Bayou Blues (11 page)

Now, with my arms wrapped around Wilder’s waist and the night air blowing by us as we sped down the highway, I saw the logic at last. There was no way in hell Ben or Callum would have consented to this. My brother would rather lock me in my room like a storybook princess in a tower if it meant keeping me from doing what I was doing right now.

And Callum? He wanted to keep me safe. On his terms. He’d be furious with me for leaving. But then again, given some distance and time to consider it, I think he’d realize I was making a bold choice. I was doing something a leader would do. He’d learn to respect me for it, even if he didn’t like it.

I had left a note under Lina’s door, knowing if she was the one to break the news to the men, they wouldn’t be able to lash out at her. Her sweet, forgiving face might help dampen their immediate rage. She’d also soften the blow when she gave them the news, breaking it to Callum gently as soon as he was awake. Knowing her, she’d follow that up with an enormous breakfast, and it’s really hard to be mad about anything with a belly full of bacon.

Still, I expected the angry phone calls to start around six in the morning, which meant Wilder and I needed to know where we were going and what we were up against before Callum considered calling in the National Guard to drag me home.

Since we didn’t know where the Church of Morning was holding Hank captive, we would be chasing our veritable tails unless we found a reliable lead.

Which meant I was going to be an asset Wilder hadn’t realized he would need. I might come across like a goody two-shoes, but I was also the great-granddaughter of
La Sorcière
. In Louisiana—especially in New Orleans—that had a lot of capital. I’d made my share of friends in low places since starting school, and those friends were going to come in handy now.

A couple hours later we left Wilder’s bike in a hotel parking garage and made our way in tense silence down Canal Street towards Bourbon. The closer we got, the more bustle we encountered with lines of people snaking out from every bar and restaurant we passed. It was Wednesday night, but days of the week were meaningless to the tourist crowd on Bourbon Street. The streets were barricaded against car traffic, allowing drunk coeds to stagger along the cobblestone with booze in hand and not risk getting flattened.

I tried to avoid this part of the Quarter whenever I could. There was a narrow corridor of the city that outsiders seemed to believe constituted
real
New Orleans flavor. Tacky beads were draped over wrought-iron balconies no matter what time of year it was, and if you weren’t careful, an overzealous party girl might smash you in the head with them. Bourbon Street was a hedonistic shooting gallery. You had to watch your back and your wallet at all times.

Piles of horse manure from the mounted police mingled with fresh vodka-based vomit on the streets. Broken beads littered the sidewalk, and bright neon lit our path like an airplane landing strip. Every other person we passed was drinking sugary abominations that warned right in their names they weren’t meant to be consumed. Fish bowls. Hand grenades. Hurricanes.

Someone shoved me hard, and I bumped against Wilder. He put a hand around my waist and pulled me to his side. It was a protective move, meant to keep me close so he wouldn’t lose me, but the warmth of his hand sent a thrill through me.

Being near him made me wonder how many people I’d be begging forgiveness from when this whole thing was over.

I shook off the thought and focused on the plan ahead. We needed to get our information and get the hell out of town as soon as possible. I could practically feel the invisible eyes on us as we made our way through the crowd. Maybe it was paranoia, but I still believed Callum always had some idea of what I was up to at any given time. His control over the Southern packs was far reaching, and though the number of pack wolves in New Orleans wasn’t huge, they would all stop what they were doing at the drop of a hat if it meant pleasing him.

Our destination wasn’t a werewolf establishment, meaning Wilder and I would be safe there, but I didn’t feel anything close to secure exposed on the street.

A cluster of people with cameras cut across Bourbon, heading in the direction of the St Louis Cemetery #1. The tour guide leading them was talking about Marie Laveau and how many visitors would leave her small tokens and mark the tombs with three Xs to make wishes. I smiled to myself, recalling the times I went to the cemetery after all the tourists were gone, leaving lip gloss or nail polish for Marie and her daughter. I rarely asked them for anything. Sometimes I just liked to visit them to let them know people still thought fondly of them.

That was before the city started keeping the cemeteries open all night and charging admission. The revelation of vampires and werewolves being real meant New Orleans tourism was up tenfold, as if it were the only place in the world such creatures would be attracted to.

Thanks, Anne Rice.

Never mind that the apocalypse had almost happened in New York, or the surprising number of vampires living in Alaska during the winter thanks to the long hours of night. Nope. People were flocking to New Orleans, and as a result the city was tripping over itself to milk the cash cow.

These days people were crawling through the cemeteries at all hours, and anyone who had used the spaces for magic or meditation no longer had the haven.

Street crime was up too, to no one’s surprise. Any strides the city had made towards safety had been damn near obliterated.

Maybe Cash and my family were right to worry about me when I went running alone in the morning. Or at least they would be if I were a human.

“
Hey
.” A drunk girl on too-high heels with a too-short skirt stopped abruptly in front of us and jabbed a fake nail into my chest.

To say I didn’t have patience for this was the understatement of the century.

“What?” I tried to keep my composure, but she was toeing a fine line. I didn’t want to start anything with three cops standing no more than twenty feet away. I just wanted to make it to our destination and get out of here.

“Is he yer boyfriend?” she asked, leering at Wilder like he was the prime rib at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Seriously? She was going to steal my date? This chick had balls. She took a big slurp from her fishbowl of alcohol and licked her lips suggestively.

Charming.

And people wondered why locals never came down here. Who would want to miss out on this glorious behavior? Even the grits at Clover Diner couldn’t make up for this.

“Sorry, doll. I’m spoken for,” Wilder replied, not missing a beat. He kept his arm around me, fingertips dangerously close to the underwire of my bra. It was a possessive, suggestive gesture, and I felt like a terrible feminist for liking the way he was displaying me as if I were his favorite prize.

Ugh,
down girl
.

“Yer loss. You are
hoootttt
. I’d blow you like ten times.”

My jaw went slack as Wilder guided me past her. “Did she seriously say that?”

“Don’t worry, Princess. I don’t ditch a lady for anything less than an offer of fifteen BJs and a public tug. A guy needs to have standards.” He winked.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cringe, so instead I opted for neither and grabbed him by the wrist. I dragged us away from Bourbon and onto Toulouse, where the crowds were thinner and the signs offered more than just bulk liquor.

Funny how there was this mystical force field around Bourbon Street that managed to keep most of the douchebaggery contained to one long block. Tourist traps were everywhere, but somehow these side streets managed to maintain a vibe of old-world charm and mystery.

“You know I wasn’t being serious when I suggested a public tug, right?” Wilder’s cheeky smirk had vanished, and he looked downright worried that I might have thought he was propositioning me.

“Oh, hon. If I was going to stick my hands down anyone’s pants tonight, it would be my boyfriend’s, okay?” I nodded sternly, hoping this wouldn’t seem like a made-up line to keep him from thinking I was coming on to him.

“Boyfriend, eh? You never mentioned a boyfriend before.”

I had, but clearly Wilder suffered from the too-common condition of being deaf to the word
boyfriend
. I pretended he was right, though. “Yeah, well, it wasn’t really relevant to our previous discussions about automobile repair and murder.”

That seemed to pick his spirits up. If he was disappointed to hear I was off the market, it didn’t show. What was I hoping for? A crestfallen pout or a sigh of longing? I should be happy he was dealing with it like an adult. It meant there were no feelings involved to complicate things.

And that was good, wasn’t it?

Oh, Genie, you are in so much trouble
.

I shook off the nagging sense of foreboding and dropped Wilder’s wrist. We were free of the crowds now, so there was no risk of us losing each other, and I felt he was capable of following me without assistance.

“Where are we going?”

“It’s better if you just wait to see it for yourself,” I said.

It didn’t matter what warning I gave. When he saw our destination for the first time, he still wasn’t going to believe it. It had taken me at least a half dozen visits before I was able to stop gawking at the place.

I indicated for him to follow me down a narrow alley so well hidden it would have been easy to miss if I didn’t know it was there. He hesitated, angling himself to try and see past me into the dark corridor where I was leading us.

“Are you hoping for a good old-fashioned mugging tonight?” he asked.

“No.” It was my turn to smile. “We might lose some of our cash, but we’ll let it go willingly. Mostly willingly, anyway. Come on.” I didn’t wait to see if he’d take the bait. I knew he’d follow me.

The winding passage opened into a small courtyard where a fountain, backlit with red lights, spilled into a dark waterfall. The orange neon sign over the leather-studded door read
The Dungeon
. A broad-chested man with a shaved head and a tattoo of a spider above his ear was standing next to the door. He wasn’t blocking it, per se, but he gave the clear indication getting in would be entirely at his discretion.

Wilder, wisely, stayed silent.

I walked up to the bouncer, whose sunglasses blocked my view of his eyes, and threw my shoulders back in an effort to not look like I was half his size.

“ID?” he grumbled.

I
did
have ID saying I was a twenty-one-year-old organ donor. Not that anyone wanted werewolf organs these days. Even before my birthday I had a charm to make that ID say I was of legal age. Actually with the charm I could make my ID believably say just about anything. Problem was, it wasn’t going to help me here the way it had at some of the better dive bars in town.

This guy wasn’t looking for my driver’s license.

“McQueen pack,” I announced.

He snorted through his nostrils, reminding me of a bull preparing to charge. “Chicka, every dog in town knows who the Big Daddy is. You have any idea how many folks come here each night and say
McQueen pack
to me? If you’re going to fake me out, you’re going to need to try harder.” He glanced over my shoulder to Wilder. “You gonna say the same thing, little bro?”

Wilder must have realized what the guy was after. “I was actually the protégée to Paul Talbot, the Alpha of the Talbot pack in Shreveport, up until a month or so ago. Now I’m back under the oath of the McQueen pack proper.”

The guard was befuddled by Wilder’s response. He clearly hadn’t been expecting a real answer. I, for one, was tickled to learn this tidbit about Wilder’s past. If he’d really been under the wing of an Alpha, my guess had been spot-on. He was being groomed to take over another pack.

Verrrrry interesting.

The bouncer returned his attention to me, giving me another once-over. To be honest, with all the press surrounding me over the last couple of years, I was surprised he didn’t recognize me. Not that I was a celebrity by any stretch of the imagination, but I was well-known in certain circles. The kind of circles this big fella ought to be a part of.

“McQueen, you said?”

I pulled out my wallet and showed him my ID, the more traditional variety. “I did say McQueen.”

He lowered his sunglasses, showing me a quick glimpse of his snakelike eyes. Once he was done confirming my name, he handed the card back to me. “Sorry, miss. You know how it is. Tourists think they can come here and flirt with disaster, go home with a story. After a couple folks got into more trouble than they could handle, we had to start being more careful.”

“Of course.”

There was a time a wolf could have walked into this bar without getting a second look. Times had changed. A lot of things were different now, not just the club scene.

I tried to pretend I was okay with how different the world was now, but frankly I hated losing the secret part of myself. It made people think they knew me, when really they were totally clueless.

“No need to apologize,” I told the guard. “Better to be safe than sued.”

With his glasses back on he looked normal enough.

But didn’t we all in our sheep’s clothing?

He stepped to the side and gestured to the door. “Welcome to The Dungeon, Miss McQueen.”

No need to tell him this was hardly my first visit. It didn’t matter. First or five hundredth, you never knew what you were going to get when you went inside.

I paused before entering. “Is Cain in?”

The bouncer hesitated. “He is.”

“Has his rate gone up?”

This made the big man laugh. “You know it doesn’t matter. Whatever he charges you, you’ll pay. If you’re asking for Cain, you
need
Cain.”

I gritted my teeth and nodded. Sad, but true.

Cain might mean the difference between Hank living or dying, and when it came to saving a member of my pack, I wasn’t going to quibble over the price tag.

Too bad it wasn’t usually money Cain wanted.

The bass rumble of the music thumped in my chest the minute we walked through the door. From the outside you could have heard a pin drop, but now that we’d entered the inner sanctum, it was all skull-rattling drumbeats and the jarring
wub-wub-wub
of dubstep.