Page 27 of Elixir of Strife
Leon shrugged. “If I squint hard enough I can sort of see you. Like a very faint ice sculpture of yourself. Actually, the steam made it easier. And I’m here because I wanted to see your face when you found out that you were so wrong about your nasty cousin.”
The indignation tangled my tongue. I raked fingers through my hair, balled my hands into fists, but in the end, I just flung a finger deeper into the kitchen.
“Wait. Whoa.” He leaned closer, nudging me with his elbow as he stared past me. “What’s up with all the zombies? What happened to these people?”
“Divina Brillante happened,” I growled. “She took over their minds, enslaved their wills. I knew there was bad magic involved. No way she could have cooked anything half as good as what you ate. She’s not even in here working with them, but I bet she’ll take full credit anyway. Probably in some back office, kicking her heels up.”
“Max?” Leon pointed at the guy stirring the soup. “That dude’s about to topple over. Max!”
We sprinted as one, racing forward as the man swayed so perilously close to plunging his face in a pot of boiling liquid, the most forbidden of secret ingredients. Leon and I each took an arm, dragging the man away from the stove, guiding him down onto a nearby stack of boxes, the only thing in sight that resembled a place to sit.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he croaked, barely able to speak. His breath smelled of cigarettes, his clothes of sweat. God, how long had Divina kept this guy on his feet? How long had she trapped these people in her kitchen?
“Rest up for a bit,” Leon told him. “We’ll get you out of here, sir.”
Another man approached, knife in hand, the tips of his fingers menacingly red from handling so very many chopped tomatoes. A woman with disheveled hair shambled closer, her meat tenderizer prepared to tenderize our poor meats.
“You shouldn’t be here,” they droned in that awful monotone.
“We should do something,” Leon said. “We should get the hell out of here.”
“But we can’t hurt them.” I scanned their faces, half the kitchen closing in on us, the other half still mindlessly working at their stations. “This isn’t their fault. Divina wormed into their brains like the parasite she is. Make a run for it.”
We broke for the doors back to the restaurant, but hands grabbed at my clothes, tugged at my hair. These kitchen folk were strong as hell. I resisted, cried out when a punch landed in my gut.
“You were right, Max!” Leon shouted, placed in a chokehold by someone wielding a heavy pot lid. Were they going to smash it in his face? Leon was a mouthy little shit, but he didn’t deserve that. He wasmymouthy little shit. “Divina really was into some fucked-up, nefarious bullshit. Ack. Buddy. Stop choking me.”
I snarled and struggled, feeling very little joy in my vindication. Great alternate name for Divina, though. I could rub this in Leon’s smug little face when we got out of this mess later.Ifwe got out of this mess later.
Someone, possibly multiple someones had locked my arms behind my back. I’d expected a knife in the ribs, but I was being frogmarched out of the kitchen instead, Leon alongside me. We exchanged confused glances, staring longingly at the double doors leading to Divinity, and then to freedom.
But no. The kitchen drones were taking us the opposite way, down to another door. An office. A horribly tacky, gaudy office, I could already tell, even without having seen inside. One of the drones threw the door open, me and Leon shoved inside unceremoniously.
I almost wished I’d been knifed in the ribs instead. Tacky and gaudy didn’t even cut it.
A massive glass desk sat on top of a leopard-print rug. Fake, fortunately, though still cut in the shape of an animal hide. Little trinkets from Divina’s travels littered the desk and the mismatched pink furniture strewn around the room. An enormous and enormously flattering portrait of the devil herself hung over the desk, which also featured an expensive computer that didn’t even look like it was turned on.
The office chair swiveled, exactly as if Divina was preparing for this moment, her evil genius reveal. Minus the genius. The effect was sorely diminished by the fact that she was in the middle of stuffing a chocolate bonbon in her face. No fluffy cat in her lap to stroke, either. Amateur.
“Primo,” she squealed in delight. “How wonderful to see you again. How kind of you to patronize one of my fine establishments.”
I shrugged off the drones still restraining me. They grunted and backed off. Leon did the same, slipping out of their grasp. Divina frowned at her minions, waving them out of her office.
“Apologies for the harsh treatment, boys.” She leaned across the desk, giving Leon the once-over and a toothy, simpering grin. “Ah. You must be the flavor of the moment, yes?”
Leon sniffed, tugging on the hem of his shirt to smooth out the creases. “Excuse you.”
“Cut the crap, Divina.” I jabbed a finger at her face, wishing I could rap her right in the forehead. “You knew we were around. You were watching through the eyes of your minions while they wrestled us in here. Whatever happened to your world tour, huh? Going around the globe to study under the greatest culinary minds?”
She rolled her eyes and laughed. “Oh God, how boring. Could you imagine? No. I decided, why bother studying under the greatest culinary minds when I could just, you know? Enslave them. I brought them all here, my keepsakes from my travels. My souvenirs.”
Leon shuddered. “Wow, Max. She’s worse than I thought.”
Divina smiled. “You have no idea. I had to be careful about hiring my talent, too. No one actually famous, you know? Just barely rising stars, the new nobodies. Better to start them young, you know? They can stay on their feet. They work longer, too.”
I shook my head, too jaded to be disappointed. “You’re a monster, Divina. A Brillante through and through.”
She leaned her elbows on her desk, cradled her chin in her hands. “And you aren’t? Please, Maximo. Remember all the good times growing up together, you and I? You can take the boy out of Casa Brillante, but you can’t take the Brillante out of the boy.”
