Kevin Hearne - Tricked

“Okay.” Granuaile shrugged. “I’m game. Sounds fun.”

Heh! Yes, I am. Remember the Nicaraguan chupacabra cheese?

You’re on. Say good-bye to those five sausages. I know she’ll make it. She has a proud streak .

The place in question was called the Double Dog Dare Gourmet Café. It’s the only place I’ve ever found that provides patrons with a barf bag — and it’s not because the food is ill prepared. To the contrary, it’s exquisite. They just serve items that most Americans cannot fathom putting down their throats, and the reactions, when they happen, are all psychologically based. That being the case, they have a rather unique ordering system and service style.

Everyone gets a different menu from which to order, and you don’t order for yourself — you order for your dinner partner. You pick five items from the menu by silently checking off a list and handing it to the waiter. All five of them are put on a single plate in very small portions, and then you get the plate put in front of you that your partner has dared you to eat — and vice versa. You don’t get told what each item is until after you eat it. Hence the barf bags. It’s all part of the charm.

The waiters are very careful to inquire about food allergies beforehand, and in some cases you have to sign a waiver before you get served.

When the ordering system was explained to Granuaile, she smiled and then she perused her menu with relish, determined to put me off my dinner. My smile mirrored hers; ordering was one of the best parts of the process. I toyed with the idea of having mercy on her, but I knew she wasn’t going to have any on me, and, besides, I wanted to give Oberon a decent shot at winning his five sausages. Remembering that Granuaile was a bit sensitive to smells, I ordered the most pungent items I could think of, except for one fried item.

It was probably a bit unfair. I’ve been around and tried some unholy culinary atrocities in my time, so I knew I’d be able to hold down everything. She might surprise me with something, but nothing was going to make me ralph at the thought of it.

We took it easy on the drinks, ordering iced tea. Oberon was outside, camouflaged, sitting down out of the way of the door. I ordered him a full order of yak liver to go and let him know.

he said.

I was sitting facing the door — an old paranoid habit — so I flicked my eyes over there casually as a sharp-featured brunette came in, accompanied by a doughy college kid. Checking her out in the magical spectrum, I saw that she was indeed a vampire; she had the dead gray aura with the two burning embers of vampirism about her heart and head. The college kid was just a clueless sort whose aura suggested that he was horny and hoping to get lucky later on. He’d get something, all right, but it wasn’t lucky.

She wasn’t all gothed out, the way people these days are trained to expect from vampires in fiction. She was wearing a pair of jeans with holes in the knees and a very tight American Eagle T-shirt underneath a thin white coat that was more for fashion than warmth. She was wearing Vans, for crying out loud. She was trying very hard to blend in and seem human.

I couldn’t point her out to Granuaile or even say, “Psst! Bloodsucker!” because the vampire would overhear. I had my own blending in to do.

Well spotted, Oberon. Negative eleven sausages now .

“Atticus?” Granuaile frowned. “What’s wrong?”

I smiled at her. “Just remembered something,” I said. “I don’t suppose you have a pen or anything like that in your purse? I need to write it down before I forget.” This was a transparent excuse for anyone who knew anything about Druids, because we don’t forget. But I was counting on the vampire not knowing what I was.

“Oh,” Granuaile said. “Sure.” She rooted around in her bag and found a receipt that I could use for paper. I flipped it over and wrote on the back: Don’t say anything about this out loud. She will hear. There is a vampire here. Don’t worry; just thinking through the implications. Will talk about it when we leave .

“Thanks,” I said, pushing the note to her. She read it, nodded, and tucked it into her purse.

The vampire and her date/snack were seated two tables away to our left. She shouldn’t be here, according to Leif’s behavior in the past; he exterminated all other vampires in his territory as a matter of course. Was she someone allied with Leif in the new vampire politics, or was she an enemy? I could unbind her right now and the college boy would have to watch his date melt in front of him, but I thought perhaps I should wait, especially if she turned out to be someone on Leif’s side. I rather doubted, however, that Leif was operating with anyone. It was far more likely that she was one of many trying to take Leif’s territory for her own. And I suspected she wasn’t here by accident.

Our food arrived, and I grinned mischievously at Granuaile as her plate was settled reverently before her. She gave it right back as mine appeared before me.

“Okay, one thing at a time, right?” she said.

“Right.”

“Age before beauty. Start with that stir-fry thing right there.” She pointed to some suspicious cauliflower-looking bits mixed in with vegetables and fried brown rice.

“All right,” I said, taking a generous forkful. Granuaile watched me put it in my mouth and chew, horrified fascination writ large upon her face.

The cauliflower bits weren’t cauliflower. They were mushy, a bit gelatinous. But they had a nice, spicy flavor, if a bit pedestrian. Taste-wise it wasn’t terribly unique, just an unusual texture.

Granuaile waited until I’d swallowed and then she said, “Congratulations. That was a bheja fry — goat brains.”

“Brains? You made me eat brains like a zombie? Ugh!”

“Braaaaaaains,” she moaned, eyes rolling up in her head.

“I bet you zombies would like them even more with these spices. All right, take that fried thing there, dip it in the cocktail sauce, and chow down.”

Granuaile eyed it cautiously, as if it might suddenly decide to move. It looked like a large chicken nugget, but it wasn’t. “What’s under all the batter?” she asked.

“You find out after you eat it. Those are the rules.”

She did as instructed, taking a tiny bite at first and quirking an eyebrow at me by way of inquiry.

“Eat the whole thing,” I said.

She sighed and chomped down the rest of it. “That wasn’t so bad,” she said, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin. “What was it?”

“That was a Rocky Mountain oyster, also known as a Montana tendergroin.”

“No. I just ate a bull’s balls?”

“Only one, but yes, you just tore up a tasty testicle. Congratulations!”

Disgust suffused her expression for a moment, but it was quickly replaced by narrowed eyes and a cold promise of grief. She gripped the tablecloth and squeezed it, pretending, perhaps, it was my newly healed neck. “You will never tell anyone about this.”

“No,” I said. I fully intended to write it down, however. To keep her from extracting a promise not to record this in any way, I waved at my plate and said, “What shall I try next?” We worked our way through the culinary dares, and I kept half an ear open for what was going on at the vampire’s table. The brunette didn’t order anything, just ice water with lemon, and that sat on her table and sweated.