I’d bet my own paltry income that my salary wasn’t much more than his. I asked for Jonas’s whereabouts during the past two Axeman attacks, but he had ready answers and I didn’t pick up any unease coming from him. He could be good at shielding, of course, but I couldn’t think of a plausible reason he’d be summoning someone to kill me.
On the way out, Rene bought the sexual potency tonic, holding it up and grinning at me. “Just in case you change your mind,” he said, slipping the vial into his pocket.
If Jonas had had a Find the Hidden Necromancer tonic, I’d have bought a bottle myself.
***
A quick po-boy lunch and an hour drive to New Orleans East later, I parked the Pathfinder outside a back fence to Six Flags, figuring the front parking lot might be too high profile since the fire.
Adrian Hoffman sat on our same bench with his arms crossed, tapping a foot impatiently and staring at a series of targets lined up along the entrance to the Cajun Nation arcade. They looked like shooting range targets except they were made of metal instead of paper—steel or aluminum, maybe, in the shape of a person. He must’ve had the Elders’ handy-dandy supply house up all night packing and delivering those babies.
The building behind them was plain cinderblock, unadorned except for gang tags in varying degrees of obscenity. Fireproof. Adrian was prepared for me.
The sun still hadn’t made an appearance, and my nose grew numb in the cold, damp air. I did not want to be here, but learning to use the elven staff more effectively seemed like a good idea given my priority on the Axeman’s hit list.
Which I tried to explain to Adrian, without much success, when he wanted to know why I was ten minutes late. “He’s after me specifically,” I said. “Can’t the Elders help find the necromancer who’s controlling him? It has to be someone unregistered.”
“We have only the undead pirate’s word that there is even a necromancer involved, and I consider Jean Lafitte far from reliable.” Adrian brushed off a leaf that dared land on his camelcolored sweater, which had to be cashmere and perfectly matched his slacks.
“No, we have more than Jean Lafitte’s word for it.” I filled Adrian in on the summoning. “The Axeman admits someone’s trying to control him, and I’m his target.”
Adrian crossed his arms and studied me with a frown. “He gave you no more information on this wizard’s identity? Or why he’d want to kill you?”
“Nothing. Do you have any ideas?”
He shrugged. “Obviously, you’ve inherited your father’s talent for alienating people. I’d suggest you go through your list of enemies.”
What a jerk. “I’ll do that. Thanks for the suggestion.” I’d worn my Tulane sweatshirt because it was roomy enough to accommodate the latest in wizard weaponry. I’d adapted a Velcro-fastened belt of the type joggers used to stash money and keys so it would hold a variety of premade potions and charms. I’d loaded it with the Axeman in mind, but I might have to use it on Adrian.
Instead, I decided to try talking to him again. Adrian could help me if he’d drop some of his attitude. He was older and his skill set was different.
“Look, I’m the Axeman’s target, so this has gotten personal.” I told him about the numbers on the wall at the crime scenes and the trashing of my living room. The longer I talked, the deeper his frown etched into his features.
Adrian sat back on the bench, staring at the roller coaster. “You realize that if the Axeman was summoned by this necromancer while you had him in a circle, that means the necromantic wizard is more powerful than you.”
Yeah, well, thanks for pointing that out. “Unfortunately, yes, at least when it comes to necromancy versus summoning. Anyway, I’m at a dead end and thought you might have some ideas.”
Adrian shook his head. “This is outside my realm of expertise, but let me talk to someone at headquarters. Maybe we can come up with some ideas. In the meantime, the best thing you can do is learn to use your elven magic more effectively.”
I nodded and pulled Charlie out of my backpack. “Let’s do it.”
Adrian reached beside him for his briefcase, snapped it open with authority, and pulled out a sheaf of papers. “First, I want to talk about the political structure of the elves and some of the skills you don’t seem to have.” He thrust half of the papers at me with a rattle.
Great. The Axeman wanted to slice my head open; Adrian wanted to make it explode with political minutiae. I looked at the top sheet on the stack and stifled an eye-roll. The man had made a freaking elven organ i zational chart.
“Terrific,” I said.
“And then you can practice with the staff.” He looked pointedly at the blackened, half-submerged hull of Jean Lafitte’s Pirate Ship. “Which you obviously need.”
“Obviously.”
“If you’ll refer to the first sheet, you’ll see the top hierarchy of the elves, along with the individuals who currently hold the seats of power.” It was official; he was going to bore me to death. Except when I took a grudging glance at the sheet I noticed the name at the top: MACE BANYAN, chief of the Elven Synod.
He was the one who wanted to meet with me so badly, the same one who’d popped up in 1850 New Orleans like an evil genie when I’d gone into the time-travel portion of Old Orleans for dinner with the pirate. Mace had touched me under the guise of shaking hands, and I would have been on the ground within seconds, my mind broken under a tidal wave of memories and images from my past, had it not been for Jean’s intervention. That elf had some serious skills.
“Who are these names below Mace Banyan, and why is his name on here twice?” I studied the org chart more closely.
“The elves are divided into four clans or tribes, according to their magical specialties.” Adrian warmed to the subject; he’d have made a good professor, much as I hated to admit it. “There has been little intermarriage between clans, as nearly as I can tell, so the bloodlines have remained remarkably pure.”
He held up his own chart, identical to mine except larger. We should have met at his apartment so he could have popped up a slide show. “Each of the clans represents one of the elements and has a clan chief. Mace Banyan, in addition to being head of the Synod, or ruling council, is also chief of the Awyr, or Elves of the Air. The other clans are the Ddaear, or Elves of the Earth; the Dwr, or Elves of the Water; and the Tân, or Elves of the Fire. I’ve heard they’re are smallest clan by far, but it’s rumor—the elves don’t advertise their politics.”
My eyes started glazing over. “So, I can study this all later, right?” Or was he planning a pop quiz?
He sniffed. “I suppose your attention span is too short to absorb more than the barest of basics in one sitting.”
Damn straight. “So, from your vast knowledge about elven magic”—Adrian nodded solemnly, the snark flying right over his shiny head—“which clan do my skills best fit?”
He thought a moment and looked back at me. “Let me ask about a few more of your skills, and I might have a better idea. Given that the staff Mahout claimed you, and you wield fire with it, my first instinct would be to guess that your dominant clan is the Tân.”
Fire elves. That made sense. I wondered if that dominant gene came from Gerry or my mom, who’d given up her Green Congress skills to live as human just as her mother had done.
Adrian put the papers back into his briefcase. “Shall we continue?”
I put my own sheaf of elven bureaucracy in my backpack. “I’ll look through the papers tonight and write down any questions I have.”
“Fine. Let’s go through a few other elven skills.” Adrian moved the briefcase aside and turned to face me on the bench. “Can you discern health issues—if you touch a person, can you tell if they’re ill or have a pending health crisis?”
That was an elven skill? “No, I can’t do that. Can all the elves do that?” Thank goodness Zrakovi hadn’t set up the elf meeting until after the full moon, when I’d be gone. Otherwise, Mace Banyan would know about my little fur problem and use it against me.
Adrian folded his arms over his chest. “Not all elves can do that—chiefly the earth elves. You’ve said you and your father could communicate through dreams. Have you been able to communicate telepathically with anyone while awake?”
“No. I can only read emotions and energy signatures,” I said, earning a look of confusion. “It’s the thing I was talking about at the office last week. Every species has a unique energy field—I can feel them and tell what species someone is, most of the time.” Quince Randolph being an annoying exception.
Adrian frowned. “So you can identify a species by the
aura
they project?”
I nodded. “It’s how I was able to tell that murdered professor whose body we found last month was a wizard—there was still enough of an energy signature on him that I recognized it. And how I knew the Axeman Deux murders were being done by the real Axeman. The historical undead have a slightly different aura than a human or another undead species like vampires.”
He frowned. “So you can tell I’m a Blue Congress wizard by the energy I give off?”
His interest surprised me. Of all the elven skills I had, energy recognition was helpful but hardly exciting. “No, I can tell you’re a wizard, but not what congress you’re in or what your unique abilities are.” Too bad, because that
would
have been useful.
“What about the emotions—you claim to be empathic?”
“I
am
empathic, and those abilities are ramped up by touch.” I reached out and rested my hand on his arm. He flinched but didn’t jerk it away. “I can tell you are uncomfortable with me touching you, and that you’re worried about something . . . and that you feel love toward someone.” Interesting.
I smiled at his look of alarm. “Don’t freak out. I can’t tell what you’re worried about or who you love—only the emotion. I’m not psychic.”
He stared at me a long time before finally moving on. “Can you do memory acquisition? Touch someone and pull memories from them?”
I shuddered at the sensation of Mace Banyan scrambling in my head. “No, but that’s a trait of the Air Elves, right?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Yes, although it’s the water elves who are most adept at it. How did you know?”
I told him about my brief encounter with Mace Banyan in the Beyond.
“Interesting,” he said, eyeing me curiously. “What did it feel like?”
I tugged down my sleeves to ward off a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. “It felt like my brain was being run through a food pro cessor, set to liquefy. It hurt.”
Adrian digested that for a moment, then abruptly stood. “Let’s work on your staff skills.”
I set my backpack on the bench, pulled out the staff, and walked over to inspect the targets. They were about six feet tall, metallic silver, and in the shape of men and women—sort of like the little universal symbols on the doors of restrooms. An etched X marked the rough location of heart and brain. “You got these from central supply?”
He nodded. “The enforcers use them with trainees. The metal targets are good for using incendiary ammunition like one would use on a zombie—or for wizards who have poor aim with elven staffs.”
Yeah, because there were so many of us.
“Pay attention,” Adrian snapped, taking a spot about four feet away from the figures. “Start from here. Once you’re accurate at this range, you can move farther back.”
For the next hour, I practiced aiming the staff and shooting small ropes of flame at the targets. Adrian complained about the size and fury of my flames, insulting my lack of power, but I wasn’t about to waste energy on target practice when I needed to plan an escape to the Beyond.
Finally, I managed to hit the heart four times out of five from close range. The head remained a problem, being a smaller target, but I’d had enough. The lack of sleep, plus the physical magic used to channel the staff, left me with a pounding headache and muscles that felt like they’d been squeezed through a wringer. Not to mention loup-garou changes, since I’d worked up an unladylike sweat and had pushed my sleeves up to my elbows.
Adrian was sort of droopy himself. “I need to go to Edinburgh on business for a few days, so after our lesson tomorrow we won’t meet again until next week. But you should come out here and work over the weekend. You need the practice.” He helped me drag the targets into the shelter of what was left of the Cajun Nation building. They’d probably be covered in gang tags by tomorrow, unless they’d been stolen.
But he was right—I needed the practice. The fire from my staff was going to be my best weapon against the Axeman if he managed to catch me. Correcting my aim was just going to take practice.
Lots and lots of practice.
A
lex got back from his DDT run well before dark. In case I had missed him slinging gravel when he rammed his monster truck into the driveway, he’d shown up ten minutes later, striding through my back door like the leader of an invading Mongol horde. “Dinner’s at my place. Pack up a few days’ worth of stuff.”
If I’d known sex was going to make him so domineering, I might have rethought that bucket-list thing. Then again . . . “Where am I going?”
He picked up the staff and handed it to me, and I followed him into the living room, watching as he stared at the cheap plastic lawn chair parked in front of the TV.
“I brought it in from the yard so I’d have a place to sit.” Like I should have to defend my décor under these conditions.
He shook his head. “Take the staff. You’re moving in with me, at least until we’ve caught the necromancer or it’s time to make a run for the Beyond.” He turned to give me a little half smile that made my toes curl. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
“Yeah? How are you going to do that?” Good Lord, he just had to bat those chocolate-brown eyes at me and I started simpering like a high school girl. Totally pathetic.
He gathered me in his arms and kissed me, in case I’d forgotten exactly how he could make it worth my while. I wrapped my legs around his waist only to keep from falling. Really.
Sanity returned midway between his mouth’s journey from my earlobe to my collarbone. We couldn’t have a relationship if I hid things from him—especially things he thought were dangerous. We’d been rehashing that same argument since the day we met.