I turned back to the counter and smiled to myself. Honestly, I didn’t even mind that they were just chilling out and not helping in the kitchen, but I did hope that what Priscilla and I were making would turn out nice. Man, I don’t know. You’d be pressed to get me to openly admit it, but I guess there’s a part of me that likes to make people happy, whether that’s achieved through making a stack of pancakes or running a sword through a demon’s face.
Maybe I was growing up.
“Can you believe these bozos?” Artemis said, thumbing over her shoulder, popping into the kitchen to poke her nose in among the pots and pans. “They just stroll in here and sun themselves like a bunch of stray cats. I should start charging per hammock. I should start charging per coconut. I’m not running a charity here. Ooh, Priscilla, that looks good.”
Artemis ran her finger through a pot of something, tasting it and making a quiet, excited squeal. Priscilla squinted at her, clearly on the verge of another angry gorilla lecture, but said nothing. In my heart I knew that Artemis’s health code violation was only excused because of the little compliment.
The faint scent of vanilla essence and the sweetness of pancakes cooking up to perfection swirled into my nostrils as I finished off the last of the batter. The stacks weren’t as uniformly round as I might have hoped, but hey, not bad at all for a first try. I held the plates up to Priscilla, beaming when she thrust out her chest and smiled at me.
She patted me gently on the back of the hand, then shooed me out of the kitchen area, turning the knobs on a little television that she kept by the counter. I narrowed my eyes at the screen. Excited as I was to dig into my pancakes, I was also a little curious about what Priscilla watched in private. She only ever watched her soap operas with Artemis. They maintained a very serious and sacred pact over that. One isn’t allowed to see new episodes without the other. I tilted my head, not entirely surprised to find that she was watching a cooking show, featuring a blond man with a large jaw and large hands. Priscilla leaned her chin into her open hands, planting her elbows onto the counter and sighing.
“Ooh,” I said. “Someone has a little crush.”
She grunted and waved me away. Artemis swept in to collect me, tugging me by the wrist out through to the dining area. “It’s cute, she’s a big fan. Some celebrity chef. Marcel Du-something? Something French, at least.”
I peered over my shoulder again, focusing on the man on the screen. “He’s not even that cute. Priscilla must really admire the guy.”
Artemis snorted. “Whatever, man, I’m starving. Pancake time.”
I set them down on a table, incidentally one that I’d also built myself out of a bunch of split logs. Florian had already kindly set it. Asher sprang from his hammock without needing to be asked, and Sterling sighed laboriously, as if having his breakfast cooked and served for him was the most exhausting thing on his schedule. I rolled my eyes, piling my plate high with pancakes and drizzling on just the tiniest bit of syrup. I wanted to taste the chocolate, see?
And the first bite was just absolute perfection. Not to build myself up too much, but seriously, they were not bad at all for my first time. Fluffy and buttery, the chocolate bits nice and warmly melted on the inside. Asher and Florian nodded their approval. Artemis was too busy stuffing her face to comment, which I took as a positive sign. Sterling, though, was staring rapt at his cellphone and only absently nibbling at the edge of a pancake he was holding in one hand.
“Dude,” I said. “Can you not? Put that thing on a plate and put your phone away.”
He didn’t even look up at me, his eyes still glued to the screen. “Can’t do, Dad. You’re not the boss of me.”
Asher nudged him with his shoulder. “What’s so interesting on that thing, anyway? You’ve been scrolling all damn morning.”
“Dead bodies,” Sterling said, like it was nothing.
I wrinkled my nose. “Could you not? We’re trying to have a nice family meal, here.”
“You’re not my dad and you never will be,” Sterling said, barely interested. “And shush. This is research.”
“For what, exactly?”
Sterling finally put both the phone and the pancake down, sighing. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but I think we’ve got a lead on what Beelzebub might be up to.”
Florian shrugged. “This seems pretty normal, though. Dead bodies? People die every day.”
“Sure,” Sterling said, ripping at the pancake with his fangs. “But these have been turning up all over the place. Global, like. And you want to know the most interesting part?”
I dropped my knife and my fork, still hungry, but suddenly on the edge of my seat.
“They’re all missing their internal organs.”
2
“Bullshit,” I said. That was generally my response to everything unusual, but especially to something as incredulous as this.
“I’m serious,” Sterling said.
“Where are you even finding this information?” Asher said, pawing for Sterling’s phone. “It’s not like you’re conducting some huge investigation just on your phone.”
Sterling slapped his hand away. “That’s not polite, Mayhew. My phone. But if you must know, it’s my chat group. With other vampires.”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Sterling bent across the table, stabbing a finger at my face. “Listen, pipsqueak. Just because we’re undead, doesn’t mean we aren’t chatty.” He leaned back, squirting a dollop of maple syrup on his mangled half of a pancake. “And anyway, it’s good business to keep tabs
