Gabriel's Horn. Alex Archer

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      Annja’s stomach growled in anticipation. The smell of the food was divine. The aroma of fresh-baked bread permeated the air.

      “Hungry?” Garin asked.

      “Famished,” Annja replied. “So what’s on the menu?”

      “I don’t know.” Garin sipped his wine. “Mama arrives in the morning and decides then. She could walk into any kitchen in the world and get a job.”

      If she had to make a decision to believe that based on the smells in the dining room, Annja would have. She also noticed the pride in Garin’s voice when he talked about the woman.

      Mama left the kitchen area with two salads and walked to their table and put them down. Garin stood immediately and hugged the woman. He dwarfed her in size.

      “Ah,” Mama said, turning to Annja, “and you must be Annja Creed.” Her eyes glittered as she surveyed Annja. In just that brief second, Annja knew that her measure had been taken, and she had no clue if she’d been found acceptable or wanting.

      8

      “It’s very nice to meet you,” Annja said, not at all certain if the statement was true. Still, she smiled and made the best of it she could.

      “I have heard so much about you.” Mama spoke with a thick accent. “This one—” she poked Garin in the chest with her forefinger “—I know him a long time. And before him, his father.”

      Father? Annja gazed at Garin in idle speculation. “Do you mean Roux?”

      Mama waved that away. “No. I know Roux, as well.” She shrugged. “I like him okay, but he can be an old goat.”

      “Roux tried to cook in Mama’s kitchen one night,” Garin explained.

      Mama held a hand to her ample breast. “He has so much nerve, that one.” She whispered behind her hand. “That was long ago. When I was much younger and more beautiful. He also pinched my bottom.” She rolled her eyes in feigned shock. “I slap his face for him, I tell you.”

      Annja chuckled. She knew how Roux was around women. And she knew how women were around Roux. They seemed drawn to each other.

      “No, I am talking about Garin’s father. The first Garin. Did you ever meet him?”

      Annja looked at Garin and realized that the woman had known Garin in her much younger days. Since Garin didn’t age, he had to disappear from his previous lives after a few decades.

      “No,” Annja said. “I never did.”

      “This one—” Mama pinched Garin’s cheek “—he is so much like his father. Handsome and powerful. This one, he could be a twin brother to his father.”

      Annja nodded. She wondered how much longer Garin—and Roux—would be able to keep up the pretense of being normal humans. Not dying in an age filled with computers and record archiving—including digital images—was going to be harder to cover up than in centuries past.

      Garin gazed down at the woman, and for a moment Annja thought she could see honest emotion in the man’s eyes. She wondered again how anyone could live five hundred years—and in Roux’s case probably more—and have any emotions left.

      “This one, though,” Mama said, “he is not so much like his father. He is more gentle. More respectful.”

      Garin almost looked embarrassed, and Annja couldn’t help but smile at his discomfort. After everything she’d seen Garin do, the almost offhanded way he killed people when they threatened him, she couldn’t imagine him being vulnerable. Venal, criminally so at times, but not vulnerable.

      Mama looked at Annja. “His father, he was much the man.” A dreamy expression showed in her eyes and Annja knew that—just for the moment—the woman was no longer in the restaurant. “He was so much the lover.” She sighed.

      “Please,” Garin protested. “Not before we’ve eaten.”

      Playfully, Mama slapped him on the arm. “You. Sit. You should know to leave an old woman her idle passions. All I have these days are memories. The flower of youth is gone far too quickly.”

      “The flower of youth,” Garin replied, “to the uninitiated, is oftentimes a weed.”

      Mama shook a finger at him. “Your father, he say such a thing to me one time.”

      “Father was fond of chiding me about my lackadaisical approach to my life. Perhaps he said that to a lot of people.”

      Annja knew that Garin had slipped up and had tried to cover his mistake.

      “I liked your father very much,” Mama said, “but he was not husband material, that one. He have an eye for the ladies. Like you. You won’t be any good as a husband unless you find a woman strong enough to claim you as her own. That kind of woman doesn’t come along so very much, you know.” She looked a warning at Annja. “Better you should keep this in mind.”

      “Oh, believe me,” Annja said, “I won’t forget.”

      Garin scowled.

      “The problem is,” Mama said quietly to Annja, “that sometimes a woman, she likes the bad boys. At least for a little while, no?”

      “Yes,” Annja agreed.

      “It is kind of like the sweet tooth. And it give us many problems.” Mama laughed. “Now I go get you plates. You enjoy. I have a special dessert tonight.” She stopped long enough for a final hug from Garin, then yelled at the kitchen crew.

      “Quite a woman,” Annja commented.

      “An amazing woman,” Garin agreed. Wistfulness stained his words. “You should have seen her when she was young. She was incredible. And it wasn’t just the way she looked, though she was stunning. It was her spirit. She almost seemed like she was on fire.”

      It was really weird, Annja thought, to be sitting there discussing an ex-flame with the man she was having dinner with. That had on occasion happened in Annja’s life, but never when forty years had passed.

      “So what happened between you two?” she asked.

      Garin hesitated. “She got older. I didn’t.”

      “You don’t like older women?”

      Garin grinned. “I love older women. A woman in her forties can be a tigress under the right conditions.”

      Annja felt no inclination to ask what those conditions might me.

      “But it’s selfish of me to get so involved with someone.”

      “You are a selfish person,” Annja pointed out.

      “I am. I’ll admit that. I’ll take a few weeks, a few months, perhaps even a year or two of a woman’s life if I’m truly infatuated. But I won’t ask any more than that.”

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