Page 53 of Night Shift

Tyr's head snapped up from watching the cartoon. Something wasn't right. The scent of chocolate had transformed into something more... acrid.

Smoke.

The piercing shriek of the smoke detector split the air. Tyr bolted from his chair, Tobi and Yousuf right behind him as they raced to the kitchen.

Thick grey smoke billowed from the oven, filling the room with an eye-watering haze. Tobi yanked open the oven door, releasing a fresh cloud of smoke.

"Holy hell!" Tobi waved his arms frantically, trying to disperse the smoke. "What happened?"

"The broiler!" Tyr grabbed a nearby stool. "You had it on broil instead of bake! I knew that was wrong!"

Yousuf darted to the back door, throwing it open to the snowy night. Cold air rushed in, helping to clear some of the smoke.

Tyr climbed onto the stool, reaching for the still-screaming smoke detector. His fingers fumbled with the device as smoke swirled around his head. "How do you turn this damn thing off?"

"There's a button!" Yousuf called up from below. "Push the big button in the middle!"

Tyr jabbed at the center of the detector. The shrieking finally stopped, leaving them in blessed silence broken only by Tobi's coughing as he fanned away smoke from the oven.

The front door slammed open, and Antonio materialized in the kitchen doorway. His dark eyes swept the smoke-filled kitchen, taking in the disaster before him.

"What in God's name happened here?" Antonio's voice rang with authority.

Before either twin could respond, Yousuf launched himself across the kitchen, colliding with Antonio's legs.

"Hi!! Are you a vampire? Tyr and Tobi are vampires, and we made a volcano! And it exploded with real lava! And Tobi burned the chicken nuggets so we used them as rocks! And then we tried to make brownies but they caught on fire and there was all kinda smoke coming from the oven and the alarm went crazy and-"

Antonio's stern expression flickered as he looked down at the boy clutching his designer trousers.

Tyr struggled to keep his expression neutral as he watched the horror in the aristocratic vampire's eyes as he took in the chocolate fingerprints now decorating his pristine trousers. Yousuf's face and clothes were smeared with an impressive combination of Play-Doh, chocolate brownie mix, and glitter, all of which were transferring to the custom Italian wool.

"I... see." Antonio's appalled gaze shifted to the twins, one eyebrow rising in silent demand for explanation.

"We might have had a slight... cooking mishap," Tobi offered weakly, still holding the smoking brownie pan with oven mitts.

Yousuf tilted his head back, staring up at Antonio with wide-eyed fascination. His small hands remained firmly wrapped in the perfectly pressed fabric of Antonio's custom Italian suit pants.

"So you're a vampire too?" He persisted, determined to know.

Tyr caught the flash of panic in his sire's eyes as Antonio's mental voice thundered through his and Tobi's minds.Get. This. Child. Off. Me. NOW!

The ancient vampire stood frozen, clearly torn between maintaining his dignified composure and extracting himself from the enthusiastic six-year-old currently attached to his legs. Glitter from Yousuf's hands sparkled on the dark fabric of Antonio's trousers, and a smear of chocolate decorated one pristine cuff.

"Hey, buddy!" Tobi swooped in, scooping Yousuf up and away from Antonio. "Want to show Antonio our awesome volcano? It's still got some lava left!"

Yousuf squirmed in Tobi's arms, still focused on Antonio. "Can you turn into a bird too?"

Antonio's expression suggested he'd rather face a firing squad than discuss shapeshifting with an over-excited child covered in Play-Doh and brownie batter.

Tyr bit back a laugh as his sire discreetly tried to brush glitter from his ruined trousers. He'd never seen the ancient vampire quite so discombobulated.

Yousuf wriggled free from Tobi's grasp and bounced over to their volcano, now surrounded by dried "lava" and scattered glitter. "Look! We made Mount Ve-suv-i-us!" He pointed proudly at the chicken nugget boulders embedded in the sides. "It exploded and killed all the dinosaurs in Pompeii!"

Antonio's perfectly groomed eyebrows climbed toward his hairline as he turned to fix Tyr and Tobi with a withering stare.

Tyr spread his hands helplessly. "The explanation about dinosaurs and Pompeii got a bit... mixed up somewhere along the way."

Beside him, Tobi scratched the back of his neck, leaving a streak of brownie batter in his hair.