"Bert decided he didn't like going straight after all. Ilona and Chet had been using PM for private shareholder . . . parties where they distributed the legal blood, but he thought there might be more profit in moving a higher volume to a wider clientele. He contacted me."

And they talked. They talked a lot. They talked about expanding distribution, and weak links, like Chet and the Nebbish.

"You should know Shelby has a history of running out on his employers," I said.

Pamela shrugged again. "You work with what you have. I thought you'd appreciate that."

"Brendan's going to be looking for us."

This statement did not have anything like its intended effect. Pamela gave a bubbly little laugh that would have done Lolita proud. "In case you hadn't noticed, Brendan couldn't find his a.s.s with a flashlight and a GPS. Or did he fool you with that high-powered office on Fifty-fourth?" I didn't answer and she shook her head. "G.o.d, doesn't anybody do their homework? Listen, Charlotte, my dear cousin's in debt up to his charmingly s.h.a.ggy hairline, right along with the rest of the family. He needs the city contract at least as much as they do. I would have tried to bring him into my business because-you should excuse the expression-blood's thicker. But no. He's also fastidious and prefers his white-collar graft."

"Brendan's out to cheat the city?" I didn't believe it. Okay, I didn't want to believe it. But with the rest of his family in debt, and so much money at stake . . . people fudged their CVs for less.

"Whereas I am an entrepreneur with a product which is in great demand." Modesty practically oozed out the ends of her immaculately styled hair. "I just needed an outlet."

"b.i.t.c.h, please."

"Manners, Charlotte. You don't want me to wash your mouth out with soap, now do you?"

I almost said, "Try it," but I remembered just in time what Brendan said: whatever else she was, Pamela Maddox was still a witch.

"So, Dylan Maddox tracked you down," said Anatole. With some help from Chet and Marcus the Nebbish, who were looking for a way to get her off their case, I added silently. "And not appreciating your entrepreneurial spirit, he threatened to get the family to shut you down. Blood being thicker and, incidentally, more lucrative, you killed him for it."

I bit my lip and glanced at Anatole. I couldn't tell anything about what he was thinking, but we had to keep playing for time.

"What about the other bodies?" I asked. "There were four other syringe drainings."

"Trial runs," said Pam with a calm that tied my stomach into fresh knots. "We needed to be sure we could continue to supply quality merchandise. And, of course, we needed the right people to know that our network should not be interfered with."

Which made sense in a horror-movie kind of way. I bit my lip. What next? What now? If I could keep her talking long enough, maybe a way out would materialize. I had to focus on that. Pam Maddox needed me to deal with Chet and to hang on to Nightlife, which would double the human blood outlets she controlled. There'd be another chance to get us out of this, if I could just get the time. Maybe I'd get to clock Taylor again in the process.

I hesitated too long. "I'm so glad we've had this little chat," said Pam brightly. "But you do realize, Charlotte, that if I have to come in there and get you, I'm going to be feeling much less charitable."

I felt something nudging at my mind. A memory, of Taylor and Anatole. The last time I'd seen Taylor it'd been in a kitchen too . . .

I saw our chance, and I knew it was Anatole who put the idea in my head. That was something we'd talk about later. Right now I had to try to deal with these . . . these things holding us. They'd made a mistake. A big one. They didn't know they had not one weak link but two.

And they were trying to hold a chef in a kitchen.

"Okay," I whispered, to myself and to Anatole. He nodded, just barely.

"Okay?" Pammy c.o.c.ked her head.

"You win."

"I'm sorry. I didn't hear that."

"You win. It's yours." I spread my arms, and then let them fall so they flapped against my thighs. "Take it. Nightlife, the spa, the whole thing. Just . . . just leave Chet alone, okay? He's no threat to your operation."

"Oh, no, I don't think you quite understand yet, Charlotte. I am dictating the terms here. You're mine too."

"Charlotte, don't do this," said Anatole, but his eynarrowed and I felt that tiny little push again. Pushing me away. Out the door, in fact.

"Okay, whatever. It's over, anyhow." I touched his shoulder like I was saying good-bye, left him where he was and walked out into the main kitchen. I did shut the door behind me. I wasn't much of a barrier between him and Pam, but it was better than nothing. I hoped and prayed.

I shoved my hands in my pockets and glanced around the kitchen. I'd lost track of days. It had to be Sunday or Monday night for this place to be so dead. Those were the most common nights for clubs to be closed. "You want something to eat?" I asked.

"What?" Now it was Pam's turn to narrow her baby blues.

"Eat. I'm starved."

"She's stalling." Julie snapped her fangs.

"So? I also didn't get dinner." I pulled open the mini-fridge by the pastry station and everybody jumped. There was a kind of grim satisfaction in that.

There was a carton of eggs in there, just as I'd known there would be. In a professional kitchen, some things are predictable. "Omelette?" I asked.

Come on, come on, Pammy. You're in charge. I'm surrendering. You want me to serve you. Here I am doing it. I'm showing you my chef-white belly. Come on.

I watched all of this and a little bit more light up the world for Pamela Maddox. "Sure," she said. "Why not."

I set the eggs on the counter by the cooktop and grabbed a hotel pan. "I'll need some stuff out of the walk-in."

"She's gonna try something," groaned Taylor. "Don't let her in there."

"Tommy"-Pam tossed him the keys-"keep an eye on her. Julie, you go and bring our friend Anatole out of the office. No need for him to be in time-out."

Tommy clearly didn't think much of this, but he unlocked the door and pulled it open. I walked past him, remembered the salad dressing I'd smeared on the floor just in time to avoid my own Three Stooges moment. There was plenty of what I needed in here and I started loading up the pan-shallots, flat-leaf parsley, a chunk of Parmesan, a brick of b.u.t.ter.

"Hey, Tommy," I said without looking around. "There should be some ox blood in the freezer." Shelby was making his version of my house sangria out of something and I hadn't found any thawed blood in the walk-in buckets when I'd been locked in here with Anatole. "Bring me out a brick."

I put my groceries on the counter. "There should be some Chardonnay somewhere too. Probably the cooler behind the bar," I said. "I'll need a bottle."

Taylor looked at Pam, and Pam nodded. The vampire's glower was venomous, and hungry, but she went.

It's amazing how much people will do if you just tell them.

Julie had pushed the wheeled desk chair holding Anatole out of the office and stationed him by the rack of chef's coats. I didn't bother looking at Pam. I just reached for pans and pots. Despite the witch at my back, and the hostile vampires roaming free, my body instantly relaxed as I concentrated on thoughts of cooking. I didn't glance at Anatole more than once. I couldn't risk any of these three thinking I might have some backup there.

Tommy came out of the freezer and dumped a plastic-wrapped brick of fen blood onto the counter.

"Thanks." I pulled a chef's knife out of a drawer and checked the edge against my thumb. Tommy stiffened. "Relax, genius. This is for the food." I sliced the ends off four shallots.

Pam strolled around the end of the counter, keeping a healthy distance from Anatole, I noticed. Maybe she wasn't as much of an idiot as I thought.

"So, what brought about this change of heart?" she asked, leaning her elbows on the counter.

"I like living." I got a fire going under a saucier, sliced open the plastic wrap on the frozen blood brick. A wisp of steam rose up, carrying the scent of fresh meat. "And, despite everything, I don't want Chet ending up in ashes either."

"What are you going to tell Cousin Brendan?" prompted Pam. "You two were looking awfully cozy there in the Ritz."

Note to self: tell Brendan his manager friend had a mole in the organization. "It didn't work out."

Pam sighed. "I could have warned you."

"Yeah, well, s.h.i.t happens."

For a long moment the only sound was my knife thudding against the board as I treated the shallots to a fine dice. The sweet-pungent scent woke my dulled senses and focused both hands and brain. Details matter. Size of the chop affects texture and cooking time. Even in a rough chop, you want to get each piece close to the same size; otherwise it won't cook evenly.

The shallots went into a mise en place-aka "ready in place"-container. I wiped and flipped the board and started prepping the parsley. This was nine-tenths of the work in a kitchen, getting everything chopped, peeled, and otherwise prepared for the night's work. I pulled out the grater and set to work on the cheese.

Taylor thumped the bottle of Chardonnay down on the counter. Judging from the flush in his cheeks, he'd been out there helping himself to some of the booze. He was going to regret that later.

"Want a drink?" I said to Pam.

"Sure. Why not?"

"I saw some gla.s.ses over by the dishwasher," I said to whichever of the hench vamps was nearest.

"Boss . . ." whined Tommy, half to Pam, half to Julie.

"Just get the gla.s.s," said Pam.

It occurred to me that she was interested, maybe even fascinated. As an aspiring mobster, she'd surely seen people scared. Probably she'd seen them in various shades of desperate. But seeing someone just flat out giving up without a fight-that could be something new. That was okay. Let her take a good look at how Charlotte Caine threw in the towel.

Tommy sloshed some white wine into a gla.s.s, shoved the gla.s.s toward his boss and slammed the bottle back down. I pulled it over next to my mise en place. Then I opened the utensil drawer to fish out a wooden spoon so I could give the blood a quick stir. Another minute and it would be body temperature. I spared a thought for Anatole and hoped the smell wasn't getting to him too badly.

I pulled down a fourteen-inch skillet from overhead and lit a burner on the cooktop. My skin flushed in the familiar heat. I dropped in a chunk of b.u.t.ter to bubble and steam. Its fragrance joined the smell of white wine and warming blood. The surrounding quiet pressed in from every side, and I was still being watched by the living and the dead and they were just standing around, waiting for me to try something. Waiting for me to give myself away, or to decide I might want to live after all.

I swirled the b.u.t.ter to coat the bottom of the pan. Just as it started to get that nutty smell, I dropped the shallots in, tossed them a couple times to coat, and turned the heat up. Normally, I'd just do a quick saut to soften them and bring out the sweetness, but I wanted these good and brown.

I sniffed at the blood and pulled a couple soup mugs from the waiting stacks of plates and ladled them both full.

"Bon appt.i.t." I slid the mugs across the counter to the vamps. From the suspicious way the two nightbloods eyed them, you'd've thought I had just gone out and drained the pigeons in Central Park.

"Fine, be hungry." I tossed the shallots again and turned the heat up just a little more.

Pam swirled her wine meditatively. "You'd better mean what you're saying about letting me have Nightlife, Charlotte. You do not get to go back on your word after this."

"Believe me, I am long past the point of no return." I gave the shallots another toss. Heat wafted across my hands and face. The color was good, the aroma was good. I reached for the wine.

"You might want to back away-there could be some flame-up," I said.

The vampires backed up. Pam, predictably, stayed where she was, leaning her elbows on the counter and her chin on her hands.

The fine stream of white wine hit the pan with a hard sizzle, and whump! I had a curtain of deep orange flame blazing in the pan.

"Told you," I said to Pam.

"You did, but I trust your professionalism."

"Nice to hear somebody does." I picked up the pan and gave it a good swirl, watching the alcohol burn.

"Help me."

Anatole. We all turned. From where I stood, I could see him lolling in the desk chair as if he lacked the strength to even lift his head.

"Help me," he rasped. "I thirst. Please."

"Well, well." Julie took a healthy swallow of blood. "Poor little Anatole. Doesn't seem to have been taking very good care of himself, does he?"

I looked right past her to Pammy, the Woman in Charge. "Can I take him something? There's plenty." I nodded toward the pot of blood. Pam tipped her head so she was looking at me sideways. The alcohol flames flickered blue and orange between us.

"No, I don't think so," Pam said slowly. "But there's no need for the poor thing to go hungry."

"What . . ." I began. My skin was starting to crawl from the gleam in Pammy's stare.

"Taylor, bring me our friend Anatole."

Taylor's grin split his face as he got behind Anatole's chair and shoved it forward. The chair's cheap wheels squeaked badly. Anatole didn't look up as Taylor positioned him in front of Pamela. He didn't so much as twitch. In fact, he looked truly dead.

"Give him your neck, Charlotte."

"What!" I said again.

"You say you're ready to work for me now." She rinned. "Prove it."

Anatole raised his head. His eyes met mine and I saw the hunger. It had almost swallowed him whole.

Almost.

"Give him your neck, Charlotte. I'm sure he'll stop before he kills you. Or you could take your chances with Julie."

"Okay," I whispered. "Just one thing."

"What could that possibly be?"

"Dracula!"

26.