Elysian Fields sono-3

by Suzanne Johnson

  Next, I Googled Ittoqqortoormiit.

  Awesome. It was a remote outpost of Greenland with a maximum daytime temperature of six degrees, which usually occurred in late July. Nine months of the year, the town of less than 500 never got above zero. My future could take place in a home for insane and homicidal wizards, with possible field trips to hunt muskoxen. On the plus side, I’d be so hot-natured the absurd temperatures might feel pleasant.

  Adam’s email had left me depressed and craving pralines, so I made do by adding cream and sugar to my coffee. While waiting for Zrakovi to arrive, I logged onto the Elders’ secure database and clicked on the supplies tab. I was a Green Congress wizard; ordering a good microscope wouldn’t look suspicious.

  I ordered it, paying extra for overnight delivery to the transport in my library. I thought about calling Alex, but no point in telling him until I knew something, especially since he and Ken were going over past cases this morning to show our newest coworker how the enforcers operated (a three-word summary: aim, shoot, kill). Afterward, they’d be devising a plan to investigate the Axeman Deux crimes without tripping over the NOPD.

  My next contribution to the Axeman investigation would be talking to Jean Lafitte, so I’d left a message for “John Lafayette” at the front desk of the Hotel Monteleone that I needed to see him as soon as possible. New Orleans’ most famous pirate— arguably the most famous citizen in her long, storied history— had ensconced himself in the Eudora Welty Suite, paid for with what appeared to be an unending supply of gold he’d either stashed away during his human lifetime or accumulated doing illicit business deals between modern New Orleans and the Beyond. I figured the less I knew about Jean’s business, which also seemed to involve my merman friend Rene Delachaise, the better.

  The buzzer over my office door sounded, and I looked up with a smile for Willem Zrakovi. I liked him. He was bureaucratic and prone to arrogance like any wizard at his level, but also fair. When Gerry had gone rogue, and then died as a consequence, he’d not only been kind to me, he’d given me a promotion.

  Unlike the man walking in the door behind him. My smile faded at the sight of Adrian Hoffman. They made a real Muttand-Jeff pair. Zrakovi was short, dark-suited, and able to blend in with a crowd of downtown bankers having lunch at the Palace Cafe. Hoffman was tall, handsome, and smooth. He looked like Montel Williams after he’d visited an expensive French Quarter jewelry boutique, his shiny shaven head only out-blinged by the diamond studs in his ears. Except I’d never seen Montel Williams wear such a sour expression.

  Zrakovi shook my hand and introduced Hoffman as if we’d never met or, more likely, as if we might need to get off to a new start. Determined to play along, I stuck out a hand and he shook it with a brief smile. Good. We were both going to play nice even though tension and annoyance wafted off him in equal measures, partly because of me and partly because he didn’t like New Orleans.

  Admittedly, my hometown wasn’t to everyone’s taste unless they liked air the consistency of cream soup, funny accents, and a penchant for having parades for every conceivable holiday as well as some that were fairly inconceivable. The last parade I watched honored Naked Bike Ride Day. I was still having nightmares.

  I pointed them to the chairs at a small round conference table, my curiosity piqued. I’d assumed Zrakovi wanted to talk about getting me a research assistant—he’d mentioned the possibility a couple of times before—or maybe he’d gotten wind of prete involvement in the Axeman Deux murders.

  Hoffman’s presence confused me. Zrakovi had dragged him here for his dressing-down in front of me and Alex in my hospital room last month, but I hadn’t talked to him since. I’d thought the man rarely left Elder Central, aka Edinburgh.

  Zrakovi took a cup of coffee, grimaced at the first sip, and politely refrained from commenting. Nobody shared my love of flavored coffees, which meant more for me. Hoffman sat to my left, stiff and expressionless.

  “Let’s get to it then,” Zrakovi said, setting his cup on the table. “We need to discuss the elves.”

  I stifled a groan. Freaking elves. I hadn’t considered that being the subject of his visit.

  “I haven’t been using the staff,” I said. Not much, anyway. Just a couple of small fires easily contained, and a little char on Alex’s mantel. “Do the elves still want to meet with me? Oh, and can you think of any reason an elf or faery might be living in the city and masking his species?”

  I had enough elven DNA to be claimed by Mahout, the ancient staff of the Fire Elves that I’d found in Gerry’s attic after Hurricane Katrina. He hadn’t been able to use it, but it ramped up my ability to do physical magic until I was the equal of a Red Congress wizard—well, a Red Congress wizard with poor control over her powers. It also quickly drew the attention of the elves, who had thought the revered relic no longer existed.

  As soon as they figured out Mahout was the staff I had, they’d begun asking to meet with me. After Zrakovi consulted with the other Elders, he’d ruled that since the staff had claimed me, I had no obligation to return it. Yet they still wanted to talk.

  “I’ve set up a meeting between you and the head of the Synod, Mace Banyan, the Monday after Thanksgiving.” Zrakovi picked up his coffee cup, frowned at it a moment, then set it back on the table. “I’ll be attending as well. We’ll discuss what limitations, if any, they want placed on your use of the staff, but frankly I’m not inclined to give them any concessions. It isn’t as if you’re chasing down elves with it.”

  I hated Mace Banyan, whom I’d met only once. He had tried to scramble my brains when he caught me unawares during a dinner date with Jean Lafitte in the Beyond last month—at least it felt like brain-scrambling. I had no idea what he wanted, but I was sure only Jean’s threat of violence had gotten me away unscathed. Now I figured what he wanted was Mahout, aka Charlie.

  Of course, this meeting might never take place. By the week after Thanksgiving, I could be ensconced in a locked ward in Ittoqqortoormiit—unless my combination of wizard, loup-garou, and elf DNA was determined too dangerous to live.

  “Sure, where and when?” I might as well be optimistic about the wolf thing until I began sprouting whiskers.

  “I suppose we could meet here”—Zrakovi glanced around at the bare walls—“although the ambience is a bit . . . generic. Maybe get someone to decorate for you if you aren’t inclined to do it yourself. Elves can be odd about their surroundings. Two p.m.”

  Well, excuse me for having a life. “I’ve been kind of up to my neck in mermen lately, with no time to worry about office decor.” I kept my expression neutral, but a faint smirk crossed Adrian Hoffman’s lips. What was his role in this? “Will Mr. Hoffman be attending the meeting as well?”

  “No, Adrian’s here for another reason.” Zrakovi beamed from Adrian and back to me, either oblivious to the tension between us or, more likely, willfully ignoring it. “He’s going to instruct you in elven magic and help you hone your use of the staff.”

  Wha? No!

  “Is he an elf?” I refused to look at the man. Instead, I addressed my question to Zrakovi in a calm manner at odds with my inner screaming banshee.

  “Adrian did his master’s-levels in elven magic, which has made him a valuable consultant for the Elders, ” Zrakovi said. “He’s quite the expert. We’re lucky he’s available to teach you.”

  “Yeah. Lucky.” I turned to Hoffman. At least now I knew how he’d made himself valuable to the Elders. “You’ll be staying in New Orleans for a while, then?”

  He finally looked at me directly. “I leased a flat for a month. That should be sufficient time to give you the basics. You asked about an elf or faery hiding in the city—have you met one?”

  Adrian seemed genuinely interested, and I guess if I’d studied for master’s levels on a species as elusive as the elves, it would be exciting to think one of them might be in our midst.

  “I’m not sure. There’s a guy who moved into my neighborhood a month or two ago, and he’s wear
ing peridot jewelry that I was able to tell had been bespelled by a wizard—probably a black-market buy. So he’s hiding what he is.”

  Now that I put it into words, the whole notion that this crunchy-granola nursery owner was an elf or faery in disguise sounded paranoid.

  “Why would you think he was an elf? And how were you able to tell the jewels had been bespelled?” Adrian frowned at me, and Zrakovi leaned forward with interest.

  “I can sense the energy that comes from people and objects. Each species gives off a slightly different energy signature.” This was not a wizard skill, and Adrian’s contempt for my ability to read auras was a major factor in the deaths last month. From the sour look on Adrian’s face, he hadn’t forgotten.

  Zrakovi leaned back and gave me an assessing look. “Reading auras is an elven skill and is one of the reasons I wanted the two of you to work together to see what other abilities DJ has inherited. Adrian, I believe you’re going to find our DJ a very interesting student.”

  Adrian locked his annoyed gaze with mine. “I’m sure.”

  CHAPTER 10

  There was nothing I could do on the loup-garou front, so I spent the next few hours working on the Axeman case. I charted the latest two attacks, which both fit within the walkingdistance radius. But attacks four and five had come so soon after the third that I had to wonder if the Axeman had just killed on one big spree instead of coming back each time from the Beyond. He’d probably be strong enough by now to stay for long periods, and every kill would make him stronger as more people talked about him.

  With Ken now willing to smooth the way, I walked each of the crime scenes, reaching out with my senses to see if I could again sense that bit of energy from a member of the historical undead. Nada. It didn’t hang around long enough.

  Next, I went to the Historic New Orleans Collection and did some research on the Axeman I couldn’t get from the Internet. He had left clothing behind at a few of his original crime scenes, so Jake’s find was consistent with the original killer. The professor on TV had been wrong. What really made the Axeman’s latest spree different is that he’d grown more efficient at killing—several of his victims in 1918 had survived.

  I’d discussed the Axeman case with Zrakovi and Adrian before they left, but thanks to my sort-of friendship with Jean Lafitte, I knew more about the historical undead than they did. Zrakovi planned to call a meeting with the nascent Interspecies Council and ordered the paperwork that would confine the Axeman within the Beyond for the rest of his miserable immortal life . . . once we’d caught him. But the Council had yet to decide how many votes each species got, or how the balance of power would break down. They could be tangled in bureaucracy forever.

  Unfortunately, with the historical undead, the death penalty wasn’t an option, and if my calculations were accurate, the Axeman could kill again as early as tonight. He could do a lot of damage before the Interspecies Council got its act together.

  By midafternoon, I was out of ideas and full of nervous energy that finally sent me out of doors, catching up on yard work I’d neglected all season, raking the small, crunchy leaves from the live oaks into piles a kid would love to play in.

  “Need help?”

  I ignored the voice and counted to ten, hoping it would go away. Instead, Quince Randolph knelt next to a tall pyramid of leaves I’d erected and took the lid off the big green trash can he’d brought with him. He began scooping up armfuls and piling them in the can. “You should compost this down. It would make a good mulch for flowerbeds. Plus you need more color in your landscaping.”

  “What ever.” I didn’t know what mulch was, didn’t care enough to ask, and had such a brown thumb that flowers never survived my gardening efforts. Rand wore a chocolate-brown sweater almost the same color as mine, with jeans in a similar wash. With our comparable shades of long blond hair, we resembled grown-up Bobbsey Twins, except he was prettier. Freddie and Flossie do New Orleans. “Are you here for any particu lar reason?”

  He squinted up at me against the soft afternoon sunlight. “I just want to get to know you better.”

  Uh-huh. I was about to get to know Adrian Hoffman better. That constituted enough challenge for one week. “Tell me what you are, and then we’ll know each other better. I’m betting elf or faery.” I was kind of betting elf—it might explain his interest in me although, thankfully, he’d never shown any inclination to plunder my brain.

  He grinned. “Go to dinner with me and I might tell you.”

  I noted the return of his peridot earrings. Big liar. Superbig cheater. “Where’s Eugenie?”

  A flash of irritation spoiled his perfect features a half second before he answered. “Working. Can we—”

  Whatever he planned to ask, my answer would be no, but he didn’t get a chance because a clomping noise reached us from the direction of Prytania Street. Rand and I both were stricken speechless at the sight of Jean Lafitte sitting like royalty in the back of a gold and white French Quarter tourist carriage. It was being pulled by a light-gray mule wearing a hat festooned with fake flowers and driven by a smiling guy who had no idea how many daggers his undead passenger had hidden on him.

  The ornate carriage rolled to a stop, and the mule flicked an ear at the passing traffic. Those animals pulled tourists around the French Quarter all day, and it would take more than an impatient Toyota driver to rattle one of them. The carriages were also ridiculously expensive if one commissioned a ride outside the Quarter.

  Then again, Jean Lafitte was loaded. The driver probably had a reason to smile.

  Jean exited the carriage with extraordinary grace for such a large man. He was tall, powerfully built, black-haired, cobalt- eyed, a shameless flirt, and talked with a raspy French accent that made me swoon even though he was technically dead. In other words, I had a bit of a problem with Jean Lafitte and my own common sense being present at the same time.

  Jean said a few words to the carriage driver, then turned to prop his hands on his hips in a broad pirate-like stance, giving Rand a disapproving visual once-over. The mule backed up a few awkward steps before pulling the carriage into my driveway. God help me, I hoped Alex didn’t get home in time to see this. I’d never hear the end of it.

  “Do you wish me to rid you of this intruder, Jolie?”

  Rand stood and faced the pirate, and I had to give the man—thing, elf, faery, whatever—credit for going toe-to- toe against Jean without a flinch of hesitation. “If she wants me to leave, she just has to say so.”

  Seriously? “Okay, I’d like you to leave.” I leaned on my rake, half hoping Rand would refuse so Jean would bully him. I wouldn’t let the pirate hurt him, of course, but it might be gratifying to watch a little heavy-handed persuasion.

  Rand hefted the big can of leaves. “I really do need to talk to you soon, Dru.” He gave Jean a disdainful smirk before striding back across Magazine Street.

  Did he just call me Dru? I shot daggers at his back as he disappeared into Plantasy Island, swinging the load of leaves as if it weighed nothing.

  “Any idea what he is?” I asked Jean, who’d followed my gaze.

  “Non.” He turned back to me. “I received your telephone message. We must speak, Drusilla. It is urgent.”

  Good Lord. I couldn’t handle any more bad news. “Yeah, I need to talk to you too. Come on inside. Is the carriage waiting for you?”

  “Oui. I cannot stay as long as I might wish.”

  This must be serious. Jean had been here more than thirty seconds and hadn’t made a pass at me, tried to broker a business deal, or issued a half-baked smarmy comment. Either he was losing his touch or, more likely, whatever he had to say was catastrophic. Life seemed to be following that path these days.

  He followed me through the back door and we settled at the kitchen table, facing each other. He looked even more odd sitting there than Louis Armstrong had, his energy too big for such a small space. At six-two he stood an inch shorter than Alex and probably had twenty or thirty fewer poun
ds of muscle, but still his presence seemed to exaggerate his size to overflow whatever space he was in. The man reeked of power.

  “You want a Coke?” If the undead Jean Lafitte was going to sit at my kitchen table, I could at least be a good hostess.

  He frowned. “Qu’est- ce que c’est Coke?”

  I had a few real Cokes in the fridge for Eugenie, who considered corn syrup less poisonous to one’s system than the chemically sweetened stuff I guzzled. I poured some over ice, handed it to him, and set the bottle on the table. “You’ll love it.”

  He sipped cautiously, then smiled. “Sucre.”

  “Exactly. Sugar and bubbles.”

  He sipped again and smiled more broadly. “As always, Jolie, you know how to lighten a man’s heart. I should have come to visit you sooner.”

  There was the Jean Lafitte I knew. The charming devil.

  “Why does your heart need lightening?”

  “Ah, yes.” He set the glass down. “I must speak to you about the most unfortunate incidents that have befallen our city. I assume that is why you called me at my hotel?” His dark blue eyes crinkled. “Or might I hope you called on more personal matters?”

  I returned his smile. I couldn’t help myself. I needed therapy. “Sorry, but it was about the Axeman murders. I believe it’s one of your historical undead.”

  He sipped the Coke again and narrowed his eyes as he studied the glass. I wondered if a black market for Coca-Cola among the prete population of Old Orleans would be forthcoming. Louis Armstrong said Jean had made inquiries about supplying certain bars in the Beyond’s version of a Weird West border town with modern alcohol and cigarettes. Since most of the denizens of the Beyond weren’t likely to drive drunk or get lung cancer, I figured it was good for business on both sides of the border.

  He poured the rest of the soda into his glass and examined the empty plastic bottle. Yep, definitely a business plan in the making.