“Zere is no more bread,” he confessed tragically, like someone admitting witchcraft to the Inquisition.

“That’s okay.” My waffles dinged. I took them out, threw on some cold cuts and a couple pickle slices I’d fished out of a mostly empty jar and smushed it into a sandwich. And looked up to find the vamp struck dumb in horror.

“You…you cannot eat zat,” he whispered, obviously appalled.

I looked at it. “You’re right.” But there wasn’t any butter, so I grabbed the mayo and slathered up one of the still-hot waffles. It melted nicely into all the cracks, but my creation still needed something. I got an inspiration and stuck my head back in the fridge, opened a drawer and—

Success. I turned back to my sandwich, only to find that it wasn’t there anymore. Maybe because it had been hijacked.

“Give me that!” I told the vamp, who was holding it firmly against his chest, a determined look on his face.

“What ees zat?” he demanded, eyeing my prize.

“Cheese.” I held it up.

“Zat ees not cheese.”

“How do you know?”

“Eet is orange.”

“A lot of cheese is orange.”

“Non! No cheese ees that color. Cheese comes from zee milk. Zee milk, eet ees white. When ’ave you seen milk that looks like zat?”

I held up the square of little slices and pointed at the bold-faced label. “Processed American Cheese.”

He snatched the package, without letting go of his hostage. And eyed it warily. “Eet says ‘cheese food.’” He looked up, obviously perplexed. “What ees thees? Zee cheese, it does not eat.”

“I think the idea is that you eat it.”

“Non!” It was emphatic. “My master, ’ee would nevair forgive—”

I made a grab for the cheese, but the guy was faster than he looked. He dodged around the table. I dodged after him.

“Give me that!”

“You cannot eat zees swill!”

“Watch me!”

“Non, non, eet ees moldy!”

“Nice try,” I snarled. That stuff didn’t grow mold. I think mold was afraid of it.

I made a feint and then another one, and finally snatched my sandwich back. It was a little smushed, but it was okay. I took a defiant bite.

“Please.” He resorted to big brown puppy dog eyes. “I beg of you.”

I swallowed, but it wasn’t easy. I remembered my foraging skills as being better than this. “Well, I have to eat something,” I pointed out. “Where did all the food go?”

“Zee fey,” he whispered, looking over his shoulder. “Zey are…zey are not human.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

“Non, you do not understand. We feed zee ones out in zee garden, yes? And zey eat.” He rolled his eyes. “Oh, zey eat! But finally, zey stop.”

“And then you got cocky and decided to fill up the twins,” I guessed.

He nodded. “But zere ees something wrong wiz zem. Zey eat and eat, and zey do not stop.”

“I could have told you that.”

“Mais c’est ne pas possible! Where do zey put it all?”

“Hollow leg?” I offered, sniffing my sandwich. There was definitely something rank in there. Maybe the olive loaf…

The chef was looking at me cunningly. “Eef you do not eat zat,” he wheedled, “I weel make you somesing better.”

“Out of what?”

“Out of…” he looked around in desperation. And spied a half-empty carton of eggs. “Out of les oeufs. I weel make an omelet!”

“An omelet?”

“Yes, yes! Such an omelet I weel make for you!” He waved the hand with the despised cheese in it. “As has nevair been seen. It shall be an omelet of the gods!”

“Will you use that?”

He looked at the small package in his hand. His face crumpled.

“Just kidding,” I told him. “How can I turn down a divine omelet?”

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a happier vamp in my life.

And then I turned around and saw his opposite, peering suspiciously through the glass panes in the kitchen door. I sighed. I briefly considered turning the hose on him, like we used to do for the neighbor’s dog, who kept digging up Claire’s herb garden. But I doubted it would work in this case.

I opened the door instead and stuck my head out. “What?”

“Let me in!” Marlowe said, trying to push past me. And getting the shit zapped out of him by the wards. “Fuck!”

“Language,” I admonished. “There are children in the house.”

“Then come outside,” he said evilly.

I considered that. “You know, I’m kind of comfortable where I am.”

He looked past me. “What is Verrell doing here?”

“Who?”

“Louis-Cesare’s chef!”

“Oh.” I looked over my shoulder at the vamp, who was humming happily to himself and whisking the hell out of some eggs. I turned back to Marlowe. “Making me an omelet.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t like my sandwich.”

“He didn’t—” Marlowe stopped and looked skyward, forgetting that it was still daylight out. Which I guess must have burned his retinas, because he cursed viciously.

“If you keep that up,” I told him, “I’m going to have to ask you to—”

“Who is this?” he demanded, shoving a photo in my face.

I didn’t answer, because it was all of a millimeter away from my eyeball. But I stepped back a pace and checked it out, because it seemed the easiest way to get rid of him. It showed a guy who looked like a cross between the maître d’ and the chef, only not as pleasant-looking. He had a little black mustache that was vainly trying to add character to a round pudding face, bushy black brows and small, suspicious eyes that he’d focused with loathing on whoever had taken the photo.

“No idea,” I told Marlowe.

“You’re sure?”

“As sure as I can be from a photo. Why?”

“Because you were on his yacht two days ago.”

I thought about that for a second. And then I let him in. Because his temper was short enough when his brains weren’t frying, and I doubted I’d get any info otherwise.

“The one at the bottom of the sea?” I asked, as he pushed past me.

“It’s not on the sea bottom any longer,” he said, batting at slightly steaming curls. “It must have been sucked in by that damned portal.”

“Then how do you know it belonged to this guy?” I asked.

Marlowe tucked the photo back under his jacket, which was steaming slightly, too. That was weird for someone at his level, unless he still hadn’t gotten any sleep. Which would also explain the mood.

“It had something better,” he told me shortly. “Or did you make up the raven over the doorjamb?”

It took me a second to remember the ugly statue cheapening an otherwise tasteful room. “No, it was there.”

“Then unless there are two black yachts with raven mascots, it was the Corvus.”

“That’s Latin for ‘raven,’ isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Marlowe said, looking vaguely surprised that I’d know that. “More to the point, it was the name bestowed by Roman soldiers on the planks they used to board the ships they were attacking. It had a ‘beak’ on one end to grab hold and bite into the other ship’s deck.”

“So that guy was Roman?” He hadn’t looked it.

“No, but the person who sold it to him was. The yacht used to belong to Geminus, before he sized up a few years ago. He sold his old one to his good friend Slava—who I want you to ID. If you saw him at that pier, it could be the break we need.”

“But I didn’t.”

“You don’t know what you saw!” Marlowe said testily. “Mircea pulled you out at the worst possible time and is refusing to put you back in.”

“And you expect me to convince him otherwise?” I asked skeptically. Because I wasn’t having a lot of luck with that sort of thing lately.

“No. I expect you to come with me to Slava’s tonight, and see if anything jogs your memory. A scent, a gesture, a—”

“Tonight?”

“Yes, tonight! Unless you have a prior engagement?” The sarcasm dripped. I ignored it, because the omelet of the gods had just been slid under my nose.

I sat down and took a bite. My eyes widened. “It is good, no?” Verrell asked, looking smug.

“How do you do this with just eggs?” I asked, stuffing my face.

“Oh, there are other things, too,” he said loftily. “Olive oil, some chives, a bit of pepper—just a touch, you understand—”

Marlowe’s hand came down on the table and Verrell jumped. “What is the problem with tonight?” he demanded.

I swallowed egg. “Nothing. If I hadn’t been fired.”

“You aren’t working for us. You are merely identifying a suspect.”

“So, you’ve cleared it with Mircea, then?”

He looked shifty.

Yeah, I’d thought so.

“You have a reputation for a certain…lack of concern…for your father’s wishes,” Marlowe pointed out.

This was true. It was also true that I had a vested interest in this smuggling mess. But I didn’t think it would help my bank account much to admit it.

“Say I was to find myself free,” I said. “What’s the occasion?”

“Just wear a dress. Something sexy.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “I don’t have any dresses, sexy or otherwise.”

“You don’t—why not?”

“They trip me up in combat. One almost got me killed recently, so I threw the rest out.”