The Taste of Home

Chapter 5

The chefs' stares clung as tightly to Miguel as his uniform did to his scales on his first day at The Crimson Goat. Even before the restaurant opened for the evening, the kitchen sang a symphony of chopping knives. A massive pot of duck blood soup bubbled on a burner, bathing the kitchen in its sweet aroma. Miguel's nostrils flared as he drank in the delicious scent, his fangs burning with desire.

"Hey, keep away from the soup." A man as heavily built as a bull glared at Miguel as he stirred in some honey. Armed with nothing but a ladle, he still promised to put up a hell of a fight as the tiger tattooed on his arm twitched with agitation. "The last thing we need is you drooling in the pot."

"Take it easy, Ralph," said a familiar voice. Alejandro wielded his knife as if it was an extension of himself, trimming gristle off steaks with practiced finesse. "It's not his fault it smells delicious."

"Damn right it does," Ralph said with a firm nod.

Once he finished prepping the last of his steaks, Alejandro welcomed Miguel with a firm handshake. "It's great to see you again!"

Miguel stifled a sigh of relief when Alejandro finally released his grip. The last thing he needed was for his scales to accidentally scrape someone's skin raw on his first day. "What are you doing in here? Aren't you a waiter?"

"Not usually, but one of the waiters quit right before his shift, and we needed a couple extra legs in the dining room. Now, let me show you where the magic happens!"

Alejandro led Miguel from station to station, explaining what kinds of dishes were prepared at each one and introducing him to the equipment they used. Although the other chefs kept prepping for that night's dinner service, it wasn't hard to miss the glances they cast Miguel's way. Some were wary while others were merely curious, but they all made Miguel feel like a sickly coyote waiting for the vultures to swoop down.

"This is where we keep the meat." A blast of frigid air hit Miguel as Alejandro muscled open the walk-in freezer. Slabs of meat lined with fat and countless sausages filled one side of the walk-in, with the other dominated by tubs of blood. Duck, cow, goat: any variety he had ever thirsted for was right there. "Make sure you always close the door when you leave. Too much heat, and this stuff'll go bad."

"And don't fall asleep in there, Scales." The pastry chef, who Alejandro had introduced as Yolanda, thudded a ramekin full of sanguinaccio dolce against the counter before putting it in the fridge. "Otherwise it'll take all of us to drag you to the curb where you belong."

"Why would I do that?" Miguel asked. "I'm not a lizard. It takes more than a little cold to wear me out."

"She knows. She's just..." Alejandro sighed and rubbed his temples. "Don't worry about it. I've got one last thing to show you, then you can actually start training."

He led Miguel out a side door that, much to Miguel's surprise, opened into a cool, dimly lit room filled with far more than just the live animals. In addition to the mice, scorpions, and other snacks, the room also held its own dedicated fridge, pallets full of wood shavings, and all sorts of other supplies just for the prey.

"It took ages for us to get the license we needed to serve these live, and this sort of thing is still illegal in most states since animal welfare groups would have a cow otherwise," Alejandro explained.

"What does them having a cow got to do with it? Wouldn't that make them happy?" His pack would be delighted to have one, at any rate.

There was that smile again, still as radiant as the night they'd met. "It's an expression. It means they'd get mad and make a fuss."

"I see." Not really, but the strangeness of human figures of speech was a problem for another day.

"We've all been taking turns making sure these are well taken care of, but now that'll be your job, at least until Mr. Kaminski thinks you've trained enough to handle a station by yourself. Who's he got you with today?"

"He wants me to help with appetizers."

"I was hoping you'd be on entrees with me tonight, but that makes sense. You'll be handling half of those already, so you and Ralph will be working together a lot. I promise he's not nearly as intimidating as he looks." Alejandro chuckled. "He's actually a softie."

He sure didn't look like it, not with the dull purples and browns of faded bruises decorating his skin. "I'm just glad I'm not starting off with the desserts."

Alejandro pinched the bridge of his nose. "I hope Yolanda doesn't scare you off. She can be a bit..."

"Aggressive?"

"Intense. She graduated at the top of her class at the Culinary Institute of America, and she's really passionate."

"I can handle that." It was no different from how Isabella acted when she was concentrating on something, fierce and focused with little tolerance for mistakes.

Alejandro walked Miguel through everything he'd need to know about caring for the prey: what to feed them and when, how to place them into their serving containers without accidentally hurting them, what to do if one of them seemed sick. At last, they left the squeaking mice and skittering scorpions behind as they rejoined the other chefs in the main kitchen.

"If you're not too busy," Alejandro said, the words tumbling out of his mouth like hatchlings scrambling over each other on their way to a fresh kill, "would you be up for grabbing dinner this weekend? We're closed every Saturday, and I thought it might be nice for us to get to know each other better."

"I'll have to ask Isabella if that's okay, but that sounds good to me." She'd probably want him to be around the pack on his days off, but it couldn't hurt to ask. He needed to make sure not to push away the one chef who actually wanted to spend time with him.

With at least one thing to look forward to, Miguel joined Ralph at the appetizers station.

"First thing's first," the muscle-bound chef said, "wash your hands. The last thing we need is dirty claws touching the food."

Over the next hour, Ralph drilled Miguel on the appetizers portion of the menu as he walked him through the basics of knife work. Much like his claws, the blades required maintenance to make sure they remained sharp and effective. Unlike his claws, they were a massive nuisance to use.

"Tuck your fingers in for fuck's sake!" Ralph grabbed the hand Miguel was using to hold a duck breast in place and forced his claws to curl inward like a cat's paw. "Do you want to chop them off?"

His opinion of the way he gripped the knife was little better. "Rock it, don't slash." Ralph's calloused fingers pressed against his scales as he guided his hand through the proper motion. "Just because this duck's going to get eaten doesn't mean it has to look like it got mauled to death."

By the time Miguel started getting ready to set out the night's first round of complimentary mice, his hands ached not from being manhandled, but from using them in a way that was completely foreign to him.

Ralph's knife strokes were much different from his. In his hand, the blade flew through the meat with the precision and grace of a killing bite. Next to his clean cuts, Miguel's work rested in a heap of uneven tatters.

Yet, Ralph added both piles of meat to the duck blood soup. "A bit messy, but not half bad for a first try. How's about a quick taste test before you head out there?"

Coupled with an approving slap on the back that earned a glare from Yolanda, the soup tasted even more delicious than it had before.