Belle Chasse

by Suzanne Johnson

  “Anyway, I made this proposal to Zrakovi and gave him twenty-four hours to respond.” Rand laid out the plan exactly as Jean had explained it, minus the extrapolation of how it could make him king of the universe.

  “And how did Zrakovi respond?”

  “He’s avoiding me, the coward.” The low regard with which Rand held the First Elder dripped from every syllable. “He claims there are wizarding concerns in New Orleans related to this hurricane, which is patently ridiculous. It came in as a category one storm, for God’s sake. There’s some minor street flooding and a few trees down. Even the local weather guys aren’t excited by anything other than the fact that it came out of nowhere.”

  “It didn’t, though. The storm hitting Old Barataria is no cat one—it’s easily a four or five. Florian needs to understand that the things he does in the name of war with his brother have implications to the human world and to preternaturals in Old Orleans who have nothing to do with their family feud.”

  Rand pulled the towel from around his shoulders and refolded it. “I have given my word that I will not interfere in affairs between Florian and Christof, and I won’t.”

  “But which one are you supporting?” This was a test. Unlike faeries, elves could lie all they wanted.

  “For now, Florian. He’s more willing to take on the power structure of the Interspecies Council. Christof is cautious, which in the long run is good.”

  So Jean’s suspicions were probably right. Rand would get what he needed from Florian and then the crazy faery better watch his back.

  “What happens if Zrakovi comes back and rejects your proposal?” We’d see how far Rand’s willingness to be truthful extended.

  “I fully expect him to reject it, so I am considering other options.”

  I just bet he was. “Like war?”

  Rand did his best Mona Lisa impersonation. I hated that little smile. “It is one option, but not the only one. That’s all I’m at liberty to say.”

  It was more than I’d expected. I leaned back on the lumpy sofa and wondered why we hadn’t transported Jean’s La-Z-Boy throne from Maison Rouge. I was so damned tired.

  “You need some sleep.” I opened one eye to see if Rand was being a smartass, but he looked concerned.

  “Too many crises, not enough time. Guess I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

  “Things are going to get better for you, Dru.” Rand’s voice softened. “I know it looks bad right now, but Lafitte, as badly as I hate the son of a bitch, has put himself and his allies in a powerful position.”

  My eyelids popped open; I wondered if the pirate were eavesdropping. My guess would be yes. If so, that statement should please him.

  I was prevented from any follow-ups by Eugenie’s reappearance, Rene in tow, carrying her bags. Rand got up to help.

  They set them in the transport and Rand held out his hand to Eugenie, trotting out the sweet smile.

  Standing side by side in the transport, getting ready to travel to Elfheim, I had to wonder how things might have turned out if we’d reached this agreement three weeks ago. I might be at home in New Orleans, snuggling with Alex while the rain beat down. But it probably wouldn’t have stopped Zrakovi from wanting the baby issue to go away. It wouldn’t have stopped Mace Banyan from his blackmail. Violette still might be alive, though, and Rand might not have lost respect for Zrakovi as quickly.

  Things might be just as screwed up, only screwed up in a different way.

  Rene stepped into the transport with them, chest to chest with Rand … well, more like nose to Adam’s apple. He spoke so softly I couldn’t understand him, but Rand began glowing. I grabbed Rene’s arm and pulled him away before the elf could do some painful mind-meddling.

  I waved to Eugenie as they disappeared, and prayed we’d made the right decision. I’d been praying a lot lately, and felt a lot more coming on.

  I hoped someone was listening.

  Rene and I stood looking at the empty transport, and I fought off a sudden urge to cry. Without Alex and now without Eugenie, the Good Ship DJ was rudderless. I’d been cast adrift in a world I didn’t want to be part of. Except for one person.

  “If you leave me, I’ll kill you,” I told Rene.

  “Aw, babe, you like me.” He pulled me into a hug, patting my back as if I were a toddler in need of consolation. Which is sort of how I felt. “I ain’t going nowhere. When we go back to Barataria, some of my family’s talkin’ ’bout comin’ there, too, at least till things settle down.”

  “You think they will? Settle down, I mean?” I had a feeling things would get worse before they got better. Maybe a lot worse.

  “Ah … things ain’t settling down quite yet, babe.” Rene let me go and spun me around to face the transport. I hadn’t felt the magic of anyone coming in, but Jake stood there, dripping wet, holding a very tall, very thin body.

  “Holy crap,” I whispered, moving closer. “It’s Audrey.”

  CHAPTER 30

  “She came in not long after Randolph.” Jake placed Audrey on the floor with slow, gentle movements. She was pale, her skin almost translucent. She wasn’t breathing.

  “Move away from her.” Rene pushed up his sleeves and knelt next to my cousin, feeling for a pulse on her neck. “How long was she under, and how long’s she been out?”

  “I just happened to be looking out when she transported in—the water’s way, way up, though, and rough as hell.” Jake took the towel Collette offered him and talked while he dried off. “It probably took me ten minutes to get her out because of the surf, but I brought her straight here, so fifteen minutes max.”

  Rene put a hand under Audrey’s neck and tipped her chin back. “Anybody else know CPR?”

  “I do.” Jake dropped to his knees on the other side of Audrey. “Want me to compress?”

  “Yeah, five breaths, thirty compressions, two breaths, then repeat thirty-and-two. Let’s do it.”

  They worked on her forever, it seemed, although I knew it was less than a minute before she finally made a choking sound. I closed my eyes, relief washing through me so strong I thought I might have to sit down. An arm snaked around my shoulders, and I looked up at Jean.

  “What are they doing, Jolie?” he whispered.

  “Trying to keep her heart beating until they can push the water out of her lungs.”

  “C’est un miracle.”

  He was right; it was pretty miraculous. I guess a man of the sea such as Jean would have found CPR a useful skill back in his day.

  “We got her.” Jake rolled Audrey on her side and held her while she coughed out a gallon of water. Rene and Jake had saved me, and now my cousin, more times than I could count. I owed them so much I’d never be able to repay it. But I would try.

  Audrey was trying to talk between coughs, and I took Rene’s position next to her. “You’re okay, Audrey. You’re safe. Don’t try to talk.”

  “Have to tell…” She groaned in pain after a round of coughing.

  “Keep coughing,” Jake told her. His hands remained on her shoulders, holding her down and on her side. “DJ’s right. Don’t talk.”

  If this were normal times and we were in New Orleans, I could call a wizard physician or take her to a regular ER and have a Blue Congress team clean up any strangeness with the hospital later. But we were in the Beyond in the middle of a hurricane. Dr. Rene and Dr. Jake were all she had.

  Except for Dr. Lafitte. Now that I thought of it, the pirate probably had a lot of experience tending to those who’d survived a close encounter with the sea. He spread a blanket out on the settee. “Bring her here and ensure she does not lie on her back,” he told Jake, then turned to Adrian. “Go to the galley and find something warm for her to drink.”

  I half expected Adrian to remind Jean that he was a wizard-turned-vampire and therefore did not take orders, but he nodded and walked toward the back of the apartment. I assumed the galley was, in modern terms, a kitchen.

  Rene picked up Audrey and transferred her to the
settee, which I hated to tell Jean was more comfortable than the floor by only the barest margin. Once she was settled and seemed to be breathing more easily, I sat on the floor in front of her, stroking her shoulder. “You have another blanket? She’s shivering.”

  Jean nodded toward Collette, who headed off for more blankets—and probably to check on Jake, who was changing clothes.

  By the time Adrian arrived with a steaming cup of tea, Audrey was struggling to sit up. I moved to sit next to her so I could help, holding the cup while she tried to drink.

  The first sip set off another coughing fit, which Rene said was good. “She’s gotta get rid of any water left in her lungs. Once she can keep the tea down, she’s okay.”

  Eventually, she was able to drink. The whole time, she’d been looking at me and trying to talk. Her aura had radiated fear from the moment she started breathing again, and I’d attributed it to drowning. But now it was rising even more—fear, agitation, more fear.

  “Can you talk?”

  She nodded just as Rene said, “No.”

  She coughed again, and through a wave of fear that came off her so strongly it made my skin crawl with imaginary ants, she choked out one word: “Alex.”

  Oh God. Something had happened to Alex. I looked at Rene and he nodded. “Take it slow.”

  “What about Alex? Tell me, but take your time.” I rubbed Audrey’s shoulders and resisted the urge to shake the information out of her. She’d almost died trying to get this news to me so I had to be patient.

  “Arrested.” Another round of coughing. “Treason.”

  “Mon Dieu.” Jean stood behind the sofa and I looked up at him. “I feared this.”

  “Feared what? What do you know?”

  Jean walked around the sofa and sat on the floor in front of Audrey and me. “I know nothing, Drusilla, but I feared if your First Elder became desperate enough, he would strike at you the most effective way—through the person about whom you care the most.”

  I’d feared it, too, all along. But why now, and how of all people could they accuse Alex Warin of treason?

  Audrey took two long sips of the tea and kept them down without coughing. Her voice, when she spoke, reminded me of a three-pack-a-day smoker. “Zrakovi came to see my dad today. He said he’d just met with you, DJ.”

  I closed my eyes. God, he’d gone after Alex because of our meeting. Because I’d pissed him off again and then managed to escape. I’d shown him up again.

  Audrey closed her eyes and breathed a few moments before continuing. “He didn’t know I was there, and my dad didn’t know I was listening. Zrakovi said he’d slipped a tracking tattoo on Alex’s jacket just after everyone went to Captain Lafitte’s house. He knows Alex was in the Beyond most of the night on Christmas Eve, and had someone in place, watching. They have photos of you two leaving that hotel on Dauphine, and Alex getting in a transport that Zrakovi said he had no knowledge of.”

  Alex’s special Christmas surprise. No way Zrakovi could get a tracking tattoo—a wizard’s charm—on Alex without him knowing it. It surprised me that the First Elder had been imaginative enough to put it on a piece of clothing.

  “So he arrested Alex.” Damn it. “Where is he? What have they done to him?”

  Adrian had taken Audrey’s cup while she talked, and now returned with a refill. I mouthed a thank-you to him.

  “He’s being held in some kind of cell they’ve set up at…” She shook her head. “I couldn’t understand the name and I’m not familiar enough with the city yet. But it had something to do with Mardi Gras and a warehouse across the river. I’m sorry I didn’t catch the name.”

  I knew of only one place that fit the description. “It’s okay; I know where it is. Blaine Kern’s Mardi Gras World. They design and build the big Mardi Gras floats, and store them during the off-season.”

  What a bizarre place to stash a prisoner … or a brilliant one. It was a monstrous maze of riverside warehouses where the largest Mardi Gras floats were designed, born, built, and then stored, their cast-off decorations from past years lying around until they could be repurposed. It took two hours to even walk around the whole place.

  Last time I’d been there, I’d taken a selfie with a twelve-foot statue of Jean Lafitte that looked nothing like him. After the new year began, the place would be abuzz with preparations for Mardi Gras, but between Christmas and New Year’s it was probably deserted. The perfect place for a wizarding prison and maybe a farce of a trial.

  “Okay, then. We have to get him out.”

  In a hurricane. When I’d be detected as soon as I crossed the border. And knowing Alex, he’d want to stay and try to clear his name and save his job, something I could identify with.

  Damn it.

  “Is there more, Mademoiselle Audrey?” Jean had taken up my job of pacing. “Do you know their plans for Monsieur Warin?”

  Audrey nodded while she sipped. “Zrakovi said he was calling an emergency meeting of the council tomorrow, that he wanted to make an example of Alex. He said … let me remember the words … ‘With any luck, I can get both of these traitors out of our hair permanently.’ I think the trial is going to be in the same place they’re keeping him.”

  Get both of the traitors—that would be me and now Alex. Which was so wrong. Yes, there was a good argument to place the traitor stigma on me, but not Alex. He’d been loyal to Zrakovi even when he disagreed with him, even when that loyalty tore him apart. Zrakovi was insane; there was no political gain for him to do anything to Alex, or to me, for that matter, not if Jean’s interpretation of the Quince Randolph proposal was true.

  “My father tried to talk him out of it, DJ. He really did. He insisted that Alex had always been loyal, and that Zrakovi was making a mistake to treat him like this. He wouldn’t listen.”

  Yeah, I just bet he wouldn’t. I didn’t realize how angry I was growing until, in the corner of the room, sparks flew off the tip of the elven staff tucked in my bag. I’d never made Charlie spark from across the room, but I was too pissed off to be pleased about it.

  I stood up. “If Zrakovi wants me, then fine. He can have me. But I’m getting Alex out of there.” Even if I had to hog-tie him and drag him out on the Bacchasaurus float.

  Jean stopped in front of me and put his hands on my shoulders. “You must move with caution, Jolie. Perhaps you might use your magic stick to watch the proceedings tomorrow as you did before. That will allow us time to make preparations.”

  “Us?” I looked up at him and the doubt must have been written in my eyes. Jean did not like Alex; Alex did not like Jean. It was a perfectly workable arrangement.

  “We will save your petit chien, Drusilla. You are among friends.”

  I took a deep breath, swallowing down the doubt and fear and a whole lot of unshed tears that would probably make their way out later. For now, I nodded and gave Jean a hug. I did have allies. Jean and Adrian would help because I needed them; the others would help because they genuinely cared about Alex. Jake would be distraught. Despite their differences in the past few months, they were more like brothers than cousins.

  “Make a list of what you need for your scrying shit.” Rene handed me a pen and a Popeye’s Fried Chicken receipt he’d dug out of his wallet. “I’ll transport to St. Bernard Parish, to my papa’s. They’re less likely to be watching up there and the Prompt Lady has probably got some new holy water since I cleaned her out last time.”

  I smiled for the first time since before Rand arrived. “You’re going to be on the Catholic Church’s most wanted list.”

  “Hell, the Holy Water Bandit’s probably the most exciting thing that’s happened to them since Katrina, babe. I’m enriching their lives.”

  “I’m sure they’ll be grateful.”

  Audrey still coughed occasionally but she seemed to be rebounding quickly. I sat next to her again and hugged her. “Thank you.”

  She smiled. “You’d have found out without me. One of the things Zrakovi wanted to talk to Dad abo
ut was how to make sure you knew about it.”

  Zrakovi didn’t know about my meeting with Lennox unless my uncle had told him. “Do you think he expected your dad to be seeing me, to tell me in person?” For all I knew, Zrakovi was paranoid enough to have put tracking tattoos on the whole Interspecies Council.

  “Oh no, he knows you and my dad haven’t spoken more than once or twice. It’s just that, well, my dad is right brilliant, if I do say so. He’s brighter than Zrakovi, I think, although I haven’t been around the First Elder, but the man seems nervous and mean.”

  He hadn’t always been that way, but my capacity for sympathy was exhausted where Zrakovi was concerned.

  “What did your dad suggest?”

  She grinned. “We were way ahead of both of them. He suggested Zrakovi find a bloody envelope and send it to Jean Lafitte’s house in a transport. And he wasn’t that nice about it.”

  I hugged her again. I liked having family. I mean, my maternal grandmother was family but the woman was so very difficult and disapproving that it wasn’t a warm fuzzy kind of relationship.

  “Sounds like you and your dad are getting closer.”

  “I think so.” She sighed, leaned back, and closed her eyes. “Don’t worry, though, I won’t ever tell him I’ve been a runner for you and Alex.”

  Yeah, talk about treason. Zrakovi would have Audrey in a cell, too.

  “How are you feeling?” She looked exhausted, still pale and wet, but we might need her.

  “I’m okay. What do you want me to do?”

  I tugged on the soggy sleeve of her sweater that poked out from under the blanket. “First, get some dry clothes. I bet you can wear Collette’s stuff.

  “Then, if you’re up to it, we’re going to have a crash course in magic 101.”

  CHAPTER 31

  While Rene was off stealing holy water from Our Lady of Prompt Succor, I schooled Audrey in the basics of drawing and powering a transport.