Great. Everybody was a comedian, and all I wanted to do was either curl up in a corner for a good cry or use my elven staff to char something to bone and ash.
Or someone. Now that my healing potion had done most of its work, I’d started a list: Candidates for Incineration. My spineless worm of a boss, Wizard Elder Willem Zrakovi, currently sat at the top of the list alongside my elf-mate-in-name-only, Quince Randolph, aka Rand. Also on the list: several other elves and every vampire I’d met with the possible exception of the one lounging around upstairs. The jury remained out on Adrian Hoffman.
Rene hadn’t seen Alex Warin around here because my canine shapeshifter remained incommunicado in New Orleans, living his normal life while I hid out like a criminal.
There was a bounty on my head, it was four days before Christmas, and I was having turtle gumbo with a merman, an undead pirate king, two loups-garou, and my best friend—a human pregnant with the half-elven child who had unknowingly helped set this whole debacle in motion. Plus a newbie vampire upstairs who didn’t like the smell of food anymore.
We’d make a great reality show except I realized, looking at the motley assortment of people sitting around the mahogany dining table, that nobody would believe reality could be quite this warped.
“What’s going on in New Orleans?” I asked Rene, forcing myself to eat the gumbo. The warmth and rich scent of the filé-spiked roux made me feel better despite my best efforts to wallow. Maybe I’d turned a corner.
“Weather finally cleared up since the Winter Prince has gone back to Faery for a while.” Rene tore off a ragged chunk from a loaf of French bread the size of a baseball bat and slathered it with butter. “All the weather dudes are jacked about the big global warming conference planned for January.”
The scientists would be surprised to learn that New Orleans’ historic mid-December snowfall had nothing to do with fossil fuel consumption. Jean Lafitte’s newest bromantic interest, Christof, the Faery Prince of Winter, had turned New Orleans into a Frigidaire to torment Jean’s enemies, the cold-sensitive elves.
“What about the council?” I asked. Rene’s arrival marked our first contact with the modern world since the great escape. “Have they issued warrants for my and Jake’s arrest?” There was already a standing warrant for Adrian to cover previous sins; it simply needed updating.
“Not yet.” Rene slurped his soup, then reached for more bread. The merman had a prodigious appetite that never resulted in an extra ounce of fat. “But it’s comin’. You and Jake can’t go home anytime soon. Gonna take a while to sort all this shit out.”
A couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, Jake had lost his temper during an argument, shifted, and accidentally infected me with the virulent loup-garou virus. Infecting someone—on purpose or accidentally—was a crime that carried the death penalty. Now, I was under investigation for treason after bonding with Rand to avoid turning loup-garou myself … and then lying about it all to protect Jake.
Or at least that was the story. The real reason I was being threatened with incarceration is that I’d first disobeyed Zrakovi’s direct order to terminate Eugenie’s pregnancy, then refused another order to turn her over to Rand.
Zrakovi wasn’t secure in his new position as First Elder, and I had embarrassed him in front of the rest of the Interspecies Council. He wanted to teach me a lesson and save face while also kissing Rand’s elven ass.
Eugenie pushed back her bowl. At eight weeks pregnant in human-elven math, which was constructed mostly of guesswork, she’d gotten past most of the morning sickness that had plagued her first few weeks. Stress wasn’t helping her appetite, though.
“Maybe I should just let Rand take me to Elfheim.” Her eyes brimmed with tears that might be hormonal or situational. Either option applied. “The Elders will probably drop the charges against you and Jake if we give Rand what he wants. The only reason the wizards are after you is to force you to turn me over to him. You know Rand won’t hurt me.”
Unspoken was Rand won’t hurt me physically but he might scramble my brains with his sneaky elven mind-magic if I’m not docile. Or another option: Rand won’t hurt me until after the baby is born and then he’ll make sure I’m out of the picture. Rand wanted his son and heir, no matter what happened to Eugenie. She hadn’t even known he was an elf until well past the conception, and I placed the blame squarely on my own head. I should’ve told her before she got so involved with him.
Should was a useless word; it implied failure. The truth hurt.
“You’re not going to Elfheim.” My voice was combative. “That’s not an option.” I’d promised to help her through the political minefield this pregnancy had created, and I still had enough optimism, or maybe stupidity, to believe they could work out an amicable agreement over raising the child, given enough time. Rand wasn’t evil. He was an arrogant, selfish, ambitious, and frequently delusional jerk who could do evil things, but he’d also shown himself capable of kindness, especially when he could twist it to his advantage.
I turned back to Rene. “What’s your dad saying about the big political picture? What does he think is going to happen?” The elder merman represented the water folk on the Interspecies Council and if he was anything like Rene, Toussaint Delachaise wasn’t shy about sharing his opinions.
“Council’s gonna meet again the day after Christmas, but everything’s seriously screwed up, babe. Jean prob’ly knows more than me.” Rene nodded at our host, who’d been listening in uncharacteristic silence. Very uncharacteristic silence.
“Non,” Jean said, sipping his brandy and setting the glass aside before ladling a spoonful of soup to his mouth. His expression lay just south of a smile.
Uh-oh. I set down my spoon with a clatter. Jean Lafitte never answered a question with a single word when a dozen would do, and he’d been quiet since we arrived. He was up to something.
“What are you not saying, Jean?” Now that I’d finally focused on something besides my own drama, I noticed the barely restrained mirth around his cobalt-blue eyes. His thick black hair had been pulled back and tied with a leather cord, and he wore his usual white tunic and black pants and knee-high black leather boots—sexy pirate gear, in other words. But he’d been quiet as a cloistered nun, which was as ill-suited to his nature as it sounded, and he looked way too happy considering the landfill most of our lives had been dumped into.
“One should not discuss matters of business while one dines.” Jean dabbed at his mouth with a delicate sweep of an improbably white napkin. “It weakens the constitution.”
His voice, deep, heavily accented, and authoritative, was likely meant to whip me into line with the rest of his flunkies. That tactic had never worked on me, but he hadn’t stopped trying.
“My constitution is strong as a dragon, thanks to your doctoring skills. What are you up to? I was afraid you’d be in trouble with the council because of me. Are you?”
“Because of us,” Jake said. He and his fiancée, a drop-dead-gorgeous loup-garou named Collette, sat across the table from Rene and me, and had remained quiet through most of the meal, exchanging knowing glances and half-hidden smiles. I don’t think Alex and I had ever made googly eyes at each other.
“Don’t forget me, too, DJ. And that vampire upstairs doing God knows what—Adrian the fanged wizard. Jean’s probably in trouble because of all of us.” Eugenie, sitting at the foot of the table opposite Jean, played with her napkin. She was not eating enough for two, and her gesture reminded me that I needed to send Rene on another run to New Orleans with a shopping list for healthy fare. Fresh fruits, dairy, and vegetables were scarce in Old Orleans and Barataria, and who knew how long Rene would be able to come and go without someone following him into a transport or charging him with aiding and abetting.
He’d also need to buy a ton of smoked meats, which Eugenie was craving as mother-to-be of the heir to the elves’ fire clan. I needed to start another list.
Jean placed his napkin on the table and sat back in hi
s chair with a sigh. “Very well, if you wish to discuss this now, we shall. The council members have expressed a desire that Jean Lafitte no longer attend their future gatherings until they say otherwise.” He gave me a broad smile. “I believe one of the things they shall do at their next gathering is remove me from their number, leaving the historical undead with no one to represent them.”
My heart did a thudding somersault. Deep in my heart, I’d known it was likely that Jean would be punished by the Interspecies Council if it was discovered that he’d granted asylum to me and this growing band of criminal misfits. By taking us into his home in the Beyond, he’d essentially thumbed his nose at both the council’s decisions and its members’ authority, and none of the others among New Orleans’ historical undead—heavy on authors and artists—had any interest in the power politics of the prete world.
Question was, if Jean was losing his seat on the council, why did he look so amused? It couldn’t be good.
“Eugenie and I need to find another place to stay so you can retain your position.” I pushed my chair back and stood. Whatever Jean was up to, I wanted no part of it. Plenty of trouble had been heaped on my doorstep already, and I was already drowning without adding pirate shenanigans to my gumbo of misery. “We can go into Old Orleans. There are plenty of places to hide there. No one needs to know Eugenie and I were ever in Barataria.” Zrakovi might not have any proof that I had fled to Old Barataria, but it didn’t take a mental giant to suspect it. No point in helping him make his case.
One elf—Betony Stoneman, aka Fred Flintstone, the chief of the earth clan—had seen Eugenie transporting out of New Orleans with Jean, but he’d been unconscious when I escaped a few minutes later, and I trusted Alex to have covered our tracks. Plus, in my humble opinion, ole Fred wasn’t the sharpest knife in the Republic of Elfheim; he might not remember.
As long as I didn’t cross the temporal border back into modern New Orleans, the wizards couldn’t detect my unique energy signature. They might suspect I was in Barataria, but unless they invaded Jean’s territory, which I doubted they’d do since most types of magic didn’t work reliably here, they didn’t know it for sure.
“Drusilla, sit! Asseyez-vous! You shall not depart.” Jean raised his voice to a thunder, then softened it when my startled eep turned into a scowl. I didn’t appreciate being commanded as if I were one of his minions.
“S’il vous plaît, Jolie. This action by the council comes as no surprise. Do you not realize that I foresaw this long before you took refuge here? Did I not give you warning that you would be forced to choose sides?”
I plopped back onto the heavy wooden chair, the center slat of its mahogany back carved with an eagle, its talons outstretched as if grabbing for as much power as it could take. The chair’s seat had been covered with stiff, heavy gold fabric over what I suspected was horsehair stuffing. Then again, my discomfort might have nothing to do with the chair.
“I haven’t chosen sides.” I wasn’t sure anyone had. Wizards and elves, faeries and vampires, water species and historical undead, weres and shifters. Every species was protecting its own interests, moving in stealth around New Orleans’ human population, which had no clue what the barometric pressure of Hurricane Katrina had unleashed in its midst several years ago.
“I’m a wizard,” I said. “That’s all I know how to be.” Until this whole fiasco with Eugenie’s pregnancy had arisen and Zrakovi had issued the unforgiveable order for me to terminate said pregnancy with or without her permission, I’d been sure nothing could make me side with any other group. I still wasn’t convinced.
Jean took a sip of his brandy and gave me a serious, steady look that made me squirm; he no longer looked amused. The pirate had left me to my own devices over the past two days, playing the polite host but not attempting discussions either personal or political. He’d let me limp around and feel sorry for myself. Now, however, I felt an overdue discussion aiming for my head like a pirate’s cannonball.
Rene apparently sensed it, too. “Hey, Jake, why don’t you and Collette and Eugenie help me get the rest of the supplies from the warehouse transport. Then, Jean wants us to shut it down so DJ can set up a transport closer to the house, something easier to guard. I brought in enough shit for an army.”
Which, now that I thought about it, told me that Jean was stocking up for a long siege, or a houseful of people.
Or a war.
CHAPTER 3
Once we were alone, I raised an eyebrow at my host. “Say what you need to, but as much as I appreciate your taking us all in and digging the bullet out of my leg, the last thing I want is to hurt your position with the council.”
Or mine. My priorities were, first, to protect Eugenie, and, second, to get my job back and be able to live in New Orleans without feeling as if the preternatural version of Mongol hordes were bearing down on me. If Jean’s agenda didn’t jibe with mine, I needed to get far, far away from him and his plots and schemes. Because he always had a scheme.
Jean poured himself a refill of brandy and stood. “Let us go into the study, then, Drusilla. It is time to discuss matters of much importance and difficult truths.”
Truths were always difficult these days, so I grabbed my untouched glass of wine before following him. I’d eaten so little in the past week that a few ounces of alcohol would probably knock me unconscious. That might be a good thing.
We settled into what had become our usual resting places, although the furnishings had changed. Jean’s ornate mahogany chair, placed where he could see all of the room’s entry points so as not to be surprised or attacked without warning, had been replaced by a massive recliner, cocooned with enough stuffing to fill the Superdome and covered in rich brown leather. Rene must’ve hit the La-Z-Boy store before a recent visit.
“Is my reclining chair to your liking?” Jean took his seat, fumbled a few moments with the lever on the right-hand side, and laughed when his legs and black pirate boots popped into an outstretched position. “You once had a similar chair before your house was unfortunately set afire. I would be pleased to share this chair with you, oui?”
Actually, I’d gotten rid of my old recliner shortly after Katrina and long before my house had burned down, mostly due to bloodstains as a result of a fight with Jean Lafitte. No point in trotting out unpleasant memories.
“Oui. Next time you’re not sitting in it, I’ll try it.” I relaxed when he chuckled. Fending off smarmy comments from Jean put me in familiar territory. “Next time, have Rene bring back a sofa to match.”
I perched on the uncomfortable settee whose mahogany legs had been carved in the shape of angry phoenixes. What was it with the pirate and ill-tempered birds?
The room was bathed in rich scarlets and browns, same as Jean’s bedroom. The ambience was strong and masculine, wafting rich scents of oil and polish and the undercurrent of savory tobacco and spices that always accompanied the master of the house.
Rene’s camo shorts and my red sweater, beginning its third day of wear and adorned with several ragged holes courtesy of my escape from New Orleans, felt shabby in these plush surroundings despite my nightly devotion to washing them. My lank hair suffered from being shampooed with some rudimentary form of soap. Both my clothes and I were trying to stay clean using the big iron tub tucked into the corner of the small room I had moved into on the first floor.
Like my pirate, who had returned to his private suite down the hall from mine, I refused to sleep upstairs where I might be trapped by marauding bands of elves, vampires, faeries, or undead ax murderers. Been there, done that. All of it.
“Do you think Rene brought any clothes for Eugenie and me?” Collette was the only other modern woman on the island that I had seen, and she was half a foot taller than me with a waist circumference the size of my grandmother’s knitting needle, which is why I was wearing Rene’s shorts.
Jean smiled. “I have arranged for supplies of clothing for both you and Mademoiselle Eugenie. I was simply waiting for y
our spirit to revive.”
In other words, until I stopped my navel-gazing. “Consider it revived. Where’d this supply of clothing come from?” Last time Jean had provided me with a wardrobe, I’d flashed way too much cleavage and had been given a bizarre assortment of early nineteenth-century underwear that I kept putting on backward.
“Bah. It is clothing, Drusilla.” Jean waved his hand in a universal let it go gesture, so I let it go. For now.
Guess that meant it was time for business and hard truths. “Do you think it’s too late to save your seat on the Interspecies Council?”
I opened up my empathic senses to his emotional signature. As a wizard, my limited physical magic didn’t work in the Beyond, although my geeky Green Congress ritual magic usually did. Red Congress wizards had the showy physical magic, but it was useless in the Beyond. I wasn’t sure about Blue Congress, the magic of creation and re-creation, or Yellow Congress, mental magic. They might or might not work here.
My empathy, however, was one of the elven traits I’d won in the genetic lottery thanks to my late parents, and elven magic worked just fine in the Beyond. I wanted to know what Jean was feeling, not just what he said; he had a tendency to embellish. Lie was such a harsh word.
Currently, he was impatient but also something else I couldn’t identify.
“The proper question, Jolie, is not whether I shall keep my seat on the council, but whether or not I wish to keep my seat on the council,” he said, leaning forward and propping his elbows on his knees.
Anticipatory. Predatory. Those were the emotional traits I’d been trying to name. Jean was like the eagles on his dining room chairs, talons outstretched to snag a tasty mouse. Trouble was, I had no idea which mouse he hoped to devour, or whether I was a fellow eagle or part of his intended meal.
When in doubt, do what the pirate orders. “Okay, let me rephrase my question. Jean, do you want to keep your seat on the Interspecies Council?”
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