Cooking was one of my passions in life, and it never failed to make me feel better, even if I'd almost had my neck chewed off by a vamp last night. The familiar motions of mixing and stirring soothed me, as did the aromatic smells of the hot oil and spicy seasonings in the air. By the time I slid a pan of cornbread into the oven to bake, I was starting to feel like my old self.
While I got started on a spring spinach salad, I told the others what had happened at Dekes's mansion. How the vamp had known who I was thanks to McAllister and how Dekes had used Vanessa and Victoria as hostages against me and drugged me into submission. How I'd pretended to be dead and had found my way through the marsh over here to the other side of the island. The only things I skimmed over were the brutal details of the vamp's attack on me and that he'd almost torn my throat open in order to get every drop of magic he could out of my blood.
"So he's using the two women against each other," Finn said. "Vanessa can't leave or fight back because Dekes has Victoria as leverage."
"And he's draining the blood and their magic out of them again and again," I said. "That's probably why I didn't sense Vanessa's magic, because Dekes had recently fed off her. And Victoria was in really bad shape: thin, unconscious, and anemic. It won't be long before Dekes kills her. Then he'll do the same thing to Vanessa because he won't have her sister to keep her in line anymore. After that, he'll find some more elemental women, bring them to his mansion, and do the same thing to them. He's one sick bastard."
"Sick," Sophia rasped.
The sound of the Goth dwarf's hoarse, broken voice reminded me that I wasn't the only one here who'd been tortured. Many years ago, Sophia had been kidnapped by a man named Harley Grimes and had been forced to submit to all the unspeakable things Grimes had done to her, including making her breathe in elemental Fire, which had destroyed her vocal cords. Jo-Jo could have easily healed Sophia and made her voice whole once more, but the Goth dwarf had refused her sister's offer. I supposed Sophia felt the same way about her ruined vocal cords as I did about my spider rune scars. They were both reminders of what we'd gone through - of what we'd survived.
I looked at Sophia and saw the sadness that always glittered in her black eyes. My suffering at the hands of Dekes had been nothing to what she'd endured with Grimes. Somehow, the dwarf had found the strength to survive all the horrors Grimes had inflicted on her. She was one of the strongest people I knew, and she made me want to be just as tough as she was. I was going to be, I vowed. Because I'd be damned if I left Blue Marsh while Dekes was still alive.
"So what happened on your end?" I asked, turning the pieces of chicken over in the skillet so that the other sides could brown.
Finn shrugged. "We could all tell that Dekes's giants were getting a little too interested in us, especially after you left with the man himself. So I suggested to Bria and Owen that we make good our getaway. We slipped away from the pool, but two of the giants followed us. They chased us into another wing of the mansion, well away from the press conference."
"Did you have any trouble with them?" I asked.
"Not after I blasted the first one's brains out of his skull with the help of my new silencer," Finn said in a not-so-modest voice.
My foster brother might be a slick, polished investment banker, but he also could shoot the wings off a fly with any gun he picked up. Finn was even better with firearms than I was, and he always had one or two tucked away on his body somewhere, just like I did my knives.
I thought of my knives lying on the mantel in Dekes's library. That was something else the vampire was going to pay for - taking away my weapons.
"As you can imagine, the other guy got a little upset that his buddy's blood was all over his face," Finn continued. "Which gave Owen enough time to pick up a nearby candlestick and do his thing with it."
"It was solid silverstone," Owen said. "A couple of good whacks across the back of the head, and the second giant went down."
Not too long ago, I'd seen Owen take on a group of giants using a blacksmith's hammer, so I knew just how skilled a fighter he was. He could wield heavy, blunt weapons just as easily as I could knives.
"It was a thing of beauty, wasn't it, Owen?" Finn asked.
The two men exchanged a high five across the table. Bria rolled her eyes and shook her head at their antics.
"And while the boys were congratulating themselves on their awesomeness," Bria said, "I grabbed another candlestick and took care of a third giant who'd snuck up behind them and was about to squeeze Finn's head between his hands like it was an oversize lemon."
Finn draped his arm over my sister's shoulders and pulled her close. "Something that I will be forever grateful for, cupcake."
"If you don't stop calling me cupcake, I'll hit you with the candlestick next time," Bria groused, but she couldn't hide the smile on her face.
"Anyway," Owen said. "We came back here to the beach house to wait for you."
"But I didn't show up."
Owen's eyes met mine. "No, you didn't show up."
Nobody said anything, but I could see just how concerned the others had been about me. Just thinking about what Dekes had done to me last night made their faces tighten with worry - even Bria's.
Owen cleared his throat. "So we got some more guns and some more weapons, and we went back out to Dekes's mansion. But everything seemed normal there. None of the guards looked worried, and there was nothing to indicate that anything out of the ordinary had happened. It didn't even look like there was much of a fuss being made over the giants we'd killed earlier. We didn't know what to think, and we were about to storm the mansion when Finn got a call from Sophia, saying you'd come here to the house after all. We got back as quickly as we could."
I knew what had happened after that. Jo-Jo had healed me, and the others had tried to get some sleep while they waited for me to wake up.
By the time we all got caught up, the food was ready. Buttermilk fried chicken, hot, crusty cornbread, a baby spinach salad with diced tomatoes, shredded cheddar cheese, red onion, and crispy bacon crumbles, a roasted veggie medley of red potatoes, carrots, and zucchini. I even used the limes in a basket on the counter to make a tart, tangy limeade.
We fell silent as we ate, and I relished every single bite, enjoying the play of sweet and salty, hot and sour, on my tongue. I hadn't been kidding when I'd said I was starving, and I ate more than everyone else combined. But no matter how much I ate, it didn't quite fill in the hollow ache I felt deep down inside, in the place where my magic would normally be. Still, I stuffed myself, knowing I'd need the energy for the long night ahead - because Dekes wasn't living to see another sunrise.