“Faulk thinks Rand needs to stay hidden until after Florian is captured or killed. Hopefully killed,” Lia said, fierce determination in her eyes.
“You were close to Methier?” She sounded as if she took Florian’s continued existence personally.
“No, I had met him only once,” she said, her voice low. “But Florian is a barbarian. If not for Faulk and Christof and Kirian, I’d be dead at his hands.” She shared a bit of her story with me, growing up as the too-human daughter of a struggling metalworker who sold her to Florian as a consort in exchange for a horse.
I’d known Florian was a nut. Now, I had confirmation that he was a sadistic scumbag.
I also knew I probably couldn’t kill him, not unless it was in self-defense. Maybe not even then. I’d failed the killer test in December when I had a clear shot at Zrakovi and could have still saved Jake. Even though he’d been trying to kill me for months, I had hesitated at the last crucial second. And now here we were, with the wizards and elves still at loggerheads, Alex once again working for the enemy, and I was alive only by the machinations of Quince Randolph. Garrett Melnick was dead, but it wasn’t something I’d done intentionally. It had been a fluke, using Rand’s power.
In theory, I knew peace was not possible unless Florian was dead, but I had to be realistic about what I could and couldn’t do. I was not a killer.
“Dru? Are you listening?” Rand sat across the table from where I’d been sitting in my pepperoni-laden funk.
“No, sorry. What did I miss?”
“The Hunters believe I need to stay in hiding.” Rand had assumed his I-am-Elf tone. “I believe I need to be out front, supporting my people. I need to be seen.”
Rand had returned with about three-dozen elven fighters, all as big and impressive as the Fae Hunters, only prettier. They were filling up half of the Hampton Inn on St. Charles Avenue. Rand had achieved the impossible by procuring any hotel space for them this close to Mardi Gras, especially right on the parade route. I suspected some mental magic had taken place, and people who’d made reservations for those rooms years in advance would find themselves on the streets.
“No, they’re right,” I said. “We can’t afford to have you killed; the political power of Elfheim rests with you.” I went for the jugular. “Your son has lost his mother; he can’t lose you too. What if Alex and I got back together? He’d raise your son.”
A flash of horror crossed his face, then he nodded. “Maybe I should go ahead and kill the dog, just in case.”
“Don’t worry—there’s a bigger chance of me hooking up with Florian than getting back with Alex.” Besides, you can do a lot here,” I said, throwing him a bone. “Get some dragons to do flyovers of the parades—preferably in their smallest form. And you can communicate with them as to what they’re seeing and relay it to us. It might be helpful to scry the parades as well; you can let those of us on the ground know where we need to be looking. You can set up communications central in your kitchen.”
Mollified, Rand began eating his own pizza, and I turned my attention to Jean. He’d been uncharacteristically silent since arriving, lost in thought. He’d ditched the business suit and once again wore his pirate garb, but he’d picked up a briefcase somewhere along the way—black leather and expensive-looking.
“Jean, how did the job go today?” I asked. “Did you experience any problems?”
“I desire to understand more of the things I heard,” he said. “I took many notes, which I shall read to you, oui?”
I smiled. “Oui.”
“First, however, I would like to ask a question regarding a more personal matter.”
Uh-oh. “What?”
“The woman named Linda has asked me on a dinner date with her on the morrow.”
He should be pleased. “That’s good. She’s the tourism director, so she might be able to tell you a lot about Mardi Gras plans. Why is that a problem?”
He frowned, pulled out his notebook, and flipped to the last page. “The last words she spoke to me were: ‘After dinner, I will rock your world.’ I reached for my dagger, for this sounded as if she meant to kill me, but then I thought perhaps it was a….what do you call it….a vision of an earthquake.”
I bit my lip. The Hunters looked at their plates. Lia seemed as confused as Jean. Rand grinned.
Rene clapped Jean on the back. “She’s ain’t threatenin’ you, dude. She’s saying she’s gonna have sex with you, and you’re really gonna like it.”
Jean’s confusion gradually gave way to a broad grin. “Mademoiselle Linda is most attractive. I am glad I did not kill her.”
The beginnings of a headache stabbed into the back of my right eyeball.
By the time two hours had passed, it was a raging ball of pain that filled my entire head. Jean had begun on page one of his notes, and I had to admit he’d been thorough, with many transcriptions about taking leaks and visiting the little girls’ room. I had to explain that “throws” were good things riders tossed off the floats to the paradegoers, then had to explain the concept of floats.
There had been a few close calls. A couple of members of Tucks said their parade was going to kill it this year, and Jean feared that meant he should kill them first. Since no one else seemed alarmed, however, he had refrained until he could ask me about it.
I had to explain that the Marching Tigers and Walking Warriors were high school kids in marching bands, and then what marching bands were, and then football.
Much talk had taken place about media, both conventional and online. “The book of visage and the bird calls were of utmost concern,” Jean said. I just stared at him until Rene whispered, “Facebook and Twitter.”
“Ah, yeah, don’t worry about the media,” I assured him. Florian might conduct a media campaign, but no one here, including me, would know how to fight it. And I certainly wasn’t setting up Jean with online accounts.
In the end, there was one item from his notes that really bothered me.
“Let’s talk about a couple of things,” I told the others after Jean had carefully spelled a lot of names. “First, the fact that a dozen big celebrities have supposedly volunteered to be in parades, without anyone having invited them or offered to pay them, screams ‘faery’ to me. Mick Jagger and George Clooney are not going to share the royal float of the Endymion parade. Aretha Franklin is a wee bit old to be dancing around and singing on a float during Muses. All of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills are going to ride in Bacchus? And Led Zeppelin are reuniting for one night just for Bacchus? No way that’s real.”
“Our people love human popular culture,” Lia said. “Led Zeppelin is a favorite because many believe Robert Plant is part faery because of his name. There are gardens in the Spring Court named for him.”
Holy crap. What a disaster. “Question is, are these faeries going to entertain people, hoping to draw more to the events of Mardi Gras Day? Or are they going to start fighting?”
No one had the answer to that question, although Faulk believe it was the former. “Florian will want the most people possible watching on Fat Tuesday,” he said. “The others will likely be to entertain the masses—and take out any of us they can without drawing attention to themselves.”
Great. They could have people all over the parade grounds, looking like a grandma or a frat boy. I knew one thing. Dogs might not be welcome at the parades, but I wasn’t going anywhere without Gruff, and Rene could take my locket filled with fur.
Hell, I’d make lockets for everybody.
Chapter 25
I had been determined to slip into Faerie on Thursday morning and try to force Florian out of hiding before the parades began on Friday night, but no one would go with me.
Jean said he could be of more help if he stayed in the city to take notes at the mayor’s meetings, but I suspected he wanted Linda to rock his world.
Rand told me there was no evidence that Florian was even in Faerie. He was probably prowling around Elfheim trying to find Kirian so h
e could kill her.
Faulk said the capital city of Faerie was in shambles, and Christof’s allies were all gathered at the Hunt Club, so all I’d find were Florian’s allies or the people too scared to leave their houses.
Rene said I’d get myself killed, and then he and Jean would die trying to avenge me. Only for him, death would be permanent.
My decision-making might have been suspect at times, but even I wasn’t stupid enough to go after Florian on my own even though, secretly, I thought I could take him.
I could….but would I? Or would I hesitate a moment too long and give him the advantage?
Instead, I spent Thursday reinforcing the security wards on Rand’s house, Rene’s house, and—just because I could—my house in Lakeview. Next time the Interspecies Council tried to meet there, if a council existed after the next ten days, its members would find themselves unable to enter without the password. In this case, I had set a whole pass phrase: Willem Zrakovi is a cretin.
Then Alex’s words came back to me. “Grow up, DJ,” he’d said.
So I changed the phrase to Alexander Warin is a cretin.
I taught Rene how to reset his own password and suggested he mimic Rand’s paranoia and change it daily. Then I created a transport into his living room and told him to keep that password to himself.
On Thursday night, the fireworks resumed—four sites, all at once. Treasure-seeking locals were in a frenzy.
Thanks to the newspaper’s dutiful reporting of all the celebrities planning to attend, a record number of people were expected to crowd the parade routes, especially the weekend before Mardi Gras Day. Even when the same celebrities insisted in the media that they were not and had never planned to attend Mardi Gras, no one believed them. Florian must have a media director of his own, since there were other stories that the celebrities were simply making denials as a publicity stunt to keep the crowds under control.
Other celebrities, thinking they’d been shunned, had been calling the mayor’s office and asking to ride on the floats. Jean read off a string of D-list actors and former celebrity rehab stars. I told him to advise the mayor to decline any more celebrity invitations; if Florian injured all those people, there would be no one left to fill celebrity reality show casts.
On Friday morning, I set up another rendezvous for Rand to see his baby, then I spent the rest of the day wandering Old Orleans with Gruff, using Charlie as a Geiger counter to help me locate open transports set up by the fae. I had all of them diverted to Ittoqqortoormiit. Maybe we’d luck out and Florian would spend Mardi Gras in a remote outpost of Greenland.
Then it was time to relax and check in with Rene on plans for the first big uptown parade, the Krewes of Oshun and Pygmalion, which would roll back-to-back along the St. Charles route beginning at six o’clock.
Rand was set up in his kitchen with his scrying gear and a plugged-in cell phone so he could stay charged. We’d all be staying in touch via text; I’d set up groups on all our phones so everyone would get the same info simultaneously. I could also contact Rand mentally and have him send out information.
Pentewyn was still recuperating from his rat-binge, but three other dragons had arrived and we had outfitted them with dragon-cams in order to send images to the trio of monitors set up on Rand’s kitchen table. They were under orders from Rand not to inflate themselves and pop off their cameras, but I wasn’t hopeful.
I decided the best spot for me to hang out would be at the beginning of the parade route. Once the last marching band had passed, then I’d speed toward downtown on the side streets and catch the parades again at the viewing stands set up for the bigwigs.
Jean’s Friday-night report had included a new walking club added to Oshun’s parade, so I wandered around the crowds of high school band members, men in the creepy masks worn by all the float-riding krewe members, and security people wielding walkie-talkies who’d stroll alongside the floats and bands, keeping viewers out of the streets. The tractors that would pull the floats belched black, choking smoke into the air. Walking clubs—people dressed in a common theme who walked as a group during the parade—weren’t as common in the big parades. They shouldn’t be too hard to spot.
Dru! Dru! Dru! Dru! Gruff had adopted Rand’s annoying nickname for me. You can’t hear me bark, but there are faeries! They’re carrying long sticks!
Between baton-wielding majorettes and people dressed in costumes, half the people I saw carried sticks.
But only a group of ten men dressed in identical Robin Hood costumes, complete with bows and quivers of arrows, had the tipped-up eyes and high cheekbones of faeries. They stood beneath a streetlight, but none of them had spotted me in the shadows. I stepped behind a high school dance squad and took a photo of them with my cell phone.
The image was of identical blond men in Robin Hood suits, only instead of arrows, their quivers held colorful metallic pinwheels on long sticks. Thanks to my locket full of Gruff’s fur, I saw the sharp tips.
Gruff bit my ankle to get my attention. The one in the back sees you, Dru!
By the time it registered that the faery had pulled an arrow from his quiver and fitted it into his bow, he’d let it loose. It caught me in the arm with a blister of pain.
Damn it. The first parade hadn’t even left the starting point. I pulled on Gruff’s leash and crawled into the first bit of cover I could find—a stand of shrubbery set up against the brick retaining wall of a parking lot. Sit here and don’t move, I told Gruff.
I’d been lucky. The arrow had gone through the sleeve of my jacket but had only scraped across my upper arm. It hurt, but it wasn’t debilitating. I pulled out my phone and texted the group.
Fae walking club-Oshun-Robin Hood suits-arrows look lk pinwheels-minor injury-no fear of firing in public. Photo attchd.
Except no one had seen the guy take aim and shoot, or they hadn’t reacted because he was shooting a pinwheel, after all. Mardi Gras was such chaos that odd details would go unnoticed. Advantage: Florian.
Leaning against my ankle, Gruff stiffened and broke into a low growl a half-second before the Robin Hood who’d shot me pulled the shrubs apart. “We get extra pay for capturing you,” he grinned. “Alive, of course, just in case you think my aim was bad.”
He grabbed me by my injured arm and jerked me out of the shrubbery. Gruff latched onto his ankle and bit hard enough to buy me some time while Robin Hood danced and tried to shake him off, cursing about the stench of dogs. I reached beneath my jacket, pulled Charlie out, held the staff against his midsection, and send a jolt of magic into him. Not enough to kill, but enough to hurt.
He crumpled, and I didn’t wait to see who might have noticed the exchange. I set off through the parade lineup until I could duck behind two houses, draw out a quick transport, and return to Rand’s.
I’m downstairs, I told him. Text the others and let them know. I’ll head to the viewing stands so they need to cover the beginning of the route.
Got it, he replied.
By the time I reached the kitchen, I’d struggled out of my jacket and collapsed into a chair. “Give Gruff a treat. He just saved my life,” I said. “Maybe twice.”
“Let me look at your arm first. Take off your sweater.”
I didn’t even argue—besides, I wore a tank underneath it. He cleaned the wound, which was as shallow as I’d thought. “I’ll put a healing potion on it,” I said, digging in my messenger bag. It was a twenty-minute heal, at most. “Then I’ll head downtown.”
“Tell me what happened.” Rand returned to his bank of monitors, swiveled one and pointed. “There are the faeries.” As on my camera photo, they were all blond and carried quivers of pinwheels.
The parade had begun, and as we watched, the first marching bands headed out, followed by riders on horseback, flambeaux carriers on foot, tractors pulling floats full of masked riders, and the other parade elements like walking clubs and cars with placards announcing dignitaries. I told Rand about the bonus from Florian if I were captu
red.
“I can’t think of any reason Florian would want me—especially alive—except as leverage against you,” I said. “So if you were thinking about going off-plan and getting out there on the street, don’t.”
“Neither should you,” he said. “Capturing you would be as good as capturing me.”
Right. Because Quince Randolph would take a bullet for me in a heartbeat. “Because you’d die for me, sweetheart?”
“Transparency, honey?” He smiled.
“Of course, darling.”
“No, but I’d have to at least try to rescue you. You know where my son is, and if you die, it will both weaken my power and make it harder for me to find him.”
Okay, then.
Transparency could be a cold bitch.
Chapter 26
I tucked my hair into a Saints cap, pulled a different sweater over my newly healed arm, and put my leather jacket back on.
“If you won’t stay here and keep yourself safe, at least tell me where my son is.” Rand stood in the bedroom doorway, watching me stuff my pockets full of healing charms.
“Nope.” I said. “That knowledge, as you reminded me, ensures you have to rescue me if I get in trouble.”
“You’re always in trouble,” he muttered, sounding like Alex Warin. It took a lot to refrain from reminding him a lot of my troubles were because of him.
My phone vibrated, and I pulled it out of my pocket. It was a text from Rene that he was waiting out back and would drive me to the parade stands. I’d take him up on it. Parking within a mile of St. Charles Avenue would be a nightmare.
“Back to your station. I’m outta here,” I said, patting my jacket to make sure Charlie was in place. “I need to leave Gruff here; it’s going to be too crowded downtown.”
“Be careful,” Rand yelled as I trotted down the stairs and through the dragon barn—my new name for the former greenhouse.
Behind the garage holding the Rolls sat Rene in his brother’s white MERTWIN 2 pickup.
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