“Nope. Jean only needs to be concerned with Truman Capote today.” Because I had no doubt Alex had gotten the undead author subpoenaed last night before I’d been gone five minutes. My role here today was to testify about Jean’s role in the fire, which meant I had to admit to publicly hibernating and then finding him in the bar. Nothing said “competent sentinel” like admitting you’d hibernated through a preternatural crime. “Is the star witness here yet?”
He shook his head. “No, and that is going to be one interesting testimony. If it goes bad, you better duck. I’ll be helping our friend shoot his way out.” His voice was soft.
Jake had no problem with clarity. His loyalty went to Jean, and never mind that Alex was his cousin or that the Elders had paid for his rehab and training after the loup-garou attack. In a lot of ways, Jean had saved Jake and given his life back to him.
“I met Collette,” I said. “I really like her, and she’s, like, seriously gorgeous.”
He grinned, and those dimples made me smile in return. “That she is.” He paused. “No hard feelings with us?”
“Nada.” Finally, Jake and I could be friends, roles for which we were better suited.
After wishing him luck with the boss and hoping no shots would be fired this morning, I wandered around the hallway that formed a U shape before opening onto a large meeting space. It couldn’t be more different than the courthouse room patterned after the Supreme Court. This one appeared to have been patterned after early industrial warehouse.
The overhead ductwork was exposed and wrapped in foil-covered insulation, which matched the room dividers of corrugated aluminum. Long tables were arranged in a square, and the name placards looked as if they’d been hastily scratched out on cardstock using a black Sharpie on the verge of running out of ink.
Every seat had a placard and a microphone, so I wandered around looking for my name. I’d been placed between “Florian, Faery Prince of Summer” and “Special Guest Truman Capote.”
Awesome. Talk about an odd couple.
I spotted Alex directly across the room, talking to Zrakovi. Make that listening to Zrakovi. Even they were less formal than before. Alex wore a simple black sweater and pants, and Zrakovi a dark gray suit and striped tie. No robes or fake glasses today.
Jean arrived with Jake trailing a few steps behind. Ostensibly, he was working security for the Elders, but Jake took a place along the wall behind Jean’s seat. The pirate scanned the room, paused long enough to give me a small nod, and turned his gaze to Christof, who’d taken the seat on the other side of the one reserved for Florian. They exchanged a long look.
What were those two hatching? I knew Jean well enough that shooting his way out of the meeting would be a last resort; it would close off too many of his options. He’d scheme his way out first, and I’d wager the cost of my blue sacrificial-lamb coat that he and Christof had their own plans A, B, and C.
“Oh good, I asked to sit by the prettiest wizard in the room.”
I was glad I’d learned about the whole faery appearance-changing skill, or I wouldn’t have recognized the black-leather-clad, rooster-haired punk rocker who slid into the seat next to me. “Thank you, Prince Florian, but I am the only female wizard in the room and the only wizard of any gender in the room under sixty.”
He laughed, a grating, tinkling timbre that reminded me of his husky-voiced aunt Sabine. It made my skin crawl. I met the gaze of his brother, who was back in the short dark hair of the first council meeting. He nodded a greeting, and I wondered if this were his real face and hair. How would one ever know?
Faeries were creepy.
Alex left the room abruptly, and I tracked his progress down the hall until my attention was diverted by a pair of blue-gray eyes boring holes in me from the seat next to the one marked for Zrakovi. I squinted to read the print on his name placard, and my heart sped up. Holy crap. With all the drama, I’d forgotten Lennox St. Simon would be here.
We rose from our seats at the same time and kept our eyes on each other as we walked toward the center of the room, inside the square of tables.
He had Gerry’s eyes. In fact, he looked a lot like Gerry, except his hair was shorter and still dark whereas Gerry’s had turned silver by the time he died.
We stopped and fidgeted through an awkward few seconds before he finally spoke. “My God, you look just like your mother.” His voice was deeper than Gerry’s, but the accent was the same. Gerry had lived in New Orleans since about the time I was born, but he’d never lost his British accent.
I smiled. “I didn’t realize you knew her. You and Gerry look a lot alike as well.”
“Now.” He laughed a little. “Not so much when we were younger. I suppose you know that your father and I…” He looked away. “This is bloody awkward, isn’t it?”
Very. “It’s okay. I know you didn’t get along. Gerry had that effect on a lot of people. And I didn’t know about you either.” I laughed. “I didn’t even know Gerry was my father until he died.” Just before, but there was no point in going into that sad tale if he hadn’t already heard it.
“I’d like us to get acquainted. My daughter, Audrey, is about your age. Perhaps you could be a good influence on her.”
I coughed to choke off the guffaw that threatened to escape. No one in my life—ever—had expressed hopes that I might be a good influence on anyone or anything. Audrey must be pathetic. “I can’t wait to meet her. I was excited to learn I had a cousin.”
He smiled, and he looked so much like Gerry it made my heart ache and tears build up behind my eyes.
Until Lennox looked over my shoulder and mumbled, “What the bloody hell is that?”
I turned and saw Alex coming back down the hallway from the transport. At his side, moving with a bouncing gait, strode a short, slight man wearing orange-tinted glasses and a dark suit. Without his fedora of last night, Truman Capote’s blond hair hung lank and thin, but his face still had the impish look he’d had even in his older years. A fluorescent purple scarf was draped around his neck. I suspected Truman might have enjoyed my ugly coat that was now probably resting inside a Dumpster behind the Monteleone.
Once they got in the room and Alex retreated to his corner to stand guard, Truman gave him an exaggerated wink, which brought a smile to my face. Alex blushed and looked uncomfortable. Teasing him about the flirtations of an openly gay man who was a member of the historical undead would be a great way to annoy Alex. After today, however, I wasn’t sure how we’d ever get back to the teasing stage.
“I believe he’s been asked to testify today,” I told Lennox, who’d continued to track Truman’s progress through the room. “He’s a member of the historical undead, Truman Capote, the author. He wrote Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood.”
“Ah, right. I believe I saw them on the telly.” Perhaps Lennox didn’t share Gerry’s love of books and arcane bits of knowledge. Gerry hadn’t even owned a telly until I badgered him for one as a teenager.
We made hasty promises to stay in touch, and I returned to my seat.
“Hi, Truman, you’re sitting next to me,” I said, pulling out his chair. I figured after he’d asked me to suck on his cherry, we should be on a first-name basis. “Sorry you got dragged into this.”
“Pish-tosh.” His pupils were the size of pennies behind those glasses, and he smelled of gin. Not a good state for a star witness. “I have often been skewered by Johnny Carson on national television,” he said. “So what the hell’re the wizards going to do, kill me?”
He gave a broad smile to Christof before leaning over me to focus his attention on Florian. “Are you one of the Rolling Stones? I did so enjoy your early music. Even kept up with it after my human death, at least until the disco era. Emotional Rescue was such a mistake.”
He turned to me and spoke in a stage whisper. “Why did one of the Rolling Stones make it onto your council and I wasn’t even asked?”
I’d witnessed the entire exchange with openmouthed amazeme
nt, and it occurred to me that I had no business attending these council meetings, sentinel or not. I wasn’t weird enough.
Florian leaned over. “What is the significance of a rolling stone? Does it have something to do with gathering moss?”
Thankfully, I was spared from answering by Zrakovi calling the meeting to order, then having to pause for the arrival of a red-haired bombshell poured into a low-cut leopard-skin dress. Only once she got closer, I saw it was a very ancient bombshell whose caked makeup looked more Bette Davis horror movie than glamour queen. Baby Jane had made her entrance. Florian sniggered; Christof looked annoyed.
“Yes, well, thanks to all of you for attending on such short notice,” Zrakovi said. He introduced himself as the acting First Elder, explained that a warrant had been issued for the arrests of Geoffrey Hoffman, Adrian Hoffman, Etienne Boulard, and Garrett Melnick—and therefore there was currently no vampire representation on the council.
My eyes almost crossed out of boredom as a motion was solicited and approved and voted on to banish the Realm of Vampyre from representation on the Interspecies Council until matters could be resolved.
During all the ayes and seconds and motions, I slouched down in my seat and tried to keep my eyes open. Holy crap, but I was tired, and Zrakovi spoke in a droning monotone that did nothing to wake me up.
“Now, to new business.” Mr. Monotone speared me with a decidedly unfriendly look. “Although I mentioned a warrant for the arrest of Etienne Boulard, we still must discuss the matter of the burning of his Wild Love club.”
Guess it took too much effort to get the name of L’Amour Sauvage right, much like the name of my friend Eugenie. Or he considered neither of them important enough to care about.
“As it is well known that one of our council representatives, Captain Jean Lafitte, had recently threatened Mr. Boulard, we feel it is necessary for the continued integrity of this council to ask Mr. Lafitte to testify as to his whereabouts when the incident occurred.”
Jean gave Zrakovi a small smile. “Pardon, Monsieur Zrakovi, but I know not of the incident to which you refer. Do you mean there was a fire? I hope my former colleague Etienne was not injured.”
Zrakovi blinked at him, and I leaned back. This part of the meeting could prove entertaining. Zrakovi was a smart man; he couldn’t have reached his level in the wizarding hierarchy without a certain degree of savvy. But he was no intellectual match for the scheming mind of Jean Lafitte.
“No, he wasn’t injured,” Zrakovi said slowly. He was already losing ground, and he knew it. “Could you tell us where you were during the hours of two and seven last evening?”
Jean nodded. “There is a lovely drinking establishment within the Hotel Monteleone on Royal Street, where I reside in the rooms of Eudora Welty when I am in Nouvelle-Orléans. I have found Le Bar du Carrousel quite an enjoyable means of passing the time of an evening.”
I bit my lip hard enough to draw a bead of salty blood on my tongue. Jean could turn on the flowery bullshit better than anyone I’d ever met, and from the stunned expression on Zrakovi’s face, this was the first time he’d experienced the brunt of it.
“Yes, but Captain Lafitte, were you—”
“When I learned that my dear friend Truman Capote had come to the city of his birth to witness its beauty in this rare snowfall, I was quite pleased to introduce him to the pleasures to be found at the Carrousel.”
Zrakovi blinked again, and Jean settled back in his chair with a smirk much like the one my former cat Sebastian got when he’d cadged part of my dinner from under my very nose.
The acting First Elder cleared his throat. “Yes, well. Mr. Capote, can you confirm that you were with Captain Lafitte during this entire period?”
“Why, of course I can.” Capote leaned forward, his high-pitched voice singsonging into his microphone. “I was telling him about how I used to boast that I was born in the Hotel Monteleone but, really, I was born in Charity Hospital…”
And on and on he went. Zrakovi’s eyebrows got lower and lower until they were in danger of meeting his mouth, bypassing his nose altogether. “Thank you, Mr. Capote,” he finally interrupted during a diatribe about the treachery of Gore Vidal that, as near as I could follow, was apropos to nothing. “You’re free to leave.”
“Not quite yet.”
Everyone sought the source of the interruption, but I’d recognize that silky, suave, evil voice anywhere. Mace Banyan, seated on the other side of Sabine and across the room from Rand, leaned forward. The leader of the Elven Synod hated Jean, and the feeling was mutual. I’d been so sidetracked with the Eugenie situation that Mace’s interference with Jean hadn’t occurred to me.
“I believe we know that, in his human life, Mr. Capote was far from stable, and that he was notorious for telling untruths. Do you deny that, sir?”
Capote reddened. “A bit of embellishment is an author’s privilege. You are a friend of that damnable Gore Vidal—”
“And from your nonsensical ramblings today, it is clear that you’re either still quite unstable or else have been coached in the art of obfuscation by the most eloquent Captain Lafitte.”
Mace was performing the classic exercise of destroying witness credibility. Unfortunately, he had plenty of fodder where Truman was concerned.
“This wizard was there,” the author sputtered, jabbing me in the side with his elbow. “She wore a salacious sweatshirt and sucked the stem off my cherry.”
I closed my eyes and tried to will myself to disappear. It didn’t work. When I opened my eyes, everyone in the room was staring at me except Sabine, who was examining her zebra-patterned nails.
“Really.” Mace turned beady brown eyes on me. “Then perhaps we should hear from our sentinel, who is duty-bound to tell the truth to her own Elders.”
Freaking elf.
CHAPTER 23
The familiar sweep of déjà vu hit me, except at least this time I didn’t have to sit alone at a table in front of an interspecies firing squad. Zrakovi sitting directly across the room from me was bad enough, and I had to drag my gaze away from Alex, standing directly behind him like a big old statue.
I took a second to collect my thoughts. “Of course, I’d be happy to answer your questions,” I told Zrakovi, and mentally prepared myself to spend the next four or five minutes lying through my teeth. I would stick with the story I’d fed Alex. It was safe because it had enough of the truth in it to keep me from tripping up.
As per my assignment, I said, I had followed Jean Lafitte on his stroll through the French Quarter. I had trailed him all the way to Jackson Square, where he looked around a few minutes and then threw a snowball at Andrew Jackson’s head before walking back up Royal Street. As I followed him along his return route toward the hotel, I became overwhelmed with what I later learned was ESS, elven survival syndrome.
Zrakovi interrupted. “And ESS is what, exactly?”
I’d hoped he either already knew, or wouldn’t ask, although I could understand why elves didn’t advertise the fact that cold weather virtually incapacitated them.
“If I get too cold, I go into spontaneous hibernation,” I said through gritted teeth, daring him to comment. I didn’t look at Rand, but I could hear him inside my head, laughing at my embarrassment like it wasn’t his fault. Until I bonded with him, I’d gone twenty-eight years without hibernating. “It’s an elf thing,” I added, just to clarify.
I took Zrakovi’s blank stare as permission to continue, but addressed the rest of my testimony to Mace Banyan.
I’d awakened a short time later to hear sirens, had gone downstairs, and had found Jean Lafitte in the Carousel Bar with Truman Capote. The men appeared to have been drinking for some time.
I saw on the TV behind the bar that the fire was at L’Amour Sauvage, so I walked over to Chartres Street to see if I could tell whether or not the blaze had a preternatural cause. There, I spoke to Etienne Boulard, who escaped before I could arrest him, and the Sauvage host, Marcus, who opined
that the heating system had shorted out.
I saw no evidence that Jean Lafitte had been there and no proof of foul play, so I returned to the hotel, where he and Mr. Capote were still drinking. I joined them, although the cherry from Mr. Capote’s cocktail went nowhere near my mouth.
I had to nip that notion right in the cherry pit.
Zrakovi didn’t look happy with my testimony, but everything I’d said was true. I simply changed the order of events and left out a few details. I saw no reason to get Rene involved in this mess, nor to mention being duped by an Etienne look-alike.
“Obviously, she’s covering for her good friend Jean Lafitte,” Mace said. “She has been known to frequent his pirate den in Old Barataria. I myself have seen her there, wearing a scanty costume and consuming alcohol early in the morning.”
Actually, I’d been wearing a fine early-nineteenth-century gown, and hadn’t really been drinking. He was angry that I’d thrown a heavy cut-glass brandy decanter at his head—and hit the bull’s-eye. “I only threw the brandy at you because you’d kidnapped and tortured me, you elven snake.”
“Please.” Zrakovi held up a hand. “Does anyone else have new information we should consider before concluding this matter?”
The sound of a chair scraping across the tiled floor sounded preternaturally loud. “Yes, Elder Zrakovi, I would like to add to the testimony.”
God, what a zoo. I looked around for the source of this interruption just as Christof stood. “I too was with Captain Lafitte.” He turned and gave me a stiff, formal bow. “Sentinel Jaco, I appreciate your honoring my request to keep my presence quiet, but this farce has gone on long enough. It’s clearly a witch hunt.”
Holy crap. Christof was pissed. I knew this not by his chilly words but because the temperature in the room had dropped at least ten degrees in a matter of seconds. I sure hoped nobody figured out it was caused by the anger of the Faery Prince of Winter and made the leap to New Orleans’ suddenly arctic weather, from which a leap to Jean and then to me was an easy journey.
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