No headway had been made on the case. My only foray had been to go back to Melinda Hebert’s house and snoop around. In the bottom of a fly-covered can of outdoor trash, I’d found the missing photographs—or at least pieces of photographs that had been ripped apart. I’d shoved all the tiny pieces into an envelope, which still sat on my kitchen table.
Alex and Jake were convinced Tish died at the hands of the same person, or creature, that had killed the two professors, though they were waiting on the medical report. They also thought I was the target, not Tish, an announcement that had sent me into another day of weeping. How many people had to die or have their lives ripped apart because of me?
Alex fiddled with the radio, finally settling on a classical station. “I think I need to move back in with you till this case is solved.” He didn’t look at me, but I could see the tension in his posture.
I didn’t want him moving into my house, where he’d automatically become a target. I wanted to lock myself in, put up my strongest wards, and sleep for a month. “I can protect myself—I pulled the elven staff out of the closet.” If the elves had a problem with it, too bad.
“No arguing, DJ. The only reason the killer didn’t come after you was because you were smart enough to put up your wards.”
“Then the wards work,” I said. “I don’t understand why I’d be a target anyway. I didn’t know either of the professors. If it is some revenge thing related to the war, I wasn’t involved—I hadn’t even been born. Tish was more involved than me.” None of it made sense.
Alex thrummed his fingers on the steering wheel—a sure sign he was thinking hard. “But you’re involved in the investigation, and Tish wasn’t, at least not directly. I think you’re getting too close to figuring it out.”
Glad the killer thought I was close. I sure didn’t. And I didn’t care what the elves thought; Mahout was going everywhere with me from now on.
“What have you done on the investigation the last few days?” Alex asked.
I frowned, thinking. “I’ve been researching the water species and looking through the Elders’ records for anything specific on the Delachaise and Villere clans. I’ve also been leaving messages with the new office of the Greater Mississippi River Nymphs to check out Libby’s background, but I swear those women are so unorganized I doubt they could find their keys on a keyring.” I tried to remember the week—the last three days had all been a long, sad blur. “I’ve asked Adrian Hoffman to send me background files on Melinda Hebert to see if I can find something he missed. Oh, and I have the torn-up photos.” I also needed to use the translation charm to read Gerry’s remaining Greek texts on the Styx.
The first person had died from the “Plaquemines Plague,” an elderly woman who lived south of Buras. More than fifty people had sought medical help, and the Army Corps of Engineers was testing the river for contamination. My test for standard pollutants had come up negative, but they had more sophisticated equipment. Would they find something they couldn’t explain? This had disaster written all over it, but at least officials had told people to use bottled water until the tests were complete.
“Have you met any of Tish’s family?” Alex’s voice broke my reverie.
“No. She and Gerry had been an item for years so she didn’t have a spouse or kids. She has a brother and sister, and nieces and nephews. Only her parents knew she was a wizard—it came from her dad’s side of the family, and they didn’t realize she was practicing.” I stared at the sprawl of commerce that had exploded north of the lake after Katrina. “I wondered if I should even go. As soon as they hear my name, they’ll know I was the one who…” Found her. Got her killed.
“Jake wanted to come, but he was going down to Port Sulphur with Rene and Robert to replace the temporary charms,” Alex said. “You know Jake thinks one of the twins might be our murderer—he wanted to keep an eye on them today.”
I nodded. “I don’t know much about Robert, but I just don’t think it’s Rene.” I hadn’t told anyone because I was afraid to, but Rene and I still could communicate a little bit mentally. It took a lot of concentration but I’d get occasional words or images, and so did he. At least he couldn’t still pull power from me. We’d agreed not to do another ritual until all the other loose ends were tied up. I was afraid of being linked to him forever. Neither of us liked that idea.
“What about Libby?” Alex said. “You said yourself she’s a lot smarter than any of us gave her credit for. Think she could have done it?”
I shrugged. “What’s her motive? What’s any of their motives? A grudge after the war—that’s all we have. It could be any of them or none of them. It could be some species that’s come in since the borders dropped that we don’t even know about.”
Alex shook his head. “Rule of thumb is, if you hear hooves, look first for a horse. Don’t run off looking for a zebra. Chances are good that our murderer is not some mystery species we don’t know about.”
Alex slowed as he reached a crossroads and the car’s GPS voice told us to turn. “The thing about the mers, though—they’ve been mainstreamed for years. If they’d wanted to go after wizards, they’ve had plenty of time to do it unless they were waiting for other species to blame it on.”
“Except Denis has anger issues, and his mama is insane.” And has a nice, sharp knife.
“The Villeres are crazy, but they don’t strike me as dangerous,” Alex countered. “I like the mertwins, but I’m not willing to give either one of them a pass yet. And Libby has been watching the repairs more closely than she wants us to think. She only pretends her goal in life is screwing Rene’s and Robert’s brains out. And Jake’s and mine, if we’d give her a chance.”
“Ick.”
He gave me a dirty look. “Until you stop dating the undead Pirate of the Caribbean, you have no room to judge.”
My smile faded as he turned into the parking lot of a small funeral home located in a dark-shuttered colonial-style building. A few cars peppered the pavement, and I wondered how many from the river authority would drive up from New Orleans.
It struck me again how lonely and isolated most wizards were. Tish was kind and good, and she should have been mourned and celebrated by a parking lot full of people who loved her and really knew her, people who understood who and what she was. All of us spent too much time hiding our real selves from the people who were supposed to care about us.
Alex parked the car and we got out in silence. I took his hand, and he squeezed mine back as we got ready to say good-bye to our friend.
* * *
I sucked the salty orange remains of a bag of Cheetos off my fingers and checked my watch. I’d made up a translation potion, thinking if I read the text aloud in some approximation of Greek, the potion would translate my words as I spoke them. No such luck.
We’d gotten back from the funeral a couple of hours ago, and I’d finally convinced Alex to leave. He was going to Orchard to talk to the twins, then to Tidewater to see Denis and T-Jacques Villere. I hoped he listened to my warning about the murderous granny.
I rubbed my eyes, and tried to think. I didn’t know any potion or spell that would automatically translate printed Greek into English, but I could bespell a pair of glasses.
Upstairs in my library, I pulled out my backpack and retrieved my portable magic kit. I kept a translation potion ready for encounters with multilingual members of the historical undead such as Jean Lafitte. He was fluent in Italian and Spanish, as well as French and English, so when I pissed him off he was prone to rant in a language I couldn’t understand. It worked well on most prete languages as well.
I found a dusty pair of reading glasses on a shelf and poured the potion over them in a bowl—a simple mixture of ground sage, sunflower, hawthorn, and purified water, infused with a little magical energy. I added pomegranate essence, a bit of olive oil, and coated the lens of the glasses. Sounded more like a salad, except for the magic part.
I let them cure for a half hour, then wiped them off
and took them downstairs to where I had the old texts spread out on the kitchen table.
I pulled a book from the stack and was relieved to find the charmed glasses worked perfectly. The Greek characters swirled and reformed themselves into English.
Looking up the lengthy entry for the River Styx, I began to read. The River Styx was one of the five rivers of the Underworld, blah blah blah. The goddess Thetic dipped the infant Achilles into the river to make him invulnerable, holding him by his heel, blah blah blah. Oaths sworn by the waters of the Styx could not be broken, blah blah blah. The water was so poisonous it corroded clay containers, blah blah blah. The river was named after a nymph …
A chill ran through me. How closely were nymphs affiliated with the River Styx? I rifled through the piles of books and found a yellow-paged, dog-eared book on nymphs that had been in Gerry’s collection.
I began scanning. Styx was the eldest daughter of the god Okeanos.
There was a Mardi Gras krewe of Okeanos—could they be involved? No, too far-fetched.
Lived in Hades. Had a slew of daughters. Can’t resist honey. Sexually aggressive and promiscuous.
No kidding.
Can cause nympholepsy, described classically as “divine madness” or mental rapture.
That could be what Alex was calling enthrallment.
I frowned and took off the glasses. Marking the page, I shoved the book and glasses aside. I needed to talk to some nymphs.
Digging out my contact sheet again, I called the Greater Mississippi River Nymphs office, but got a machine message: Hi, this is Blueberry Muffin—call me Muffi. We’re ready to escort you to your next event, or make all your wildest dreams come true. Leave a message, and we’d loooove to call you back.
Escorts. Talk about a thinly disguised service industry.
I set the phone aside and picked up the Melinda Hebert photo pieces. I’d always been good at jigsaw puzzles, and that’s essentially what this was. You do the outside edges first, then fill in the middle.
I worked a half hour and had three photos outlined. Still no answer at the nymph office, so I kept working. Finally, one was almost finished. I could see a happier, prettier Melinda Hebert standing alongside another woman. I looked for eyes among the remaining unused pieces, and slipped one into place, then stopped breathing. I had about eighty percent of a beautiful likeness of Melinda Hebert and a woman who looked a lot like her, only trampier: Libby.
CHAPTER 29
The Nymph line was busy now, so I ran to the Pathfinder and drove like a lunatic to the Faubourg Marigny, a neighborhood just east of the French Quarter.
A small sign on the door of the renovated double said, complete with exclamation points: GREATER MISSISSIPPI RIVER NYMPHS! ESCORTS AND MORE!!! It looked like every other house-turned-business in this gentrified neighborhood: cute and Victorian, with lots of gingerbread.
The large front window had been covered with a mural. At first glance, the brown river winding through the center of the painting appeared to be surrounded by banks covered in thick trees and brush. Closer inspection showed that among the vegetation cavorted dozens of nubile young things in various stages of, uh, activity. I was tilting my head and trying to unravel a confusing tangle of limbs underneath a nicely painted live oak when the door opened.
“Oh my Zeus, you scared me!” A little blond bombshell with painted-on leggings and a sports bra squealed as she ran into me.
“Are you Muffi?”
The bombshell giggled. “Oh no, Muffi’s inside at the front desk.” She looked at me with vacant blue eyes and a tiny frown creased her perfect brows. “We don’t get many women customers, but that’s okay. Muffi can talk to you about our new male escorts.”
Yeah, I’d be talking to Muffi about a lot of things once this case was done. I had a feeling the nymphs were not going to mainstream well.
I stepped inside the cool, dark entry filled with old wood and the cloying smell of incense and flowers. A small fountain to the left of the door, behind the mural, added a tinkle of water to the air-conditioned quiet, and a staircase rose behind the single desk in the room. A parlor to the right was filled with heavy sofas, oversized chairs, and a few contraptions with handcuffs. I so didn’t want to know.
Another petite blonde sat at the desk, smiling.
I smiled back. “Are you Muffi?”
“Yes, and we have just the thing you need—I don’t know how you found out about it so quickly but it’s going to be great,” she said with a chirp. Before I could interrupt her, she picked up the phone.
“No—wait. I don’t want an escort.”
She frowned. “Are you sure? They’re satyrs!”
Good Lord. I was so going to shut them down when I had time.
I took a deep breath. “Let’s start over here. I’m Drusilla Jaco, the wizards’ sentinel for the region, and I came here to talk to you about some murders in Plaquemines Parish, and in particular a nymph named Libby.”
“Libby?” Muffi pointed me to a seat while she pulled out a file folder. “I don’t remember a Libb—oh, wait. Here we go.”
She pulled out a sheet of paper and studied it. “We keep records on all our people coming in from the Beyond. No one works in New Orleans without checking in with us.” She looked up at me anxiously.
“That’s good,” I said. “You need to keep up with them. What about Libby?”
She shrugged and handed me the paper. It contained exactly four words: LIBBY. OCTOBER 13. VISITOR.
“So, Libby isn’t a member of your organization?”
Muffi beamed, pleased at my insight. “Nope. I remember her, though. Tall woman. All the Mississippi girls are blond and petite. You could pass for one of us!”
Yeah, next time I needed to go undercover. “So you didn’t send Libby to help the wizards with a diving project?”
She looked at me blankly. “We didn’t send anyone.”
A chill raced through me. Libby had been hanging around whenever we did repairs, and she egged on the fights between the mers. If she was coming in from the Underworld via the Styx, she’d have to create new rifts in the riverbed every time we plugged the old one up. I didn’t have a clue what her motive might be, but in that photo she and Melinda Hebert looked enough alike to be sisters.
CHAPTER 30
Jake called my cell as I drove home, looking for Alex.
“I haven’t seen him since we got back from the funeral,” I said. “He’s supposed to be in Plaquemines, talking to the mers.” What was I, the Warin social secretary? “Did you get Melinda’s autopsy report?”
“Yeah, he dropped by here but it came in after he left, and he’s not picking up his cell. Anyway, here’s the reason it’s taken so long.” Papers rattled in the background. “The coroner for Plaquemines Parish sent his reports to the state, and they sent it on to the CDC—they’re all in a pig-swivet. Her blood doesn’t type—they’ve never seen anything like it.” He paused and let that sink in. “She ain’t human, I’m thinkin’.”
Holy crap.
Damn it, I’d known there was something off with her. I’ve always been able to read the emotions of humans, and the Elders wouldn’t take me seriously. I thought about Melinda as she’d been that day Alex and I interviewed her. The disheveled appearance, the sweatshirt, the necklace. The freakin’ necklace.
“Shit.” I pulled my car against a curb before I wrecked it.
“What’s wrong?” Jake’s voice rose, tinged with anxiety. “Where are you?”
“I’m okay—I just need to talk to the Elders. I’ll call you back.”
I speed-dialed Adrian Hoffman.
He sounded resigned as he answered the phone. “Yes, Ms. Jaco? What do the mermen want now?”
“What happens if a nymph marries a wizard?” I asked.
Long silence as he shifted mental gears. “Well, there’s no law against it. You’d just have to put in a request to the Elders and the head of the Water Species Convention and get it approved. I’d advise against
it. The nymphs tend to be emotionally unstable. What wizard are you talking about?”
“Doug Hebert. Actually, I’m talking about Melinda Hebert,” I said impatiently. “Is there a chance she is a nymph? Wouldn’t you guys have a record of that somewhere?”
And if I’m right, you idiots should have figured this out before Tish got killed. I fought to keep the anger out of my voice.
“There’s nothing in his file,” the Speaker said, and I heard the sound of a keyboard. “It clearly states on their marriage record that she is human.”
I thought furiously. “I think the nymph who’s been supposedly helping us, Libby, could be our murderer, and has a connection to Melinda Hebert. I found a picture of them together.” I took a deep breath and kept going. “Do you verify that a spouse is human? I mean like require blood tests or something?”
Hoffman snorted into the phone. “Why in Merlin’s name would we do that? And you have absolutely no proof that the nymph is the murderer. Nymphs are very simple, peaceful creatures.”
I thought about Libby cheering as Jean, Robert, and Denis tried to tear each other to shreds, and our talk about how easy it was to deceive men. She was neither simple nor peaceful. “So if Doug Hebert lied about his wife being human, you’d have no way of knowing?”
“You’re being ridiculous. Why would he lie?” Hoffman’s voice got deeper and his British accent heavier. “If he’d wanted to marry a nymph, no one would have objected. You need to stop concocting lunatic theories and figure out who killed her husband. Forget Melinda Hebert. She’s insignificant. She doesn’t matter.”
Asshat. Everybody matters to somebody.
“One last question. If a prete wants to hide what he is, and has the help of a wizard, what’s the best way to do it?”
“You bloody imbecile—you are giving me an oral exam on magic? You work a spell, or charm an item of clothing or jewelry. Now don’t call back until you have something to report.”
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