I touched the pendant that Diana Langdon had given me and pushed power through the incantation. “He cannot hear us now. Talk.”
“The Aether are planning something,” Jaime said.
“Of course we are. It is the full moon. We always have Sabbat on the full moon,” I said, more than a little irritated.
“Were you expecting any foreign visitors? Two dozen of them?” Jaime asked.
“There were two dozen foreign Aether at Honore’s house?” my voice squeaked.
“Yeah, didn’t think so. They’ve been trickling in by twos and threes for the last half hour. Last count was twenty-one foreign and nine from New Orleans.”
“I should go back and find out what is going on,” I said.
“You really think they’d let you leave again? You’d be dead within five minutes of walkin’ through that front door,” Jaime predicted.
“I am under Marc Gautier’s protection,” I insisted.
“Gautier’s protection is only good if he’s Grandmaster. My guess is that they’re planning a coup for tonight and you’re their first intended assassination target,” Jaime said.
“Me?” I said stupidly. “Of course. Honore needs me gone anyway. Best to start with the Grandmaster’s magical defense.”
“That would be my plan. Kill you and then hit Gautier House.”
“We need to warn them,” I said as I pulled out my cell phone.
“Phones ain’t working. I tried to call you so you wouldn’t even go to Honore’s but couldn’t get a signal. I hung around to warn you or I’d have been at Gautier House by now.”
“Oh, thank you,” I said. It was completely inadequate, but I didn’t know what else to say. I just hoped that staying to warn me had not cost Marc his position. As warned, my phone showed no signal. “Could it just be the Garden District?” I asked.
“Doubt it. If they were smart, the Aether would be blocking communications magically.”
“Is that even possible?” I asked.
“You’ve got an amulet that doesn’t allow the cabbie to hear us,” Jaime pointed out.
“Good point,” I said.
The late-night traffic in the French Quarter was practically nonexistent, and the trip took only a few minutes. When the cab pulled up in front of the mansion, I paid the driver and we got out. The house was eerily quiet, and I fought back the terror that threatened to seize me.
Calm down! You just left the coven. Whatever they are planning, they could not have done it yet. My rational mind was able to calm my irrational fears that the worst had already happened and I was too late. Jaime and I hurried to the front entrance and rang the bell. There was no answer. “Courtyard?” I suggested.
“Go check. I’ll stay here and see if anyone comes.”
I walked quickly around the house to the courtyard. The guard normally at the gate was absent. I was beginning to have serious doubts that anyone was home, but I had never known the house to be left unguarded. I could sense no auras in the house. I cautiously sent out tendrils of magic in search of anyone inside the house. I could find no one.
I checked my phone again but still there was no service. I walked back around to the front of the house. “There is no one here,” I said.
“I’ve never known this house to be unguarded. Ever,” Jaime said.
“Could the family just be away?” I asked.
“There should still be guards.”
“Maybe Josh knows what’s going on,” I said.
“If anybody knows, it’s him,” Jaime conceded.
“I’m going to go to The Cowboy and see if I can find him. Stay here. I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I said. I could see that Jaime wanted to argue with me, but leaving Gautier House unattended was not really an option. I wasn’t sure what she could do if all the Aether converged on the house, but at least we would know.
Glad I had worn sensible shoes in case of trouble, I walked the four blocks to The Cowboy at a brisk pace. Once I was on Bourbon, I noticed several people also having problems with their phones. I wove my way through the still-congested street, wondering if these humans ever slept, and worried they would be caught in the crossfire if there really was a coup attempt.
The Cowboy was crowded when I arrived and there were more women than I expected to see at a gay bar. It took me several minutes to gain the bartender’s attention and ask for Josh. The dark-haired man nodded to the spiral staircase in the corner. “Upstairs, last door on the left.”
I thanked him and pushed my way through the crowd. The noise was deafening. The music was so loud; I wondered how Josh stood it. The metal stairs thrummed to the beat of the music underneath my feet. There was no one in the upstairs hallway, and I followed it to the end. Knocking loudly at the door, I waited to be let in.
I was about to knock again, unsure if I had been heard the first time, when Josh opened the door. Smiling broadly, he drew me into the office and kissed me deeply. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, darlin’! I thought you were gonna call me when your meeting was over?” he said.
Slightly breathless from his attentions, I said, “I tried, but the phones do not seem to be working.”
“Huh,” he said as he pulled out his iPhone and tapped the screen. “That’s weird. We always have cell service in the Quarter.”
The room was much quieter than outside, and I was again able to concentrate on why I was here. “I think the Aether may be planning a coup against the Grandmaster,” I blurted out without ceremony.
“What?” Josh asked.
“I think the Aether are planning a coup,” I said slowly and distinctly in English, thinking that in my excitement I had lapsed into French or Creole patois.
“I heard you the first time. I’m just trying to get my mind wrapped around what you said. Why do you think so? Did you hear something at your meeting?” Josh asked.
I shook my head. “I never made it to the meeting. Jaime met my cab in the Garden District and told me there were already twenty-one foreign Aether in the house.”
Josh picked up the receiver of his desk phone and put it to his ear. “Shit! Line’s dead.”
“We went to Gautier House first before I came here. There was no one there,” I explained.
“Marc, Gabe, and Sophie are previewing the new collection at a special private showing at NOMA,” Josh said. “Wait. No one?”
“No one. No guards or other family members. I left Jaime there to watch the house.”
“That house is never left unguarded,” Josh said as he grabbed his wallet and keys off his desk. “Something is real wrong. I can account for the family not being there, but there is always a guard contingent. It is the New Orleans seat of power.”
“What are we going to do?” I asked.
“We’re gonna find Marc, Gabe, and Sophie. Then we’re gonna figure out what is going on.”
I followed Josh from his office, back downstairs. He stopped to briefly speak to the bartender and then took me by the arm and led me outside. “My car is back at the house. Since it’s only three blocks away, I leave the courtyard parking for my employees,” Josh explained as we walked down Bourbon Street toward Burgundy.
“What if we are wrong? About the coup, I mean? What if I’ve given more credence to Jaime’s theory because I always think the worst of Honore?” I asked Josh.
He stopped walking, so I did, too. Turning to look at me, Josh asked, “Do you think you are wrong? What’s your gut telling you?”
“That I am sure they are planning something. If not a coup, then something worse. There is no other explanation for all the foreign Aether,” I said.
“That’s good enough for me,” Josh said and resumed walking. “I trust your instincts on this, Juliette.”
I desperately wanted us to be wrong about this, but I knew in my he
art that we weren’t. There would be a battle tonight. I just hoped we weren’t too late.
“Is it getting colder?” Josh asked as he rolled down the sleeves of his red cotton shirt and buttoned them at the wrists.
“Yes, I believe it is,” I said, noticing the unseasonably cool temperature. I did not think much else about it until several minutes later as Josh eased the car onto Esplanade toward the art museum.
“What is that?” I asked indicating the white flurry of precipitation that drifted from the sky.
“I’ll be damned. It’s snow,” Josh said.
“Snow?” While I had seen snow the year I was in France, I had never seen it in New Orleans.
“Don’t happen a lot, and it certainly don’t happen the first week in October. This ain’t natural. Whatever your coven is up to, they’re messing with the weather to do it.”
I thought this all an ominous portent of what the rest of the night held in store for us.
EVEN THOUGH THE ride was not long, it seemed to take forever. I was scared and jumpy by the time we pulled into the NOMA parking lot. The road conditions had become dangerous as the snow had fallen. The car slid numerous times on the pavement, and Josh, not accustomed to driving in snow, often overcompensated, making the skid worse. We hit ice in the parking lot and spun 360 degrees. Josh brought the car to a halt in the middle of the nearly empty lot before looking at me. “You okay, Juliette?”
I had a white-knuckle grip on the arm rest. “I can take solace in the fact that if you get us killed, that will deprive Honore the pleasure of doing it herself.”
Josh laughed. “Yeah, if you can joke like that, you’re fine. Sorry about the ride. I don’t think I’ve ever driven in snow before.”
“I would never have noticed,” I said dryly. I pried my fingers away from the door handle. My nails had left gouges in the soft leather. I almost felt bad.
The snow was quickly accumulating on the ground as I stepped out of the car onto somewhat shaky legs. I could not tell if it was Josh’s driving, facing the Grandmaster, or the possible coup that made me weak-kneed. It was probably a combination of all three.
Parked properly, a short distance away, were four dark Mercedes sedans that I recognized as Gautier cars.
Josh took my hand as we crossed the circular driveway and mounted the front steps. The marble stairs were slippery, but we gained the covered entrance without falling.
“How are we going to get in?” I asked. “There is still no cell service.”
“There should be a guard by the front door,” Josh told me. He was correct. Not only was there the normal museum guard, but also Bernard Lescaux, Marc’s bodyguard.
Bernard stepped forward and let us in the main entrance. Instantly alert, he asked, “Mr. Bouchard, Madame Grammont, has something happened?”
“Did you leave guards posted at Gautier House when you left?” I asked.
Bernard looked at me strangely. “Of course. The house is always guarded. I left ten men on duty.”
“They are no longer there,” I informed him.
“What do you mean?”
“When I arrived there less than an hour ago, there was no one,” I said.
“No one? Why didn’t you call?” he demanded.
“No phone or cell service anywhere in the city,” Josh said. “We need to find Marc and Gabe. Do you know which gallery they’re in?”
“Yes, follow me.” Bernard led us upstairs to a small side gallery. Marc, Gabe, Sophie, Chris, and Mike Angelletti, along with Gabe’s girlfriend, Sara Hamilton, were there. Marc and Sophie were engrossed in conversation about a piece of art. Gabe, ever alert and probably bored to tears, noticed our entrance into the room. After a word to Sara, he walked quickly towards us.
“What’s goin’ on? Has there been another attack?” he asked.
“Not yet, but I think a bigger attack is imminent,” Josh answered.
“Whaddya mean? An all-out werewolf assault on the city?”
Josh shook his head. “Worse. Phones are out and there are twenty-one foreign Aether in town. Juliette thinks they’re plannin’ a coup. Oh, and it’s snowing.”
Gabe raised an eyebrow, taking this all in.
“Madame Grammont also reports that the house guards are missing,” Bernard added.
“Missing? Shit!” Gabe swore.
By now our appearance had been noticed by the Grandmaster and his steward. They hurried over, clearly worried. Seeing them, Gabe said, “We got problems at the house and probably in the city.”
“What sort of problems?” Marc asked.
The night’s amusements clearly over, everyone gathered in the central gallery, and I began my story. I explained the large number of foreign Aether gathering at Honore’s ostensibly for the coven meeting and that Jaime had stopped me from going inside.
“I wanted to go in and find out what they were planning, but Jaime convinced me it was too dangerous.”
“She was right,” Marc said. “Where is she now?”
“I left her at Gautier House. When we realized that no one was home and the guards were missing, I did not want to leave the house unwatched. I doubt she can prevent the Aether from gaining entrance all by herself, but I thought it better to leave her there.”
Marc nodded. “Wise idea.”
“Phone service, both cell and landlines, is out,” Josh said.
“Cutting communications is a first step in any coup,” Gabe noted.
“It is also snowing,” I said.
“Snowing?” Marc and Sophie asked at the same time.
I nodded gravely.
“It’s October. It can’t be snowing!” Gabe declared.
“It is,” I said.
“Do we have any idea what it means?” Sophie asked.
I shook my head and Josh said, “Can’t be good.”
“We need to get back to the house,” Marc said. “We can figure all this out there.”
Chapter 18
THE RIDE BACK to Gautier House was even more harrowing than the trip to the museum had been.
The large, fluffy flakes of earlier had given way to a blinding snow storm. I supposed I should be glad. The storm would force the humans inside and hopefully out of the crossfire of the impending coup. If I’d had any doubts before, the worsening weather convinced me that the Aether did, indeed, plan a change in New Orleans’s leadership.
The roads were quickly becoming impassable and slowed our progress to a crawl. Even in such a short amount of time, the accumulation of snow was significant. Luckily we were the only cars on the road as we slowly caravanned back to Gautier House.
As the cars turned onto Royal, the courtyard gate opened. The lead car did not stop but instead proceeded into the yard. I tensed and nearly allowed panic to seize me. “Who opened the gate?” I asked.
“Probably Jaime. Don’t worry. Gabe wouldn’t have pulled in unless he recognized who was at the gate.”
I was more worried that he had recognized whoever had opened the gate but had proceeded anyway. I mentally chastised myself. Gabe was reckless, but never with his brother’s life. When we pulled in behind the other four cars, I saw that it was indeed Jaime. I wondered why I had not felt her. Actually still could not feel her. At least until I opened the car door. Then I felt not only Jaime but three other Gatekeepers, including the Master Gatekeeper, as well. I would need to ask Josh later if the car somehow interfered with feeling auras, but there were more important concerns at hand. At least Jaime found reinforcements. At least I hoped they were reinforcements. I had a sudden panicked thought that they might be behind the coup but quickly dismissed it. They would have brought more than four to take the house.
Before the gate slid closed behind us, I saw Mike, Chris, and one of the guards on the street outside, hurrying in differ
ent directions for help. It was decided back at the museum that once we reached the house, the three men would leave on foot to get help from the Salamands, Undines, and Gnomes. Even if we’d had the extra people, it would have been pointless to send envoys to the other covens. As Josh had pointed out, he was the only Sylph worth anything in a fight, and it was the Aether mounting the coup.
Marc was already deep in conversation with the Master Gatekeeper, Nicholas Remy, when Josh and I approached. I bowed low to both men. They returned the acknowledgment but did not interrupt their conversation.
“I would have brought more help but dare not leave the church unguarded. With all of the demon activity, it was too dangerous. Plus, I did not want anyone to think we were trying to take over,” Gatekeeper Remy explained.
“I appreciate whatever you can offer. I am hoping that we can get some loyal forces here quickly. I do worry where the original guard contingent has disappeared to. I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all,” Marc said.
“We should get you inside, Marc,” Gabe said. “We’ll secure the perimeter and figure out the rest later.”
“I agree,” Josh said and ushered the men inside.
We did not move too far into the interior of the house since I wanted to keep an eye on the courtyard. After a quick discussion, Gabe deployed our pitiful manpower to strategic positions around Gautier House. Even with the four Gatekeepers to bolster our numbers, we only had fourteen people to hold the entire house until Chris and Mike arrived with reinforcements. If they arrived. Nicholas Remy and I were sent to the back courtyard, Josh and Jaime were stationed at the front door, two guards stood sentry on the second-floor balcony, while Gabe and one of the Gatekeepers were just inside the back door. Marc and Sophie were closeted with the two bodyguards in the Grandmaster’s warded office, and everyone else was in strategic sniping positions on the roof.
Even with the Gatekeeper’s magic, we were hopelessly outmanned, outgunned, and most importantly, outmagicked. I was unsure what sort of power the foreign Aether brought, but unless they were all very young and very weak, our chances of survival were slim. While I doubted the Aether hierarchy had brought in vampire mages more powerful than themselves, neither would they bring in neophytes. My guess was they had invited carefully chosen mid-level magic users who would bolster coven strength, but no one with enough innate magic to challenge the existing power structure.
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