by Chloe Neill
“Seven months ago.” He moved forward, stood beside me as he looked over the board he’d created. “She was only ten when the war started. She survived that, only to be killed by a wraith.” He pointed to a star near in the Garden District. “She was killed here. The rest of the black dots represent other wraith attacks. I’ve been tracking them.”
They were scattered randomly across the city, with no pattern that I could see. “And what have you learned from that?”
“We’re supposed to believe wraiths don’t think. That they’re violent, aggressive, and will attack whoever’s closest. But attacks are increasing. There have been twenty-four attacks in New Orleans in the past four months alone. And they’re becoming more complicated.”
The hair on the back of my neck lifted, his words spurring a memory. “What do you mean ‘more complicated?’”
“I think they’re showing more independent thought. More planning. Scoping out prey. Attacking in pairs, like the wraiths tonight. Killing together.”
I opened my mouth, nearly said what I’d seen, but couldn’t get past the fact that it seemed insane.
But Liam didn’t miss much. His gaze narrowed, evaluated. “Did you see something?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I watched the tape, and I didn’t see anything. So maybe I just imagined it.”
“Just tell me.”
I felt ridiculous saying it, but made myself put it out there. “Before I went into the alley, they looked like they were communicating—verbalizing, I mean—about strategy. Making a decision of some kind, and then acting on it. One going one way, one going the other.”
Liam frowned, crossed his arms. “I didn’t see that on the video, either.”
I nodded. “Maybe I imagined it. I don’t know. It happened really fast.”
“Do you think you imagined it?”
I sighed. “No.” I paused. “I think they were communicating. But doesn’t that sound crazy?”
“Unfortunately, no. It doesn’t. Something is changing. I just don’t know what.”
I nodded, feeling a little bit less ridiculous, and looked back at the board and the picture of the girl who’d lost her life before it really began.
“You were a bounty hunter before you started looking for her killer.” I looked back at him. “But now you have a different reason to understand them.”
His eyes were the color of a dark and deadly sea. “She shouldn’t have died.” His voice carried a hard edge of guilt. “I want it to matter that she did. That’s what I can do for her. I can find out what’s happening, and I can stop it.”
And here he was, consorting with a Sensitive. The root of the evil that had taken his sister.
We’d both known love and loss, had fought through it. I worked in the store every day to remind me of what had been, to keep that reality alive. He worked every day to give some meaning to her loss.
“I really miss my dad, too.”
I didn’t mean to say the words. Certainly hadn’t meant to say them to him, to this man I’d only known for a few hours, on a night that was meant for living, not grieving. But there they were.
I felt Liam’s gaze on me, but I kept my eyes on the lines and squares that made up the French Quarter on the map in front of me.
“He died?”
“Right before the war ended. He was hurt the night of the Battle of Port Allen. There was a second, smaller attack in the Quarter.”
“I remember. It was near the Old Mint.”
I nodded. “He wasn’t a fighter, but the troops were spread thin because of Port Allen, so he and some others went down to help. The battle was chaotic. He was shot.”
“With an arrow?”
I looked up at him. “With a bullet.”
Liam’s eyebrows lifted. He understood quickly. Paras didn’t use guns; why bother, when you had magic? Which meant he’d been shot by a human.
“Friendly fire,” I said. “There’d been no power, no moon, no lights, and the troops were surrounded. Things got confused. Anyway, they treated him for the gunshot wound, and he seemed to be healing just fine.”
“And then?” he asked when I paused.
“Blood clot, they thought from the shot. There weren’t many doctors left in the clinic then.”
“I’m sorry.”
I nodded. “He’s the reason why I stay in the store.” I glanced back at the wall. “And she’s the reason why you’re making sure I get help.”
“That’s part of it.” He reached out, adjusted a photograph so it hung levelly. “Sensitives, on their own, aren’t inherently dangerous, any more than Paras are. They’re only potentially dangerous. Containment doesn’t care for that distinction.” He glanced at me. “I do. That’s why I don’t take them in.” He paused. “The first time I met a Sensitive, I was expecting a monster.” There was amusement in his voice.
“And that’s not what you found?”
He smiled now, turned to face me, leaning a hip on the desk. “No. Forty-two-year-old husband and father of six. Lived with the mom, the kids, in an abandoned house uptown. His crime? Green thumb.”
“That was his power?”
Liam nodded, spread his hands. “Fourteen-foot-high corn. Watermelons big as a microwave.”
I grinned, equally impressed and jealous. “Damn. I have a plot at the Florissant garden, but my thumb is barely green. So what happened?”
“Unfortunately, he’d attracted attention. Containment was aware of him, so he couldn’t stay in New Orleans without being in Devil’s Isle. I helped him pack up, drove him and the family into the bayous.” Liam paused. “He wasn’t the only one.”
“That’s technically treason.”
“It was treason,” he agreed, looking at me. “But sometimes it’s worth it.”
For a moment, we stood beside each other in silence, shoulder to shoulder, with death staring back at us. And for the second time that night, something shifted. Something between us—like we’d crossed that barrier from strangers to friends of some type. The link forged, and the moment passed, and the air seemed to clear again.
“Anyway, that was before I started hunting. Once I did that, I met other Paranormals, other Sensitives. They weren’t wraiths—or anything close to it—so I figured there must have been a reason for that. They told me magic could be regulated, controlled.”
It was information Containment could have gotten, had they bothered to try. That was the most frustrating part.
Liam sighed. “You ever wonder why we didn’t leave? Start over outside the Zone?”
“Because memories are the most powerful chains,” I said.
He looked surprised by my answer. “That’s right on the mark.”
“Between stocking batteries and dusting antiques, I have a lot of time to think.” I nodded toward his display. “So you think something’s up with the wraiths. If they’re changing, why?”
It took him a moment, but he turned his attention back to the wall. “Well, maybe different people are becoming wraiths. Or they’re becoming wraiths differently.”
I frowned. “Is that possible? I mean—it’s just a biological process, right? It’s the effect of too much magic breaking down the mind, the body.”
Liam shook his head, rolled his shoulders and neck to relieve tension. “I don’t know. Every theory is really just a guess about what’s happening. I just don’t have enough information. It doesn’t help that Containment won’t pursue it—because that would require the feds to acknowledge it’s possible to regulate magic.”
He looked at the wall for another moment. “Well, standing around here isn’t going to do anything. Let’s get down to business.”
“Which is what, exactly?”
“I’ve got someone else for you to meet. The first step on your road to successful magical maintenance.”
Well, I did like steps, at least.
• • •
Liam grabbed a paper bag from his kitchen, then locked up the apartment and headed downstairs ag
ain. I followed him outside, and to the building next door—the one with the long balcony.
“The person we’re going to see lives next door?”
“She does.”
“It’s late,” I said, the sky still dark, although morning would be dawning soon enough.
“She doesn’t sleep much.”
I followed him up the sidewalk and to the black front door with a large brass knocker in the shape of a fox’s head. He opened the door, held it open for me to follow him.
The first floor, several large rooms with oak floors and wallpapered walls, was empty of furniture. The walls were marked by dark shadows of smoke and ash, the floor smeared with it. Long streaks and smudges, as if battle had taken place there.
I left Liam in the foyer, walked into the front room. It was a large parlor, had probably once held fancy sofas for visitors, uncomfortable armchairs.
A whimper sounded somewhere deeper in the house.
My first instinct was to crouch. I had no idea why—what would crouching do if an unfriendly Para was pounding down the hallway?
I heard the click of nails on wood, and a big yellow dog—a Lab, probably—trotted onto the threshold, froze there, and stared at me.
It had been months since I’d seen a dog. There wasn’t much food to go around in the Zone, so having a pet to feed wasn’t easy. I liked dogs, but I was smart enough to be careful around them. Slowly, I crouched, offered a hand for sniffing, and waited for him to come to me.
He padded carefully forward, one step at a time, until he reached me. He sniffed my hand with a rough, wet nose, then nuzzled his head against my palm. And just like that, we were friends.
“Hey, boy. Are you an ear man or a neck man?” I scratched his neck beneath his faded collar, grinned when his rear foot began to slap rhythmically at the floor. “And we have a winner.”
“Foster, you are a fickle friend.”
Foster’s head came up at the sound of Liam’s voice. He saw him, galloped forward, and sat down, head on his paws. He whimpered.
“Don’t let him fool you,” Liam said, bending down to offer a scratch. “This is a ploy for attention.”
Liam opted for Foster’s ears, and the dog’s tail thumped heavily on the worn oak floor.
Maybe there was more to Liam than the gruff exterior. After all, a dog this nice couldn’t like a jerk, could he?
When Liam stood up again, Foster rolled onto his back, scratched it against the wooden floor with little piggy grunts of pleasure.
“He is a dog, right?”
“Forty percent Lab. Thirty percent cat. Thirty percent porcine something or other.”
Foster rolled over again, stood, and shook from nose to tail with a delicious shiver. Then he sat down again and stared up at Liam, waiting for affection, instructions, or snacks. He caught sight of the paper bag, made a low whine.
“He’s a clever one.”
“He’s a spoiled one,” Liam said. “You have any pets?”
“No.” I shrugged. “Although I do feed a stray cat in the Quarter now and again.”
“That hardly counts.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
“She’s upstairs,” Liam said. He pointed toward the front door. “Keep an eye on the door, Foster.”
Foster made a sound that was a cross between a grunt and howl, but he rose and trotted to the door, nails clicking, and sat down in front of it.
“He’s a good dog,” I said.
“He is. And part of the family.”
“Do you think there’ll be trouble? I mean, do we really need a guard dog?”
His eyes darkened again. “There will always be trouble. The only issues are where, when, and how well you’re prepared for it.”
“You’re such an optimist, Liam.”
I looked up at the new voice, found a woman standing in the hallway with an empty plastic pitcher. She was trim and fit, with short, dark hair and brown eyes and high cheekbones. Her dark skin contrasted against bright blue scrubs.
“Victoria.”
She smiled at him. “Good to see you today.”
“This is Claire. Claire, Victoria. She’s one of Eleanor’s nurses.”
Without hesitation, Victoria walked forward, offered a hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Her hand was cool, her handshake firm. “You, too,” I said.
“How is she?” Liam asked.
“Today’s been a good day. She’s tired, but she ate some soup.” She chuckled. “There weren’t any good pears in the market today, so we didn’t have any at the clinic, and she didn’t get any for lunch. She was most displeased.”
Liam chuckled. “Typical.”
“Yep.”
“She up for visitors?”
“As much as ever. You know she loves to chat.”
Liam nodded. “You heading back to the clinic?”
“Yeah. Finishing up a double, then off tomorrow. I’m actually leaving a little early, but Maria will be here in half an hour or so.”
Liam nodded. “You want an escort back?”
She lifted her shirt to reveal the gun clipped to the waistband of her pants. “Official issue. Drops a peskie at twenty paces.”
“Then stay twenty-one paces ahead of them,” he said. “Have a good night.”
“You too, Liam. You, too.”
Foster didn’t move from his spot in front of the door, so Victoria stepped over him to get outside, and he sat down morosely when she closed the door again.
“The Devil’s Isle clinic,” Liam explained. “She’s on staff.”
That explained why another human seemed to have free rein in Devil’s Isle. Maybe that was precisely the tone the Commandant was trying to set—humans will always be here, and will always be watching.
“What’s a peskie?” I asked him as I followed him to the staircase, which was covered by a tired running carpet.
“Small, flying Paras. Irritating little assholes that like to bite.”
The hallway at the landing led to several closed doors, I guessed bedrooms from the layout of the house. Liam walked to the last one, knocked on the door.
“Come in,” said a soft and faded voice.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Compared to the rest of the house, which was empty and scarred, the room was a palace. It was a large bedroom with high ceilings and large windows. The floors were wood, and nearly every inch was covered in gorgeous woven rugs. The plaster walls had high crown moldings and were painted a warm, dusky green. Gilded frames held portraits of aristocratic men and women Dad would have wept over, and they were still outshone by gorgeous French empire antiques. There was a small bed, a high chest of drawers, and a round table with chairs. Although it was October, the house was still in summer dress, and gauzy white fabrics covered the furniture.
In a high-backed chair near the window sat a woman in a blue dress, a woven shawl in a rainbow of colors draped around her shoulders. Her skin was warmly colored and well wrinkled, her hair cropped and gray, her eyes hauntingly blue. She was a beautiful woman even now, and had probably been stunning in her youth. And I recognized her.
She was Eleanor Arsenault. The Arsenaults were old New Orleans from an even older Creole family. They’d had a mansion on Esplanade and threw big krewe parties every year. Or at least they had before the war ended those traditions.
She looked toward me, then Liam, and she smiled broadly. Her gaze fell near us, but not upon us, as if she couldn’t see precisely where we were. If she could see, it didn’t look like she could see very well.
“Hello, Eleanor,” he said, walking toward her, and pressing his lips to her cheek.
“Hello, darling. How are you?”
“I’m good. I brought you some tea.”
So that’s what had been in the paper bag. I should have snooped. And I should certainly find Quinn’s dealer.
“And how’s your friend?” Eleanor asked. “Your Blythe?”
“She’s . . . fine.”
I gue
ssed Blythe was his girlfriend.
“Mm-hmm,” Eleanor said, and looked at me. “And who is this?”
“Claire Connolly. She works in the Quarter. She’s Sensitive.”
“Ah,” she said, and looked toward me with those hauntingly blue eyes. Toward, but not quite at. Her eyes were focused on something, but I didn’t think it was me.
“I’m Eleanor,” she said with a smile, and patted the arm of her chair. Come sit by me, Claire Connolly.”
I walked toward her, sat down on the small footstool in front of the chair. She held out a hand, and I offered mine. Her skin was cool and soft, and felt as fragile as a bird’s.
“Tell me about yourself, Claire.”
I looked hesitantly between her and Liam. “I’m not sure there’s much to tell.”
“There’s always something to tell. You’re from New Orleans. I can tell from your voice. It’s a lovely voice.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I’m from New Orleans. My father’s family is from here. The Connollys.”
She smiled softly. “No ma’ams are necessary here, dear. We’re already friends if you’ve gotten past Liam, Victoria, and Foster.”
“Liam barked the most.”
Eleanor threw back her head and laughed with gorgeous melody. “So he does, dear. So he does. Now, you said you’re a Connolly. That’s not the Michael Connolly family, is it? The one who ran Royal Mercantile?”
“Michael was my great-grandfather.” He’d emigrated from Ireland. “My father’s name was Mark.”
She nodded. “I believe my family knew both of them. Bought from the store frequently.” Her voice softened. “And is your family still living?”
“No. I mean, not the Connolly side. My dad was the only one left. He’s gone. I didn’t know my mother.”
She made a soft sound of acknowledgment or understanding. “I see. And that makes you the last of your line. Is the store still open?”
“It is. For as long as I can keep it.”
And then it hit me. Because of Liam, I hoped I’d be able to continue running the store, to look forward to a “normal” life, something I thought was impossible only a little while ago.
I looked at him, found his eyes already on me. “Liam helped me tonight. The store will be open tomorrow because he helped me.”