One eye opened.
“Can I go look around the kitchens?”
The eye narrowed.
I rolled mine. “Oh come on. There are only two ways out of here that I can see, and you are within easy reach of both of them. I’m under no illusions that I can somehow outrun you.”
The eye watched me for a long moment and then closed.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
I power walked to the first kitchen to my left before she changed her mind and I did something insane like try to fight a jackal alien the size of a horse. I stopped short to avoid bowling over a cook holding a massive mixing bowl full of dough. There were three gleaming white stone islands with narrow crevices where flames jetted out. Bronze pots of various sizes bubbled and steamed. Open-faced ovens stacked four high lined one wall, all of them full of bread.
I’d found the bakery.
It smelled like yeasty bread in here, sweet and warm with that salty undercurrent of melted butter that used to make my mouth water. Now it just made me want to sneeze.
Every time something like this happened, where I stumbled onto something familiar that I used to love that my new body now rejected, a hard knot of sadness coiled in my chest, tightening ever so slowly. One of these days it was going to burst and I didn’t know what would happen.
Loaves of bread were in shelves that lined the left of the three walls, protected behind glass doors, with muffins, cakes, and other baked sweets tucked into another unit on the back wall. A bulky green alien with six arms was doing an amazing juggling act of stirring and flipping several different pots and pans. Hisseveral dozen eyes settled on me standing in the entryway and he opened his wide mouth to display needle teeth in uneven rows. He pointed a long wooden spoon at me. “You! Out!”
I raised my hand in surrender, backing out. I bumped into another alien coming into the bakery carrying a tray of sliced bread the color of charcoal. It smelled like lemons and some kind of herb, but I didn’t get to investigate further because the server scowled at me, shifting the tray to the other side of his body like he was afraid I was going to steal a piece, and weaved around me to continue on his way.
Alrighty then.
I was in the way here.
I tucked myself as close to the wall as I could get and slid to the next kitchen, where the crowd was gathered to watch the drama. I peeked over heads to see Hassa looming over one of the slugs smeared in bright yellow blood with green feathers sticking to him. She appeared to be giving him a stern lecture about not eating the cooks.
It looked like a feather pillow had exploded in here. There were half a dozen green feathered chicken like aliens huddled in a corner as far from the Grel as they could get.
They had on little white aprons and one was wearing an elaborate chef's hat on his tiny little head.
Don’t. Laugh.
Under the smell of terror and coppery blood, there was some kind of spice that reminded me of curry. My stomach growled loud enough that the alien standing next to me shot me a horrified look.
“Sorry,” I muttered and shifted a little further away to get a better look at the show.
The Grel didn’t seem to cower under Hassa’s verbal lashing, it just blinked up at her in incomprehension until she barked a short frustrated curse and bit his head off. It happened so fastthat no one had time to react. Green sludge sprayed across the floor and over the white stone counter like a macabre splatter painting.
Chaos erupted.
The chickens scattered in a flurry of flapping wings and exploding feathers, squawks and honks rising to deafening levels as they escaped over our heads. The crowd scattered, ducking and yelling as the chicken chefs freaked the fuck out at the violence. I covered my head, a laugh escaping as I ducked into the kitchen across from the murder scene.
I crouched just inside the entryway, tucked in next to the counter where two cooks were huddling as well.
“Is it always like this?” I asked one of them, a female with long blonde hair and black eyes who sort of resembled a cat if I squinted hard enough. A tabby cat with luscious blonde hair. Her whiskers twitched. “Yes. Sometimes worse if there is a party. Isn’t it wonderful?” Her voice was a purring accent and her companion hiding behind her let loose a throaty laugh. He had deeply red skin with thin black quills covering his back though his black cook’s shirt. Long red droopy ears hung past his collar bone, though his face was strikingly handsome for such an odd combination of traits. “It was what drew me to Erral! A very busy place, very challenging to work.” He reached behind him and pulled down a heavy metal bucket full of colorful vegetable shavings and thrust it into my arms. “Here, make yourself useful, intern, and throw this down the chute. Can’t have you slacking just because there was a murder.”
I raised my eyebrow at him and then decided to hell with it and shrugged. I stood and peeked past the wall at the scene across the hall. Still flying chickens and a pissed off Hassa trying to corral them. I grinned at her when she met my eyes through the chaos. Her lips skinned back from her fangs and I could hear hergrowl over the cacophony. I laughed and turned away to find the trash chute.
It was all the way across the room, tucked into the corner between the back wall and a massive walk-in freezer that stuck out of the left wall enough to hide the trash chute. The chute itself was a three by four black hole in the wall. I lugged the bucket of scraps over to the chute and tipped them over the edge and watched as they disappeared down the dark metal tube. An insane idea sparked in the back of my mind. One that was sure to piss me off to no end if I pulled it off, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
I put the bucket down and turned to the closest person I could find. A massive hulk of an alien with tusks jutting out of a pig snout set into a grey skinned face that was more wrinkle than features. I couldn't even see his eyes.
“Uh, hey. Where does all the trash go? Seems like a waste to throw away so much food.”
Nice and casual. Nothing to be suspicious about. Just a helpful intern asking a perfectly normal question.
