by Chloe Neill
Agents hurried out of buildings and alleys toward us, batons raised and ready to meet unyielding flesh.
Curtains snapped closed as Paras who’d stopped their business to watch ducked inside again, made themselves invisible. They were interested in this human skirmish, but didn’t want any part of a Containment investigation.
The agents rushed forward, surrounding the Paras and yelling orders until they were on the ground facedown, hands behind their heads.
“Solomon will hear about this!” the first Para muttered.
“Yeah,” Liam muttered. “From me.”
• • •
A few Containment agents escorted Solomon’s men to some unseen part of Devil’s Isle too depressing for me to even imagine. Two others asked us questions about the fight—who’d started it, what it was about. Not surprisingly, Liam didn’t give them much, and they sent us on our way pretty quickly.
We didn’t see a single Para on the walk back. Either it had gotten too late even for them, or they’d decided they were better off inside—away from Solomon’s men and Containment.
When we reached the gate, Liam retrieved his weapon. I expected to say my good-byes, but as we passed through the gate, and even as I felt some of the pressure in my chest loosen, he fell into step beside me.
“You don’t have to walk me home,” I said halfheartedly. It had been a while since I needed to fight someone, and now I’d done it twice in one night. I didn’t need protecting, but that was enough to push me off balance. I wouldn’t mind the company.
Liam didn’t buy the bravado—or didn’t care about it. “Tonight, you have an escort.”
We walked silently down the street. “Will Solomon give you more trouble?”
“Solomon always gives me trouble. He’s a long-term problem.”
“Why doesn’t Containment handle him?”
“Because he’s an asset. He has information. And when you’re dealing with enemies on your own soil, you’ll put up with a lot to get good information. Someday, he’ll run his mouth off to the wrong person. Until then, I’ll deal with it.”
I didn’t doubt that one bit. Liam Quinn didn’t seem the type to shy away from conflict.
“Probably not the way you expected War Night to go,” he said.
“No, not exactly. I spent time with my friends before the wraiths, at least.” I stopped, looked at him. “I saw you in the Quarter. We took a break, and you were on the sidewalk.”
He went silent, and I would have given a handful of District tokens to know what was spinning around in his head.
“You came out of the crowd like a dervish,” he finally said. “All that red hair flying around.”
“You have a way with words. I’m not saying it’s a good way, but it definitely could be described as a ‘way.’”
He grinned. “Dervish,” he said again. “I think that would make a good nickname for you.”
“No.” And since I’d enjoyed his manly grin a little too much, I changed the subject to something that would definitely keep my mind off it. “So, Blythe. She’s your girlfriend?”
“Not anymore.” He ran a hand through his hair, biceps flexing with the move. “But it’s a long story, and I didn’t want to get into that with Eleanor. She worries.”
“Ah.” I suspected Eleanor didn’t have anything to worry about where Liam Quinn was concerned, but I kept that to myself.
And when he lowered his arm and that muscle flexed again, I ignored that, too.
• • •
The night had been so weird I half expected to find the shop door open, the shelves looted. It wouldn’t be the first time. A few months after the war ended, we had an unusually cold December. It was too cold to plant anything, and there were virtually no shipments into the Zone. One night, someone broke in, ransacked the store for the few MREs that were left. They’d shattered one of the front windows, knocked over antiques, left a general mess in their frustrated search for food. It being the Quarter, half a dozen folks showed up the next morning to get things in order again. And it wasn’t long after that that the convoys began moving supplies through the Zone.
Tonight, the store was intact, locked, and quiet. The tree limb and broken sign were gone, as was any sign of the wraiths I’d fought.
“I’ll let you know about Nix,” Liam said. “I’m going to try to get her here sooner rather than later.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
We looked at each other for a few seconds. I found it suddenly so odd that I hadn’t even known this man existed a few hours ago. A wraith attack, his intervention, a Containment interview, a trip into Devil’s Isle, and everything that had gone on there. We’d gone from strangers to strange allies. And considering how we’d done it, it wasn’t as horrible as it could have been.
“Thank you for your help tonight. But maybe next time you could just knock on the door instead of breaking in?”
One corner of his lip curled. “The door was unlocked.”
“So you say.”
“I do say.” He crossed his arms, his muscles cording with the movement.
I nodded. Silence fell, and it fell awkwardly. I had no idea what to say or do.
“Well,” I said, breaking through the quiet when I couldn’t stand it anymore. “Good night, Liam Quinn.”
He looked at me, blinked those long lashes. “Good night, Claire Connolly.”
One last look, one last sweep of coal over cobalt, and as dawn broke over New Orleans he turned and began the walk back down Royal, back toward the prison at the other end of the street.
It had been an important night. A night that I knew would change everything.
I was no longer on the outside of magic—pretending to be just the same as everyone else. I’d stepped across the line. I wasn’t yet sure how far I’d stepped, but I was certain I’d find out soon enough.
I thought of Liam’s steel-eyed stare, the straight jaw and broad shoulders, the relaxed smile he’d shared only with Eleanor, and wondered what he thought about as he walked through the breaking dawn. I wondered if the night had been important to him, too.
I turned back to the door, unlocked it, and pushed it slowly open. Just in case, I stood quietly in the threshold darkness for a moment, ears straining for Containment agents in wait, or wraiths looking for their next battle.
But the store was wonderfully, gloriously silent.
I locked the door, grabbed the go bag, and trudged up the steps to the second floor, where I tucked it back into the armoire.
I made it to the third floor just as a rectangle of sunlight began to creep across the floor. Today was Sunday, so the store wouldn’t open until noon. Unfortunately, Sundays were also convoy days, so I’d have to sign and unpack boxes earlier than that.
I’d probably end up looking like I hadn’t slept a wink. But since War Night meant most of the people left in New Orleans wouldn’t have slept much, at least I wouldn’t have to explain anything.
The third-floor apartment was a studio, with old oak floors and brick walls, the bathroom in the middle, floor-to-ceiling windows on both ends. The front windows opened to a balcony that faced Royal; the back opened to the courtyard behind the building.
I’d kept the furniture simple: a tufted daybed with tall wooden ends, an armoire, a chest of drawers, an oak table and chairs. I’d put candles and hurricane lamps on the window ledge near my bed, stood a ten-foot-tall antique mirror along one wall in front of an antique rug that had been worn as soft as silk.
In times like these, I was living in luxury.
The apartment was stuffy. Night hadn’t managed to burn off the heat of the day before, but I was too tired to care. I pulled off my clothes, slid into a nightgown, and fell face-first onto the bed.
I was asleep in an instant.
CHAPTER EIGHT
My wake-up call came too quickly, and with a slap of sound. The War Night cleanup crew was brushing paper flowers and Drink cups off the streets by ten a.m.
Thankfully, that w
as two hours later than usual. But they were singing, and not very well, and the sound rumbled through the old windows.
I wasn’t a morning person on the best of days, and today I was exhausted all the way around.
“Damn it,” I murmured, and pulled the quilt over my head. I was just drifting back to sleep when Gunnar’s voice echoed up the stairs.
“Claire? Are you up there?”
I damned myself for giving him an emergency key. “Go away. I need my beauty sleep.”
There was clomping on the stairs. I uncovered my head, pushed the hair from my eyes. Gunnar walked in, perfectly groomed in the gray fatigues the Commandant preferred of his civilian employees. For a man who’d probably gotten as little sleep as I did, he looked pretty amazing. No swollen eyes, no slightly nauseated post-Drink tint to his skin.
“Do you know what day it is?” I grumbled.
“It’s Sunday.”
“Yeah. So I should be sleeping late. Why are you here so early? And why do you look so good?”
“Beauty sleep. And I need to get some things done at the office today.” No one had told Gunnar the pace of life had slowed in the Zone after the war. If there was work to be done, he’d by God do it early.
“You’re crazy.”
“I’m busy. And in case you weren’t aware, there’s a line of eligible bachelors outside your front door with luxurious bubble bath and scented candles.”
I groaned, considered burrowing into the blankets again. “Your cruel, cruel lies won’t get me out of bed.”
“Yeah, that was mean,” he said, and sat down on the edge of the daybed. “You got home okay?”
I hadn’t had time to decide what to tell Tadji and Gunnar about last night. I couldn’t tell them I’d been in Devil’s Isle without telling them about the magic. And I didn’t want to tell them about the wraiths, because they’d freak out. I loved Gunnar like a brother. But he could be a smidge on the overprotective side.
On the other hand, Containment had interviewed me. I was in the official record, and it was probably better that he hear it from me.
I sat up, pushed my hair behind my ears. “You have to promise not to freak out.”
“Your saying something like that guarantees I’m going to freak out.”
“Two wraiths attacked a girl near the Supreme Court building. I chased them off, and Containment came to the store to talk to me and a bounty hunter named Liam Quinn.”
Gunnar blinked. “Slow down, and give that to me again from start to finish.”
I ran him through it again, from War Night to wraiths. And when I was done, he did not look impressed.
“What in God’s name convinced you to hit a wraith? You should have run. God, I should never have let you walk home alone.” He looked stricken.
“The girl needed help. I wasn’t about to leave her there helpless. And it was War Night. Containment wasn’t exactly in a hurry.” Which worked out just fine for me.
“They probably thought it was a false alarm,” Gunnar said. “Someone in costume, or too drunk to tell fact from fiction.” He sighed, looked at me. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“So am I.”
“Unfortunately, the wraith situation clearly hasn’t improved.”
I managed not to grimace. “Does Containment think it’s getting worse?”
Gunnar frowned. “I haven’t seen any official numbers, but it does seem like we’re hearing about them more often. Two wraiths together are definitely rare. Maybe I’ll take a look at the investigation report.”
I nodded. “I’d like to know if they found the wraiths. I’d feel safer.” That, at least, was absolutely true. “Maybe let’s talk about something more pleasant. How’s Burke?”
Gunnar shrugged. “I’m not really sure. He and Tadj got along, but you know she’s guarded. I’m not really sure what she’s feeling, and she certainly didn’t confess anything to me. He seems like good people, though. Very old-school gentleman vibe. Corny sense of humor. I don’t think she’s sold on him yet. But I don’t know.”
“I’ll talk to her tonight.” It was Sunday night, which meant it was dinner night. “Now go away so Cinderella can get into her gown.”
“Cinderella didn’t wear taupe. And she had fairy godmothers and a Prince Charming.”
“I have a store, a lemon tree, and the Commandant’s chief adviser.”
“That is true.” He stood up. “I’ll see you tonight. I invited Burke, if that’s all right.”
“Wait—why did you invite Burke if Tadji’s not into him?”
“Because I like him.” He frowned. “I don’t have many male friends. I need more male friends.”
“Because Tadji and I only want to talk about princesses and ponies?”
Gunnar grunted. “You know what I mean. And he offered to bring red beans and rice. I couldn’t exactly say no to that.”
I looked at Gunnar suspiciously. “He’s not from New Orleans. Does he know how to make it?”
Gunnar shrugged. “He says he can. I say we give him a chance. And since it was your turn to cook, and it doesn’t look like you’ve started anything . . .”
He had a point there. “Fine,” I said. “But if this dinner goes sideways, it’s your responsibility to turn it around again.”
He made a gallant bow. “At your service, ma’am,” he said, and disappeared into the stairwell.
• • •
I got dressed. Today’s ensemble was ankle boots, a short skirt, and a flowy button-down shirt, all of them in taupe. Gunnar’s opinion aside, it was about blending. Especially now, when blending seemed like the best course.
I walked downstairs, flipped on the lights in the kitchenette . . . and nothing happened. I rolled my eyes, checked my watch, made a mental note to try again in ten or fifteen minutes. Power outages usually didn’t last very long. It was the frequency that was irritating. There were members of Congress who’d suggesting moving everyone out of the Zone, bulldozing the area, and layering on new soil from consecrated grounds. That, they assured us, would fix the problem, and we could all get back to normal.
The idea was stupid. And I guess, in a way, we’d gotten used to it. I’d been a normal teenager before the war, and I’d had my own share of gadgets. And yeah, they’d been a crutch, a way for me to tune in or zone out instead of thinking about whatever high school angst I’d been dealing with. In the beginning, it was weird not to have them anymore. But you learned to adjust. And you certainly learned to focus on the stuff in front of you.
I found my usual delivery guy, Trey, outside the back door in his fatigues, fanning himself with his clipboard in the heat. He worked for Containment, distributing across the Quarter the goods that had arrived in the Containment convoy. He stood beside the old mail truck Containment had refashioned into a delivery vehicle that could easily maneuver through the Quarter’s narrow alleys.
“Already a scorcher today,” he said.
“Extra hot this year,” I agreed. “You get to take War Night off?”
“Whole city took the night off. Wife and I had a great time. A little too much Drink, not enough water yet this morning to shake it off.”
“I always forget you’re married,” I said with a grin.
“Fourteen years of bliss. Ida hates me today as much as she hated me the day we were married.”
The truck’s back door was open. He looked over the boxes and their Containment seals, counted them, filled in something on his clipboard.
“What have you got for me today?”
“MREs, big surprise. Nutrition bars. Water. Powdered milk. Soap. Nylon cord. Batteries. Duct tape.” He looked up at me. “You know what they say.”
I grinned at him. “The French built New Orleans; duct tape rebuilt it.”
“That’s it,” he said, nodding. “Looks like also some oatmeal, dried potatoes. Oh, and a treat.”
My eyes lit up. “A treat?”
He handed me the clipboard, climbed into the truck. I signed my name on the lin
e at the bottom, promising to pay Containment for the goods within thirty days.
A minute later, he emerged with a small foam cooler.
That meant something cold. And that meant something perishable.
I squealed when I exchanged the clipboard for the cooler. It was heavy. Cold, perishable, heavy. These were good signs.
“Give me one more box,” I said. “I can carry two, and I want to get this inside.”
Trey set another box on top of the first, grabbed his own, and followed me into the store. I put them both on a library table near the door, slipped the tape on the foam with a fingernail. I lifted the lid, felt the cool rush of ice.
“What is it?” Trey asked, almost reverentially. Containment, being military and feds, had access to plenty of food and supplies. But treats were rare—and that much more awesome.
I pulled out the frozen gel pack, felt around for the contents, and grinned. I pulled out eight boxes of unsalted butter.
“It’s a War Night miracle,” I said, nearly tearing up with excitement.
“Damn,” Trey said. “I haven’t seen that much butter in a long time.”
A memory tickled, of my father baking cookies in our small kitchen for some holiday or other. There were mounds of pale yellow butter in a wide crockery bowl, and he was stirring it with a wooden spoon. If we had butter, life was almost normal. And these days, almost normal was pretty exceptional.
In the silence that had fallen across the store, I put the butter back in the box, stuffed in the gel packs.
“More reliable than the fridge,” Trey said quietly.
“Sad, but true.” I glanced at him, took in the dark skin, round face, brow now furrowed with regret. Trey was in his forties, so he’d seen even more of prewar life than I had. He’d had more to lose.
“I can put aside a stick or two for you if you want to grab it when you get off shift.”
Something crossed his face, like he was trying to shake off the melancholy, and he smiled a little. “Too rich for my blood. The taste,” he clarified before I could make him a better offer. “Don’t want to get used to something like that these days. I nearly prefer not to have it than for it to be taken away.”