hehehe. So, I thought about 'steak' but it seemed to easy, or at least obvious. "burnt stake" has a lot of play, so in the spoken version 'steak' is going to be what most people think and I like that, yet, the intentional use of 'stake' brings in the ideas of stake through the heart, burnt offerings, as well as the many cultures (still) that dispatch corpses with a Stake (the fear of them rising up as ghouls is very real in some places) before interring them to the earth.... I could go on, but you get the picture, it is more complex and yet fits into the piece here, as well as does that wonderful thing that I love so.... Word Play.

Thank you, @hrissm. I'm very much enjoying your visits. :)