The vintage Triumph, noisy as hell and vibrating like something barely tethered to this plane, ducks down the alley and pulls up to Sin du Jour’s service entrance. Lena kills the engine and heels the kickstand, leaning the bike to rest directly across from Ryland’s ancient RV. As she dismounts, Lena marvels at the brand-new tires on the hulking beige ruin, not to mention a complete lack of city-imposed boots on those tires. It’s also missing its protective sheen of petrified mud, as if it’s been newly washed (or more likely decontaminated).
Ryland is reclining in a Hello Kitty lawn chair he must’ve purchased either because it was the first one he saw or the cheapest or both. He’s wearing a plastic baseball helmet, the novelty variety with cup holders and built-in rubber straws. Those straws have been cut and elongated with additional tubing and duct tape to accommodate two tall glass wine bottles settled precariously into the cup holders.
The second-generation alchemist has had to MacGyver a chin strap for the helmet out of more duct tape to stabilize it against the additional weight.
“I never thought I’d say this,” Lena admits, “but it’s good to see you and that roach coach back here where they belong.”
“Aye. I’ll have you know I’ve no tolerance for infestation, besides which nothing that isn’t me can live in this roving poison farm, and that’s merely because I’ve been accruing an immunity to said poisons since boyhood.”
She can barely understand him due to the fact that two rubber tubes filled with wine and a lit cigarette are all jammed simultaneously in his mouth, but Lena gets the point.
“Right. Well, welcome back, Ryland.”
Lena undoes her chin strap and stashes her motorcycle helmet beneath one arm, walking up to the service entrance door.
“Would you like to go out with me sometime?” he calls after her. “I’ve begun studying the Kama Sutra in earnest.”
“Sure,” Lena shouts back at him. “You settle yourself into position fifty-nine, the sloppy crab, and I’ll join you later.”
“Truly?” Ryland asks, surprised.
The slamming of the back door answers him.
There’s a staff meeting in the kitchen in five minutes, but Lena wants to make one quick stop first. She trots through the winding, seemingly directionless and architecturally impossible corridors, still shocked she half-knows where she’s going.
She hears the distinct rattling around and barely audible recriminations before the door to the apothecary is even within sight. Lena finds Boosha in the middle of restocking her high shelves of curios, books, pots, pans, and items that defy human description. The ancient woman has almost gotten the place back in order again, no small feat considering it looked as though a hurricane had rolled through after Allensworth’s succubus attacked her.
Boosha speaks quietly to each inanimate object as if it were a wayward child before stowing it away.
Watching her makes Lena smile.
“You are coming here for something?” Boosha asks without turning away from her work.
Lena blinks. She’s slightly startled but quickly shakes her head.
“I just wanted to see how you were doing, first day back and all.”
“My home is a shambles!” Boosha squawks, gathering her many ragged skirts and climbing down from the steep stool atop which she’d been perilously leaning.
“Yeah, I know. We would’ve cleaned up for you, but everyone was kind of afraid to touch your stuff or put it back in the wrong place.”
Boosha nods, grunting. “As it should be.”
Her green-tinted face with its offset features looks almost fully healed. There are still a few light bruises, but none of it seems to have slowed her down.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Lena says. “And thank you for your help when you were in the hospital. Leaving that book out made all the difference.”
“You would have managed without me,” Boosha assures her. “You are smart girl. You will be good leader when your time comes.”
“I . . . What do you mean? When my time comes for what?”
Boosha waves her off impatiently, bending to pick up more displaced paraphernalia. “When time comes, you will know for what. Now off with you. Have much work to do here.”
Lena sighs. She wants to press Boosha further, but she knows better by now.
“Welcome back” is all she says in the end, leaving the ancient creature who is not quite any one discernible race to her tasks.
The first thing Lena sees upon entering Sin du Jour’s main kitchen is Dorsky and Nikki, standing shoulder to shoulder against one of the gas ranges, laughing about something.
It feels slightly like walking into an alternate reality, a subtle one where everything else is the same except all people wear cheese boxes instead of shoes.
Lena walks up to them, arms folded across her chest. “This must be one universally funny joke.”
Dorsky stares at her, immediately lost. “Huh?”
Nikki’s smile doesn’t disappear, but it does noticeably fade. “No, uh . . . we were just . . . you know . . . talking about everything that’s happened lately. Trying to see the funny side.”
“Hey, can I talk to you after the meeting?” Dorsky asks Lena.
She nods, feeling even more off-kilter now. “Yeah, sure.”
The rest of the line cooks are spread out around the kitchen. Lena takes a place next to James, who is sitting alone at one of the prep stations.
“Where’s Darren?” she asks him.
He doesn’t quite frown, but Lena can see it takes effort to hold his smile. It’s difficult for Lena to picture James without that smile; he wears it like armor, and the optimism and outlook that accompany it are as central to who he is as his faith. He might as well be shedding tears in that moment.
“I do not know,” James says. “We rode in to work together. He has been . . . very quiet. And he dreams . . . terrible dreams. He will not say they are, but I see it when he sleeps.”
“Training with Ritter isn’t helping anymore?”
“He does not train with Ritter. Ritter has become too busy. He sent Darren to a friend of his in Brooklyn, to continue learning.”
Lena does frown, and it’s deep with concern. “Well. It can’t be that mess with that succubus bitch bugging him. You two weren’t even here when it all went down.”
“Yes, I know. I feel bad, but that was a good vacation.”
Lena smiles. She reaches up and pats him on the arm. “I’ll talk to him, okay?”
James nods.
Bronko’s heavy footfalls and the clacking of Jett’s high heels make an uneven chorus, but it announces the duo’s presence before they appear beneath the arch separating the kitchen from the corridor outside. Bronko doesn’t seem any less burdened lately, but at least he’s present and taking care of himself again. Jett, on the other hand, is back in top form, killing it in her finest Chanel suit and tallest Louboutins.
Lena finds herself smiling warmly at the sight of the pair of them. She can’t help feeling comforted by their return to form.
Bronko’s first question is “Where’s Vargas?”
“He is in the bathroom, Chef,” James pipes up quickly. “He was not feeling well this morning.”
“You’re a bad liar and it’s a shitty habit besides, James,” Bronko tells him. “I’d avoid picking it up.”
“Yes, Chef.”
“Y’all can fill him in later. So, here it is. This mornin’ I got the news our good friend Enzo Consoné has won the presidency of the Sceadu and we’ll be serving at his inauguration in one week, down in some sacred spot in rural Virginia.”
The line applauds, catcalling and hooting, some of it exaggeration and some of it genuine.
Lena doesn’t know quite how to feel about that announcement, any of it. The last time she and Bronko spoke with him, Consoné told them there was a war coming. She knows his being elected president of the most influential governing body overseeing and mediating all these intersecting supernatural races and powers on Earth (and possibly beyond) will only escalate the situation. Consoné is an independent, a perceived human, and not the one Allensworth wanted sitting at the head of that table.
“At least the shadow election went better than the shit show on CNN,” Dorsky comments.
Nikki shakes her head sadly. “I cannot believe he’s the new president of the United States. I just can’t believe it.”
“Speaking of which, isn’t that the same night as, you know, the other inauguration?” Dorsky asks.
“I don’t even wanna get into that,” Bronko says. “It’s done. Take heart in bein’ among the few humans who know the American president and all his cronies take their marchin’ orders from—”
“Demons?” Lena interjects.
“More rational authorities,” Bronko responds, each word a slow, rumbling warning to her.
“I can’t speak to the nationally televised inauguration,” Jett chimes in brightly. “However, the inauguration of the Sceadu president is going to be an event unlike any Sin du Jour has ever planned. I’m reaching beyond my usual channels and workforce, and I can promise you all a spectacle untold!”
The line seems far less enthused by that.
“What about the menu?” Dorsky asks.
Bronko inhales and exhales with equal measures of ennui. “Yeah. I ain’t exactly a creative fount lately, I’ll be honest with y’all. Suggestions? Thoughts? Level ’em up.”
Lena speaks immediately and without really even thinking about it. “It’s a menu for politicians. What about an all-pork theme?”
They all look at her, even Nikki, surprised and quizzical expressions on their faces.
Bronko, however, grins. “I like that, Tarr. I purely do. Not bad. Not bad at all.”
“That’s pretty damn funny,” Dorsky admits. “But I like it for the food, too. Pork has a lot more versatility than you see in this city. And most chefs wouldn’t have the balls to serve five courses or more of pork. I’m in.”
“It won’t make dessert easy,” Nikki points out, her nose slightly crinkled.
“You’re always up to the challenge, Nik,” Bronko assures her. “Let’s go with it. Tag, you and Tarr there draft a menu and have it on my desk by the end of the day.”
“Yes, Chef,” Dorsky and Lena reply, almost perfectly in unison.
“The goblin guests will need to be taken into consideration,” Jett points out. “However, I believe the rest of the guest list should respond favorably to pork as a theme.”
“Pork and gemstones!” Bronko announces with an almost sadistic glee. “G’luck figuring that one out, folks.”
Laughing, he turns and exits the kitchen. Jett waves excitedly to them all and follows him.
“All-pork?” Nikki asks Lena. “How’d you come up with that one?”
Lena shrugs. “I’m Hungarian. The only thing we love more than pigs is government satire.”