by Natalie Grey
“I’m sure ADAM can find the list of seeds stored at Svalbard,” she explained. “Not to mention, a way to get them all in the most efficient way…. But, as we just discussed, this is a project to let us blow off some steam. I don’t think we really need to be ‘efficient.’”
“Efficiency can be fun,” ADAM said mournfully.
“Right.” Gabrielle shot a wry look at the speakers. “Because you never take time running analyses in unusual ways … or spend time researching strange topics … or make ridiculously complicated algorithms to approximate humor.”
“Those processes take mere minutes of your human time! I am not diverting necessary resources away from TQB.”
“I don’t think that was Gabrielle’s point,” Bethany Anne explained patiently. “I think her point was that you also like to do fun things.”
There was a pause.
“I see. So…finding these seeds inefficiently would be fun for you?”
“Yes,” Ecaterina said. “Instead of ordering the seeds online, for instance—”
“I don’t think Amazon Prime delivers here,” Bobcat said, grinning.
Ecaterina gave him a look. “As I was saying, we could order the seeds online, but it might be more fun to travel and find them by talking to farmers and scientists and so on.”
“That makes a certain amount of sense.”
“Oh, really?” Bethany Anne asked wickedly. “What amount? Do you have a percentage?”
“I am never able to determine that,” ADAM said with great dignity.
Bethany Anne guffawed. “Right. Okay, everyone start thinking about places you want to go and plants you want to make sure are included. ADAM, you get that list. And Ashur and Bellatrix…you just keep making sure there aren’t any rats on my nice shiny space station.”
Ashur and Bellatrix gave her an alarmed look, and took off at high speed.
Bethany Anne chewed her lip. “I really need to work on sarcasm with them.”
Yelena shrugged. “Eh, it should keep them occupied for a few hours.”
***
Bobcat settled down on the office chair in his private sanctum and spun slowly.
Bethany Anne wanted plants? Well, he was going to make sure he got some hops. Marcus and William would kill him if he didn’t.
He gave a sigh as he stared at his beer. He’d been so sure those rare hops he’d gotten in Spain were going to give him an edge in the competition, but now the other guys had them too.
He was back to Square One.
He let his head thunk back on the headrest and considered his options. He could just hope his brew was better. He could start over with totally new ingredients. He could….
Black hair and an angelic face derailed his thoughts. He had been taking Yelena for tours of the Meredith Reynolds. He was taking far more time with them than he needed to, and he was beginning to suspect it was obvious.
She didn’t seem to mind, though.
She was one of the best people he had ever met. She was quick to laugh, and quicker to smile. Her joy in Bellatrix’ presence had no jealousy to it—she seemed delighted that Bellatrix had found Ashur as a companion. More than once she had sat with Bobcat in the bar while the dogs tumbled about, wrestling and giving playful yips.
Everything about her was perfect, and—
He was supposed to be thinking about beer. And plants.
Bobcat let his head drop onto the desk and groaned. When he picked himself up, he could only shrug wearily and type a query into the search bar: How to make the best beer
He scanned down the list of results, shaking his head. There were tutorials for how to make beer, basic questions about what equipment he needed, and…
Well, that was interesting. “PUREST MYRCENE OIL ON THE MARKET,” a website proclaimed.
Myrcene Oil? Bobcat clicked the link.
Myrcene is an essential oil found in the hop plant, the page read. As the secret ingredient in many well-known beers, it is known to smooth and deepen the flavors, creating a rich finish that cannot be matched otherwise.
Our employees come from many of the largest beer brands across the globe, and set out to recreate Myrcene Oil in order to bring this advantage to smaller brewers.
We’ve done it! Our Myrcene Oil is produced using rigorous standards, and we believe it is even better than the oil we used in our former jobs.
Pick the type of beer you are brewing below, and we will give you our recommendations of which oil to use.
“Myrcene Oil.” Bobcat’s eyes were huge. “God, is this real?”
“Bobcat?” Yelena’s delicately-accented voice called.
“Hi.” He spun in his chair, face lighting up involuntarily.
“You look happy,” Yelena said. She was smiling. “You have been so sad about your beer the past few days. I am very glad to see you happy like this. What is it that is making you smile?”
You, Bobcat wanted to say.
“It’s, uh… Well, it’s the beer, actually.” It was half-true. This lead was promising.
“Oh? Did you find something to help?” She clapped her hands. “It would be wonderful if you won!”
Visions flashed through his head… Bobcat holding a trophy aloft as Yelena smiled and cheered, staring up adoringly at him. Without another thought, Bobcat pressed the BUY NOW button flashing helpfully at the bottom of the screen.
***
Nathan whistled as he walked along the hallway, bouncing Christina in his arms. She laughed and waved her arms, singing along with the tune he was whistling. Even at five years old, she liked to be carried occasionally.
He paused to kiss her cheek and accept a somewhat sticky kiss back. Having a family, however painful his memories of old times, fulfilled something primal in him. This wasn’t a replacement. He knew that. He never forgot it, in fact.
It was its own thing, and it made him happier than he had been in years.
A big part of him had feared he would never have this again. He simply hadn’t had a lot of luck meeting a woman he wanted to settle down with, until Ecaterina. Hell, he hadn’t really wanted to, until Ecaterina. He’d been too afraid to face the past until she came along.
Now they had a life together, a life full of purpose as well as love, and they had Christina, who was just about the happiest child he’d ever seen.
Lord knew, she was spoiled rotten between Bethany Anne, Gabrielle, Jennifer, and a veritable horde of honorary uncles including the Queen’s Bitches. Of course, she was probably going to be less happy about that horde of tall and intimidating uncles when it came time for her to start dating.
Nathan shuddered and decided not to think about that. “You should talk to Barnabas about becoming a monk,” he suggested to Christina. “I heard it’s very rewarding on a personal level.”
Christina might not understand the joke, but she knew her father was making one. She laughed. “Okay, Dada” she said, with the tiniest lilt of her mother’s accent in her voice.
“I’m taking that as a binding verbal contract, you know.” He shouldered open the door to the apartment he shared with Ecaterina.
His wife was on the phone—or a contraption rigged up to seem like one, at any rate. It was one of the Meredith Reynolds’s latest successes. “Of course,” she was saying. “Well, I’m not sure if we can bring her for most of it, but maybe for a little bit. All right. Yes. All right. And you’re sure you’re okay?” She was frowning. She listened as the person on the other end spoke rapidly. “Okay. I’ll see you soon.”
She hung up and crossed her arms, staring at the phone.
“Who was that?” Nathan settled Christina in a chair and went to get some food, sighing slightly as she immediately slid down and went off in search of toys. Life had been easier before she got mobile.
“My uncle.” Ecaterina returned to packing, stuffing high-end hiking gear and designer clothes into the suitcase absentmindedly.
“Don’t let Bethany Anne see you treating couture like that,” Nathan adv
ised. “Is something wrong with Alexi?”
He was worried. Alexi was a good man, protective of his family and a strong Wechselbag. Under his guidance, Ecaterina had become the self-sufficient, headstrong woman Nathan loved with all his heart.
“He says he’s fine,” Ecaterina said. She stopped packing for a moment and looked at Nathan. “He’s lying, though.”
“He’ll probably tell you when you’re there, right?” Nathan offered a bowl of soup to Christina and held it while she ran back to the table.
“He’d better,” Ecaterina said darkly. “No more of this ‘I don’t want to worry you over nothing’ crap. If it was nothing, he wouldn’t be worried.” She zipped the suitcase shut and sighed. “So will you be okay while I’m there?”
“Actually, I thought I’d come with you.” Nathan smiled.
“Really?”
He went over to pull her into his arms, dancing his way across the floor while she giggled. “A nice, romantic getaway to where we first met…and you first scammed the hell out of me….”
Ecaterina threw her head back and laughed. “I did not—”
“Uh-huh.” Nathan twirled her and kissed her. “I figured we could go out with Bethany Anne, have Alexi meet Christina, and then Bethany Anne could take Christina back and we could have a little time to wander the hills, maybe stay a few extra days in a nice secluded hotel somewhere….”
“Oh, that does sound nice.” Ecaterina smiled as Nathan twirled her again. “And the whole point of this project was to have fun, right?”
“Right,” Nathan said seriously. “The way I see it, Bethany Anne has pretty much ordered us to relax. It would be very disrespectful not to do so.”
“Dada,” Christina chimed in, “what’s a scam?”
Nathan settled into his own chair and gave a mock glare at Ecaterina. “Oh, I have no doubt your mother will teach you when you’re older.”
CHAPTER TWO
QBBS Meredith Reynolds
“Oooooh…” Gabrielle held up a pair of deep blue heels. “I love these!”
“Eh.” Bethany Anne looked up from her research and frowned. “I don’t think they go with most things I own. The black version, I can’t wait to wear. But those…”
“Tell you what.” Gabrielle grinned. “I’ll break them in for you.”
“Feel free.” Bethany Anne looked back at the seed list, then up again. “What are you going to wear them with?”
“I was thinking that ripped pair of jeans and a tank top.” Gabrielle tilted her head as she considered. “I’ll need some jewelry to bring out the blue…”
“Ripped jeans?” Bethany Anne looked pained. “Can’t you just…wear clothes in good condition?”
“It’s a look,” Gabrielle told her. “Why do you have to be so stuffy about your clothes?”
“It’s called classic.”
“Classic? Sweetie, I was born a few hundred years before you. I know from classic.”
Bethany Anne considered this. “Yeah,” she said finally, “but you’re French.”
She ducked as Gabrielle whipped one of the shoes at her head, laughing madly.
“We invented fashion!” Gabrielle yelled. She threw the other shoe.
“Well, if you don’t want the shoes, I’ll find some way to wear them. Maybe a nice un-ripped gown—” Bethany Anne threw one of her own shoes back at Gabrielle.
“Oh, please.” Gabrielle picked up a shoebox and threw it. “When you go to dinner parties, they turn into shoot-outs!”
“That was one time!”
“What the hell is going on?” Eric asked from the doorway. He ducked as two boxes of shoes headed toward him at high velocity. “Seriously, what the ever-loving fuck did I do?”
“Sorry,” Gabrielle said sheepishly.
“Instinct.” Bethany Anne was totally unrepentant.
Eric gathered up the shoeboxes in the hallway, “Were you just fighting over who gets to wear the shoes?”
“No.” Bethany Anne shook her head, “we were fighting about what to wear with the shoes.”
“Totally different thing,” Gabrielle agreed, nodding sagely.
“Uh…huh.” Eric set the boxes down. “Well, I’ll go tell the crew that’s what the yelling was about, then.”
He left after one last suspicious glare at the two of them.
“Men,” Gabrielle said, sighing elaborately. “They just don’t understand.”
“Not at all.” Bethany Anne retrieved her right shoe and slipped it back on. “And fine, you wear the outfit and I’ll at least give it a chance.”
“If you like how it looks, maybe I’ll get you a pair of those jeans.”
Bethany Anne shuddered. “Let’s not get carried away.” She checked the clock. “Now, give me a second. I need to figure out which of these we can have couriered to Romania while Ecaterina and Nathan are there, and then I’m going to take that whole crew out.”
***
Marcus stared out the window of his private office, narrowing his eyes at the black outside. Usually he found this view comforting, but in this instance he wanted to beat his head on the window.
“You look troubled,” Barnabas said suddenly.
Marcus jumped and swore. Between his Kurtherian upgrades and his years as a monk, Barnabas had developed the ability to move absolutely silently. It was something Marcus was having trouble getting used to.
“Uh…” He tried to remember what he’d been thinking about. “It’s just, I’m a little worried about the competition.”
“Why?” Barnabas looked at him. “You have made a superior beer. Unless something such as sabotage should occur, I can think of no reasons that you should not feel confident in your product.”
“Yours and mine,” Marcus pointed out. “You chose the final hop combinations.”
“I merely offered advice.” Barnabas seemed untroubled. “I am given to understand that advice is allowed in this competition.”
“It is, but I’m the newest brewer here.” Marcus sighed and rolled his neck. “What if Bobcat finds something else like those hops?”
Barnabas looked serene, as always. “I do not think it is necessary to worry.”
“But what if he had some secret ingredient?” Marcus protested. “Shouldn’t we go check and just see? Look through his notes or something?”
“That would be against the rules,” Barnabas said. There was a tinge of disapproval in his voice. “It would not be sporting, surely.”
“He risked our lives to get those last hops!”
“For which he gave recompense in the form of the hops themselves, yes?”
Marcus shrugged and muttered, “I suppose.”
“You have made an excellent beer,” Barnabas told him. “To you I advise the same thing I would advise anyone: focus on the fundamentals. Tricks and shortcuts do more harm than good. It is mastery of the basic concepts that produces results.”
“Right.” Marcus sighed. “Thank you.”
“And now if you will excuse me, I must speak with Tabitha.” Barnabas inclined his head and disappeared as quietly as he had come.
Marcus sighed again and leaned on the window. Focus on the fundamentals. He had spent hours measuring and re-measuring his hops and getting the temperature exactly right. Barnabas’ approval had been very heartening then.
But was perfection enough to outdo William and Bobcat and any tricks they might have up their sleeves?
He sat behind his desk and tried to focus. He really shouldn’t snoop. Barnabas was right, that would be dishonorable.
And he really didn’t want to piss off Barnabas. In his experience, the quieter a vampire, the worse it was if you annoyed them.
He’d just have to hope his beer was good enough without any tricks.
***
William chuckled to himself as he loaded the program and, with a flourish, hit one last key.
His screen flickered and was replaced a moment later with a different desktop.
Bobcat’s.
Still grinning, William took another look at the video surveillance. Bobcat had left his computer a few minutes ago, heading out with Yelena so quickly that he forgot to shut the computer off.
Rookie mistake.
After all, as far as William was concerned, all was fair in love and brewing competitions.
He brought up the web browser and looked through the recently viewed sites, and one stood out immediately: MYRCENE OIL.
“Myrcene, like hops?” William brought up the website and looked through it.
His first thought was that it was a scam. Surely if Myrcene Oil were real he’d have heard of it before, right?
But Bobcat had bought some, and Bobcat knew a lot more about beer than the rest of them did.
William frowned at the page for a very long time.
Then he brought it up on his own computer and placed an order.
Like hell he was going to let Bobcat get the advantage.
Romania
“Unchi!” Ecaterina held her arms out to Alexi with a smile.
“Puiule.” Alexi enfolded her in a huge hug and smiled over her head at everyone.
It was a gorgeous day. Summer had come in earnest and the scent of greenery was heavy in the air. Picturesque white clouds drifted lazily across a blue sky, and crickets were singing in the fields beyond the town. The mountains stood out against the sky, and Alexi saw with satisfaction that every member of Ecaterina’s party was looking around in awe.
“Beautiful here, no?” He smiled.
“Beautiful,” Nathan agreed. He hefted Christina in his arms, and pointed to Alexi. “That’s your mama’s Uncle Alexi. Do you want to say hello?”
“Hello, Uncle Alexi.” Christina held out her arms immediately, and Ecaterina felt her face split in a smile as Alexi took the child. It was clear that the two had an instant understanding despite the gap in their ages.
“So...” Ecaterina looked around. “Where’s Ivan?”
“Bucharest for a few days.” Alexi’s voice was quiet. He looked suddenly grave. “He said he wasn’t sure your friends would be pleased to see him. He said it would be better for everyone if he weren’t here when you arrived, and that you’d call him if you wanted to see him.”
