Heartened both by the wholesome smell that rose from the bowl
in front of her, Kendra spooned some soup into her mouth. The rich salty broth assured the more
primal parts of her brain that nutrition was on its way. She felt her shoulders relax and fall
away from her ears. Only then did
she become aware of how tense she had been. The frontal lobes shut down when a person is anxious, and
boy, do I need to think. Kendra
pushed up her sleeves, and felt a little like Thelma from The Scooby Doo Show. She recognized that the goofy thought
was a sign that her brain needed glucose.
At least she hadn’t thought immediately about Matt, a sign that he
hadn’t ruined the show for her.
The cook, who doubled as waiter, cleared Kendra’s soup bowl,
and filled a plate from the covered dishes on the side table. He placed it in front of her.
“You have there a bed of spiced steamed cabbage mixed with a
julienne of fried tofu, under a stir fry of okra, eggplant and spinach,” said
Alex. “It smells very good, Rich.”
“Don’t forget the lotus root crisps,” Rich set a small bowl of
what looked like lace circles to one side of her plate, “ and soba noodles
tossed in toasted sesame oil with edamame and shitake mushrooms.”
“Oh, thank you,” Kendra said. “Did you do all of this for me?”
“Well,” hedged Rich, “you get the fancy presentation, but I
made enough for the rest of the human staff too.” He smiled and left them alone.
“I haven’t eaten a purely Japanese meal since I left my
parents’ house,” Kendra said to Alex as she dug into the noodles, determined to
ingest starch for her brain, “and I was such a brat that I didn’t learn the
names of any of the food.”
Alex took the lid off his ceramic mug, drank some, and then
put the mug down. While seated,
Kendra could not see what was in it.
She didn’t think she wanted to know. Alex smiled at her.
“Aren’t you…you don’t eat food, do you?” She put her fork down, eyes on his mug.
“No. We would all
be chubby gourmands if we could eat.
Alas, we cannot do more than enjoy the delicious scent of well-prepared
food. Those of us who can afford
to do so hire the best chefs in the world.” Alex nodded toward the kitchen. “Regis hired Rich from Nobu Matsuhisa in Beverly Hills.”
The name meant nothing to Kendra, and Alex seemed to sense
that.
“A beautiful woman should know beautiful things,” he said in
rich seductive tones.
Kendra felt her body
respond, and studied his face again.
He certainly is sexy…except for the icy touch. She looked up at him with noodles
hanging from her mouth. Alex
laughed. Kendra blushed.
“Please realize that I laugh with pleasure, not derision,” he
reassured her.
He sounded more formal when he was serious. Kendra made a note of it. She was determined to keep her own
diction modern. A time traveler should
have roots in one time, and this was hers.
After she finished eating, Rich returned with a dessert tray,
and asked, “coffee or tea?”
Kendra couldn’t pass up the chocolate eclair. About caffeine she was not so sure. “What time is it?” she asked.
“It is eight in the evening,” said Rich.
“Do you expect it to be a long night?” she asked Alex.
“I am sure that Regis will ask for your oath, but I do not
know when that will happen.”
Kendra sighed.
With her belly full, she felt very sleepy. “Then I will have a cup of coffee, please, Rich, fully
leaded.”
He chuckled, and dispensed a cup from a large and fancy coffee
urn that Kendra glimpsed through the swinging doors.
“If you’re with us for some time,” he said as he set it and a
tray of cream and sugar in front of her, “you’ll find that your schedule slides
toward night. If you give me a
call twenty minutes before you’d like breakfast, I’ll have the rest of the
day’s meals planned for you. Of
course, if you’re hungry any time, you are welcome to raid the refrigerator.” He smiled warmly, then looked at
Alex. “Will there be anything else,
sir?”
Alex raised an eyebrow and looked at Kendra, who took a bite
of her eclair and moaned.
“I…I’m not sure, Rich.”
Alex seemed flustered by Kendra’s moan, “but if there is, we will avail
ourselves of your splendid refrigerator.”
“Very good. I’ll
be off to see to the staff dinner.”
After Kendra surprised herself by scarfing down the entire
eclair between sips of coffee, Alex asked, “Would you like to stroll? Regis keeps lovely gardens, inside and
out.”
He escorted her through a side door that Kendra had not
noticed before. They entered a
huge glass greenhouse filled with exotic plants. She recognized a large clump of Birds-of-Paradise plants,
and several banana trees.
“What’s this,” she pointed to a plant that seemed to have
needle teeth.
“Venus flytrap,” Alex grinned. “It seems Regis, or more likely Thomas, has a sense of humor
and couldn’t resist the fangs.”
“Fangs,” Kendra murmured and let her fingers trail through a
curtain of vines. She stopped and
looked at Alex directly. “Do I
need to worry about you biting me?”
“No,” Alex said.
“Rich and his staff take care of our nutritional needs. All sane vampires have learned to live
on alternative sources of heme. We
have relationships with various blood banks that suffice to meet our need for
human blood.” He chuckled. “Even the Red Cross sells us its older
blood. Our techs centrifuge the
whole blood, and you might be surprised to learn that we then sell the plasma
to the cosmetics industry. Of
course, none of them know with whom they do business.”
Kendra shuddered.
Too Much Information.
Alex studied her face.
“I should not have told you all that before you have given your oath to
Regis.”
They walked on in a rather tense silence for a longer time
than Kendra would have thought possible inside a greenhouse. She supposed that the path wound around
and through the enclosed space, but it was so artfully planned that from any
point on the path she could see no sign of the rest of it. They paused in front of a small pond
full of carp.
“This is one part of the irrigation system,” Regis explained,
“complete with an aeration system.”
He gestured to a small waterfall.
“It’s lovely—” Kendra started to say. In the next instant she was surrounded
by vampires.
