[Bayou Gavotte 03.0] Heart of Constantine

by Barbara Monajem

  “Right.” Marguerite’s tone might be sarcastic, but recollection stirred at the back of her mind. Bats? She couldn’t even think about that right now. Then his thigh brushed hers, mildly invasive, definitely sensual. Sighing, she said, “We have to talk.”

  His aura flickering with frustration, he moved a fraction of an inch away, ran his hands through his hair, and braided it swiftly behind his head. The curls of his desire tightened like ferns going back in time, fiddleheads doing their best to contract and disappear. She felt an urge to hug him, to swear that everything would be okay. How could sex with him be dangerous when he had such control over himself? He’d never shown her any physical violence. He’d tried to scare her away, but without much conviction. What was he afraid of?

  Because afraid he was, although she doubted he would ever admit it.

  He said, “Tony told me you saw Zeb but didn’t get anywhere.”

  “It was weird. He’s absolutely convinced the scenario on the mound was not directed at you.”

  Constantine gave an obnoxious little snort. He shouldn’t be so beautiful, not when she couldn’t move him, couldn’t change his mind.

  But she still had to try. “He said it was a practical joke, and he meant it. I’m sure of it.” With a sigh: “I know he did.”

  His aura sprang like a pouncing cat. “How do you know?” His mouth twisted. “You just know. Right?”

  She nodded. Swallowed. Waited. She didn’t want to discuss this.

  “I’m going to worm it out of you, babe, sooner or later.” His teeth flashed white in the darkness.

  “If I explain myself, will you promise not to hurt Zeb?”

  He considered a moment. “Nope.”

  She let out a breath of relief. “It’s all for the best, then, because you wouldn’t believe me, and even if you did, you wouldn’t like it.”

  “Why not? You believe I sent you a dream this afternoon, and you liked it.”

  True, but why was he mentioning it if he didn’t hope something more physical would come of it? “Did you send it?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t seem to have much control over my thoughts.” The fiddleheads of desire had reappeared briefly, but now they tightened hard. “Your friend Lavonia was babbling something about prophetic dreams.”

  “Don’t worry. A thirteen-foot penis would be waaaay too daunting.”

  “Thirteen feet? No, no, babe. Didn’t you read the book? It’s only thirteen inches.”

  “Where else was I supposed to get information about you?” She gaped. “Not really!”

  Now he laughed. “No, of course not. And we shouldn’t be talking about this, because it’s not going to go anywhere.”

  Wrong, she thought, with absolutely no justification except that she wanted it to go somewhere.

  Wow. She actually wanted to have sex. She couldn’t just—just ignore being turned on for the first time in she didn’t remember how long. “I had dreams that Pauline was going to die, and she did. Then I had dreams that a big black van would run me over.”

  “And you still went after it.” His aura simmered; his eyes bored into her.

  “I didn’t believe the dreams were prophetic. I’m still not sure whether I do. Maybe they were just telling me something about what was going on. Putting information together in my dreams because I couldn’t do it in my conscious mind.” Pause. “Besides, I had no choice.”

  And he could look as pissed off as he liked. She wasn’t about to back down. “I believe Zeb.”

  “And therefore I’m just a paranoid rock star vigilante who thinks the world is out to get me.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Marguerite said. “I believe both of you.”

  Zeb found the black van parked in a row of vehicles belonging to Buildings and Grounds at Hellebore U. There were now magnetic signs on the sides identifying it as university property. He forced himself to unlock it and look inside; no one. He locked it again, resting his forehead against the cool metal of the door. He didn’t know why he was so relieved; he’d already been sure—hadn’t he?—that Marguerite wouldn’t be, couldn’t be in there. He opened the hood, disconnected the battery, and pulled out a couple of spark plug wires. He’d done what he could, and if there was something else to do, he was too tired to think of it.

  He had no idea where Marguerite might be. A minute after he’d found her Honda, a cop car had come by, shining its headlights on the vehicle; now, on the way home, he jogged past the same spot. The bike remained, but the car was gone. He detoured tiredly past her house—still dark and silent.

  He jogged home, hid the spark plug wires in the neighbor’s shed, and climbed in his bedroom window. His father was asleep. Thankful for that mercy at least, he shucked his clothes and got into bed. He was just dropping off when his cell phone chimed.

  Zelda was texting him. Again. U up?

  At frigging 4:00 A.M.? The girl was nuts. No.

  Don’t B down. We luv U!

  Not down. Why did she keep thinking he was down? She didn’t know he was contemplating murder. Asleep. C U tomorrow.

  Promise?

  Sure. What was with the girl? Was Juma angling for a definite date? If so, she’d text him herself. Juma wasn’t shy.

  Whatever. Right now, all he wanted was a few hours of oblivion.

  He turned off the phone, wondering if Juma’s goth philosophy extended only to dress or if she would relish telling the world she’d slept with a killer. He’d thought lack of sleep was doing it to him, but contemplating murder was sheer hell on the libido.

  She believed both of them. Crazy girl, thought Constantine.

  Across the lawn, the sliding doors opened. “Come inside,” Lavonia called. “The coffee’s ready.”

  Constantine stood and offered Marguerite a hand. Just as well that they had to go indoors, seeing as they’d reached an impasse. However, there were other possible avenues of approach. Not only that, he now had another, far more interesting mystery to solve.

  A nightjar called nearby: And once you solve that, things will start falling into place. According to his spirit guide, everything falling perfectly into place was the inevitable result if only Constantine would cater to its every whim, obey its every command. It would be a damn sight easier to do that if its commands made sense.

  They’d managed to cooperate this evening out of sheer necessity. Marguerite was alive. She’d clung to him. He’d rocked her while she wept. Isn’t that good enough for now?

  The nightjar called again, plaintive and noncommittal.

  “Zeb is as convinced as you are,” she said, “or he was until I told him Pauline didn’t commit suicide. Then his—he, uh, wavered. I could tell.”

  “Of course you could,” Constantine replied cordially. “His what?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she retorted. “I could tell he was surprised, and that the idea that Pauline might have been murdered really affected him.”

  Not that what she was describing couldn’t be discerned by observation alone, but it seemed Marguerite had some unusual ability. Her secrecy didn’t surprise him. His vampire friends kept their fangs as secret as possible. Other friends with unusual abilities did, too, and although he spread plenty of rumors about himself, very few people knew what he really could and couldn’t do. Close friends, though…

  But she didn’t see him as a friend, only as an inconveniently sexy rock star who wanted to hurt a guy she cared about. “If you tell me what wavered and how you know so much about people, I might be more likely to believe you.”

  She rounded on him, practically snarling. “Forget it. I’m sick and tired of begging people to believe me.” She hurried ahead of him into the house.

  Well. This was interesting. What had sparked that outburst? If she didn’t tell him, he’d find out anyway. Contentment seeped into his veins.

  No. He couldn’t afford contentment. He couldn’t allow himself to enjoy her too much or to want her too badly. He needed to know more about Marguerite as a step toward
finding his Enemy, but that was that.

  Lavonia ushered them into a small sitting room with one pink ceramic lamp, gauze-curtained windows all around, and a multitude of plants in badly painted pots. The three other witches had changed out of their costumes. Janie, who worked at the fan club and was perpetually hot-to-trot, waggled her fingers at him. The other two eyed him with wary interest.

  “Where are we?” Marguerite asked. She sat at one end of a couch. Constantine sent Lawless over to flop beside her and lounged in the doorway, being picturesque. Women always noticed him, always took stock, and in place of indifference, he sent them zings of appreciation in return. As for the few he cared about…

  He was going to lose both Marguerite and Zelda if he hurt Zeb.

  “This is Janie’s place,” Lavonia said.

  “Janie and I are acquainted.” He grinned at her avid eyes. “Don’t waste your time, darlin’. You should know by now that I’m immune to love spells.”

  Janie gasped and looked embarrassed for all of a millisecond.

  The other ladies laughed. “Trust Janie,” said an older lady with a kindly face.

  Janie smirked.

  “No sex spells either,” Constantine said. “They’ll bounce right off me, and you’ll be stuck with whoever—or whatever—they land on.” The others laughed, the older one said something about frogs that definitely weren’t princes, and Janie’s smirk dissolved into a pout.

  Lavonia introduced the others to him: Joan (the older lady, who emanated good humor) and Glennis (thirtyish, freckled, and knitting nervously). Apparently, Marguerite already knew them all.

  “I called a special wee-hours Circle tonight.” Lavonia rounded on Marguerite. “What did you think you were doing? You had been warned, and you went out at night alone without even the dog!”

  “It seemed like the only option at the time,” Marguerite said. “And for what it’s worth, I didn’t get run over.”

  “No thanks to you,” Lavonia retorted. “How did you end up here? Have some coffee.”

  Marguerite accepted a mug. Constantine declined. Joan yawned and sipped her coffee. Nervous Glennis hadn’t touched hers. She caught Constantine’s eye, shied away, and knitted even faster.

  Marguerite blew on the steam and said, “Those lights I saw—like a dome. And the voices, chanting. Were they from your circle?”

  “You saw lights? And heard us?” Lavonia gaped. “We were in complete darkness except for the moon, and we were chanting very low, because we didn’t want to disturb the neighbors.”

  Everyone stared at Marguerite, except Horny Janie, who was giving Constantine a long, slow once-over.

  “You have some kind of Sight, Marguerite,” Lavonia said.

  Marguerite flushed. “Don’t be ridiculous. I must have been hallucinating.” She set down her cup and picked up a pillow cross-stitched with pictures of herbs. She smoothed out the lace edging. “I’m sure it was because I’d been running forever, terrified out of my mind and gasping for breath. I thought I was going to die, and then there was this horrendous noise that felt like my head cracked in two.”

  “That’s when the guy who was chasing you hit the Circle,” Lavonia said. “It stopped him in his tracks.”

  “It was amazing,” said Joan, the older lady. “Never in all my years in the Craft have I seen anything like it.”

  Marguerite’s color slowly faded toward normal. Constantine only had ordinary sight, but it was enough to tell how much Lavonia’s suggestion had discomposed her. Now she was hugging the cushion to her chest.

  “We met tonight to do a protection spell,” said Lavonia. “I was worried about you.” Her eyes flicked to Constantine and back. “We were envisioning a dome to cover you and keep you safe. And it worked! Not the way we imagined, but it protected you amazingly well!”

  This was true. His guide could only do so much. At the moment it was silent, bent out of shape from the work of stirring up hordes of bats and blaming him for the necessity of doing so.

  “You have no idea,” Joan said. “We work at magic for years and years, and there are plenty of personal rewards, but for something to really work like this did… it’s such a confirmation!”

  The others nodded their agreement, except Glennis, who was in the grip of knitting fever. Lavonia went on, “You ran right into the Circle without breaking it, which is astonishing in itself. Usually only animals and children can do that. Then there was a sound like the loudest crack of thunder you ever heard, and he was thrown away from the Circle! It was incredible. He flew back maybe thirty feet, and after a couple of seconds, he got up and ran away.”

  “Did you recognize him?” Marguerite said. “Or anything about him?”

  They all shook their heads. “We went through this with Constantine while you were unconscious,” Lavonia said. “He was medium to tall, medium build, wearing a stocking mask.” She shuddered. “You didn’t see him properly either?”

  Marguerite shook her head. “The only time I saw his face he was quite a ways away, staring at me. And yeah, he didn’t seem to have hair or real features, so a stocking mask sounds right.” Her voice quivered. “Really creepy.”

  Rage roiled up inside Constantine. He squashed it right back down before he gave her a headache on top of everything else. Right emotion, wrong time and place. Instead, he watched her hand run over each of the cross-stitched herbs in turn. The flowers were all pink, even the lavender and borage. Not impossible, but definitely boring. Boredom was a fair antidote for rage.

  “There’s nothing more sinister,” Lavonia said. “I suppose we should have tried to catch him, but he was gone before we even realized what had happened—”

  “No.” Constantine put up a hand. “I’ll find him, and I’ll take care of him.”

  For a long moment, no one said anything. They all seemed suitably impressed. Too bad he couldn’t impress himself so easily.

  Marguerite, he realized, had homed in on Nervous Glennis, watching those flying fingers with a telltale little frown, raising her eyes to assess the entire woman, then deliberately letting her gaze wander. She’d be hopeless at poker.

  He telepathed a question. Is she usually so tense?

  Marguerite’s eyes flew to his in a glance compounded of wariness and concern. Well, well. Progress on two fronts at once. Glennis might just be unnerved because of his rep, of course, but… Marguerite grabbed another cushion, Pepto-pink corduroy this time. A tiny white quill poked through the fabric. She pulled out the feather and smoothed it between her fingers.

  Constantine let his gaze wander from one woman to the next until he’d done them all and then settled on Horny Janie again. Judging by her catlike expression, she was as usual trying to figure out how to seduce him. He gave her a tiny jolt of encouragement. She lit up instantly, and across the room, Marguerite went very still.

  Of course. As usual, she just knew.

  “There’s got to be a clue someplace,” Janie said with a blatantly fake innocence that reminded him of Jonetta. His dead wife had been a lousy actress, too. He’d always known that, but he’d thought she was a reasonable woman and had been blindsided by her obsessiveness and spite.

  Janie batted her eyelashes at him. “Like, uh, maybe in that stuff that was on the mound this morning. I mean, it’s all got to be connected, right?”

  “Clever of you to think of that, Janie.” He sent her another hot little jolt, followed by buzzes of approval to each of the other witches in turn, wondering if it would bother Marguerite. “Have you ladies seen the photos on the Internet?”

  There was a chorus of assent and commentary from the others, and for the first time, Glennis spoke. Blurted, to be accurate. “I really must be going. I have work tomorrow.” She bunched up her knitting.

  Janie smirked. With short, sharp movements, Marguerite plucked out a couple more feathers.

  “Work?” Lavonia said. “On Sunday?”

  “Oh,” Glennis quavered. “Right. I don’t have to work.”

  “D
id anything in the photos ring a bell?” Constantine gave Janie a hint of a smile and plenty of sexual pull. Marguerite’s nose twitched as if at an unpleasant smell. Was his deliberate response to Janie pissing her off? Not a way he’d envisaged getting rid of her, but it might do the trick. Whatever worked, right?

  The bird grumbled sleepily. Would you bloody stop lying to yourself?

  Glennis stuffed the knitting into a tote bag. “This has nothing to do with me, and it’s awfully late, so—” She rose.

  “Wait, Glennis. Where are your beads?” Janie sounded positively gleeful. Constantine resisted the urge to look at Marguerite. The faintest sign that he was interested in other women—without even a suggestion of sex—had driven Jonetta into violent rages. She’d hated his fans. She’d even attacked a few.

  Either Marguerite saw what he was doing or she didn’t. Either she could handle it or she couldn’t, and he didn’t know which he wanted anyway. And that’s not a lie.

  Joan said, “That’s true, Glennis. You had a string of beads on before Circle.”

  Glennis threw a look of sheer loathing at Janie. “So what? I’m going home.” Reluctantly, Constantine sent a tad of paralyzing fear Glennis’s way. Apart from the panicked flickering of her eyes, she didn’t move.

  “Now that I think about it, those beads were something like the ones on the mask,” Lavonia said. “Not the same color, and it’s not so obvious from the photos, but Marguerite showed me the real thing.”

  Constantine telepathed: Did you show Janie, too?

  Marguerite gave the slightest shake of the head. She must have noticed what he had done to Glennis—how, damn it?—for he read disapproval in her eyes, and her voice was gentle when she said, “Please let us have a look at them, Glennis. We need any help we can get.”

  Glennis was near to tears. “They have nothing to do with anything, and I have to go now.”

  Janie tittered. “What’s the matter, Glennis? Not so sanctimonious about right and wrong anymore?”

  Lavonia shot a glare at Janie, grabbed the bag from Glennis, and dug around inside. She pulled out a long leather thong twined with copper filament and decorated with jasper and glazed green ceramic beads. “Yes! They’re very much alike. Where did you get this, Glennis?”