Chapter 1
Sometimes the simplest thing in life is a good burger. Veggie, wagyu, angus, hey, you do you – as long as I had the Happy Cow, I was the happiest man on earth.
Two patties, please – bursting with savory juices in every bite, with just the faintest bitter edge of charred beef. Vegetables optional, though I wouldn’t say no to buttered mushrooms, maybe some grilled onions. Put it all on a toasted sesame bun. And melted cheese is compulsory, the salty, creamy finish to every precious mouthful. Cheddar, preferably, as American as a bald eagle. Fuck, throw the eagle on the burger, too, and I’ll eat the shit out of it.
Hi. My name is Dustin Graves, and I’m starving.
I’d brought some of the Boneyard boys out to quell the burger craving. I wanted to give Mason the full Valero welcome, which, in my book, meant shoving an entire Happy Cow hamburger down his throat. We took Asher along, too. I’m not sure if you know this, but necromancers need to be taken on walks every now and then, and with how protective Carver was, Asher was probably pretty damn close to going stir crazy. And Sterling was always nice to have around. He liked to pay for things, and I wasn’t ever going to complain about free burgers.
“Down that corner,” Sterling said, mainly for Asher and Mason’s benefit. Certainly not for mine. Blindfold me, drop me anywhere in Valero, and I’ll still find my way to the Happy Cow. No sweat.
The rotund, smiling face of a cartoon cow greeted us from the Happy Cow’s light box signage, a cheerful and somewhat grim symbol, I suppose, for a place that served some amazing burgers. Mason and Asher entered side by side, muttering to each other at high speed about some video game or another, followed closely by Sterling. A nephilim, a necromancer, and a vampire walk into a bar. A burger joint, more accurately.
I let the three of them walk ahead of me, watching my brothers in arms, taking the precious few seconds to appreciate what counted for normalcy in my life. Just some dudes going out to grab some food. The only way I’d really managed to stay sane all this time was to find the fun where I could, to see humor where others wouldn’t. Keep things light.
And yet – and yet I felt a little unnerved as I walked into the Happy Cow after the others. The people behind the counter were staring at me – one person at each register, three in total, a manager with a toothy smile, hell, even the fry cooks were peering over their shoulders, rubbernecking to look directly at me. Okay. Weird. But weird wasn’t going to get in the way of my regular order.
“A double cheeseburger,” I told the woman at the counter, “and large fries, large onion rings, and a diet cola.”
The diet soda’s a preference. Because it tastes good, okay? Not because I was trying to lose weight or anything.
Mason hemmed and hawed over whether to pick fries or onion rings. “Both,” I told him. “The right answer is always both.” Asher couldn’t decide between blue cheese or mushrooms. I was hungry enough to start impertinently tapping my foot. He got the message pretty quickly.
“Do you make them rare?” Sterling cooed, one elbow on the counter, speaking over his shoulder in a seductive trill.
The girl at the register covered her mouth and tittered. I stamped on his foot to get him to order faster. He growled, threw me a bladed glare, then ended up just ordering a plain old burger, small fries, and a small soda. Figures.
“It’s like you’re eating for two, Graves,” Sterling snarled, carrying his tray and leading the way to our table. “What’s the bloody hurry?”
“I’m so hungry,” I said.
Asher blinked at me. “You ate before we left the Boneyard.”
Mason cleared his throat. “I was there. You had a whole sandwich. I can’t believe how whiny you are.”
“I’m not whining,” I whined, slamming my tray on the table, sliding my butt right into my seat, and hurriedly unwrapping my burger. “I just love the Cow that much, okay? The two of you shut up and eat your damn burgers. You’ll see.”
Mason and Asher watched with mildly revulsed curiosity as I practically unhinged my jaw and shoved what might have been a fist full of fries into my mouth. Sterling tutted and shook his head.
“He’s always like this,” he drawled, mainly addressing Mason. I glared balefully at him out of one eye, crunching down on three onion rings, their grease, breading, and buttery sweetness mingling in my mouth. “Eats like a man possessed, like someone who’s never met a sandwich.” He daintily ripped open a packet of ketchup, squirting it onto his fries, then leaned in to whisper. “You’re making a spectacle of yourself, Dust. Calm the fuck down.”
“Make me,” I grumbled, picking up my burger and getting ready to consume it whole, python-like.
Sterling wasn’t wrong, I suppose. I guess I was drawing a little attention, but again, mainly from the Happy Cow staff. I narrowed my eyes at the manager. Surely they’d seen hungry people before. Their food was so damn good, and they’d seen me eat there enough times not to care.
I shrugged, turning my attention back to my burger. Whatever, right? Maybe my hair was looking especially cute. Maybe they respected a man who could put away a double cheeseburger like it was nothing. I sank my teeth into the edge of my burger, just barely nipping at a corner for a ripe, juicy mouthful of lightly toasted bread, singed beef, and melted cheese. It was like being transported to a different dimension. Better than that, because being transported to a different dimension in my terms came with the very real possibility of getting slaughtered by angry gods.
My tastebuds and my stomach sang with joy. My heart was probably in there somewhere, too, screaming in terror over the impending threat of cholesterol. I could see the headlines in the Comstock News. “Local man chokes on delicious cheeseburger, dead at twenty-five.” But I took a second bite, swallowed, and almost wept from the sheer perfection of it. Death by Happy Cow was one I would happily welcome.