Giving up my apartment would be shockingly easy. I’d barely spent enough time there over the years to make it a home. I hadn’t decorated or added any personal touches. Everything was beige, for cripe’s sake. But the thought of giving up the Lassiter place was singularly depressing.

Sherry had shown me the apartment above Howlin’ Hank’s and it was perfectly adequate. Or would be, after the renovations that would jack up my construction budget even further. But ultimately, I had enough on my plate taking on the restaurant. I wouldn’t have the time, money, or energy to take on a fixer-upper house.

If I could find a way to stretch my budget another twenty thousand dollars or so, I’d have enough breathing room to do what I hoped to with the restaurant. But I did not, in fact, have naked pictures with which to blackmail Bill Gates, and I didn’t have anything else to sell, unless you counted my car or a kidney—and I would need both.

The sun slipped over the horizon, leaving long lavender shadows in its wake. I buried my face in my hands and groaned. I leaned against the porch railing and looked out over the velvety green lawn. I would miss this place. I would miss having my own quiet space. I would miss waking up every morning to plot revenge against Sam for his pranks, even if I did sort of regret dosing his blood with essence of third-degree tongue burn. Then again, that had led to receiving the hottest kiss of my life, in every sense of the word, so it couldn’t have been a terrible plan.

A soft thump sounded behind me, making me turn toward the front door. Speak of the bewildering devil. Sam was standing there, framed behind the screen door, his dark hair tousled. He was staring at me, his head tilted at a quizzical angle. I simply stared back, unsure of what else to do. I supposed I should have been nervous, caught in the sights of an apex predator, but there was nothing threatening in his gaze. He seemed curious, a little irritated, as if he were looking at some overpriced abstract painting he couldn’t figure out… because he probably wasn’t supposed to. I tilted my head to mirror his posture, because, frankly, I doubted I’d ever interpret Sam correctly, either. I wanted to. I just didn’t know how to reset our relationship from minor domestic booby-trapping to “let’s be friends.”

What could we have been, if we hadn’t started off so badly? If we’d just met walking down the sidewalk on Main Street, would we have been friends? Would he have asked me out for coffee, or whatever vampires did for awkward-first-date beverages? It was sad that I would never know. Part of me—a teeny, tiny synapse in the dimmer region of my brain—would even miss Sam when I moved out. Yes, he pissed me off. And yes, he had hurt my pans. But he kept things entertaining. And I couldn’t deny that through the frustrations and near-injuries, we had chemistry. The sort of chemistry that seemed to be melting holes in the screen door at the moment.

Blinking slowly, Sam seemed to come to his senses and backed away from the screen, closing the front door behind him.

Well, that was weird.

It struck me that it wasn’t a great idea to start my new life in the Hollow with a local vampire pissed off at me. Maybe as a going-away present, I could make something nice for Sam, some variation of whatever he was trying to do with those burned-out saucepans, only edible. He obviously missed real food, and I had sort of tortured him with the lasagna and the brownies. That seemed less OK now that I would probably bump into him at Walmart at some point.

But where would I start? How did you make blood more palatable? Add other, tastier bloods? Herbs and spices? Make it into gravy? Blood pudding?

I slapped my hand over my face. How could I forget about something called the Bloody Bake-Off? If I entered the contest and won, the grand prize was $25,000. That would pad my construction budget considerably. And frankly, I didn’t think any other gourmet chefs of my caliber would be entering. My chances of beating Jane’s mom were pretty high. Plus, it couldn’t hurt my reputation locally for word to get around that I was a good enough cook to make vampire food palatable.

I pulled out my phone and dialed the number listed in my contacts under “Jane, if you’re not calling for bail $$.”

“Hey, Jane, it’s Tess,” I said. “Do you know where I sign up for this vampire cooking contest?”

—

My approach to the contest entries was simple. I wanted to make something that reminded the judges of their human days—assuming they remembered them—but still appealed to their vampire palates. Clearly, all of the ingredients had to be liquid. I didn’t even want to risk purees after what Jane had told me about the French cookbook.

I tried to stay with familiar flavors, nothing too exotic. Hell, I even made a very thin marinara from tomato juice, but I needed some feedback before I decided which entry was the best. I tried tasting a few of my samples, but the weird metallic aftertaste of the Faux Type O overrode any other flavors.

This brought my favorite vampires, Jane, Gabriel, Andrea, and Dick, to the recently cleaned bar in the Howlin’ Hank’s building. (I was really going to have to come up with a name for the place soon.) The family was more than willing to let me “play” in the space while the final sale paperwork was ironed out, as long as I paid cash. I was so confident in my ability to win the prize money that I’d agreed. I bought the building outright, saving just a few thousand for the renovations and new equipment.

The dining room was still pretty beat-up, but I’d done a thorough cleaning. I’d found and washed some shot glasses, then used them to set up a tasting session at the bar.

“Are you sure it’s safe to eat anything prepared here?” Gabriel asked, obviously trying to keep his tone in the “nonpanic” range as he eyed the defunct beer signs and broken chairs. “Did you say you only had the electricity turned back on this morning?”

“I didn’t cook this here,” I assured him. “I cooked it at home, but I didn’t want to stir up my cranky roommate by inviting a bunch of people there. I thought this would be more fun.”

“She clearly has Jane’s idea of fun,” Dick muttered to Gabriel.

“So, when are you going to start work on this place?” Jane asked, elbowing Dick as I poured shot glasses full of a warm, deep-red concoction.

“I’m not sure. I have to find a contractor who’s willing to work with my budget.”

“Why don’t you talk to Sam?” Andrea asked as I sprinkled a tiny bit of rosemary oil over each shot.

“Because I don’t want my lower lip nailed to the bar at some point during the construction process?” I asked. “I mean, I’ve done things to him that the Geneva Convention would frown upon. I don’t think he’s going to give me a fair and accurate estimate, Andrea.”

“I might know someone,” Dick said before the other three cut him off with a chorus of “NO!” Dick huffed and crossed his arms over his chest. “Fine.”

“Jolene will help you find someone. If she doesn’t have a cousin who will do it for you, she has a cousin who knows someone who will do it for you,” Jane assured me, lifting a shot glass and sniffing. “So, what do we have here?”

I wiped my hands on a dishtowel and did a small curtsy behind the bar. “OK, this is a red-wine reduction with shallots—well, shallot juice—and a few other goodies, and, of course, Faux Type O. It’s basically the go-to sauce for any chef auditioning for a job.”

The vampires sniffed the glasses and then, giving one another subtly wary looks, knocked back the shots.

“So, what do you think?” I said, bouncing up and down on my heels. “Should I stick with this one as the contest entry, or do you want to taste more? Because I’m pretty sure this is the best selection.”

They stared at me, eyes unnaturally wide. That’s when I noticed that they weren’t smiling. Most people smiled when they were eating my food.

Dick swallowed heavily, grimacing. “Taste more?”

“This is the best one?” Jane said, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin.

My eyes flicked to each vampire’s face and their expressions of strained, polite discomfort. They hated it.

A cold flush of shock and panic skittered down my spine. My brain kept screaming, Impossible! I didn’t make bad food. Even when I made blue-box macaroni and cheese, I did it with flair. And this was my red-wine reduction. Everybody loved my red-wine reduction, even Chef Gamling.

I’d tasted this batch myself just before adding the blood. It was the perfect mix of sophistication and Southern comfort. Except it wasn’t, because Dick seemed to be trying to scrape his tongue with a napkin without being obvious about it.

“Does synthetic blood curdle?” I reached for the shot glass and sniffed. It smelled fine to me, a little coppery under the peppery tang of the sauce, but fine.

Gabriel cleared his throat. “No, no, it’s fine. It just a little…”

Dick murmured, “How can we put this delicately?”

Jane took my hands in hers, looked me straight in the eye, and said, “It tastes like old sandals and feta cheese.”

“That was delicately?” I deadpanned.

“For Jane, yes, it was,” Andrea informed me.

“OK, what could I change?” I asked, my voice hitching slightly. I took a deep breath to stave off the worst of my panic. “Should I season it differently? Change the consistency?”

“I don’t know,” Jane said. “It’s not even an issue of spices or texture. It just tastes… wrong.”

“OK.” I whisked another set of shot glasses off the counter, the one containing my second choice, an attempt at masking the taste of the blood in an Asian-inspired plum sauce. “Try this one.”

Dick couldn’t hold the glass to his lips for more than two seconds before shuddering, giving me an apologetic look, and placing the glass back on my tray. When Andrea lifted the glass to her mouth, Dick’s hand shot toward her and pulled the glass out of her grasp. Jane sipped, gagged, and spat the sauce back into her shot glass. Gabriel, who seemed to feel sorry for me, downed the sauce in one gulp. He paled, which was saying something, mumbled “Excuse me,” and ran for the bathroom.

“What am I doing wrong?” I exclaimed.

“I don’t know,” Jane said sympathetically. “But you’ll get it. Don’t worry.”

But I was worried. I refused to subject my guests to further gastronomical torture. I went home to my kitchen and went over my recipes one by one. These were my tried-and-true recipes. I used versions of them at Coda every day. No one hated these. I’d done my research. I’d broken down the flavor profiles on a molecular level to match the right sauce to the right blood type.

If I didn’t win this contest, I would barely have enough to make Howlin’ Hank’s habitable. I’d been so stupidly confident in my skills, in my ability to blow the locals out of the water, that creating something inedible hadn’t even crossed my mind.

I felt like such an idiot. Did vampire taste buds really change so much after death? Gabriel described the taste issue as the vampire body’s method of digestive self-defense. The vampire’s brain instinctually knew that solid food would make them sick, so it sent messages to the body that human food was rancid and disgusting. Maybe if I could trick the vampire’s brain into thinking it was just enjoying another cup of blood, I wouldn’t serve them something that tasted like the inside of Mike Tyson’s gym bag.

“I can fix this,” I assured them. I grabbed the spices and herbal oils I’d brought with me to garnish the shots and went to work doctoring the remaining entries. Dick grimaced but gamely stepped up to the bar. Gabriel rolled his eyes but clearly didn’t want to be outdone in the chivalry department. He stepped forward, too.

“I haven’t thrown up in more than a year,” Andrea told me, taking her own shot glass in hand. “You break my streak, and I’m going to be pissed at you.”