputable routing service provider should program its devices to keep you well clear of these bleak woods and cornfields, connected by old two-lane highways linking bits of crossroad nothing.

They can’t imagine why anyone would want to be here. Bland as processed cheese, either too hot or too cold and dreary in the spring and fall. Whatever the charts say, the region’s not on anyone’s cultural map—devoid of interesting incident since the last Sioux uprising was put down during the American Civil War and populated by flannel-wearing bumpkins; they might say antipathy is the best policy . . .

Feck the snobs, I say. I’ve been there a couple of times. Few of the snobs will say that. What’s more, I look forward to returning, which none of the snobs would say, even if it were true. You may laugh, but it’s a land of quiet surprises and secret treasures. One moment you’re on a winding country road counting cows, the next you’re in a Swiss village or Cornish mining country, with Norwegian troll statues grinning at you from the roadside.

That’s just Wisconsin, perhaps my favorite of the Midwest states. It’s a rich land in its own way, sharing the stolid wisdom displayed by the locals in my own home county in Ireland, and with life in the country moving to the rhythm of the livestock and harvest. The grass is the same emerald green as well, at least until the July sun hammers the countryside into straw and clay. Maybe that’s why it always seems half-familiar to me.

Ah, Ireland. You can leave it, but it never leaves you, even if you escape. I grew up wild and woolly with nothing but ravens and barn rats for friends, sneaking from one paddock to the next and scrounging from bins and feed sheds. I left the Auld Sod with a caravan of translife first chance I got. Quite an eye-opener, that, learning there were others not unlike me, full of anxiety and appetite. Because I was the new guy they dumped the worst duty on me: food prep and disposal. Of course the weres and the troupe’s leader, a one-eyed vamp named Jack who taught me the Discreet Art of Wandering Translife, had all the fun of procuring the food. Once the blood was drained and the excitement of sticky red died down, I took over and turned the meats and vitals into road cuisine that would see everyone through to the next carefully chosen kill.

Then on my night rides I’d get rid of the bits of evidence that weren’t reduced to sauces and stock.

That was how I found out I had a knack for cooking—a gift, even, as the others styled it. Dear old One-Eyed Jack plunked down the cash for my first translife eatery in Paris and handed over the deed. It was a dying bistro beneath an old nunnery when he bought it.

Two holes and a corner, it was, connected to the vast Paris sewers and a smuggler’s tunnel on the Seine that dated back to Napoleon’s Continental System. I put in twenty-two-hour days for a year and made a go of it. Word got out and I opened a second in Prague—my first and only instant success. I did a true restaurant in New Orleans, following with Shanghai, Lisbon, Buenos Aires, and finally my crown jewel, Nippers, in London, not far from Jack the Ripper’s old kills. I did well in that very competitive market. The Secret Eyes, who pretty much run things in the translife world, put my London staff on retainer, doing the catering for their seasonals. That took me and my team all over the world, since the Secret Eyes never meet in the same city twice in the traditional human life span of three-score-and-ten. “Everyone served anywhere” went on my business cards.

But arse-over, such public recognition made me some enemies. Rivals in the translife foodie world got my place in Prague shut down. You’d think even white-hot jealousy wouldn’t make any of us night folk do a deal with the Templars, but that was just what happened. Someone sent a note or an e-mail and three promising caterers on my team there saw their last night. The Templars dispatched and exorcised them in the prime of translife. What could happen in Prague could happen in Paris and Shanghai and so on, so I sold off my catering empire.

Tragedy, right? Worst year of my life? Not a bit of it. I’m a born wanderer, I’m happy to say, always kicking on for a new horizon. I needed to earn money so I went into consulting—you go through a lot of cash as a translife, between covering your tracks and bribing the local constabulary. So now I advise other would-be or troubled restaurateurs in the translife catering trade. I like going somewhere with fresh faces, fresh preferences, fresh customs, and fresh victims. Fresh horses, too, for a good, sweaty night ride, since most translife eateries keep out of the cities for safety’s sake.

So, the call came to go to Wisconsin in the early summer, in the southwest corner on the bluffs overlooking that big, winding river through the heart of North America. Beer and dairy farm country, smelling of hot asphalt, manure, and crabapple trees. Sounded like a challenge; that bit of the world’s almost off the translife grid, culturally and logistically. I had to wonder who’d be mad enough to try to cater to translife in the middle of a teat-pulling human nowhere.

A madman or a visionary, I guessed. I drew up a mental sketch of a discerning vampire retiring from hectic urban life, or an old banshee reconnecting with her childhood roots. As usual in matters unrelated to food, I was wrong.

THE SECLUDED SKYLINERestaurant had a promising enough setting for catering to translife appetites. From the outside, not even visible from any highway, it didn’t look like anything much—just another distressed barn in a part of the country full of them.

I had to follow the verbal directions given by the owner, as the little farm access road leading to the Skyline didn’t appear on any database. The road had cheap, mass-produced red-and-white NO TRESPASSING and NO HUNTING signs, with a BEWARE OF DOG as you came to the flat ground surrounding the barn. I pulled up in my rental van—in this business you never know what you might have to run out and acquire at the last minute, and a van is perfect for discreet haulage—and decided I liked the look of the place. The barn was green rather than the more usual reds or whites, with a pinkish-white roof. Lonely, windy, remote. Cold as Jadis’s tit in January, certainly, but on a deliciously firelit Beltane . . .

A walkaround reaffirmed my positive first impression. The building was shabby-looking and plain from a distance, but up close I could see that it had been largely rebuilt in the past ten years or so. One might wonder why a barn had a superb view from high on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi Valley, perhaps halfway between La Crosse and Dubuque, or well-kept gravel paths leading into an abandoned quarry, or a small planted trellis over the stairs leading down into the former pigpens. Someone really curious might venture around to the valley-facing side and wonder at all the windows and the little patio around brick fire pits.

But I’d have to enter to find out if this place passed my most important criteria.

First, security. If I don’t think a location is safe, or run with the wellbeing of its translife clientele in mind, I won’t touch it, no matter what the fee. Location, location, location, as the real estate fleshies say. I’m a hungry Irish night-rider, not a wizard; I can’t do anything about location.

Second, staff. Staff can sometimes make me walk right out the door within an hour of entering, if I think there’s absolutely nothing that can be done with them. I looked forward to meeting them, starting with the owner.

The Skyline’s owner, Mason Mastiff, came out to greet me, looking flushed and out of breath. He walked with short steps and crackled with a touch of other worlds about him, but he was as human as any of the dairy drivers whose rigs I’d been caught behind on the drive over from Madison. A wig cut to resemble the youthful, carefully crafted parted-on-the-left hair of a politician rested on his head, as out of place as a napping dove. I’ve always found wigs on men a little unsettling. Or maybe it’s the kind of men who wear wigs that I find strange. I should have trusted my instincts that Mason Mastiff would be arse-over trouble. Staring, suspicious eyes, vaguely mad and dangerous like Rasputin or an Old West gunfighter thirsty for blood and whiskey, blazed out of a fleshy, pale face.

“Chef Woolsley, I apprehend,” he said. His high-pitched voice rang out across the hills. He peeked over my shoulder into the van, perhaps wondering if a more impressive figure was waiting to be introduced.

I don’t look like much in the day, I’ll grant. My arms are out of proportion to my body and I’m a bit bowlegged. Haggard and limp when I’m not riding. I usually tell humans I’m between chemotherapies. Once the moon is up I’m not much better, but my hair comes alive and I’m hungry for fun.

Mastiff wore a brilliant azure smoking jacket and neat twill trousers that made him look as though he should be leading a marching band in a salute to John Philip Sousa. A cravat with a little golden skull stickpin at his throat screamed trouble.

I mean it literally. The feckin’ thing was enchanted.

“Welcome, monsieur, set yourself down,” it sang out.

Strike the enchanted, probably possessed.

“Quiet, Hellzapoppin,” Mastiff said. “Business, not a customer. Have trouble finding the place, Woolsley?”

We exchanged politenesses. As we toured his grounds, Mastiff told me a little about his background. He’d started out as a restaurant writer and critic, or at least that was his dream. Strictly for human consumption back then. There was too much competition for the big names and the Michelin-guide stuff, so he started to specialize in dive eateries, bohemian cafés, and theaters where you could get a bit of performance art with your canapés and coffee.

“I was killing an hour with a custom appliance installer in a little Seattle bistro, asking him about odd little places he’d seen. The dear man had had a few tales to tell and told me about a place he’d done when he lived in San Francisco. Not in the city, mind you, out in the wine country. There were some cages behind the kitchen and a special table that looked like something out of an episode of CSI. He figured it was some kinky sex establishment.

“I smelled a unique story there, and dredged up every piece of information I could about it. I tracked it down and tried to get in. No luck, private club, membership card only, that sort of story. No record of it with the health department, no advertising. So I started watching the clientele going in and out, always in late at night, always out again well before dawn or leaving in a well-tinted limo the next day from a lightless garage. I managed to meet the owner and talked him into letting me work there.”

He nudged some cold embers back into one of the fire pits with a polished dress shoe. The skull pin broke into the dwarf “Whistle While You Work,” but quietly.

“I met my first translife there. From then on, I was hooked. So many legends, so much human history, quietly filling forgotten corners, unrecognized.”

“We like it that way,” I said.

“At first, I thought I had a food exposé that would win me a Pulitzer, but I found the customers were more interesting than the story—and the money! The money, my dear Woolsley. I learned everything I could about the business and found this place. Sunk my life savings into it, but the game hasn’t gone my way. Hoped you’d tell me where I’ve gone wrong, dear fellow.”

“Let’s take a look inside,” I suggested.

Third, décor. An easyish fix most of the time. We walked in through the front door. If Mastiff’s own eyes couldn’t tell him where he’d gone wrong, nothing short of a burning bush on a Sinai mountaintop could.

As soon as I saw his interior I decided this would be an easy job. All I needed was to find a couple of crowbars and a flamethrower.

The barn’s interior was architecturally interesting, inspiring even, with the high, thick-timbered ceiling and small loft at one end, currently occupied by the bar. Big, airy, yet intimate in the way all those beams ate up the sound. Most translife don’t care for noise and clamor. The tall windows facing the Mississippi gave a beautiful show of a green-and-blue river valley, vaster than the Grand Canyon and very nearly as deep, with the Minnesota bluffs a blue smear on the horizon.

There were definite possibilities in the way you looked down into the kitchen. He’d opened up the barn floor so you could see into a bit of the cooking line setup in the old pigpens. He’d set up sort of an open-air dumbwaiter. Above the big kitchen hatch hung what I first thought was an art piece. Some chains and a big platform featuring a surgeon’s table not unlike the one used to animate Dr. Frankenstein’s go at creation gave me all kinds of ideas for culinary showmanship.

However, as we toured the inside, I felt like putting on welding goggles to keep out the ugly. All that sturdy beauty to work with, and Mastiff decided to cover it up with garish flourishes.

Mastiff had ruined with décor what should have been won with space and view. Ghastly brass and fern fixtures that managed to combine the worst excesses of the late seventies and early eighties clustered here and there on the barn floor like scattered dog turds. Pointless plaster mini-Greek columns stood next to vintage washtubs and gas-station Coca-Cola machines, and a Tesla coil buzzing here and there. Imagine Castle of Dr. Frankenstein meets bricky urban loft meets postindustrial rave.

Curtains and linens in purple and black and pink with flecks of red with billowing gauzy cotton hung in festoons from the ceiling, trying to look ethereal but succeeding only in adding to the tatty feel and hiding the interesting details in the ceiling. Pointing out his acquisitions with one arm while the other remained anchored across the small of his back in a ducal pose, Mastiff prattled on, gassing about where he’d obtained the fabric and how much time it had taken to get the draping just right.

Small spotlights on conduit riggings suspended ten meters below that lovely wooden ceiling lit fabric, floor, and tables haphazardly, ruining the rustic effect.

He led me up the stairs to the loft-bar. There, old polymer countertops in dreadful puddle shapes, everything rounded and looking like tongues, lapped around too-thin high-backed chairs with pointed, stamped metal moons crowning the backrest. The chairs seemed eager to do someone an injury.

He led me to the railing overlooking the dining floor.

“We put musical guests on the rising platform,” Mastiff said, pointing to the central Dr. Frankenstein rig on its chains. He gripped the rail like an admiral surveying his battleship from the bridge in a storm. “Or go-go dancers on singles’ night. I know an absolutely brilliant troupe from the Twin Cities, two succubi and a harpy—”

“In short there’s simply not, a more congenial spot . . .” sang the golden stickpin. Clearly the spirit inside was blind, deaf, and mad.

I only half-listened as it sang on. Singles’ night! Arse-over, I was trapped in an eighties grease-and-grind meat market. All that was missing was a backlit sign featuring two Regency silhouettes and a name like Snugglers.

The crowning insult to the eye was the centerpieces on every table in the bar: lolling skulls with bloodred wax candles atop, dribbling down on both skull and tabletop. I leaned over to get a better look.

Arse-over.“Is someone filming a metal video tonight?” I asked.

“Tee-hee, dearie,” Mastiff said, losing a little of his lordship’s air.

This sort of excess had been popular for about ten minutes in some London and New York and L.A. clubs two decades back, a mixture of an old Universal horror set and furniture shaped like various pieces of the human digestive system. It lingered now only in Tokyo, where the Japanese translife put their own twist on it by adding enough neon to represent the Human Genome Project and pumping up the technopop.

It stuck out in the rolling hills of the Mississippi River Valley like high heels on a cow.

He’d sent me his numbers. Unless his accountant was as cluelessly skeevy as his decorator, a few customers were still braving the fugly to eat here every week. Perhaps the service staff and food would be the Skyline’s salvation.

“I’ll want to watch a service tonight,” I said. “And we’ll still need to see the kitchens.”

Last, food. It can be an easy fix, or it can be like tunneling in wet sand. All depends on the staff and owner. Mastiff took me downstairs into the old pigpens. His kitchen crew was already at work.

A golem ran the kitchen with the help of two zombies.

My heart sank.

If there’s anywhere you don’t want a golem, it’s managing a kitchen. As for zombies, they have their uses, but not where food’s being prepared. You don’t want earlobes sloughing off into the mustard.

Mason Mastiff was inordinately proud of his golem and the great expense a Jewish Kabbalist in Marseilles had charged to create it. To his mind, with a golem all the cost was up front. It worked for free from then on, often for decades, without needing much more wizardry, barring accidents. I suppose it looked impressive enough, this mountain of copper and tin, ladles, skewers, pans, and tongs. A pair of blue butane lights serving as eyes regarded me across a slab of stainless steel.

Look on the bright side, Woolsley,I told myself. At least there wasn’t the usual suspicion when I was introduced to the chef of a troubled kitchen.

“Let’s see it make me an omelet,” I said.