“One more thing,” he said. “About Rene.”
I glanced at my hot-tempered friend with a frown. Don’t call him a name, Rene. Don’t shoot him. Play nice for now. Too bad Rene and I couldn’t communicate mentally unless we were doing a power-share.
Rene sauntered over to face Rand. The mer wasn’t afraid of anyone or anything, which could be dangerous when your biggest weapon was turning into a dolphin. “What about me, elf?”
Rand looked down his imperious elven snout. “I’ll allow you and Dru to continue your friendship because, so far, you and your people have done nothing to either support the wizards or oppose the elves. I could change my mind about that should you take any action against me or mine.”
My watered-down elven senses could feel the aggression wafting off Rene, so I know it didn’t escape Mr. Full-Blooded Elven Demigod.
Rene took a step back and gave Rand a curt nod. “No problem. DJ and I are good friends, and I haven’t taken sides in this fiasco except hers. Don’t plan on taking a side, either.” He hesitated. “In fact, I should probably tell you I bought DJ’s land across the street from you and plan to put me up a house.”
Both Rene and Rand glanced at me. I nodded and shrugged.
“Why?” Rand asked.
“To annoy the hell out of Alex Warin,” Rene said without missing a beat. “I heard he and Zrakovi made a deal, so I ain’t got no use for that ass-kissing shifter.”
“Dru, you and Alex broke up?” Rand hadn’t looked this happy since he’d announced at the last Interspecies Council meeting that a twin-engine Cessna had mysteriously fallen on top of his predecessor. “No wonder you agreed not to talk to him.”
“Yeah, well, don’t read too much into that clause.” It didn’t mean I wouldn’t be spending the night in the former greenhouse with Sebastian. And soon. According to my pink watch, it was almost midnight.
“Okay, let’s go then.” Rand pulled me toward the door.
“You guys go ahead.” Rene walked with us as far as the veranda, then stopped. “I’ll take care of a few things here and transport into the Quarter. So far, nobody has tried to stop me.” The wizards were monitoring his coming and going, though. I’d bet the property I no longer owned on it. He might not have aligned himself with any of the soon-to-be-warring species, but nobody had any doubts that wherever Jean and I settled in this mess, Rene would be with us.
Rand still held onto my hand and practically dragged me down the banquette to the beach, with Jean trailing behind. He and Rene must have made some plans. Rene was probably letting Jean’s brothers and the other pirates know where Le Capitain had gone.
“Wait.” I dug my feet in the sand, almost pulling Rand off-balance. “I need something waterproof to put my bag in.”
I reached beneath the raised sidewalk, where a half-dozen plastic storage bins with lids had been stashed for this very purpose. I stuffed my bag inside one of them, along with the agreement signed in blood, and set off for life as Queen of the Elves.
Chapter 6
When we landed in the Rivendell transport, a late-night fireworks show was booming in the direction of downtown New Orleans. Bright stars and exploding balls of light and whizzes and booms lit up the night sky, making the streetlights outside seem like lightning bugs.
A bellow, much closer to us, followed the noise, then a growl from what sounded like a big, unhappy animal. Voices rose in panic outside, and a gunshot echoed through the neighborhood.
“What the hell? Wait here.” Rand dropped my hand and rushed out of the transport into the darkened greenhouse.
He flipped the lights on and ran into what had been the storefront section when this had been a thriving nursery. The front office had once housed a counter, cash register, and shelves filled with garden ornamentals—flags and decorative pots and mirror balls and painted gnomes.
Jean and I followed Rand into a space now empty except for an intricate iron wall stretched across the former storefront. Wrought iron to keep out faeries.
I notice Rand’s expression of pure fury before I saw what had caused it.
“Un dragon,” Jean whispered.
A winged, nickel-and-gold lizard the size of a school bus stood in the middle of Magazine Street. Despite it being after midnight, a crowd had gathered and traffic was jammed, including a freaked-out NOPD officer standing beside his squad car, shouting into the radio attached to the collar of his uniform.
The dragon sent a bellow of steam into the crowd, which resulted in shrill screams and a scattering of bodies.
“Dru, do something. Get rid of these people.” Rand’s voice was frantic.
Me? When did I assume dragon patrol? “What do you mean, do something? I don’t have anything that would neutralize a crowd this big.” There had to be at least 50 people out there.
I thought furiously. “Can you communicate with the dragon?” I mean, he was a fire elf, and all the dragons left in the world lived in Elfheim, or so he claimed.
“Maybe. Should I have her burn them?”
I punched him on the arm as hard as I could, but it worked. He finally settled down and turned his attention to me. “What was that for?”
“Don’t burn the humans. Tell the freaking dragon to head toward the river. I’ll go back to that vacant lot on Tchoupitoulas and create a transport. Where in Elfheim can I send him?”
“Her. Melanwahr. I recognize her. Send her to bae’r ddraig.
“Okay, talk her through it.” I practiced saying the words a few times, and pulled Charlie out of the messenger bag, along with a jar of sea salt. “Send her down Arabella Street—it won’t have much traffic. I’ll set up the transfer.”
“The humans will follow her,” Rand said.
“We’ll deal with them once we get her to safety. Jean, back me up.”
I didn’t wait for Rand to unlock the door set into the iron wall, but zapped it with my own physical magic, then Jean and I slipped out. Rand stood in the doorway, head down, concentrating, and it must have been working. Melanwahr had settled down and was watching him intently.
“Come on. We need to run faster than the dragon.” I grabbed Jean’s arm, and we raced around the corner and headed for the Mississippi River. The vacant lot was pitted and muddy, its sparse grass brown. But it should be big enough.
“I know you have a gun, so cover me while I lay out this transport. Don’t kill anybody, but injure them if you have to.”
“Jolie, perhaps the dragon could be kept here, to fight.” Jean wore his pensive, plotting expression. “I think Florian should not like to meet a dragon.”
“Then we’ll bring them together for a jazz brunch one weekend—quit dawdling.”
I didn’t wait for a comeback—the pirate always had a comeback. I propped my bag against the fence at the back of the property and got busy, moving faster than I would have thought possible, considering I was drenched in saltwater from the transport and it was a lot colder out here than in Barataria.
It seemed safest to make a transport out of the whole vacant lot since I didn’t know how long the dragon’s tail was, so I carefully spread a line of salt around most of the perimeter, leaving only enough space on three sides for the interlocking triangle to poke out. As I was finishing the last edge of the triangle, Melanwahr came lumbering down Arabella Street, flapping her wings but staying earthbound. A crowd of people ran behind her, including the cop, holding his gun, and Quince Randolph, grasping the cop’s arm.
The cop looked very, very confused. I hope Rand didn’t scramble his brains permanently.
Sirens sounded from all directions. We needed to get this dragon on its way or New Orleans would be the site of the greatest natural history find in, well, ever. They’d be adding a dragon exhibit to the local zoo.
Rand must have been giving mental directions to the dragon while holding onto the cop, because she cut a sharp left at my favorite neighborhood restaurant, Franky and Johnny’s. Thankfully, it was closed.
The dragon ran straigh
t at me, and I used my arms to direct her like she was a 727 and I was one of those airport traffic guys. All I needed was a fluorescent orange vest. Finally, she came to a stop in front of me.
Inside my head, Rand yelled, “Do it!”
Melanwahr was beautiful; there was no other word for it. Her scales rippled in a myriad of copper, nickel, gold, and shimmering burnt orange under the streetlights, her wings were tucked at her sides, and when she focused on me, she cocked her head to the side like a beagle, her horns at a forty-five-degree angle. She had at least two bullet wounds in her neck.
I knelt and set Charlie to the edge of the transport, and whispered words that sounded like Rand’s: “Buyer draig.” I hoped I hadn’t sent her someplace weird. Well, weirder than Elfheim.
She disappeared, and I slinked into the bushes, dragging Jean with me. He pulled me along the back side of the lot until we joined the rest of the milling crowd, wondering what they’d seen and where it went.
The cop was still on his radio and, released from Rand’s grasp, strolled toward the squad cars screeching to a halt at the nearest corner. He smiled and waved at the other officers. God only knows what he’d tell them.
I sidled up next to Rand. “Think we need to do any crowd control?”
“No—run.” He grabbed my arm and dragged me in a zigzag pattern back through the four blocks to his house. “We’re targets out here. I have a hidden entrance in the back of the house.”
We broke into a full-out run, with Jean huffing and puffing behind us. I’m not sure I breathed at all until we’d crossed the distance to the back of Rand’s house. He unlocked the door, said “Legolas” under his breath, and I felt the drop of strong magical wards. We’d only been inside about twenty seconds before the wards snapped shut again, sealing us in.
Rand was taking his own safety seriously. Now that I knew the consequences of his death, I approved.
I was momentarily distracted by the hissing chocolate-brown Siamese cat sitting on the area at the back of the nursery where Rand had once grown potted plants. He speared me with slightly crossed blue eyes, his stub of a tail twitching in sharp strokes—the rest of it had been chopped off by the serial killer who’d torched my house.
“Hi Sebastian,” I told my father’s cranky feline, who seemed to hate me even more than Willem Zrakovi. “We’re going to be roommates again.”
He yowled and ran away. I walked back to the storefront area, where Rand was staring out the front window. I handed Jean a drying charm, took one for myself, and offered one to Rand. He shook his head. “I’m fine.”
His voice was shaky. “How badly was the dragon hurt? Did someone manage to get into Elfheim and take her?”
He turned to me, and I was shocked to see his cheeks wet with tears. “It looks bad, but I won’t know until I talk to the healers. They are beautiful creatures, and the humans’ first instincts were to shoot her.”
I rubbed his arm, as much to acknowledge that Rand had a heart as to offer comfort. I’d seen a few signs here and there, but never with tears. “They were frightened,” I said. “They thought they needed to defend themselves. It’s a good lesson in why Florian can’t be allowed to reveal our identity.”
Another wall-shaking boom sounded from the west, toward downtown, and I eeped. My nerves were shot. “What the hell is the occasion for the fireworks?”
Rand took a deep breath. “Let’s go upstairs and you can watch it on TV. The word to get past the wards today is Legolas, but I recommend you don’t leave here until after the meeting. I’m going to get changed and head to Elfheim in a little while.” Rand said, picking up Sebastian on his way up to his living quarters on the second floor. “After the healers have had time to work with Melanwahr, I need to question her.”
I retrieved my bag from inside the greenhouse door, stuck Charlie back inside it, and followed Jean upstairs. By the time I reached the landing, Rand was out of sight.
“Look, Drusilla. Above the city. Is it magic?” Jean had stopped beside the second-story window at the west end of the hallway. Deep red-orange, blue, silver, and gold explosions of light licked at the night sky, much brighter than the downtown high-rise lights off to their left. Sirens wailed in the distance—away from us this time.
I gave Jean a rudimentary explanation of modern fireworks. “I can’t tell where they’re coming from.” I visualized the city in my head, but the glow was too spread out. “It’s too far away to be in the Quarter or the business district, but it seems too loud to be across the river.”
Outside, the show ended with the loudest boom yet, and lights spelling out “The Biggest Mardi Gras Ever. Be there!” filled the sky.
“I wonder why Rand told us to check the TV?” Apparently, it was a fireworks show to promote Mardi Gras, although it seemed superfluous. Nobody in New Orleans could miss Mardi Gras season even if they hid under their bed for two weeks with the shades drawn and lights out. “I don’t even remember Rand having a TV.”
“You have been in the elf’s private quarters before, Drusilla?” Jean looped a possessive arm through mine. “I did not realize you had become so closely acquainted beyond your la comédie of a marriage.”
Yeah, a black la comédie. Jean had to get over the protective crap that radiated off his aura. We both needed Rand’s goodwill right now. Tonight proved how much the stakes had risen. I tried to stay in the present and not remind myself Rand had put himself in this fix by getting rid of his rivals in Elfheim. There would be time later for blame.
“He brought me here for safety when the Axeman of New Orleans burned down my house,” I reminded Jean. The crazed, undead serial killer—hired by a rival clan chief who’d died for her trouble, bless her cold, elven heart—had murdered Rand’s mother, and Rand had barely escaped with his life. I owed him for that one. He owed me just as much, though.
Last time I’d been here, the guest bedroom where Rand’s mother died so horribly had been locked, but now the door stood open. I turned on the light to find my elf had replaced the furniture with what looked like antiques and the bedding in rich shades of burgundy and gold and deep teal, coincidentally my favorite color combination. Even the drapes were new. Like my former house, Rand’s place was more than a century old, with high ceilings and heavy crown molding and baseboards, even an old fireplace that had originally burned coal. In the attached bathroom was a permanent transport leading only to Elfheim. He had added the greenhouse when he bought the building a few years ago.
And there on the wall above a chest of distressed mahogany hung a flat-screen TV.
“Let’s see what’s going on.” I found the remote on the dresser, turned on the TV, and sat on the edge of the bed. Jean pulled up a burgundy leather, tufted armchair from a corner, and I mentally gave him props for not crawling on the bed with me. Then again, no one would ever accuse Jean of being stupid, except maybe Alex. Despite his passing jealousy a few moments ago, the pirate knew his welfare depended on Rand, at least for now. Jean always weighed benefits and risks; the benefit of sitting beside me on a bed definitely wasn’t worth the risk of annoying the elf.
I flipped to one of the local network affiliates and honed in on the caption below the images of police cars, flashing lights, and big NOFD ladder trucks. Uniformed and plainclothes officers prowled around a big, empty field. UNAUTHORIZED FIREWORKS IN BELLE CHASSE read the headline and, underneath, in a crawl: Third in past week; more than a dozen injured, NOPD says.
“What is this N-O-P-D?” Jean asked. “Your modern people depend entirely too much on alphabet letters, even in your Christian names.” He’d never accepted that I prefer being called DJ to Drusilla.
“New Orleans Police Department,” I said, adding, “Policiers.”
“Bah, gendarmes. Why would they care about these works of fire? They are quite beautiful.”
“Sounds like people are doing them without permits,” I said. “They can be dangerous.”
Rand appeared in the doorway and watched for a few moments. He’d ch
anged into jeans and a navy sweater and dangled a pair of leather boots from his left hand. “This is the third huge fireworks show this week, always set up in isolated places. No one claims responsibility; no one has gotten permits from the city. About three-dozen people, including a couple of firefighters, have gotten hurt trying to get close to them. Whoever sets them up uses a timer and ignition system and then takes off.”
I dragged my gaze from the TV images and stared at Rand instead. I’d never known him to take an interest in local news. He was an elf, for God’s sake.
A trill of dread snaked up my spine. “What else do we need to know about these fireworks?”
Rand walked around the bed and climbed on it to sit beside me, facing the TV. I was too worried to care. “I haven’t talked to anyone else yet, but word’s gotten out that there are jewels and pieces of gold that are falling from the fireworks—that’s why so many people are running out there and getting hurt.” he said. “There are also fliers around the sites, urging people to attend the parades this year and promising a lot of celebrities and valuable throws. I assume it will be a topic at the council meeting tomorrow night….well, tonight, since it’s after two o’clock in the morning. It could be an ordinary Mardi Gras fan who’s really wealthy.”
Not likely. “Or?”
Rand turned to face Jean and me. “I can assure you it’s not the elves, and the wizards have no reason to want to help publicize Mardi Gras, so that leaves—”
“Florian,” I muttered. Of course, it was the King of the World. “He wants to reveal our existence to the humans on Mardi Gras day. I wondered why he was waiting, other than being able to grandstand in front of thousands of people—millions if you count TV viewers. He wants maximum impact so everyone will see his power if the humans fight back.”
Make that when the humans fought back, because they would, and they should. This was their world. They might be mostly excited about a dragon in the streets, but several magic-wielding species whose power could wipe out human existence in weeks? Oh yes, they would fight and fight hard.
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