by Chloe Neill
“Gentlemen.”
A man in camouflage fatigues—tall, built, and blond, with eyes the color of good bourbon—stepped forward. I knew plenty of Containment agents in the Quarter; I’d never seen this man before.
Irritation flared in Gunnar’s eyes again. The man looked totally relaxed, even as he’d positioned himself to stop them from beating the shit out of each other.
“This is a very bad time and place to act like teenagers,” he said.
“I couldn’t agree more,” Gunnar said. “I was suggesting to Agent Broussard that there were several ways he could contribute to the cleanup efforts, and he should select one of them or get back to the barracks.”
“I think that’s a very good idea,” the man said. “Still a lot of work to be done before the light’s gone. Agent Broussard, if you can’t find something to do, I’ve got reports you could collate.”
Broussard’s face reddened with anger as he looked between the men. “This is on your heads. This, and whatever worse follows. It’s on you.”
He stalked off in the direction of a clutch of uniformed Containment agents.
“John,” Gunnar said, “this is Claire Connolly. Claire, John Reece. He’s with the army. He’s investigating Containment in light of the Memorial Battle.”
A former defense contractor had wanted to open the Veil at Talisheek, where the Veil had first been torn and a memorial had been erected. We’d managed to keep it closed, but it took magic and effort—and I’d inadvertently split open the earth trying to channel the sheer amount of power in play.
I guessed the Joint Chiefs had lost some faith in Containment and its contractors. And I assumed that was what had put the flint in Gunnar’s eyes.
“Not investigating,” Reece said. “Reviewing.” He looked at me. “You own Royal Mercantile.”
“I do.”
“And what’s his story?” Reece nodded toward Broussard.
It took Gunnar a moment to answer. Hard to pick which devil to trust, I imagined. “He’s ambitious and shortsighted. There are three kinds of people in the world. Those who believe humans are always right. Those who believe Paranormals are always right. And those who know the truth.”
“And Mr. Broussard takes his ‘always’ a bit too literally?” Reece asked.
Gunnar nodded.
Reece’s gaze lifted to the gate. “Not unlike our enemies on the outside.”
“We were just noting that. Blind loyalty is dangerous, regardless the side.”
Reece nodded. “The cleanup has been relatively well organized, all things considered.”
“We run a tight ship,” Gunnar said brusquely. “Feel free to take that back to Washington.”
Reece looked back at him, gaze still cool. “I will, and more. I haven’t seen the Commandant around.”
Gunnar, who respected his boss, managed to keep his tone steady. “He’s monitoring from the Cabildo until things are clear here. It’s safer for him there, and it’s better for Containment, for the Zone, for stability, if he’s safe.”
Reece nodded, as if processing the information, recording it for later. “In that case, I’ll let you get back to ensuring its safety.”
He nodded at me, then Gunnar, who bristled as the soldier walked away. Even if he might have liked Reece, might have respected him, he didn’t look like he trusted him.
For his part, Reece didn’t walk toward Broussard or the other clusters of Containment agents and Devil’s Isle staff. Instead, he walked deeper into Devil’s Isle in the direction of the clinic. Maybe to visit the wounded, check on their care. Maybe to see how well the rest of Devil’s Isle—the rest of New Orleans—was protected from them.
“He seemed okay,” I said as Gunnar watched him walk away, eyes slitted, expression tight with concentration. “Not nearly as big an asshole as Broussard, anyway.”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t have to be.” He looked back at me. “He’s got power, authority, and a mission. Broussard wants those things, so he creates his own landscapes of conspiracy.” Gunnar sighed. “As if this cluster fuck isn’t enough to keep him busy.”
“Maybe having a new enemy—someone human, not Paranormal—would actually be good for Broussard.”
“Ever the optimist,” Gunnar said, then pressed a kiss to my cheek. “And because I’m one, too, I’m going back into the fray. Be careful.”
I nodded. “Take care of yourself,” I said, and watched my best friend walk away. Because sometimes that was the only good option.
CHAPTER FOUR
Liam found me at the fence, helping pass out bottles of water to the Paras who watched Containment work. He looked as dirty and tired as the rest of us, and grim resignation was set on his face.
I passed him a bottle of water. “Are you all right?”
He drank deeply, wiped grime off his brow. “I made it through the war because I told myself war was only temporary. Might last a long time but would end eventually. That’s the nature of human history. But this? This is disheartening.”
“Yeah,” I said.
He shook his head. “My Quinn grandfather was sixty-four when they broke through the Veil. He refused to leave the Zone or move into the city so he’d be near the family, medical care.” Liam picked at a corner of the water bottle’s label, peeled off a strip. “Went out to the Quinn place at Bayou Teche and stayed there. He’d been a shrimper, and he swore like a sailor.” He grinned. “He said he was a filthy sailor who’d been raised hard, which was true. You remember about a month before the Second Battle when everyone was saying New Orleans would be hit?”
I nodded. There’d been more air raid sirens, more evacuations, more stocking up on water and batteries.
“Gavin and I went out to Bayou Teche, made one more attempt to get him out of the Zone. We didn’t want him in the city—not if things were about to go bad. But we also didn’t want him completely cut off, which would have happened if New Orleans fell.”
“What happened?”
Liam pulled another strip of paper from the bottle, and it fluttered to the ground like confetti. “He said his time was coming, and war wasn’t going to take him away from home in the meantime. Gavin and I had been geared up for a fight—for arguments, for reasons why he should leave. But he was at peace with it, and that was the one thing we couldn’t argue with.”
“So what did you do?”
“We stayed the night, watched the sun go down. He loved to cook, made chicken fricassee. We ate on his back porch, watched turtles on cypress stumps, pelicans floating over water, drank some very good, very cold beer.”
“He died?” I asked, after a moment of silence.
Liam nodded. “Three weeks later. Right before the battle, as it turned out. We still own that property, although I haven’t been out there in a few years.” He shook off the melancholy. “I guess the point of that story is that sometimes you just have to find your place, your home, and accept what’s happening.”
He looked at me, gaze drilling down into the truth of me, and I felt my soul’s answering shudder. “And how are you, Claire Connolly?”
“I’m holding up. I helped Lizzie, talked to Gunnar. Lizzie asked for some supplies. I told her I’d get what I could.”
“Good,” he said. “Although I’m not sure a fire sprite and redhead working together will be good for the rest of us.”
Everyone needed a lighter mood, it seemed, even Liam.
I gestured to the fence. “I also watched the Seelie give us all the evil eye.”
“That woman is very good at the evil eye. And she’s not the only one.” He gestured to a man on the other side of the fence, eating what looked like pistachios as two Paras beside him talked animatedly.
He was a big man. Wide, with broad shoulders and a gut that popped beneath his brightly colored tunic and matching pants. He had a wide, round face and eyes as blac
k as pitch, his skin an olive green. Glossy black horns like Moses’s, but his were longer, spiraling upward a few inches above his head.
“Who is that?”
“That, Claire, is Solomon.”
Solomon was the self-proclaimed Paranormal godfather of Devil’s Isle. I hadn’t met him yet, but I knew he wasn’t a fan of Liam’s. His thugs had stopped us before. Then again, Liam had gone to him before when Eleanor needed protection.
“He looks like Moses.”
“They’re cousins.”
That stopped me short. “No kidding?”
“Both Consularis, although on different sides of that particular fence.”
At first glance, Solomon looked bored by the commotion, the Containment activity, as he popped one nut after another, let the shells drop to the ground. But there was something very shrewd in his eyes. Something wary and focused. And when his gaze landed on us, it contained a little of the evil eye I’d seen before.
I gave him a little wave, which set his minions on a tirade I was probably glad I couldn’t hear.
“Better not to antagonize him.”
I glanced at Liam. “Should I be afraid of him?”
It didn’t comfort me that it took Liam a moment to answer. “No. But be wary. As you’ve seen, he mostly blusters. But his ego is large, and he’s surrounded by yes-men who think he’s their ticket out of Devil’s Isle.”
I wondered if today, if this new threat, would change his attitude, too. Maybe we’d all become too complacent, too used to the status quo, to the chain of command.
Liam finished the water in his now naked bottle, tossed it into the box set aside for recycling, looked at his watch. “It’s nearly five o’clock. I think we’re winding down here, at least for now. Containment will work the forensics, the analysis.” He glanced at me. “Is it all right for you to still be away from the store? I mean, I don’t know what your profits are . . .”
Honestly, I hadn’t even given the store a thought. Tadji might have put the CLOSED sign in the window, held off anyone who wanted to buy stuff until I got back.
“Nobody makes much of a profit in the Zone,” I said. “I doubt there are many people shopping now. Most are either locked up in their homes or outside the gate, trying to figure out what happened.”
Liam nodded. “You think Tadji will keep an eye on things a little longer?”
“Probably. Why?”
“I still haven’t made it to Eleanor’s. You wanna take a walk?”
When I nodded, we walked to the spot in the temporary fence where guards allowed agents to walk through and were waved inside. I didn’t have my pass on me, but the guards had seen me working, helping with the wounded. They’d decided I wasn’t much of a risk.
Marigny had been heavily damaged during the war. Some of the Creole cottages and shotgun houses had survived, and some of the empty spaces had been filled by cheap government buildings. Along with the concrete walls, magic monitors, guards, and overhead electric grid, they made the neighborhood feel like the prison it was.
It was a short walk to the side-by-side houses where Liam and Eleanor lived. He had the columned, two-story town house on the right. Her building was on the left, surrounded by a low black fence and ringed by a balcony.
“Maybe you should think about staying at Eleanor’s for a while,” I said. “Just to make sure you’re both safe.”
Liam glanced at me as we took the sidewalk to the house. “Both?”
“She’s got magic, which makes her a potential target. And Ezekiel knew who you were.”
“He doesn’t know about Eleanor,” Liam said as we reached the front porch, and he stuck a key in the brass lock.
She didn’t live in Devil’s Isle because others knew she had magic, but because she’d wanted to be near those like her. And because Liam had wanted her close.
“I’d rather Ezekiel take a run at me directly. I’d welcome it, and not just because he wouldn’t be using people, killing them, like the coward he apparently is.” Liam pushed open the door and we walked inside, locked up again.
The door opened onto a central hallway, with rooms to the left and right. The first floor was empty, the hardwood floors old and bare, the walls marked by the smoke and pits of battle. The town house would have been a single-family home when Devil’s Isle was still the Marigny. As far as I’d seen, the only room that was used and occupied now was Eleanor’s, which sat at the top of the stairs. There must have been a kitchen, since she liked to bake, but I hadn’t seen it yet.
The house was quiet, but I braced for the attention of Eleanor’s very happy yellow dog, Foster. But after a moment, there was still no sign or sound of the Lab.
“Who goes there?” asked an unfamiliar voice in a very bad British accent, and not one that I recognized.
Liam glanced at me. “Liam and Claire.”
“Liam and Claire who?”
Liam rolled his eyes. “Is this a knock-knock joke?”
The voice paused, the speaker apparently confused. “No?”
“You know who we are, Pike,” Liam said, hands on his hips. “Just get out here and say hello to Claire.”
The voice had been deep and booming and male, and I’d expected a very big man with broad shoulders and a chest that resonated sound.
I did not expect the small, skinny man who walked into the room. His skin was pale, his hair coal black, his eyes the same shade. His hair was straight and fell to his shoulders but didn’t hide the pointed tops of his elfish ears. Pike hadn’t been here the last time I visited Eleanor’s home in Devil’s Isle. I guessed Liam had increased security in a particularly Devil’s Isle way.
“Claire, this is Pike,” Liam said, holding out a hand. “Pike, Claire Connolly, purveyor of Royal Mercantile.”
“So,” Pike said, putting his hands on his hips. “This is Claire, the Sensitive.”
“In the flesh,” I said.
Pike’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Mmm-hmm. Has she been through any kind of security clearance?”
I lifted my eyebrows. “I’m pretty sure Containment has done its due diligence. I’m friends with the Commandant’s chief adviser, and I run the biggest store in the Quarter, where a lot of agents shop. Other than that, Liam can vouch for me.”
“Liam’s a troublemaker,” Pike said with total seriousness, but I couldn’t help a smile.
“No argument there.”
Pike narrowed his gaze. “If he’s a troublemaker, and you’re his friend, you might be a troublemaker, too. One false move,” he warned, pointing a finger at me, “and you’re out of here.”
“I consider myself duly warned.”
“Well, you have been.”
I nodded. “Then we’re on the same page.”
“Glad to hear it.”
The sound of canine trotting emerged from the other room, quick steps to the door, then halting ones as a yellow dog stuck his head through the doorway, investigated.
Liam crouched. “Come on, you baby.”
Tail wiggling like it might fly off, Foster waddled toward us and sat at Liam’s feet—or more accurately, on Liam’s feet—to accept his obligatory pets.
I wouldn’t have called myself a dog person, but when Foster padded over, I went instinctively to my knees, wrapped my arms around him. He whimpered once, pushed his soft muzzle against my face.
“Yeah,” I said, scratching a spot beneath his collar. “Today really sucked.”
As I scratched, his back leg twitched against the floor in uncontrollable pleasure. His happiness made me feel better about the entire day. When he offered up a full body shake, then padded over to Pike, I rose again.
“Foster seems to like you,” Pike said, trying to scratch Foster’s back, but doing a really weird job of it. His long, pointed fingers waved across the dog’s fur, like Foster was a piano to be played
rather than a dog to be petted. Maybe there weren’t dogs in the Beyond? To his credit, Foster sat placidly and endured it.
“That’s quite a technique you have there,” I said.
“I enjoy animals,” Pike said, that deeply booming voice such an odd contrast to his small form.
“Pike, we’re going to check on Eleanor. Keep things safe down here.”
Pike offered a crisp salute as we headed to the stairs.
“I guess you got a new security guard,” I whispered. “Is Pike a friend of yours or Eleanor’s?”
“He’s a friend of a friend,” Liam said cagily.
“He seems like a very interesting type.”
“Some Paras adjust to our world faster than others. I think Pike’s still working on it. But he’s as loyal as they come.”
“That’s something,” I said.
The second-floor landing led to several closed doors and one open, which we headed for. This was Eleanor’s room, full of the décor that was absent from the rest of the house. The walls held dozens of paintings in gilded frames, the floor was covered by fine, overlapping carpets, and gorgeous antiques—probably the few things salvaged from the Arsenaults’ former mansion—were dotted around the room.
The lovely Eleanor sat at a round table near a window on the other side of the room. She wore a long-sleeved shirt in a silken fabric and a taupe wrap that set off her medium skin and short silver hair. Her eyes, blue like her grandson’s, were sightless, at least to the material world. But she could see magic, the kaleidoscope of colors reflected by everyone with magic.
It was nice to see Eleanor. But it was even nicer to see the man who sat across from her at the table, the one who’d probably brought Pike into Eleanor’s and Liam’s lives.
He was probably three feet tall, with pale skin and short black horns protruding from his head. I’d have called him a demon, but that was a human word that I was nearly certain didn’t capture whatever he actually was. And since he’d saved my ass before, it couldn’t have been less relevant.