THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2005
“Category 5 Rita has N.O. nervous; [Mayor] foresees a much smaller city.”
—THE TIMES–PICAYUNE
C
all Tish and report that there’s nothing to report. Check.
Call Adam Lyle at St. Gabriel to confirm there’s nothing new. Check.
Call last appointment Gerry had in his journal before Katrina. Check. Lester Meadows, sentinel of Appalachia, was about to retire and said he’d called to see if Gerry would recommend me for his post. He’d been disappointed when Gerry told him I wouldn’t be interested. This was all news to me.
Call next-to-last appointment from journal: check. Selena Milette, a minor mage who wanted to take the exam for Blue Congress, said Gerry was an arrogant sonofabitch like all wizards.
Call third-to-last appointment: Elder Willem Zrakovi, head of the wizards for North America. No way. Not ready for career suicide, though I did wonder what they’d talked about.
Then I was stuck, and Alex was stuck with me. Everyone had been hustled off the streets and ordered out of town in advance of Hurricane Rita, another killer storm with a wimpy name. She was headed for east Texas or western Louisiana but if she turned sooner rather than later, we’d get clocked again.
People had learned a lesson from Katrina. No casual “maybe I will, maybe I won’t” attitudes about evacuating. This time, the few people in town had run like gazelles, except for me and Alex.
I tried one last time to get him to leave, sharing Gerry’s philosophy about sentinels splitting up during hurricanes. It was annoyingly like the conversation Gerry and I had at Sid-Mar’s two days before Katrina, with the roles reversed. Karma sucks.
“You need to at least go to your folks’ house in Picayune,” I said, explaining the bits about hell breaking loose and weakened levees. He was unloading his stuff in my office, including weights and cases of protein bars and lots of black clothing.
“It’s different this time,” he said. “I’m going to stay at your place, and we know it didn’t flood here. Even if the levees give way again, we’ll be okay.”
“Not all the levees broke, remember. If the Mississippi River levee breaks, this house will be somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico. Take the cat to Picayune, at least.”
“Not leaving. Give it up.” He pulled an iron out of a box. “I can use your iron so I don’t need this, right?”
An iron? Was he kidding? God made knits so people didn’t have to iron. “I don’t own an iron. And I don’t need protecting, just in case you’re staying out of some misguided macho thing.”
He smirked. “I’m staying because I wouldn’t trust you not to move to a new address while I was gone. Not that I couldn’t find you now that I have my tracker back. Quit stealing it.”
Damn. Wait. I’d hidden it in my underwear drawer. “You were pawing through my dresser,” I said, eyes narrowed.
“The black bikinis are sexy.”
“Glad you liked them. You’ll never see them again.”
I helped him hang the new library door and install a new dead bolt, thanks to a home-improvement store that had finally
opened in Jefferson Parish. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon reading, inhaling all the information we could find on the Baron Samedi and both Marie Laveaus, mother and daughter. Afterward, I sorted a few more of Gerry’s papers while Alex read through journals, starting with the most recent and working backward.
We decided to compare notes over dinner.
“Here’s my big scoop,” I said. “Remember I told you Jean Lafitte mentioned a new partnership before you blasted him?”
Alex nodded, chewing on a slice of vegetarian pizza he’d gone all the way to Metairie to find. I had pepperoni. “So?”
“So, guess who Monsieur Lafitte allegedly had an affair with a couple hundred years ago?”
“Why, are you jealous?”
I took a bite of pizza and wrinkled my nose at him. Our relationship seemed to have devolved into bickering one-upmanship, but at least it was mostly good-natured.
“Marie Laveau,” I said. “Don’t know if it’s true—they would barely have overlapped in their years in New Orleans, and she was ten or twelve years younger than him. But there’s so much conflicting information about when either one of them actually got here, it’s possible. Laveau and Lafitte. Maybe they’re together again.”
Alex frowned and picked up a mushroom that had fallen on the table, popping it in his mouth. “When’s the earliest you think Lafitte could be strong enough to come back from the Beyond?”
I pointed to a wall calendar hanging from the side of the kitchen cabinet nearest Alex. “Tomorrow, the twenty-third. I’ve circled it in red.”
“How sure are you?”
I shrugged. “I don’t have a lot of experience with revenge-seeking members of the historical undead. But from what I’ve
read, if you send them back violently, they need from one to two weeks to recover full strength. Tomorrow makes a week since you shot Lafitte, and I figure since he’s probably the most powerful of the historical undead in New Orleans he’d need the minimum. The second-strongest is probably Marie Laveau. Everyone here knows who both of them are.” Especially Lafitte, who had a town and a national park and a bayou and God only knows what else named after him.
“So maybe Marie Laveau really is our murderer,” Alex said. “But what would the link with Gerry be, and the wizards?” He paused. “Do you think Gerry would work with her?”
Deep breath. He’s just testing theories. “No. What could it accomplish? I think he caught her coming through a breach and she did something to him.”
Alex had stopped eating and drummed his fingers on the Formica tabletop. It was his one nervous habit. “If your theory is true, you realize Gerry’s probably not alive. If he were injured or being held somewhere against his will, the Elders would know about it—they’d be able to detect his force field unless he’s figured out some way to evade their trackers.”
I toyed with a slice of pepperoni. He wasn’t saying anything I hadn’t thought a hundred times. “I don’t want to think he’s dead. But he’s been missing a week now, and I’m running out of ideas.”
Alex got another slice, and we ate in silence a few minutes. My pizza had lost its flavor.
I pulled out some foil to wrap it up so I could eat the leftovers for breakfast. Alex had finished his.
“You want the rest of mine?” I asked.
“No way. You’re going to end up wearing that pepperoni on your hips.”
Did he think I was too hippy? I wasn’t hippy. “Snob,” I said, wrapping the pizza. It would make a great breakfast. Then
I asked, “Did you find out anything interesting in Gerry’s journals?”
“I found some stuff on the staff from his attic. You need to read it.”
We went in the living room, and Alex handed me a journal with the page marked. “You read. I’ll shower.”
Before I began, I flipped over a page to see how long the entry was. At the end of Gerry’s neat handwriting on the next sheet was a drawing he’d done of a wooden staff. Not
a
staff, but
the
staff.
Below the illustration, which he’d drawn in meticulous detail, complete with all the odd runes, he’d written
Elven Staff, from the Last Age
. I tried to remember my elven history lessons with Gerry: Elves had gotten fed up with humans and gone in a snit to their own corner of the Beyond. What was its name … Elfheim. So I guess this staff was from the period just before they took their elven toys and went home, minus at least one stick of wood. Gerry had bought it at an auction.
Worked with the staff far into the morning,
he had written.
I had hoped, with elven blood myself, I might be able to wield it, but it doesn’t respond to me. Perhaps the child can use it when she gets older.
That was weird. I didn’t know Gerry was of elven descent too, only that he was really interested in them. Was I the child? I looked at the date on the entry: 1985. Couldn’t have been me, then. I would have been only five and still living in Alabama with my parents. I’d have to ask Tish who the child might be.
I looked around the room and there the staff was, leaning against one of the bookcases. I’d accepted that it was always going to follow me around like a puppy. It only seemed to happen in my personal space, though—the house and the car. So far, it hadn’t followed me to the Gator or back to Lakeview.
I picked it up and felt the warmth spread through it. Was that the kind of response Gerry was hoping for? I tapped it
against the edge of the coffee table and tried sending a tiny pulse of magic into it. Red sparks flew from the tip, smoke puffed from the table, and I smelled charred wood. Oops. I waved the smoke away, coughing, and found a charred place the size of a quarter.
“What’s burning?” Alex wandered in from the office wearing a pair of loose jogging pants and a towel around his neck.
“Uh.” Talk about eye candy. I pried my wanton gaze away and pointed at the table. “I was trying out the staff.”
“Damn.” He touched the burn mark and pulled away a sliver of charred wood. “Have you ever been able to do anything like that before?”
“Please. I’m Green Congress. I was exhausted after churning enough heat to set off my little Jean Lafitte smoke bomb.”
“Did burning up your coffee table tire you?”
“No.” Hmm. If I could learn more about the staff, and how to use it, maybe I wouldn’t need the shooting lessons Alex kept threatening me with.
FRIDAY/SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 23–24, 2005
“Flooded again: Breach in Industrial Canal inundates Lower 9th Ward, Arabi … Latest hurricane washes away signs of renewal.”
—THE TIMES–PICAYUNE
S
torm preparation time. Again. I spent Friday morning moving plants, using a strengthening charm on the windows, and going through my grounding ritual just in case. I still had the cypress tree on my roof from Katrina. Maybe Rita would blow it off.
Alex put his FBI badge to use and came in at midday with another cache of MREs, a generator, enough gasoline to blow Louisiana off the map without a hurricane, a half-dozen gallons of water, and way too many boxes of ammo. My kitchen looked like a survivalist camp.
Jake arrived an hour later with a pickup load of supplies, adding to the warehouse ambience my first floor was beginning to acquire. I wasn’t sure if Alex had invited Jake to ride out the storm with us or if Jake had invited himself. Alex’s scowl made me think the latter as he grudgingly helped Jake cart in even more MREs, a cache of batteries for the radio, and at least three cases of beer. At this rate, I’d be dining on military grub and drinking Abita till I hit middle age.
He also brought a deck of cards, poker being a Warin hurricane tradition. “You think you’re up to playing with the masters?” Jake motioned me to a seat between him and Alex at the kitchen table.
“I won’t be able to keep up with you guys, but I’ll do my best,” I said, confident I’d beat the crap out of them. I had learned from a master; Gerry was one hell of a poker player. I might not be a good liar but I could spot a poker tell in a flash, even without using my empathy. All I had to do was lay back a few hands and pay attention, then go for the kill.
“What should we play for?” I asked. “Pennies? Dimes?” I wasn’t rich enough for dollars, not being a Bourbon Street bar owner or a shapeshifting assassin.
Jake and Alex exchanged knowing looks. I was about to be had.
“Truth or Dare Poker,” Jake said. “Whoever has the lowest hand has to answer a question or take a dare from the person to his right.”
Oh, boy. Why did I think they’d done this before? “Okay, but I’m not doing raunchy, on questions or dares either one.” I could see this easily getting out of hand. I slumped into my chair and wondered what laying back the first few hands would cost me. There was only so much truth I was willing to tell.
I stuck to my plan, watching Jake first. He ran his fingers through his hair, then ended up with the low hand. Nervous gesture. He was going to be an easy read.
Alex sat to his right. “Have you ever been arrested?”
A muscle flicked in his jaw. “You know damn well I have, Alexander. I got two DUIs and a revoked license back in 2003.”
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. They weren’t going to play raunchy. They were going to play mean.
Jake dealt the next hand, and I watched Alex, looking for a
tell. He was inscrutable, didn’t even do his finger-drumming thing. He also won, and I ended up low. I gave Jake my best pleading, be-kind-to-me look.
“Let’s see, short stuff. What would I like to know about you?” He leaned his chair back on two legs and flashed one perfect dimple. “If you had to be locked in a secluded cabin for a weekend with one person in this room, other than yourself, who would it be?”
Dark brown eyes watched me from the left, amber ones from the right, cross-eyed blue ones from the top of the refrigerator. Thank God. “Sebastian,” I said, pointing. He hissed at me. Not technically a person, but close enough.
I asked Alex who his first kiss was (Silvie Hollinsworth in first grade, which got a howl from Jake), the last lie he told (that he needed the generator for FBI business), and his worst habit (being stubborn. Duh).
Alex let up on Jake after the arrest question and asked him his worst childhood memory (being whipped for dismantling the cash register in the family hardware store, then having to work off the repair cost). He took the dare on telling the worst joke he’d ever pulled and had to mime his most embarrassing date. Apparently, he’d fallen asleep and gotten slapped. What came in between, I wasn’t sure.
I had to fess up to never skinny dipping (I am a city girl, after all), my worst fear (zombies, only Jake thought I was joking), and then I got the question that ruined the whole game: What do you want most?
I wanted to find Gerry.
We decided to quit playing and have a beer. By the time the electricity died again, we’d all retreated to different parts of the house to read or nap.
The next morning, Rita blew in. Wind howled around the
corners of the house, sounding like an inhuman scream, and I watched out the window as slanting rain pooled into a river along Nashville and Magazine.
About noon, I took the lantern in the kitchen to fix MREs for all of us. We each had the Cajun Rice and Sausage meal, which included side dishes of cheddar-flavored pretzels, a toaster pastry, and raspberry jelly.
It could have been romantic considering the handsome men sitting with me at the kitchen table had they not spent the entire meal engaged in a debate over the not-inconsiderable merits of the 9-millimeter semiautomatic (better accuracy, less recoil) versus the .38 snub nose (lightweight, foolproof) for personal self-defense—namely, my personal self-defense. I had no idea what they were talking about.
Jake, who knew only that I had some nebulous relationship with his cousin and was missing an uncle, apparently didn’t find the subject of my needing a gun the least suspicious. Gotta love the South.
I shook my head, threw the MRE packaging away, and went into the living room to read more of Gerry’s papers while rain continued to pound the windows. I curled up in an armchair and a pattern soon emerged. Gerry would go on a job, then use his report to the Elders as a platform for pointing out how things would be better if they’d relax the borders between the modern world and the Beyond. He’d had a lot of vampire cases in the last year—many more than I realized—and recorded several instances where he’d been contacted by various leaders from the Realm of Vampyre, the vamps’ part of the Beyond. He’d even had a couple of meetings with one of the vampire Regents, who were like Elders with fangs.
He wrote about contacts with various members of the were community and some of the fae leaders. Gerry had his hands in
a lot of political pots, but nowhere did any reference to voodoo appear.
I set the papers aside and tried to reconcile this newly emerging picture of Gerry with the man who raised me. The one who’d taken me in and made me his family, but would change the subject if I asked about his real relatives. Who’d taught me to follow the rules, yet fought to change them. Who’d encouraged me to use my Green Congress skills, yet held back on helping me develop whatever physical magic I had. Who’d been so fascinated by elves and his elven heritage, yet never told me it was something we shared.
I burrowed deeper into the chair, closing my eyes and listening to the rain and the cutthroat Warin poker game that had resumed in the kitchen with lying, cheating, name-calling, and betting.
“I bet Dad’s boat you can’t win three hands in a row.” Jake sounded cocky.
Outrage from Alex. “You can’t bet Uncle Eddie’s boat. You don’t own it.”
“I have it, dude. You know what they say about possession and the law.”
“It doesn’t apply to wagers.”
I smiled. They sounded like kids. Probably had been doing this their whole lives. I tuned them out and let myself be lulled by the sound of the rain.
“ … DJ?”
I stirred, hearing my name as if from a distance.
Jake’s soft drawl said my name again, but I realized he wasn’t talking to me. I blinked and pressed the stem on my watch to illuminate the dial. I’d lost a half hour. Must have fallen asleep.
“So, let’s get this clear.” Jake’s voice carried from the kitchen.
“Next high hand gets first dibs on DJ and the other one clears the path, right?”
I gritted my teeth. They were betting on me? Unlike Uncle Eddie’s boat, I could fight back.
Alex’s voice, in an exaggerated whisper. “No way. I got here first. Nobody invited you. You can take your Marine Corps, camo-wearing ass back to the Quarter.”
I got to my feet, walking quietly to the kitchen, and stared sharp, pointy knives in Alex’s back. Jake saw me and flashed a grin, and I had an embarrassing urge to let them play the hand and see if he won. But I hated to let myself be reduced to the status of a motorboat.
“Oh, I don’t think so, Cuz,” Jake said, gaze trained on me. “What you want to have ain’t the same as what you think you got.”
I eased across the kitchen to throw away my Abita bottle and gave Alex a hard thump on the head as I went by, startling him. On the way back, I put a hand on each of his shoulders, leaned over, and whispered, “Sexual harassment.”
He at least had the decency to look guilty. Jake laughed, so I gave him a glare too. As near as I could tell, he had started it. Before I could think of a scathing comment for him, his cell phone rang. A few seconds later, so did Alex’s.
Jake’s call ended first. “As much as I’d like to play that hand, I’ve gotta go.”
“What happened?”
“Me too,” Alex said, ending his call. “Will you be okay here by yourself for a few hours?”
The boat and a couple of strong backs were needed just west of Houma, where a Warin cousin was slogging through his house in waist-high water, trying to salvage anything he could. This hurricane season just wouldn’t end.
After Jake left to extract the boat from a garage space he’d
rented outside the Quarter, Alex pulled an FBI windbreaker from one of his bags. “I hate to leave you here—it sounds like Lafitte’s a threat from this point on,” he said. “Say the word, and I’ll stay.”
I shook my head. “No, you go. I’ll check my wards as soon as you leave.” I handed him the keys to the Pathfinder. “It’s not up to your usual standards but it’s better for weather like this. Good ground clearance.”
He took the keys and smiled. “I’ll be back tonight.” He still looked undecided, so I pushed him toward the door.
From the kitchen window, I watched him pull the hood up on the jacket and splash toward the Pathfinder. He’d left the keys to the Mercedes on the counter. I smiled and picked them up, rubbing my fingers over the soft leather of the key case and hanging them on the hook where I kept my own keys.
The rain had slacked a lot since earlier in the day. I checked the wards on the back door, running my hand along the door facing and feeling for the slight resistance, then took the fluorescent lantern and walked to the front door. I squinted through a narrow gap in the plywood.
Movement in front of the pizza place across the street caught my eye, and I strained my eyes to see through the drizzling rain, which was bringing on dusk earlier than usual. For a moment, no more than a blink, I saw a tall black man on the corner wearing a top hat, dancing around a cane on the sidewalk. He wore sunglasses in the rain, with one lens in and one out. He stopped and grinned at me, waved, then disappeared, leaving nothing but rivers of rainwater.
I could feel my heart thudding in my chest. The figure hadn’t been Marie Laveau. It looked like the illustrations we’d seen of Baron Samedi.