The Vampire's Maid

Part 8. The Vampire's Maid

The cluttered kitchen's usual busy and comfy atmosphere magnified to chaotic the next day in preparation for the feast. Abriella, June and I stood at various points around the kitchen wearing identical white aprons, all staring at the twelve large chickens and mountains of vegetables piled up on the wooden table.

"We should start, I think." Abriella said in a tired voice.

"How many vampires is Goliath planning to feed?" I asked, stunned at the pure quantity of food.

Abriella shrugged her shoulders delicately then proceeded to drop two raw chickens clumsily into a roasting tin. Following her suit, June and I hurried to put the rest of the chickens in the large oven where they began to cook gently from the blazing flame.

"Cooking for the vampires isn't that bad." I told June after peeling potatoes silently for a few minutes. "My first day with Ashley was much worse."

"It's not the cooking that bothers me," June grimaced, "It's serving the food to those stuck up vamps that I hate. They leer at you as if you're more appetising than the food."

"That's because you are." A new voice came from the doorway.

Joe leaned cockily against the doorframe with a mischievous grin on his handsome face. His forehead was glistening with sweat and he'd removed his waistcoat, his white shirt messily unbuttoned at the sleeves. June's cheeks blushed a deep shade of red at his words and she began to chop her carrots with unnecessary attention.

"Nice surprise seeing you down here Lizzy." He grinned.

"Yes, someone foolishly let me loose with a knife and a pile of chickens in the kitchen." I sighed. "I can't cook."

"I wouldn't bother to learn if I were you. You'll probably be dead in a few years anyway." Joe said in an offhand manner.

"You are, how do you say it, very tactful." Abriella said from over a pile of evenly chopped potatoes.

Joe sidled over to June and began talking to her. I suspected he was standing so close to her as an excuse to sample the carrots she was cutting. June was not paying much attention to her knife skills anymore and seemed instead to be deeply interested in Joe.

"June." I called in a slow voice.

She looked rather irritated that I had disturbed her conversation with Joe but motioned for me to continue anyway.

"These vampires that we're cooking for... This means that there are more than just the Sancruor family. There are more vampires..."

"Yes. Think of how these... humans adapted to become vampires. Helena probably made her husband drink blood to become a vampire but what's to say that she didn't make others drink blood as well? She could have created a sort of family, or an army. It's a total guess but I think that Helena probably created a few vampires. They created more and there's a whole civilisation, if you can call it that, of them now." June told me with a calculated expression in her eyes.

"See, Dane is not part of the family." Abriella told me.

"He isn't? I suppose that makes a certain amount of sense... Ashley always seems to order him about."

Joe made a tittering sound at my use of Ashley's first name and June giggled. I fixed them both with what I hoped was a dispassionate expression. June composed her face but Joe continued to grin in unabashed happiness. 'Why was he so happy?'I asked myself for what seemed like the hundredth time.

After stealing around a pound of carrots from under June's nose, Joe retreated back to the room opposite the kitchen that I assumed was a garage. Abriella and June watched his retreating figure before turning back to their vegetables.