Sunshine

“You look like hell,” I said. I was scraping out the last baking tin. Our Albion crowd would have to be really hungry today to get through this lot. And I’d made my special cream-cheese sauce to go with the triple-ginger gingerbread. I’d long felt that gingerbread, while excellent in itself, was still essentially an excuse to eat the sauce, so I’d always made twice as much per portion as the original recipe called for. Then it turned out that some of our customers were even more crazed than I was, so I’d started making three times as much, and we served it in little sauceboats. You got purists occasionally that didn’t want any sauce, but the slack was taken up somehow.

“Thanks,” he said.

“What’s happening?”

He shrugged. His shoulder must be better. Maybe blue-demon blood made you heal fast too. “What Theo told you.”

“You look like you’ve been let out of the dungeon. I thought thumbscrews were passe.”

“The goddess doesn’t need thumbscrews. She just looks at you and you feel your brains melting.”

I thought of the other night. “I believe you.”

“Theo says you’ve lost it.”

“Yeah. I’m safe from the goddess. No brains left to melt.”

“No one is ever safe from the goddess.” The Pat I knew surfaced and he gave me a familiar look: shrewd, humorous, no nonsense. “How lost do you suppose it is?”

I pulled off my apron and untied my hair. “Lost enough for now. If I replace a fuse and the system starts working again, I’ll let you know.”

“Maybe you’re just tired,” said Pat.

“Maybe,” I said amiably.

Pat ran his hand through what there was of his hair. “I don’t like it when you agree with me, Sunshine. It’s not your style. What aren’t you telling me?”

“That I’m relieved not to have to try again,” I said.

I knew he bought it: he sagged, suddenly looking smaller and older. I felt a fierce pang of guilt, but I reminded myself that he believed that the only good vampire was a staked, beheaded, and burned vampire. Briefly and wistfully I considered a scenario where Con and I had a SOF team with us when we…whatever…but I recognized this as a fantasy, like a scenario where the goddess of pain retired from SOF and opened a day care center.

“You look like a man who needs caffeine,” I said. “I’ll grab us something from the counter and meet you outside. Do you want privacy or comfort?” Comfort meant the nice little tables out front, overlooking the square and Mrs. Bialosky’s flower bed, still doing its stuff with chrysanthemums and asters this late in the year.

“Privacy,” he said.

He was sitting at one of the unsteady tables in the grim little courtyard behind the coffeehouse that by never doing anything with we could continue to avoid opening to customers. You got used to the roar of the kitchen fans and Mom had a couple of tough little evergreen shrubs in pots that could survive the cooking fumes. Pat and I didn’t talk about anything much after all. He drank the coffee and engulfed the various buns and other edible objects I’d brought, but absentmindedly, like a refueling procedure. The fact that he didn’t argue with me about trying again, about trying to find out the extent of the burnout—about whether or not there really was a burnout—made me feel more guilty.

Silence fell. Pat stared into nothing. “I’m sorry,” I said.

He looked at me. “I believe you,” he said. He stood up. “I’m not sure I believe the rest of it, but I believe you’re sorry about it.” He paused. “Makes my life easier in some ways.” Another gleam of the normal Pat as he said: “Maybe by the time you’ve decided you’re not burned out any more the goddess will have found someone else to crucify.”

I didn’t say anything. He rubbed both hands through his hair this time, and added, “I didn’t say this. But watch your back, Sunshine.” Then he left.

Mel wandered out a few minutes after Pat had left. I was staring into my teacup. I’d forgotten to bring a sieve out, so there were tea leaves in the bottom of it, but I couldn’t read them. “You look like a woman who needs a good laugh,” he said. “Have you heard the one about the were-pigeon and the streetcleaner?”

“Yes,” I said. “Mel, d’you suppose anyone is exactly who they say they are?”

“Charlie, maybe,” he answered, after a little pause, of surprise or consideration. “Can’t think of anyone else. Hmm.” I watched his hand lift off the table and rub one of his tattoos.