Elysian Fields sono-3

by Suzanne Johnson

  Good. Something we were doing had to slow the guy down eventually. He had three bullet wounds and at least that many burns.

  Yet I heard him shuffling again. Hoping I’d bought myself a few seconds, I ran perpendicular to the midway and headed for the Krewe of Kreeps train ride and its tunnel entrance. I picked up a fist-size chunk of concrete and waited at the mouth of the tunnel until I was sure he’d climbed out of the concrete building and spotted me.

  Stepping inside, I pressed my back against the wall to the right of the door and waited. If I could trap him inside the tunnel, I might be able to collapse it on top of him with the staff. His footsteps slowed as they got closer, then he stopped outside the entrance, probably no more than three or four feet away. His labored breath sounded ridiculously loud. I pressed my back against the interior wall, not daring to breathe. Finally, I heard him again. He walked inside the tunnel a few feet to my left and stopped.

  Moving slowly, lest even a rustle of fabric give me away, I tossed the concrete chunk as far ahead as I could. When it hit a train rail with a clatter, the Axeman took off, running deeper into the tunnel. This was my chance. I slipped out behind him and stopped a few feet from the tunnel entrance, aiming the staff at the top.

  My shot hit true, but the structure of the tunnel was metal and not wood, so all I got was a rain of concrete and rebar before I heard the Axeman scream in rage, followed by the thud of his footsteps growing louder as he returned to the entrance. Where the hell was Rene? With no answer to that question, I couldn’t strategize. I had to run. And the Axeman ran faster than me. Simple as that. I’d have to shoot him close-range with the staff. I stopped and turned, aiming Charlie and waiting for him to get within a few feet.

  Rene almost beat me to it. The Axeman had gotten almost within grabbing range when I hit the side of his jaw with fire from the staff and Rene caught the other side of his face with a bullet. The left side of Rene’s face was covered in blood. Now, so was the Axeman’s.

  The killer fell toward me, his eyes wide and empty, and I threw myself to the side to keep him from landing on me. In stead, I fell on the staff. Charlie broke with a sickening crack. But at least for now, the Axeman was fading back into the Beyond. I shifted to look back at the entrance to Six Flags and wasn’t surprised to see the dark sedan had disappeared, probably with the necromancer inside.

  Rene collapsed on the ground next to me, staring at the now-empty spot where the Axeman had fallen. “That was intense, babe.”

  CHAPTER 26

  I sat cross-legged on the ground near the carousel, assessing Charlie’s condition. It wasn’t a complete break, but enough to make it fragile, not to mention crooked.

  “Put some duct tape on it,” Rene said, looking over my shoulder. “It fixes anything.”

  “It’s worth a try.” I’d spent some time experimenting and found it still channeled energy, but the fire was weak and had a range of less than two feet. I’d prefer any would-be murderers didn’t get that close.

  My heart gave a lurch at the screech of tires in the main parking lot, and I scrambled to my feet, ready to run to the transport.

  “It’s just Alex,” Rene said. “You called him?”

  Actually, I hadn’t. But there he was, running for us at a full sprint, the driver’s side door of his truck hanging open.

  As soon as he spotted us, he slowed to a trot, then a walk, his expression— and the emotions boiling off his skin so strongly they might as well be visible— a cocktail of relief and fear, with a chaser of fury.

  “Shifter’s pissed off,” Rene muttered. He met Alex halfway to the truck, stopped to talk a few seconds, then continued walking to the parking lot. Giving us privacy.

  “Thank God.” Alex jerked me into a hug, and I wrapped my arms around him, giving myself over to the aftershock I didn’t realize I’d been holding back. His hand traced circles on my back till I finally stopped shaking. Neither of us spoke for a long time, and I calmed at the slow, steady beat of his heart beneath the soft fabric of his black sweater.

  Finally, I pulled away enough to look up at him, but kept my hands on his arms like they were anchors. “How did you know I was here?”

  Alex took a step backward, and I let my hands drop. “From Randolph. I guess one of the bonding side effects is he can tell if you’re in trouble. He said he couldn’t drive right now, so he called me. I’m glad he did. And I’m glad you brought Rene with you, but you should have asked me.”

  I wrapped my arms around my middle, suddenly chilled. “You were so angry when you left my house after the meeting with Zrakovi, I wasn’t sure you would come. Plus, you weren’t answering your phone. I wanted to give you some space.”

  He opened his mouth to respond but sirens—lots of them— were speeding our way. “We’ve gotta get out of here.” He looked around. “I take it the smell of burning rubber and gasoline is coming from your Pathfinder? Where was it parked?”

  I pointed at the smoke drifting from behind the fire- mangled fence and started walking toward his truck. “There’s what’s left of it. And yeah, I blew it up. I’ll fill you in on the way home.”

  Ever practical, Alex insisted on driving to my spot behind the park, where we all did a quick search to make sure my license plate and any other identifiable, unburned parts of the Pathfinder were collected.

  “You realize that once again I’ve hidden evidence?” Alex grumbled, sounding more like himself. He drove, I sat in front, and Rene had stretched out on the back seat with the portion of half- melted dashboard that had my VIN on it. The cut on Rene’s face, which he’d gotten when the Axeman backhanded him in the rat building, had almost healed.

  “Before I met you I never hid evidence.” Alex slung gravel as he turned onto a side road and wound his way back toward civilization. “Now, thanks to you, I’ve hidden bodies. I’ve lied to the police. I’ve falsified reports to the Elders. I’ve been cursed by a maniac nymph and turned into a pink dog. And let’s not forget looking the other way when your friend Jean Lafitte stole a goddamn Corvette.”

  That was the longest speech I’d heard Alex deliver in a while. I bit my tongue and looked out the window, while Rene chuckled softly from the backseat. No point denying I’d been a bad influence on Mr. Straight and Narrow, but I hadn’t forced him to do any of those things.

  “Why couldn’t Rand drive?” He had a van for hauling plants, and some kind of boxy earth-friendly car.

  “No idea. Don’t care.” Alex took a curve too fast, and I grabbed the edge of the seat. He’d sealed his emotions like the lid of a mason jar, but he didn’t drive this way when he was calm. Thank goodness Rene was with us; it prevented us from fighting. I couldn’t handle another argument right now, and we seemed to keep treading the same patch of ground.

  “Tell me what happened back there.”

  I gave Alex a blow-by-blow of the Axeman’s attack. He kept his eyes on the winding roads, but listened intently. “What was the make and model of the car that dropped him off?”

  “I don’t know. Looked new.” I turned to Rene. “Did you catch what model it was?”

  “No.” He sat up and looked out the window. “Black or dark-gray sedan, dark-tinted windows. Really dark tint. It didn’t have a license plate on the front. Looked expensive.”

  Alex handed me his cell. “Call Ken—speed dial five—and tell him what happened.” He’d gone into full enforcer mode, which seemed to calm him down. At least he wasn’t driving erratically anymore.

  When I got a little carried away telling Ken about how fast the Axeman could run, and that I thought he’d dropped his ax in the building with the rat, Alex snatched the phone from me, slammed it to his ear, and barked out the car description. “Put some feelers out. Sounds like a luxury rental so start calling the rental places and asking about their high-end stock.”

  He listened a few seconds then ended the call and tossed the phone in the center console. “Where the hell was the heir apparent while all this was going on?”

&nb
sp; “Who?” Rand was the only heir apparent I knew of, and he’d apparently been tied up with a mulch emergency and couldn’t drive.

  “Hoffman,” Alex said. “Where was he? Wasn’t this supposed to be your regular lesson time?”

  I shrugged. “He’s still in Edinburgh. Said he’d be back tomorrow, but I thought I’d go ahead and practice with the staff. Why’s he the heir apparent?”

  Alex had wound back to the I-10 and merged into the traffic inching toward the city. “I did a little digging. You know how you said you never figured out how he got such a trusted spot with the Elders without being one himself?”

  Alex had done a background check on Adrian Hoffman? No wonder I liked this man. “I thought he’d just ingratiated himself with his knowledge of elves. What else?”

  “His father’s the First Elder, and I heard he was really pissed at Zrakovi for chastising Adrian after what happened last month and then sending him to New Orleans.”

  “Ask me, he got off easy,” Rene said, his voice rough with emotion. I wasn’t the only one blaming Adrian for Robert’s and Tish’s deaths.

  “No wonder he’s such a pompous ass.” I pondered this new bit of information. The First Elder sat at the pinnacle of the wizarding hierarchy as the se nior Elder above the seven wizards representing each continent.

  I kneaded my temples, which throbbed with the aftermath of the magic I’d done, not to mention the stress. “With the staff broken, there’s probably no need for Adrian to continue these lessons unless he knows how to repair it.” Or the duct tape worked, or wood glue. Although I supposed Adrian could fill me in on other elven skills and traditions. Like bonding.

  I stared out the window at the ships as we climbed the high arc of the Industrial Canal bridge, crested the summit, and crept down the other side toward downtown New Orleans.

  “You think the necromancer was in the car?” I’d been thinking about it and realized there was something I hadn’t asked either Etienne Boulard or Jonas Adamson—the range of necromantic magic.

  “Probably.” Alex beat a rhythm on the steering wheel with his fingers. “But unless we get a break when Ken calls the rental places, there’s not much we can do other than wait for him to come after you again. I assume he can’t come back for a while since you guys killed him—well, killed him for now.”

  “Not necessarily.” A normal member of the historical undead would take a while to regenerate enough power to come back across from the Beyond on his own, especially after such a violent dispatch. The necromantic magic threw everything into question, though. The magic could speed up or even override the normal regeneration pro cess for the historical undead.

  “Why don’t we sit down tonight, grab some dinner, and strategize?” If I were going to be serial killer bait, we needed a plan. And Alex and I really needed to talk about personal stuff.

  His jaw tightened—the only hint that he was still upset. “We’ll sit down with Ken tomorrow at your office.” His voice softened, even though we both knew Rene could hear. “Just give me a little time.”

  “Sure.” Disappointed, I watched the shotgun houses of Mid-City give way to the shotgun houses of Uptown.

  I wanted to fix everything and make it right, but if Alex needed time to think, I’d stop pushing. The current crisis had exposed a flaw that had been in our relationship since Hurricane Katrina, when he’d been forced to choose between helping me and doing his job in the way that made sense to him—with clean, clear decisions that fell within the rulebook. My life had no rulebook.

  When Alex parked in the back lot between our houses, he left me with a wave that felt more like a kiss-off than a kiss- you-later.

  “Give him time.” Rene patted my shoulder before climbing into his pickup. “Shifters and weres, most of us like things straight and simple. And nothing personal, babe, but you ain’t either one.”

  “You don’t seem to have a problem with it.” Rene liked my chaos. He didn’t even seem upset that it had almost gotten him killed today.

  “Big difference between me and Alex.” He grinned at me out his truck window. “You aren’t my woman. Later, babe.”

  Great. Relationship advice from a merman who bought questionable sexual-potency tonics. Life had come to this.

  The pungent, nutty smell of Thai food hit me as soon as I opened my back door. I looked at the array of takeout boxes on the kitchen table and followed the sound of a male voice into my front parlor. Rand sat on the floor, fondling my cat and talking to him in that weird, guttural language. The wretch (feline variety) gave me a cross-eyed, baleful look before yowling once and running away.

  “You want a cat? He’s yours. I inherited him and he’s never liked me.” I considered myself a dog person, Alex notwithstanding, and thought the fact that I ended up with a surly feline proved God had a sense of humor.

  I threw my phone and keys on the kitchen counter, thankful I’d had them in my pocket instead of in my backpack. It would take me hours to re create all the base charms and potions I had in that pack. I kept the staff in my hand. With any luck, I could threaten Rand without him being able to tell it was broken.

  “Tell me how you got in here, and then go home. I can’t deal with you right now.”

  He looked up and froze when he saw the staff in my hand. “I picked up dinner—had to guess at what you might like.” He frowned. “What happened to the staff?”

  Of course the freaking elf would have perfect vision. “None of your business. How did you get in here?”

  Rand followed me into the kitchen and leaned against the doorway as I dumped cat food into Sebastian’s bowl and refilled his water dish. “Sebastian, you unfaithful ingrate—come here!” I yelled loud enough that Rand winced. “Dinner!”

  “I got chicken pad thai, spring rolls, red curry. You want extra nuts?”

  Good grief. The elf was dense as week-old bread pudding.

  “Rand.” I held up the Meow Mix–coated spoon. “I’d rather eat this than sit down with you. It has been a bad day. I don’t want to talk about weird elven politics. I don’t want to talk about the Axeman. I don’t want to talk about bondage. Go home.”

  “Do you want beer or soda?”

  I rinsed off the spoon and stuck it in the dishwasher, listening to my stomach rumble. And I did need to find out how he’d gotten past my wards. Still, it set a terrible pre cedent.

  “Get out of my house.” I glanced at the kitchen table. “Leave the food. I’ll pay you for it later.”

  He got both beer and soda out of my fridge, and I walked to stand beside him. With a hard poke, I stuck the staff against his arm. “It might be cracked but it’s still going to hurt like hell when I burn you.”

  He looked down at me, but his face lacked the fear I wanted to see. “Do it.”

  Damn it, he was calling me out. I wouldn’t really shoot at him unless it was in self-defense, and he knew it.

  “Fine.” I jerked a chair away from the table and sat down. “Soda.”

  He slid a diet soda in front of me and took the other chair, looking from my ash-smudged cheeks to the tear in my jeans just above the ankle. I’ve had doctor’s exams less thorough than Rand’s visual inspection. If I had tires, he’d be kicking them.

  He nodded. “You’re okay, then.”

  “Except for the staff. And how did you get in my house?” I’d keep asking as long as he kept not answering.

  “I jimmied your back lock; you need a stronger one. Your security wards don’t work on me now. How did the staff get broken?”

  Great. The person I most wanted to keep out of my house, other than the Axeman, and he knew how to pick locks.

  “Something heavy fell on it.” I held up the crooked, cracked piece of wood that glowed only faintly now. I didn’t add that the heavy thing was me. “Think it would work with duct tape or wood glue holding it together?”

  “Let me see it.”

  I hesitated.

  “It won’t work for me—only for its master.” He held his hand
out, and I reluctantly let him have it. Rand examined the cracked wood. “The core is damaged so glue or tape wouldn’t work. Can you fire it at all?”

  I poured my soda in a glass, trying to decide whether it would be safer to let Rand know my power boost from the staff was diminished, or to let him think nothing had changed. It all came down to whether or not I trusted him to be loyal to me rather than the Synod.

  This would be his first test—and if he failed it, his last. “I can use it at maybe a quarter of its normal strength, and only at short range.”

  Rand held the staff up to the light and studied it more closely. “Since it’s the staff of the fire elves, I should be able to repair it, with your permission as its master. I’ll ask my mother . . . No, on second thought, better not mention it to her.” He thought a few seconds. “I’ll slip into Elf heim tomorrow and pick up what I need.”

  “You don’t trust your mother?” I didn’t trust his mother. I didn’t even trust him. But he should trust her.

  “Her, yes, but no one else.” He handed the broken staff back to me. “I’ll get what we need and we’ll try to fix it tomorrow night.”

  Uh-huh. I’d believe that when I had a repaired staff in my hand, shooting ropes of fire at something—maybe him.

  I sighed, hunger and anger and exhaustion fighting for dominance in my heart. I didn’t have the energy to fight with him anymore, and if he really could repair the staff, it wouldn’t kill me to eat dinner with him. “Go ahead and start eating. I need to wash up.”

  I dragged myself to the guest bathroom and scrubbed the smudges off my face. I thought about going upstairs and changing into clean clothes, but what the hell. It wasn’t like I needed to impress the elf. I did stop to examine my motivations, to make sure I wasn’t, even in some deep, prehistoric recess of my mind, spending time with Rand to get back at Alex for distancing himself from me.

  But I wasn’t. Alex’s issues with me— with us—had nothing to do with the elf. He was just a symptom of a bigger problem we had to work through.