Dionysus was sitting beside me, so I bumped thighs with him under the table before leaning in to whisper out of the corner of my mouth. “Is this magic? Is this guy magical?”
He cleared his throat very quietly before answering. “No. So keep your mouth shut about the arcane underground.”
“Check,” I said, popping a second fizzy grape in my mouth, frowning in confusion despite how sweet and delicious and novel it all was.
Marcel chuckled as he observed us from across the table. “A little bit of molecular gastronomy, that is all. We carbonated the grapes. All science, yes? Ah, and now, the cheese I mentioned.”
Someone rolled out a serving cart, which featured a wheel of what I suspected was parmesan cheese. The top had been hollowed out a little, so that it looked a bit like a shallow bowl. I gasped when Marcel picked up an actual bowl, dumping the contents into the cheese wheel. Steam rose from the whole mess. I leaned across the table, not alone in my curiosity, waiting for someone else to confirm what I was witnessing.
“Is that pasta?” Asher said.
“Indeed,” Marcel said delightedly. The pungent, tasty tang of parmesan drifted across the table. My mouth was watering. “Watch as the warmth of the freshly cooked pasta melts the cheese, mingling with the parmesan to create a creamy sauce.”
“Impressive,” Samyaza cooed. “It’s called dalla forma. I’ve read about this.” He looked down the table at me, as if for approval. I shook my head and smiled at him.
And it was delicious as all hell, let me tell you. The creamiest, cheesiest thing I’d eaten, the pasta itself cooked to al dente perfection. The whole time I kept waiting for the horrible reveal, but Dionysus clearly wouldn’t have dined with us if there was anything poisonous or particularly off about Marcel’s recipes. This was exactly as advertised. He was planning something special for his club, and we just happened to be around for the tasting.
Before long we were finished with what must have been over a dozen dishes, all tiny portions, all extremely flavorful for how little we were served. I wasn’t exactly starving at the end of it, but I patted my stomach, wishing we could’ve had just another serving of that cheesy pasta stuff. It was probably the best, and certainly the fanciest meal I’d ever had in my life. Raziel didn’t know what he’d missed.
There was plenty of chatter as Marcel’s staff cleared the table, as comments flew around about the menu, almost unanimously positive. Florian was openly fawning, and Marcel was clearly enjoying the attention. He waved me over when he noticed I was hovering at the edge of the group, reaching for something from one of his assistants. It was a book.
“Here,” he said. “My latest cookbook. A gift! For your friend.”
“That’s awfully nice of you,” I said, feeling sheepish. Maybe I really did have the wrong measure of him all along. Marcel Dubois had been nothing but kind to us all day, and he really was a fabulous chef.
“What is her name again?” he said, flipping the cover open, a pen in his hand.
“Hey, that’s really cool. Thanks. Her name’s Priscilla. She’ll love this for sure.”
He signed his name with a flourish, smiling hugely as he handed me the book. I looked down at his autograph, an elegant scrawl above Priscilla’s name. Then I shut the book to take a look at the cover. My heart thumped once as I saw the book’s title, splashed in bold letters just above Marcel’s hugely smiling face.
Cooking Man, it said.
6
It was evening by the time we got back to Paradise. Sterling was already waiting impatiently at the entrance to our home dimension, tapping his foot and thumping one finger against his wrist, indicating at the watch he wasn’t wearing. A little stone statue of a fox, the tether anchoring Paradise to reality, sat in the grass nearby. The air around Sterling smelled of smoke, even more than usual. It also smelled of impatience.
“You were away for quite a while there, young man.”
I sputtered as I started to protest, until I realized he was talking to Asher. “Sorry, Sterling. Things didn’t go exactly as planned.”
Sterling folded his arms, a cigarette dangling from his lips. “Well? Did you get anything?”
“All we know is that a lot of the victims were nephilim,” I said. “Confirmed by Raziel. It’s not looking great.”
“We met a chef, though,” Florian said. Sterling glared at him, silently demanding an answer, and so we caught him up to speed.
“I can’t believe you traitorous fucks left me to rot in Paradise while you trotted out and ate celebrity chef food,” Sterling said, spitting out his cigarette in disgust. His hands were already reaching for a fresh one.
“Best meal of my life,” Florian announced. He absently stubbed out the discarded cigarette butt, picking it up to throw away later, like it was part of his biological imperative to protect nature. It probably was, honestly.
I held up Marcel’s book. “I don’t trust the guy. Yes, the food was amazing, but I’m just glad he didn’t feed us any meat. Did you guys notice anything that looked like innards, entrails? Look at the title on this thing. Cooking Man, it says. As in, how to cook man. Right?”
Sterling said nothing, eyes huge, looking at me like I was crazy.
“It just means that he’s the cooking man, you know?” Florian said, defending his new hero. “He’s a man who cooks. It’s funny. It’s cute.”
Samyaza piped in, shaking his head, waving his hand. “No, no, no. He’s hiding in plain sight. It’s like that old short story, where these aliens show up on earth and they’ve got this book called To Serve Man. Spoiler alert. It was a cookbook.”
Sterling snatched the book from my fingers, squinting at me, then at its contents incredulously. “This is just a regular cookbook. Nothing about grilling up human burgers. See,
