Frenchman Street_A Novel of The Sentinels of New Orleans

by Suzanne Johnson

Rand and I looked at each other and, with no words necessary, mental or otherwise, we headed back to the van.

  I texted the rest of the security team, asking any available people to meet us along the three-block area leading to the Superdome, where Endymion ended its parade.

  By the time the parade arrived, though, the unicorn herd had disappeared, taking “George Clooney” with it.

  Chapter 37

  Sunday was a gorgeous April spring day, never mind that it was February 22. It also was a four-parade day with Okeanos at eleven in the morning, followed by Mid-City and Thoth. Then there would be a short break before the mammoth, star-studded Bacchus parade shortly after five.

  If Florian was going to make another appearance before Mardi Gras Day, it would be for Bacchus. Most of the faery “celebrities” were riding either in Bacchus or yesterday’s Endymion parade. And if Florian was going to make an appearance in another parade, we needed to be prepared. The shifters, elves, and Hunters were all equipped with long guns and hair from a dog, and ordered to take out Florian if they could get a clean shot. We’d deal with the human aftermath later. No one had mentioned again the idea of taking him alive.

  I wasn’t comfortable with any of that, and thus the crux of my whole life’s dilemma. I wanted to work things out between people, not kill whoever disagreed with my team. I could see the argument behind taking down an evil dictator, but I ran into a moral wall when I saw the dictator as a person with a history, a boy who’d always lived in his brother’s shadow and only knew how to win by being a bully.

  Which is what I talked to Rene about as we sat along the parade route early, waiting for Okeanos to roll.

  “You gotta think about it this way,” he said. He’d worn a sweater and jeans today, with no face paint. “Yeah, maybe Florian was a poor little rich boy. But he grew up into a man who killed his only brother, one of his sisters, and probably his aunt. He’s tried to kill you, DJ. Who knows how many others? And how many he will kill—not to mention what will happen if he makes people believe our kind exist. If somebody’s got a clean shot and can take him out, they need to do it.”

  “Even if it’s not self-defense?” That’s what I couldn’t wrap my head around with any comfort. “I know it’s my problem.” Jake Warin might be alive now if I’d been able to kill Zrakovi when I could. And he had been trying to kill me at the time.

  “You ever have second thoughts about what happened with Jake?” Rene’s voice was low and soft, but I could hear him over the growing noise of paradegoers and kids throwing frisbees and footballs in the street. People thought Mardi Gras was all boobs and beer, but only down near the Quarter where the tourists went. For locals, it was a two-week-long family tailgate.

  “I think about it every day,” I said. “I try to figure out why I couldn’t kill Zrakovi. Why Audrey, who has no experience whatsoever, was able to take the shot I couldn’t. Why I was so damn weak.”

  He threw an arm around my shoulders. “You ain’t weak, DJ. You’ve lost more than all of us, and you’re still fighting. Your sense of fair play makes you who you are, and I wouldn’t want you to change. We got enough hardasses. We need more people who can think.”

  I leaned into him. This is why Rene and I couldn’t get involved. I needed his level head and his total acceptance.

  His phone rang, and he took it out to look at the screen. “It’s Jean.”

  “Yo, pirate. What’s up?” Rene was the only person Jean would allow to call him a pirate without a reprimand.

  “Stay there. We’re on the way.”

  He got up and held a hand down to pull me up. “Leave the chairs here. Jean says Zrakovi’s at Beyond and Back, having a drink with Florian.”

  What the hell was Zrakovi thinking? We got in Rene’s truck and raced down St. Charles Avenue to the closest transport, Audubon Park. Luckily, it was beyond the parade cutoff, so the streets were empty, and there was plenty of open parking on the street by the transport.

  “You got a pistol too?” I asked Rene as he got in the transport holding the rifle.

  “Yeah, and a knife and a grenade.”

  “Good.” I had a staff and a dagger.

  Jean had transported out of the Beyond to make the phone call as soon as he saw Zrakovi and Florian, then had stood guard near the bar in Old Orleans. We transported to St. Louis Cathedral and ran toward the bar, which stood on what in former days had been part of the Storyville red light district and now was mostly urban blight.

  Jean still stood outside the bar, in the shadows of a banana tree, smoking one of his small cigars and talking to his half-brother, Dominique. It was always dark in Old Orleans, and the moon was always full. People of all species mingled on the crowded sidewalks. This was one of the few parts of the border town with electricity.

  Dom saw us and scowled; well, he scowled at me. I don’t think he had any problem with Rene. The only thing I cared about was that he had an arsenal across his chest and guns and knives stuffed in his sash.

  “They’re still in there?” I asked.

  “Oui, in the far corner near the bar,” Jean said. “Yet another has joined them, and I am most sorry to say that it is our former ally Monsieur Hoffman.”

  After all I had gone through to give Adrian a life, that weasel.

  “I believe we should separate Florian from the others,” Jean said. “I wish to pursue Florian in revenge for killing my friend Christof. Dom can accompany me, and Rene—”

  A fireball hit Dominique square in the back, and we all turned to see Florian running toward whatever transport he’d come in on. “Halte!” Jean shouted, and he and Rene raced after Florian, leaving Dom’s body to disappear back into the Beyond. Nobody in Old Orleans would give it a second look. It was like Dodge City with preternaturals and no sheriff.

  “Come on, DJ,” Rene called over his shoulder, a few steps behind Jean.

  But I didn’t. Willem Zrakovi and I had unfinished business, and I might never have another chance at him. Maybe Adrian would talk some sense into him. Maybe Adrian hadn’t flipped.

  I pulled Charlie out of the handmade thigh holster that was my only tangible reminder of Alex, and went inside to face the man he’d left me to support.

  Bitter? You bet.

  I stood inside the door, ignoring the drinkers, the guy behind the bar, and the noise from whatever band was playing, and stared at Zrakovi and Adrian. They were standing now, shook hands, and stopped when they saw me.

  Zrakovi smiled, just as he’d smiled in that warehouse six weeks ago, knowing I would never be able to kill him.

  Adrian walked over to me. “What are you doing here?”

  I kept my eyes on Zrakovi. “What are you doing here, you idiot. Has Etienne Boulard not found you yet?”

  “He found me.”

  “Then walk out of here, Adrian. Zrakovi’s already lost his job. He can’t give you anything.”

  Without warning, Adrian reached out and spun me around, grabbing me from behind and sinking his fangs into my neck. Unlike my two previous vampire biters, Adrian sent some feel-good chemicals into my bloodstream, and I felt my knees go weak. If he thought I tasted foul, he didn’t show it. Zrakovi must be paying him well.

  “Fine, Adrian, have a taste if you want.” Zrakovi crossed his arms and looked at me with utter contempt. I was facing the wizard, and he had a clear shot at me. The room swam with endorphins and blood loss, and I couldn’t find the will to lift my arm even as he held up a pistol and took aim. “Too slow again, little girl. Or too weak.”

  A split-second before Zrakovi pulled the trigger, Adrian shoved me to the ground and took the bullet. His white shirt bloomed red, and my blood ran down his chin. “Kill him, DJ. He’ll never let you live.” Adrian fell to his knees, and Zrakovi grinned as he turned the gun toward me.

  Not this time. I rolled to the side, holding Charlie in front of me, and shot a rope of magic toward him fueled by enough anger and betrayal to overpower the vampire endorphins. Willem Zrakovi had been my boss. After
Gerry died, he’d been my mentor. He’d been the one supposed to support me. He’d weakened the whole wizarding community out of incompetence and greed and ambition that blinded him to the big picture.

  By the time he fired, he was already dying, a wide-eyed look of shock frozen on his face. The shot lodged in the wall next to the bar, and he fell facedown on a dusty stone floor where eons of preternatural misfits had trod. I stepped around Adrian to make sure Zrakovi was dead, and I found no heartbeat.

  Then I ran back to Adrian. If the bullet had missed his heart, he’d be fine. But he was dead too, and not just vampire dead.

  “You gotta get those bodies outta here—bad for business.” I looked up to see a heavyset man in a cook’s apron, wielding a machete.

  I’d had enough blustery testosterone for one night, so I stood up, put Charlie back in his holster, and walked out. I don’t know what the guy saw on my face, but he didn’t try to stop me.

  I texted Rene and Jean as soon as I set foot back in modern New Orleans, letting them know I was heading back to Rand’s.

  Florian was all theirs.

  Chapter 38

  For the first time since I was six years old, I missed seeing the giant Bacchasaurus float roll through the middle of uptown New Orleans. It looked sort of like one of the dragons, a green one whose name I couldn’t remember.

  Well, I saw the parade, but it was through a scrying bowl. In the middle of a rousing lip-sync of “Bad Romance” with Lady Gaga wearing prime rib and the Real (Fae) Housewives of Beverly Hills wearing very little, Rene texted that he and Jean were in Rivendell but didn’t know the word to get out of the transport. It was a new layer of security I’d added this morning.

  Faromir, I texted back.

  “Man, there’s stuff all over the radio about real gold doubloons being tossed off the celebrity floats of Bacchus, and riots are breaking out as people try to get them,” Rene said, taking a beer Rand offered him from the fridge.

  Gruff was serving as my footwarmer, and Rand was calling the dragons back to the barn for their dinner. The pirate and merman had been here so much, this gathering felt like the world’s oddest, most dysfunctional family.

  “I don’t think anything sinister’s going to happen tonight,” Rand said, returning from the ratfest going on below. “This is the time for Florian to show off, ensure the biggest crowds for Tuesday. What’s tomorrow night?”

  “The big parade is Orpheus,” I said. “But I haven’t heard you mention it, Jean.”

  “This is true, Jolie,” Jean said, also drinking beer even though I knew he’d prefer brandy. It had been a big concession for Rand to even buy the beer. He had a bottle of water. I had hot chocolate out of a packet, warmed in the microwave. It reminded me of Alex, who’d never have let such swill touch his lips. It just made me sadder.

  “I have a theory about that,” I said. “Orpheus is a big, well-publicized krewe, but it was formed by Harry Connick Jr. The real one. He’s in the entertainment industry himself, so I’m guessing that parade was harder for Florian’s people to infiltrate. And after Bacchus tonight, he won’t need the Monday parades. He’ll be saving everything for the big show on Tuesday. I think we all need to gather to make our final game plan tomorrow morning.”

  I had some ideas, but wanted to run them past Rand first.

  “Okay, let’s hear tonight’s story,” Rand finally said. “I know what happened to DJ, but I can tell you’re anxious to hear it. And I’m assuming you didn’t catch Florian since we’re still talking about Tuesday.”

  “Non,” Jean said. “He led us a merry chase, but we were unable to catch him.”

  “We think he took one of those faery transports he and Christof have scattered all over the Quarter,” Rene added.

  I raised my hot chocolate in salute. “Hope he enjoys another visit to Greenland. Uncle Lennox said the local fishermen have created a whole new cottage industry ferrying stranded faeries off the ice floe.”

  “He’ll also need a doctor,” Rene said. “I got him in the shoulder, and Jean in the leg. He still looks burned from the last time you got hold of him.”

  I raised my mug again. “Bless his heart.” Not that he had one.

  Rene looked at me a little too hard. “What happened with Hoffman and Zrakovi?”

  I gave them the shortest version I could. “Adrian bit me, then threw me out of the way so Zrakovi would hit him instead. Then I killed Zrakovi.”

  Rand had heard the story before and told me he was proud of me. I couldn’t feel proud. Two men were dead; one of them had been, well, not an enemy.

  The silence in the room was heavy. “I know this is not in your nature, Drusilla, but the treacherous wizard left you no choice, oui?” Jean said. “Was he not attempting to take your life when you killed him?”

  I nodded, felt the tears threaten, and sucked them down. Again. “It’s Adrian I don’t understand. Why even get involved? I had it worked out where he could go back to Vampyre. Etienne would have let him live here in New Orleans if he wanted to. He could’ve worked at L’Amour Sauvage and rebuilt his life.”

  “But is that what he wanted?” Rand asked. “I didn’t know the man, but I know his story. We’ve all lost people in this conflict, but it seems to me that Adrian Hoffman lost his very identity.”

  Rene leaned back and crossed his arms. “Babe, you’ve heard of suicide by cop before, right? When a person don’t have enough nerve to take his own life, so he does something boneheaded like wave a gun at a bunch of cops so they’ll be forced to kill him?”

  I grasped what he was saying. “You think Adrian used Zrakovi—and me—to kill himself?”

  “Monsieur Hoffman did not wish to be a vampire, Drusilla,” Jean said. “You know this. His only happiness came from Mademoiselle Terri.”

  Who had been ripped to pieces by other vampires just for sport.

  What a waste it had all been. Adrian had been a jackass, but he’d also been smart and, when times were toughest, he’d been willing to help.

  “I’m going to bed. I’ll see you all tomorrow morning,” I said, getting up and setting my cup in the sink. Gruff looked at Rand, who nodded. Then the puppy padded down the hall behind me.

  I closed my bedroom door and locked it. I couldn’t talk to anyone right now, not even Rene. Not even Gruff, who sensed that all I needed was to snuggle close and bury my nose in his soft fur.

  No, that was wrong. There was one person I wanted to talk to. I dug out Etienne Boulard’s business card and called his mobile phone.

  “Again, Ms. Jaco? What do you want now?”

  “I wanted you to know that Willem Zrakovi is dead. I killed him. Adrian Hoffman is also dead.”

  Etienne took a few moments to digest this. “And did you also kill Adrian?”

  “No, Zrakovi shot him. But Adrian died taking a bullet meant for me, and I think he intentionally put himself in the position to do it. It wasn’t necessary. He didn’t need to die.”

  Another silence followed, and when he spoke again, Etienne had lost his usual undertone of sarcasm. “I talked to Adrian late last evening, and offered him a place in Vampyre, here in New Orleans, or even back in England where he grew up.”

  “Adrian told me you had met. What did he say?”

  “That he would think about it, and he thanked me—and you.” Something creaked in the background, and I could imagine Etienne sitting in a desk chair, swiveling to look out a window from a hotel somewhere downtown. He had no need to hide now.

  “Drusilla, here’s something I think you already know about Adrian. He loved being a wizard, and from what I understand he was a good one.”

  “He was,” I said. “Blue Congress. He could do amazing things.”

  “I also was a wizard before being turned, as you know, but not in the way Adrian was. As the son of the former First Elder, he had been groomed his whole life to be an Elder himself. He even worked for them at their headquarters in Edinburgh. And then his father betrayed him and allowed him to be turned
vampire, all for his own political gain.”

  “I know.” Adrian had been the first person I’d ever met from headquarters. “But he—”

  “Here is something you should understand about vampires, Drusilla,” Etienne interrupted. “Some who are turned embrace this life, but others, especially those who are forced into it, never adapt. If he hadn’t found a way to die tonight, he would have found another way, and soon. He had given up, and in the end when someone decides he no longer wants to live, there’s nothing you or I can do about it.”

  Rene had been right. “I understand. I just wish I had been able to save him.”

  “You saved yourself tonight, Drusilla Jaco, and that is a good thing. Once you’ve been on this earth a bit longer, you’ll accept that you can’t save everyone.”

  I ended the call and added Adrian’s name to my long list of losses.

  Chapter 39

  Monday’s meeting started with chaos, as Elders, shifters, Hunters, members of the Elven Royal Guard—plus the outliers of Jean, Rene, and myself—assaulted the table laden with croissants and juice and sausage-biscuits and bagels as if Mongol hordes were invading the dragon barn and they were stocking up for a siege.

  The analogy wasn’t too far off. Faulkner Hearne, by popular vote, was chosen to lead the planning since he was a faery, after all, and had known Florian all his life. Literally. They were the same age. That would look to be early thirties but could easily be a thousand.

  We crammed the dragon barn full, with everyone taking chairs and spots on the floor. I spotted an uneaten rat tail and called Sebastian over. He looked at me with suspicious eyes, tail hanging from his mouth, before he shot out of the room and up the stairs.

  That rat tail would end up in my bed. I had no doubt about it.

  After much discussion, everyone agreed to not worry about today’s Lundi Gras parades, Proteus and Orpheus, and focus our plans on Rex, the parade that was the pinnacle of Mardi Gras, after which everything from Canal Street through the French Quarter descended into drunken tourist chaos and the bulk of the city’s full-time residents went home and took a nap.