River Road

by Johnson, Suzanne

  We still on for another power-transfer, babe? Still got that last rift to repair.

  Give me a week to get my strength back—use the temporary charms till then, I told him. We were having to really concentrate to communicate now, so I felt pretty sure it would eventually wear off.

  Gotcha. Outta here.

  I relaxed back on my pillow as the door closed behind him.

  Jake’s report was short. He’d gone to talk to Denis Villere, and had been told the senior mer was in the shed. When Jake went to look for him, Grandmère had locked him in. He’d shifted to loup-garou, broken his way out, and ran home.

  He didn’t mention stopping in Pointe a la Hache, and neither did Alex. Even in my drugged state, neither did I.

  Zrakovi closed his notebook with a snap. “That should about do it. I have to file a report about Libetta’s death—she passed away shortly after re-entering the Styx. I assume, Mr. Warin, that the missing-persons cases will be suitably wrapped up?”

  “Yes, sir,” Alex said. “They’ll both be declared cold cases and I heard this morning that Melinda Hebert’s body mysteriously disappeared from the CDC.”

  “Imagine that,” Zrakovi said drily. He stood and everyone else stood with him, as if on cue. Except me. I giggled again, wondering what they’d think of my gown if I stood with them.

  “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” Zrakovi told me with a grim smile. “We’ll talk soon about the plans we’re making for the future.”

  “Oh, it’s okay. Alex told me,” I said, smiling, then gasped as Alex kicked the bed on his way out.

  CHAPTER 36

  “Does this dress look stupid with my leg bandaged?” I asked Eugenie, frowning at myself in the full-length mirror that hung inside my bedroom door. Sebastian sat beside me, probably trying to figure out the worst possible time for him to jump up and latch his teeth and claws onto my short billowy skirt.

  The dress in question was red and white checked, had a fitted waist, short capped sleeves, and the ridiculous poufy skirt. Eugenie had rented it from a costume shop in Metairie. I was still barefoot, not because it was warm enough to go without shoes but because I couldn’t find any that didn’t look ridiculous with this outfit. It also hurt to bend over far enough to reach my feet.

  “Honey, that dress looks stupid no matter what you do to it, but live with it. You’re the one that wanted to dress up like Little Red Riding Hood. I was pushing for Britney—you know, the whole sexy schoolgirl thing.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re one to talk, hippie chick.”

  We were getting ready for Alex’s housewarming/Halloween party—costumes required. I’d been home from the hospital two days after a lot of fabricated bloodwork, memory erasures, and malfunctioning monitors.

  “This must have been a bad case,” Eugenie said, adjusting her tie-dyed bandana. “What I don’t understand is why you thought you saw Quince—why in the world would he be there?”

  “I told you I was hallucinating.” Although there was still something fishy about that guy, and thanks to the fast-fading mind-meld with Rene, I knew all about fishy.

  “Well, keep your hands off my man, DJ. He’s taken.”

  “Yeah, he’s something, that’s for sure,” I muttered, looking for the red hooded cape that fit over my gingham dress.

  Going to the party as Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf had been Jake’s idea, and nothing I said would talk him out of it. Rand and Eugenie were going as Deadheads. Eugenie had been forcing me to listen to Grateful Dead music all week.

  The doorbell sent Sebastian trotting down the stairs with his rubber rat dangling from his mouth, followed by Eugenie. I thumped along much more slowly with my stiff leg and sore ribcage.

  A situation brewed by the time I got to the front parlor. Eugenie was having the pants charmed off her, possibly quite literally, by Jean Lafitte. He was dressed in his usual garb. Like a pirate, in other words. Indigo shirt half-buttoned, tight black pants, boots, curved knife gleaming from its spot under a wide belt. His dark blue eyes had fairly twinkled Eugenie into a swoon.

  I hated to break the mood, but I couldn’t walk into the room quietly. Just call me Peg-leg. Maybe that could be my pirate wench name.

  “Honey, you didn’t tell me you had a new man friend.” Eugenie turned on me, practically quivering with excitement. Maybe she wasn’t as serious about weird Quince/Rand as I feared. Not that Jean would be an improvement.

  He looked at me over her head with a smug smile. “Oui, Jolie, I cannot believe you have not shared our relationship with your friend Eugenie. Such a pretty name for such a pretty friend.”

  Oh brother. He was spreading on the French charm like butter on a croissant, and Eugenie had lined up for second helpings.

  “Yes, I’m sure he’s introduced himself.” What name he gave her was anybody’s guess.

  Eugenie tittered. “He insists he’s Jean Lafitte, so I told him he could get away with that today since we’re having the costume party.”

  Egads. Jean wasn’t invited to the party. “Well, then, Jean Lafitte he is,” I said. As soon as it was vaguely polite, I shuffled Eugenie out the back door.

  Before she’d gotten to the driveway, Jean had reached me in two long strides, frowning, no doubt ready to have his turn yelling at me for putting myself in danger. These guys were just going to have to get a life. I was a lone sentinel now.

  He gripped my upper arms in his big hands.

  “Ow!” I yelped, slapping him away. “Stitches. Hurts.”

  He frowned and tugged the neck of my ugly red gingham dress aside to bare my right shoulder and upper arm, and his expression softened. “My apologies, Jolie. Where are you injured?”

  I wasn’t expecting Jake for another half hour and Alex was busy with party preparations (with the able and willing assistance of the lovely Leyla, not that I was paying attention). So I’d sop up some sympathy where I could get it. I ran through my list of injuries, head to toe. I’m sure Jean had seen much worse. He’d probably inflicted much worse.

  After that, he wanted a blow-by-blow of the events, so we sat in a couple of armchairs in the front parlor. I told him about Rene fishing me out of the river and giving me CPR, although admittedly most of that story came from Rene because I didn’t remember much. Then I finished with a colorful recounting of my experience with Jake’s wolf and Alex’s smooth mouthful of lies with the EMTs on the ride to the hospital.

  I could feel Jean’s anger rising the more I talked about the fight, and fingered my mojo bag. I’d left off my grounding ritual since I’d been hurt, letting my psychic reserves regenerate. I didn’t want his anger, though. Not this soon.

  He let loose a torrent of French. I couldn’t understand the words, but finally decided it had something to do with Denis Villere.

  “This entire désastre could have been avoided but for his treachery.” Jean stormed back and forth across the parlor. “I will travel to Atchafalaya. It is time I visited those waters again. He has damaged my friend Rene and my…” He looked at me, and I waited for him to finish the sentence. Exactly what was I to Jean? “And he has damaged you,” he finished.

  Uh-huh. He didn’t know, either.

  I levered myself out of my chair with a complete lack of grace. “Jean, it’s not your place to get vengeance for me or for Rene. Let the Elders handle it. The Villeres are on house arrest in Iberia Parish.”

  “Bah.” He sat in one of the armchairs, reached out, and pulled me to sit beside him on the low arm, facing him. He reached across my lap and slid his right arm around my waist to hold me in place. It put us on even eye-level.

  “Are you certain, Jolie? Such a man in my day would not be allowed to live.”

  Damn. He was going to kill Denis Villere, and then T-Jacques and his murderous Grandmère would be back, blaming the whole thing on the Delachaises, and we’d start all over again.

  Still, it was kind of nice having a man who was willing to risk temporary death just to defend your honor. He couldn’t
be killed, but he could suffer. I reached out and ran my fingers along his jawline. “I don’t want you to hurt him. Let the wizards handle it. But thanks for being willing to avenge me.”

  “Very well, Jolie. If that is what you wish.”

  I smiled at this unexpected turn into a kinder, gentler Jean Lafitte.

  “So you will stay away from the Villeres?”

  “Ah, sadly, no. I still must go to Atchafalaya. Denis will interfere with my business interests there, and of course I must not allow that to happen. However, if it pleases you, I shall allow him to live. And then you will owe me another debt.” His mouth curved at the edges.

  So much for the kinder, gentler Jean. “Fine, don’t kill him and I’ll owe you.”

  “Très bien.” Jean cleared his throat. “I do not mean to be rude, Jolie, but I do not like that dress. I hope you will not wear it on our next dinner date.”

  Had I agreed to a dinner date? I guess it was the price of Denis Villere’s life.

  I scowled at him. “It’s a costume party. This is a costume.” I didn’t want to explain who Little Red Riding Hood was.

  He chuckled. “So I am not invited to your party, even as Jean Lafitte the famous privateer?”

  “It’s not my party. It’s Alex’s party.”

  “Bah, Monsieur Chien. I do not wish to attend his affair.”

  I didn’t volunteer the information that Alex had bought the house next door, though he’d probably find out soon enough. Jean had struck a deal with the Elders to provide navigation services within the Beyond. He was going to be around, at least when he wasn’t terrorizing the mers of the Atchafalaya Basin.

  His cab arrived to take him back to the Quarter just as Jake pulled his truck in the driveway. I watched out the back window as the two met, and was surprised to see them shake hands. They talked for a long minute and seemed almost cordial. That bore some thinking about.

  I opened the door as the cab pulled away, and Jake headed toward me in his rust-brown sweater and black pants. He grinned, dimples deep enough to drown in, and pulled a brown furry thing from behind his back.

  “What the—”

  He pulled the big wolf head over his own, and I could barely see his amber eyes shining through the wolf’s open mouth.

  I laughed, which made my ribs send stabbing pains through my chest. “Grandmother, what big teeth you have.”

  “Well, I would say better to eat you with,” said a soft Southern drawl echoing out of the wolf’s neck. “But that is one ugly dress, sunshine.”

  I clomped into the guest room to get Alex’s housewarming gift—a large, framed painting of Gandalf raising his staff above the Balrog at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm. We walked next door, climbed the front steps, and entered Chez Alex.

  I liked it. He’d had the walls painted in varying shades of brown, from pale café au lait to a rich milk chocolate, which helped break up the long narrow spaces. I spotted the perfect place for Gandalf to hang and propped the frame against the wall.

  Jake stopped to talk to Leyla and I searched the faces around me. Ken was there with a date, looking relaxed and even smiling.

  Eugenie and Rand cuddled in a corner, and I smiled and waved at them. The light glinted on his earring, and my smile faded as I realized what it was. A peridot, not unlike the one Melinda Hebert wore around her neck to hide her species. I raised my eyes to meet the gaze of Quince Randolph, who was looking over the head of his besotted date and watching me. Holy shit. What was he?

  “Why are you in an eyelock with Eugenie’s boyfriend?” Alex slipped up on me from behind, and I wrenched my gaze away from Rand. That man was next on my agenda, though. He was up to something.

  I turned to Alex. “I love your house.”

  “Good. I hope you’ll spend some time here.” He’d dressed as a ninja, or so he said. His costume looked like normal enforcer-wear to me. He leaned against the wall, sipping a beer, watching me with a look I couldn’t interpret. I’d give half of Jean Lafitte’s treasure to know what he was thinking.

  “Where’s Leyla?” I asked.

  “Don’t know. Did Zrakovi officially tell you about the new working arrangement?”

  I nodded. “He came by the first day I got home from the hospital.”

  He leaned over and whispered, “You remember we agreed we couldn’t play ball because we were on the same team?”

  I swallowed hard, the air suddenly close and warm as I pondered the sports metaphors he trotted out when he couldn’t bring himself to actually discuss relationship stuff. Did play ball mean what I think it did? “I remember.”

  His breath was hot against my ear. “We aren’t on the same team anymore.” He kissed my cheek and walked toward the kitchen.

  Holy crap. He’d just changed the rules.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A big Jean Lafitte merci beaucoup to uber-editor Stacy Hill and all the other talented folks at Tor Books; super-agent Marlene Stringer; alpha reader Dianne, the only one who gets to read craptastic first drafts; Debbie and Susan, who continue to talk me off ledges; my friends in the Auburn Writers’ Circle, who graciously heard this book more than once; New Orleans author Dawn Chartier, who not only provided moral support but photos from Venice and Pilottown; and Lora, Jami, Kat, and Amber, for love and crits.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Suzanne Johnson writes urban fantasy from Auburn, Alabama, on top of a career in educational publishing that has thus far spanned five states and six universities (including both Alabama and Auburn, which makes her bilingual). She grew up in Winfield, Alabama, halfway between the Bear Bryant Museum and Elvis’s birthplace, but was also a longtime resident of New Orleans, so she has a highly refined sense of the absurd and an ingrained love of SEC football, cheap Mardi Gras trinkets, and fried gator on a stick. You can find Suzanne online at www.suzanne-johnson.com or on Twitter at @Suzanne_Johnson.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  RIVER ROAD

  Copyright © 2012 by Suzanne Johnson

  All rights reserved.

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor-forge.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Johnson, Suzanne, 1956–

  River road / Suzanne Johnson.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  “A Tom Doherty Associates book.”

  ISBN 978-0-7653-2780-2 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-4299-4800-5 (e-book)

  1. Wizards—Fiction. 2. Water—Pollution—Fiction. 3. New Orleans (La.)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3610.O38335R58 2012

  813'.6—dc23

  2012024835

  e-ISBN 9781429948005

  First Edition: November 2012