Belle Chasse

by Suzanne Johnson

  “Try to use your magic on something.” I looked around and set a throw pillow on the floor in front of her. “Try to move that pillow, or blow it up or something.”

  “Oh, seriously? I’m not five years old.” She flung her hand at the pillow, and nothing happened. The second time, with some extra exertion on her part, it moved a quarter inch. “I don’t understand.”

  I hadn’t expected her physical magic to work. “It’s because we’re in the Beyond; physical magic doesn’t work here. Green Congress magic seems to be okay, but not Red. Mostly, I wanted to see how you tried to throw a spell.”

  Throw being the operative word. Gerry had been able to do that, but he’d been a lot better trained and his magic was very strong. Because my physical magic was so pathetic, Gerry had found some tricks to help me. I could pass those on to my cousin.

  I glanced at her hands, which were free of jewelry. “Did you ever buy a ring to wear?”

  “Oh! Hang on.” She ran back upstairs to the bedroom, then back down. The girl bubbled with energy and made me feel like an ancient, wizened little person.

  She held out a silver ring with an emerald-cut purple stone.

  “Amethyst?”

  “Yes, it’s my favorite. I wasn’t wearing it because I wasn’t sure what you wanted me to do with it.”

  I explained Gerry’s method of teaching me. “Instead of focusing on the pillow, channel all your power into the ring, then from the ring to the pillow.” She practiced a few times and, to my surprise, the pillow danced three or four inches.

  “Wow. That’s so simple.” She looked at the ring as if it were magical in itself, then looked at me with adoration. Well, I’d enjoy it while I could. Nobody could destroy a good case of adoration like me. “Why didn’t my dad do this? I might have been able to pass Red Congress.”

  I had a theory, after seeing that pillow move. Audrey’s magic had to be strong, and Lennox might fear what she could do with it. Not because he was jealous. I didn’t think that for a second. But a young wizard whose power outstripped her experience, maybe even the common sense that grew with age … he could be afraid she’d get herself in trouble and discouraged her in order to protect her.

  Then again, I didn’t know him that well. So I went with a more logical, less psychological, explanation. “I can’t do much physical magic. I’m hellacious with a spell or potion, but don’t ask me to do much more than power a transport with my physical magic. It was Gerry’s way of helping me maximize what I did have.”

  She smiled with Gerry’s eyes. “You really loved him, didn’t you?”

  I looked away, not wanting to see the resemblance or the pity. “I did love him. And I am still angry at him for not telling me he was my father.” It was hard to both mourn someone and be angry at him, but that was the truth.

  I took a deep breath. “Time to move on. What is your experience with transports? Not open transports, but powering one with your magic?”

  “None.” Her pale cheeks flushed a rosy pink. “I know the shape is the interlocking circle and triangle, but that’s about it.”

  “Okay, there’s only so much you can do here, but let’s see what I have.” Dragging over my messenger bag, I pulled out my portable magic kit, which had started life as a small first aid kit.

  “You can use ash, unrefined salt, lead, or a precious metal to create a transport. Ash is short-lasting; it won’t hold power more than a half hour or so. It’s good for making an exit when you don’t want to be followed. Salt is most common; it’s strong enough to hold a transport open for a few weeks before it has to be infused with magic again. Lead—I usually use filings because they’re cheap—lasts even longer and is good for a permanent transport. Rich wizards sometimes use precious metals to have permanent transports inlaid in their floors.” I paused. “I don’t know any of those personally, so that gets filed under R for rumor.”

  I handed her a vial of salt and cleared off a spot on the floor a couple of feet from my big transport. “The transport size doesn’t really matter—it just needs to be big enough for whatever you want to transport. Yourself, for example. If you can stand inside it, you can use it.”

  She had a few questions, but seemed to grasp the concept of powering a transport. I wondered …

  I went and retrieved Charlie and turned my back to Audrey, not because I didn’t want her to see what I was doing but because I felt foolish. “Charlie, I want you to work for Audrey for the next five minutes, okay?”

  If staffs could whine, Charlie would be doing it. I could just tell.

  Turning back, I handed the staff to her. “This might or might not work, but try it. Instead of your ring, channel your magic into the staff and touch the tip of it to the transport.” I set the pillow inside her transport. “When you power it, say ‘Pontalba Two.’” Pontalba was the name I’d given Jean’s transport. I’d been too wet to be creative.

  “Okay.” She took a deep breath, whispered, “Pontalba Two,” and focused on Charlie. The pillow disappeared from her transport and reappeared in the big transport. “That was bloody brilliant.” Her eyes widened. “Is it supposed to be on fire?”

  Oh, holy crap. She was going to burn down our only safe haven. We stomped on the pillow until the last of the flames disappeared.

  “What are you doing?”

  I turned to find Christof, looking every bit the mad scientist, his hair askew, crazed look in his green eyes. “We’re having a transport lesson.”

  My audacious Audrey marched over to the Faery Prince of Winter and held out her right hand. “Hullo, I’m Audrey, DJ’s cousin.”

  Christof turned on the charm as he took her hand. “I’m so pleased to meet you, Audrey. I am Christof, prince of Faery and the future king.”

  Audrey almost fainted, and I didn’t think it was fake. She also needed a big lesson on the Who’s Who of the Prete World, including to whom one should suck up and to whom one should not.

  Speaking of sucking up. “Christof, I want to apologize for the things I said to you earlier. It took me by surprise, to see The Arch here, but I had no cause to speak to you the way I did.” I felt my nose turning brown.

  I got a dose of charm this time. He’d be horrified to know I could see his real disheveled self. “I understand, and I know how protective you are of Miss Eugenie. I would never knowingly place her in jeopardy.”

  Speaking of which. “I probably should tell you that Eugenie has decided to spend the forseeable future in Elfheim.” At Christof’s outraged look, I talked faster. “We felt it was safer given the instability of the Interspecies Council right now, particularly the wizards.”

  Liar, liar, pillow on fire. It was because we didn’t know what Christof and his whackalicious brother Florian might do next. “I plan to check on her as often as possible to make sure she is safe.”

  “Perhaps you should check on her now. Might I accompany you?”

  Oh hell no. “I’m sorry, but I just learned that my boyfriend has been arrested by the council for seeing me on Christmas Eve. I have to try and help him first, but then I will definitely check on Eugenie.” And you, Mr. Frosty, aren’t going with me.

  “Ah, very well. I’m so sorry for your bad news.” Christof bowed to a swooning Audrey and headed back down the hall. “Thank you for letting me know of Eugenie’s whereabouts. I was getting ready to send an ice floe into Elfheim but now I shall send it to Vampyre instead.”

  “Good move,” I shouted to his retreating back. I had several vampires I’d like to see buried under a slab of ice. Although I better make sure Terri got out, or Adrian would be in a lather.

  “I want to try the transport again,” Audrey said, setting a glass bowl in her transport.

  Good, that shouldn’t burn. Although I wasn’t sure how much of the pillow burning was Audrey’s power and how much was Charlie having a tantrum because I’d passed him off on someone else.

  She tried several times but nothing happened. “What am I doing wrong?”

  I rea
ched out and took Charlie, who vibrated in my hand, chastising me. “My staff usually only works for me; I think that was a fluke before.” Or a favor. “You get the idea, though. Outside the Beyond, it should work fine using your ring as a focus.”

  “Cool.” She stifled a yawn. “I’m rather tired. Would you mind if I had a nap before we make plans to spring Alex?”

  “Sure.” Because I needed to talk to Jake. Whatever we decided to do, he had a big say in it.

  CHAPTER 32

  By the time I huffed and puffed my way to the third floor, where Jake and Collette had claimed a room, I was vowing that I’d stop eating too much mystery meat and start running again as soon as we got out of hurricane mode. I’d have to illuminate a makeshift running path along the strip of beach using the pink flashlight, but at least I wouldn’t get so out of shape.

  I paused at the door, not wanting to interrupt anything where three would be a crowd, but heard soft voices from inside. I knocked, and turned the knob when Collette invited me in.

  They were the picture of what I wanted my relationship with Alex to look like. Collette sat propped against the headboard of the bed, playing with Jake’s hair as he rested his head in her lap. They were comfortable with each other, and I’d never seen a harsh word between them. How did they do that?

  “What’s up, sunshine? You look upset—is Audrey okay?”

  I sat on the bed at Collette’s feet, trying to figure out how to break this news. “Audrey’s fine. The reason she was trying to get to me in that weather was, well, about Alex.”

  Jake sat up. “What about Alex?”

  I swallowed hard. All the way up the stairs, I’d told myself I was not going to cry in front of Jake. I was going to be calm. The last thing we needed was a pissed-off loup-garou—one who already had a warrant out for his arrest by the Elders—charging into Mardi Gras World.

  “He’s okay. He’s not hurt or anything.” Not physically, anyway. That reassurance was enough to make Jake relax a little, or maybe it was Collette’s touch. She was rubbing his back.

  “Tell me what’s up, then. Has he done something where I need to go and kick his ass?”

  I smiled. “Not this time. Let me back up to my meeting yesterday with Willem Zrakovi.”

  Jake shook his head. “I knew that was a bad idea. What happened?”

  I could tell from his expression that he thought it went a lot better than I did, but then he had no use for the wizards as an organization and no respect for Zrakovi whatsoever. He thought Alex was misguided.

  “Anyway, what Audrey came to tell me is that Zrakovi had put a tracking charm on Alex’s jacket, so he knows we met in Old Orleans on Christmas Eve.”

  “Uh-huh.” Jake wanted to say something about the red bow, but refrained.

  “Zrakovi was so mad when I got away from him again—thank God he doesn’t know it was Rene who helped me—that…” I took a deep breath. “He arrested Alex and charged him with treason.”

  Jake laughed. “Right, because treason is Alex’s middle name and…” He trailed off. “Damn it, you’re not joking, are you?”

  I shook my head. “They have him locked up, and Zrakovi’s holding a special trial tomorrow.”

  “Son of a bitch.” Jake moved to the edge of the bed, and I froze when I saw the amber color bleeding out of his eyes, replaced by a flat yellow. He was going to lose control.

  I looked at Collette to enlist her help, but she was way ahead of me. She reached out and pulled him back toward her. He moved reluctantly, but she wrapped her arms around him and his gradual calm was so pronounced I could almost feel it physically. She soothed him until his eyes regained their normal amber color. But they were not happy eyes.

  “What’s the plan?” Jake asked. “And will Alex be so stupid that he refuses to let us rescue him?”

  I shrugged. “We have to try, and I’m about to the point where I’m ready to beat him unconscious and drag him out of there before he gets himself killed. I think that’s Zrakovi’s plan, by the way. He wants to make sure I’m aware of Alex’s situation, because he knows I’ll come into New Orleans to try and save him. Then he’ll kill both of us.”

  “Is he that unbalanced?” Collette’s eyes held disbelief. “Surely it’s a ruse.”

  Jake flexed his shoulders, and Collette tightened her grip on him. “It’s no ruse. I saw a few so-called leaders like him in Afghanistan.” Jake had been a Marine who came home badly wounded; being turned loup-garou had done what the human doctors couldn’t in terms of healing his damaged right leg, but it had also taken away the life he’d planned for himself.

  “In what way?” Collette asked. She was so perfect for him. She knew how to touch him and talk to him to keep him level.

  “Most of the guys were great, but every once in a while you’d run across an officer who was a total nutbag. And what it boiled down to was insecurity and fear. They do bad things to a man who’s too proud to admit he’s in over his head.”

  I nodded. “That’s exactly where I think Zrakovi is. It’s made him desperate. But Alex isn’t going to pay for it.”

  “So is there a plan yet?”

  “I’m waiting for Rene to get back with scrying supplies—he thought it would be easier to get in and out of St. Bernard, near his dad’s place. That way I can scry Alex and see if I can tell where he is. I think he’s at Mardi Gras World, in one of the warehouses, but that place is huge.”

  “Huge, with lots of places to hide.” Jake rolled his head from side to side, popping out the tension. It was something Alex did a lot, and sent a wave a panic through me. What if we couldn’t save him?

  “Hey.” Jake’s voice was soft. “We’re gonna get him out, whether he wants out or not.”

  I nodded. “We can watch the so-called trial tomorrow and see what happens. From that, we can decide the best way to get him.”

  “I’ve planned a few extractions in my Marine days,” Jake said. “I want in on it.”

  “So do I,” Collette said.

  “And me,” said Rene. I didn’t know how long he’d been standing in the doorway.

  “Did you get everything?” I turned to look at him. He was back in drowned-rat mode.

  “Yeah, and this time I got chased across the Prompt Succor cemetery by a priest while I was trying to haul a gallon of stolen holy water,” he said, not smiling. “You owe me, babe.”

  It took almost an hour to find a suitable spot and set up the scrying materials. Rene hadn’t been able to find the right kind of bowl, so we had to scour Jean’s apartment for something that would work. I finally settled on a chamber pot with roses painted on the side and tried not to think about it too much.

  I’d asked everyone but Jake to not participate in this particular scrying. I’d want them all to watch the trial tomorrow, but for my first look at Alex as a prisoner, I didn’t want a crowd. I almost asked Jake not to watch because it felt like an invasion of Alex’s privacy, but that was selfish of me. Jake loved Alex as much as I did.

  “There he is. Damn sons of bitches have beaten him.”

  “Had to have been recently or he would already be healed,” I murmured, shifting Charlie in the water so I could get closer. Alex sat on the concrete floor cross-legged and I saw no bars around him, but I also saw no wall behind him and he was definitely leaning against something.

  “They have him in a containment circle.” I used my free hand to point to the circle drawn on the concrete. “Damn it, it’s so small he can’t even stretch his legs out and lie down.”

  As if to illustrate what he could do, Alex curled up in a fetal position, crooking one arm beneath his head for a pillow. I didn’t realize I was crying until Jake reached out and wiped a tear away.

  “Look, he’s already healing.” Jake wrapped an arm around me and we watched as the bloody cut under Alex’s left eye reknit itself. His bloody lip took a little longer but soon it, too, had healed.

  I chuckled. “Look at that face.”

  Jake grinned. “Yep, I�
�ve seen that whoop-ass look a few times. That is one pissed-off boy from Picayune.”

  Alex’s eyebrows had gathered in a straight line, and I could tell from the way the muscles in his jaw shifted that he was engaged in some serious teeth-grinding. The reason his wounds were fresh was because he was angry and fought back. That was a good sign. I wanted him mad as hell, not reasonable, or understanding, or thoughtful, or rational. Mad.

  “Can you tell where he is?” Jake leaned closer to the scrying chamber pot. I hoped it hadn’t been used recently … or ever.

  Shifting Charlie to different angles, we were able to see the things around him, and there were a lot of things to see. Big jester heads, half of an Elvis torso, clowns, dwarves, dragon heads, all about the same size. “This stuff’s too generic and there’s a ton of it. We need to find something bigger and more iconic.”

  “What about that giant bull?” Jake pointed to a spot about ten feet behind Alex, and I shifted to get a better look.

  That was no ordinary bull. “That’s Boeuf Gras—he’s perfect.”

  “You know that bull?”

  “He’s my favorite bull in the world. It’ll make Alex easy to find—at least if they don’t move him. But we can check again before we try to get Alex out.” The big white bull, about the size of a tractor-trailer rig, belonged to the Krewe of Rex, Mardi Gras’ oldest society. He was unique among the recurring Mardi Gras floats as he rolled atop his flatbed tractor-trailer truck, steam snorting out his nostrils. If Alex stayed close to the “fatted oxen,” we’d find him.

  CHAPTER 33

  I slept little that night, and finally wandered into the front parlor about four a.m. to find Jean and Christof deep into a game of poker. Jean looked as he always did—sexy and piratical. Christof was spiffy in a blue sweater and jeans, his hair perfectly styled and a deep reddish brown.

  I’d left my paw locket in the bedroom, so I doubted the real Christof looked quite so fresh. As for Jean, I’d never actually seen the man sleep and wasn’t sure the historical undead needed it.