Frenchman Street_A Novel of The Sentinels of New Orleans

by Suzanne Johnson

  “Lay off the hard stuff, wizard.” Rene got to his feet. “I’m going to hand-deliver your letter to the elf. I don’t trust any of the transports right now.”

  I took a deep breath and tried to stuff thoughts of torturing Alex Warin into a back compartment of my brain. I needed to focus. “Hang on a second; let me see if I can reach him.”

  Holding onto Charlie with both hands, I closed my eyes and, using my loudest mental voice, screeched: Rand! Can you hear me?

  We’d been shutting out each other’s mental communication for so long, I didn’t really expect a reply, but within a few seconds he responded. Dru, for God’s sake, stop screeching. Is that really necessary?

  I have a formal proposal for you and would like someone to deliver it. Are you in New Orleans? Can Rene transport directly to your house?

  He paused a moment before answering. Rene….the merman? Yeah, send him to Rivendell.

  Rivendell, named after an Elven enclave in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, was the open transport in the greenhouse of Rand’s Plantasy Island nursery in uptown New Orleans. At one time, I’d thought it was cute. I’d also thought the elf was the cutest thing on two legs. Now, like most things about Quince Randolph, even his transport name annoyed the crap out of me.

  You have to promise not to hurt Rene, I said. You cannot touch him. You cannot perform any elven magic in his presence. You cannot do anything else bad that I’ve forgotten to mention.

  This time, he didn’t hesitate. Fine.

  I opened my eyes and found both Jean and Rene watching me intently, staring like my long-lost cat Sebastian when he was trained on an approaching cockroach. Not that Sebastian was really lost; he was, last I heard, living with Rand. My late father’s cat liked Alex the hound and Rand the elven cockroach better than me. The feline ingrate.

  “It’s fine; I was talking to Rand in my head.”

  Rene propped his hands on his hips. “Babe, that’s just all kinds of wrong.”

  Tell me about it. “It’s fine for you to go directly to his personal transport from here. It’s called Rivendell.”

  Apparently neither of my companions had read the Tolkien books since the name got no response.

  “Here, you’ll need this.” I stood up and waited for the room to stop moving, then walked to a corner cabinet where I’d stashed a hefty supply of premade charms and potions. An entire shelf was devoted to drying charms—handy when one had an underwater transport in the Gulf of Mexico. “Dry off when you get there. If you drip on Rand’s spotted toad lilies, you’ll piss him off, and we need to play nice.”

  “He don’t make it easy, babe.” Rene stuffed the charm in his pocket and headed toward the entry hall. “I’ll bring you back a po-boy,” he called back over his shoulder. “In the meantime, don’t drink any more brandy. You’re a lousy drunk.”

  Yeah, well, one couldn’t argue with the truth.

  I twisted in my seat on the sofa and watched Rene through the front window until he disappeared in the transport. “Where did you go in New Orleans?” I asked Jean, turning back around. The pirate had flopped into his recliner with his long legs stretched out. “Did you really run into Alex? And where is Christof’s head? Did you realize it might not really be him but someone glamoured to look like him? And, by the way, would it be possible for you to bring Jake back as a member of the historical undead?”

  He stared at me a few seconds, his dark-blue eyes holding a trace of amusement. I could tell he wanted to comment on my situation with Alex so badly he practically vibrated. He restrained himself, however. “You have many questions, Jolie. Which would you first have me answer?”

  “The one about Jake, I guess.” I’d been thinking about it off and on, and the argument with Alex had brought it back to mind. If Jean could bring back his legion of undead pirates, none of whom were famous in the human world, couldn’t he bring back an immortal version of Jake Warin? Unlike his cousin Alex, Jake had considered Jean a friend, and vice-versa. But I wasn’t quite sure how the historical undead thing worked.

  Jean thought a moment, staring into his own glass of brandy, and I sensed he wasn’t so much confused as thoughtful. His amusement had definitely vanished. Good thing he still didn’t know I could read his emotions—one of the elven skills I’d won in my genetic lottery.

  “Perhaps this would be possible in time, although there is no guarantee.” He stared out the window, and I got the sense he was choosing his words with care. “Also, it would be many, many years before it would be possible—maybe even beyond the time left in your own long mortal life, Drusilla. More than one hundred years passed in the human world before I was able to bring back anyone other than my brothers, who also were known in the human world. If I brought Jacob back, he would never be able to leave Barataria unless to accompany me. And this is of utmost importance: he would have to want to return.”

  Jake’s fiancée, Collette, another rogue werewolf, had run away after his death. Without her, he wouldn’t want to come back. I looked down at my hands, which I’d unconsciously clenched into fists in my lap. “I miss him.”

  “As do I, Jolie.” Jean’s voice softened. “Your dog was wrong to blame you for his cousin’s death.”

  I nodded. Despite my claim that I blamed Alex, in truth I blamed both of us. But dwelling on it wouldn’t bring Jake back.

  “Tell me about your trip to Old Orleans.” I needed to wipe out my sadness with anger again. “And what you know about Alex.”

  Jean shrugged. “I simply witnessed Monsieur Warin meeting with your wizard Zrakovi at a drinking establishment in Old Orleans. The rest, I know only from Rene’s account of your conversation a few moments ago.”

  What a shocker. “Why did you go?”

  “To see what I could learn of Christof’s death—or if he is dead. Like you, I was unsure.” Jean finished off his brandy. “I first asked to meet in Old Orleans with Falconer, an ancestor of Hearne the Hunter, the original Master of the Wild Hunt. Falconer is the Faerie Prince of Autumn.”

  I blinked. If there were princes of winter and summer, it made sense there would be royal families for spring and fall, but I’d never heard mention of them. “Is he also a contender for the throne?” Because if Christof was dead, we needed a saner option than Florian.

  “Non.” Jean poured himself another brandy, held the decanter toward me, shook his head, and set it back on the sideboard-turned-bar. Apparently, he agreed with Rene’s assessment of my drinking prowess. My bar privileges had been revoked. “The low-season royal families possess only Academy or Arch magic; one must have both forms of magic in order to rule Faerie, as do Florian and Christof.”

  My understanding of faery magic was iffy at best. Arch magic was the ability to control the things we considered of the natural world—weather, for example. Florian could conjure hurricanes and throw lightning-fueled fireballs. Christof had blanketed New Orleans under a blizzard that still had meteorologists in a frenzy. It had been aimed at the elves, who could not tolerate cold without going into hibernation; most of them had left the city to escape it.

  Academy magic had to do with the laws of science and technology, and I had no idea what they could do with that. Nor did I want to.

  “So what can this Falconer do, and who does he support?”

  “His magic is that of the Arch, and the latter question is what I wished to ask him,” Jean said. “He has chosen not to sit on the throne of the Autumn Palace, leaving it to his younger brother, Yuri. But Yuri will follow Falconer’s wishes. He lives in New Orleans now, as head of the Fae Hunters, the warriors of Faerie. Before, the Hunters simply tracked down and returned those fae who had crossed into the human world without permission or to escape justice. Now, they will fight.”

  Faeries had warriors? “Will they fight for Florian or Christof? Does Prince Falconer know if Christof is alive?”

  “Oui.” Jean smiled, but it was more grim than celebratory. “Faulkner, as he calls himself in the human world, believes Christof is a priso
ner in Faerie. He does not think Florian possesses the courage to kill his brother, or at least not until the kingdom is secured. The Princess of Spring has thrown her court behind Florian as part of a royal marriage arrangement, but the Autumn Court supports Christof. The Fae Hunters also are divided; those in support of Florian have returned to Faerie, while Faulkner keeps his fighters in New Orleans.”

  So the Christof heads had been fake, at least if this Faulkner guy was right.

  “We need to free Christof, then, if it’s true.”

  Jean nodded. “Faulkner will have someone from the Autumn Court search and inform me of his findings. We also must find Christof’s only other sibling, his sister, Kirian. Faulkner believes she is hiding somewhere on the grounds of the Winter Court, and he also is searching for her. She could become queen if the worst has befallen my dear friend Christof.”

  Yeah, because Florian had brutally murdered their other sister in December. I’d seen her head on a pike in the ruins of the Winter Palace during one of my few trips to Faerie.

  “So, what’s the plan…” I trailed off at the sound of the front door slamming, followed shortly by the appearance of a very wet merman in the doorway of the study. Water dripped from his jeans, his t-shirt was plastered to his chest, and….was he bleeding?

  “I hate elves. They should all be shot. And cats. Why would any sane person have a damned cat if it can’t shift into a bigger cat?” He stalked to the corner cabinet, helped himself to a drying charm, and, within seconds, was no longer dripping. The side of his face was covered in dried blood.

  “How did you get injured?” I was going to tear Quince Randolph a new one. He had promised not to hurt Rene. Never mind that the merman’s face had already healed.

  Rene threw a bag in my lap on his way to the bar to wash off his face in the bowl Jean kept there for hand-washing; he also poured a drink. We needed to get out of Barataria before all of us became alcohol-dependent. The white paper sack, which smelled of fried shrimp and fresh French bread, also had a long rip along the side. Somehow, he’d managed to keep it dry.

  He came back and took a seat next to me, drink in hand.

  “Rene, you didn’t answer me. What did Rand do to you?”

  The toasted merman turned on the sofa to face me, and leaned close enough for me to think, not for the first time, that he might have the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen—almost a liquid black, with long lashes. He’d also let his hair grow out into a messy tangle and grown a short beard. It looked good on him. “Did you know the elf’s transport was guarded?”

  Well, no. “So his guard cut you?”

  “Yep. Leaned over and sniffed me like it was a dog. Or a freaking cat. I might have swatted it on the nose before it took a swipe at me. Cats and merfolk don’t get along, babe. They think we’re sushi.”

  I frowned hard to avoid laughing. Only one cat I knew was that malicious; as a general rule, cats were wonderful pets. Or so I’d been told.

  “Rand has Sebastian guarding his transport?” My late father’s surly chocolate Siamese was not a wonderful pet, at least not to me. He had terrible taste in people, other than my father. He loved Alex and seemed to adore Rand, who’d taken him in after Alex and I went on the lam.

  “That is one surly cat, babe. And your husband—”

  “Bondmate,” I corrected him. Rand and I had a lifelong business arrangement. Despite the elf’s delusions or the traditions of his people, it was not a marriage.

  “Zip it,” Rene said. “Your bondmate has covered his greenhouse in glass you can’t see through, and he’s closed his nursery business. Now, there’s just that transport and a guard-cat. Tell me that ain’t an elf gettin’ ready for war.”

  At the least, he was a very ambitious elf who thought he needed to keep the public out of his building. Since he lived upstairs and his death would leave a serious power void in Elfheim, I couldn’t blame him.

  “Oh, before we get sidetracked talking about your nasty feline, the elf’s response is in the bag with your po-boy.”

  “What does the letter say?” Jean asked Rene. Because the nosy Frenchman, of course, would have read the letter if Rand had given it to him.

  Rene, however, would not. “How the hell would I know? Ain’t my letter.”

  “Bah.” Jean folded his arms across his chest. “Read it to us, Drusilla.”

  I bit back my first instinct to tell him it was none of his business, because it was his business, and Rene’s too. This deal with the elven devil was for all of us.

  The plain white envelope was sealed, so I tore off the end, blew into the open side, and pulled out a single sheet of paper. I recognized Rand’s elegant writing; the elves, apparently, still valued penmanship. Of course, they also engaged in torture, especially on members of other elven clans.

  I rattled the paper and began to read.

  “I, Drusilla Jaco, being of sound mind and…” I looked up at Rene. “What is this? It sounds like a will.”

  “The elf called it a contract, babe.” Rene had stolen half my po-boy and had already crammed a quarter of it in his mouth. “No, what was it…a binding contract.”

  Yeah, I’d like to bind Rand up and toss him in the river. I moved the other half of my sandwich out of Rene’s reach and started over.

  “I, Drusilla Jaco, being of sound mind, agree to the following conditions in exchange for the granting of asylum and physical and mental protection by my bondmate Quince Randolph, chief of the Tân and head of the Elven Synod, until such time as we reach a mutual agreement that this document shall be declared null and void.”

  I looked at Rene, who was frowning, and Jean, who looked bemused.

  “Condition One: I agree to not use wizard’s magic or otherwise take action against any citizen of Elfheim without my bondmate’s permission.”

  Well, I had expected that.

  “Condition Two: I may continue regular visitation with Eugenie Dupre and my bondmate’s unborn child in Elfheim only with permission, and agree not to do anything to come between my bondmate and the bearer of said child.”

  Because God forbid Rand would ever admit the child was as much Eugenie’s as his, if not more. This stipulation also came as no surprise. In fact, I’d halfway expected him to give me no access to her at all, so I was okay with this.

  “Condition Three: I will attend all meetings of the re-formed Interspecies Council alongside my bondmate and will do nothing to contradict his wishes before other members of the council.”

  “Sounds dicey, DJ,” Rene said. “What d’you think about that?”

  “She has no choice, mon ami,” Jean said. “In fact, I think it is good that she accompanies him to these meetings so that we are kept apprised of events.”

  I nodded. “I think so too, Jean. Plus, it will piss Willem Zrakovi off to no end.” Not to mention Alex.

  “Condition Four: I will have no contact with Alexander Warin unless accompanied by my bondmate.”

  I looked to the peanut gallery for a reaction, but they both were watching me with that Sebastian-pouncing-on-a-cockroach expression. “Hey, I have nothing to say to Alexander Warin. In fact, having Rand there might be fun since he obviously doesn’t know that dog has left the hunt.” I sure wouldn’t be updating the elf on my relationship.

  Rene and Jean both grinned, although Jean looked a bit confused by the whole dog and hunting comment.

  I sighed and returned to the paper.

  “Condition Five: Jean Lafitte will be allowed to return to New Orleans, also under my bondmate’s protection, as long as he adheres to conditions one and four of this document heretofore outlined for myself.”

  I laughed. “Sorry, Jean, you won’t be able to talk to Alex, either.”

  “This is a great pity.” Jean said without an ounce of sincerity in his voice.

  “One more condition.” I read ahead a few words and froze.

  Rene leaned close enough to bump shoulders with me and read it for himself. “Babe, that’s a deal-breaker. W
e’ll find another way.”

  I glanced over at Jean, who’d popped the leg rest of his recliner down, probably anticipating the need to pace.

  “Condition Six: I will live at the residence of my bondmate in New Orleans and will assume my rightful role as his mate.”

  Freakin’ elf.

  Chapter 5

  “Mon Dieu, the blackguard.” Jean rose to his feet and prowled around the room like a caged pirate. “You must not have carnal relations with this elf, Drusilla.”

  “Yeah, Randolph is talking about sex, DJ. You ain’t having sex with that pretty-boy pile of kelp.”

  I expected the anger from Jean; Rene surprised me. And once I’d recovered from the initial shock, I realized there were plenty of loopholes in what constituted the “rightful role of a mate.” Rand might even realize that, knowing I’d never agree to anything more specific.

  “C’mon guys, I’ve got this. So what if I have to live with him? That means I can keep an eye on him; he’s going to be too busy conniving and scheming to have sex even if I agreed, which would be never.”

  Rene looked skeptical, so I kept going. “Plus, it’s not like I have anywhere else to live. Rand would never agree to this deal if I wanted to stay with Jean in his suite at the Hotel Monteleone. The Interspecies Council illegally confiscated my father’s house for its meetings, and the undead serial killer burned my own house down. In fact, the land is for sale, as Rene well knows since I hired his cousin as my realtor.”

  My house had sat on a prime spot of real estate on high ground in uptown New Orleans, and it made more sense for me to finish renovating my father Gerry’s house near Lake Pontchartrain than to rebuild mine from the foundation up. Not to mention my financial abyss; since Zrakovi had fired me as sentinel of New Orleans, I had no income. That land was a goldmine.

  “It ain’t for sale anymore,” Rene said. “I bought it myself. Put in the offer last week and made a down-payment. You gave my cousin permission to do the sale without you being there, so all you gotta do is sign the final papers and cash the check.”