I tasted blood as I finally managed to nip his hand and jerk
away from him. He responded by shoving me to the ground. My face hit the dirt before I could break my fall.
My attacker said something in French and grinned. I couldn’t understand the words, but I knew the score. When faced with a guy who spoke French and was dressed like Yul Brynner in
The Buccaneer
—bad pirate garb, in other words—I pretty much knew who he worked for. He was a young, greasy-haired blond, and hadn’t seen a dentist in a while. Maybe never.
I eased my cell phone from my pocket and managed to punch speed-dial three and send before he kicked the phone from my hand and clocked my chin with the toe of his boot.
I rolled into a fetal position, moving my jaw back and forth to make sure nothing was broken. God, I hated pirates.
I got a foot underneath me and rose to my feet, backing away from him and rubbing my chin. He was a very happy boy. I knew because I’d left my mojo bag in the car and could read him like a map.
“Where’s your boss?” I asked, trying to ease my way around him toward the back door to the Gator. I’d worry about whether or not it was locked when I got there.
“Boss?” Pirate Bad Teeth cocked his head and grinned.
“Yeah, boss. Jean Lafitte?”
The grin widened. Lafitte should offer his hired help a dental plan and some personal hygiene classes. I struggled to remember some rudimentary French.
“Où est Lafitte?”
Not that I wanted to see him, but at least he could threaten me in English and he didn’t smell bad.
Bad Teeth didn’t want to talk. He motioned with his hands for me to come to him. Yeah, like that was happening. I made a run for the door but he caught my arm as I went past, and my forward momentum took us both to the ground.
I clawed at him and got a forefinger in his eye, which accomplished nothing except to make him bellow and raise a fist to hit
me. I closed my eyes and tried to shield my face with my hands, waiting for the blow. It never fell. One second he was on top of me, and the next he was flying backward, courtesy of Jake.
Alex dragged him into a dark corner of the alley, while Jake jerked me to my feet and hustled me in the Gator’s back door.
A gunshot brought us both to a halt.
I
turned and tried to head back out, but Jake stopped me. He pulled a key ring from his pocket, slid off a gold-colored key, and put it in my hand.
“Top of the stairs, to the right. See about your face. I’ll help Alex.”
I wanted to make sure Alex wasn’t hurt. And if Alex had shot someone from the Beyond, I didn’t want Jake to see a pirate’s body disappear into the ether. But I couldn’t say that. I nodded.
He touched my cheek with his fingertips and went back out.
I drooped against the wall for a few seconds, fighting a wave of dizziness, then pulled myself up the stairwell that rose off the back hallway. The sounds of the crowd, Louis singing, beer bottles hitting tabletops—all of it blended into a single wall of noise.
The second-floor landing was a small rectangle with dark wood floors and doors opening off each side. I stuck the key in the door on my right and took a look at Chez Jake. It was so not Alex. Not a set of weights, an iron, or a protein bar in sight. Just
an old collection of furniture that probably came out of his parents’ garage, a fancy sound system, and a shadow box displaying a Purple Heart and a Navy Cross.
I didn’t stop to snoop, but headed through the bedroom and into the bathroom. A bruise was already forming, a turquoise smudge on my chin, visible even through the dirt. I opened a couple of cabinets, found a washcloth, and cleaned up as best I could. I didn’t know what else to do for it.
“That’s not going to be pretty come tomorrow, darlin’.” Jake stood behind me with a grim expression, watching me in the mirror.
“What happened?”
“Come on downstairs. I need to close.”
I gave him the key and followed him into the hallway and down the stairs. “Is Alex okay?”
“He is.”
Turning monosyllabic under pressure seemed to run in the family.
Jake stopped in the tiny kitchen and talked to the cook, got Louis’s attention and slashed a finger across his throat, then leaned over the bar to talk to Leyla. The band stopped mid-song and Jake got onstage, giving everyone ten minutes to finish their drinks. “Sorry to cut it short tonight folks, but it’s a family emergency. Hope you’ll come back tomorrow.”
People began moving toward the door. I sat on a barstool and waited while Jake and Leyla rushed the stragglers out, then Leyla grabbed her purse from under the bar and made her own exit.
Before the last customer left, Alex returned from the back. His jacket wasn’t even wrinkled. I raised my eyebrows and he pantomimed a shot to the head. Guess Lafitte had one less undead pirate at his disposal.
Leyla left without closing the door behind her. I walked
over, flipped the OPEN sign on the door to CLOSED, and locked the door with the thumb latch.
Alex had cleared one of the tables and motioned me over with a jerk of his head. My lip felt rubbery and heavy and my head throbbed, but we needed to do some damage control with Jake. I hoped memory modification wouldn’t be necessary. I didn’t want to scramble around in Jake’s head, plus I didn’t have the energy to slog back to the car to fetch the potion from my backpack.
Jake went behind the bar, pulled out a bottle of Four Roses, and brought it to the table along with some glasses.
“He’s really upset,” Alex whispered. “He’s bringing out the good stuff.”
Jake sat opposite Alex. “Start talking. Do I need to call the police?”
Bad idea. Plus, their buddy Ken was busy with a murder tonight, possibly two if the wounded soldier didn’t make it.
“It’s taken care of,” Alex said. “Forget it happened.”
Jake poured a couple of inches of bourbon in each glass, took one, and shoved the other two in the center of the table. “That’s gonna be kind of hard with sunshine here looking like the loser in a prize fight.” He reached out and turned my chin toward him. I tried not to wince.
“What did he hit you with?” Jake studied my face with the look of someone who’d seen his share of injuries. Almost clinical.
“His boot,” I said. “He was kicking my phone away.” Speaking of which. “I need to get my phone.”
Alex reached in a pocket and slid it toward me. “I found it. Where was he?”
“Hiding in the alley. He was waiting for—” I almost said
waiting for me,
but Jake wouldn’t understand why I’d have a nautical stalker. “Waiting for someone to attack.”
I grabbed the glass of whiskey and took a sip. It burned all the way to my empty stomach. Alcohol was probably a bad idea. On the other hand, it might make my chin hurt less. I poked my tongue at the inside of my bottom front teeth to make sure they weren’t loose.
“He try to rob you?” Jake wasn’t giving up.
“I guess that’s what he had in mind.” Not such a lie. I’m sure he would’ve robbed me of something. Some dignity. Probably my freedom. Lafitte might want revenge but I still didn’t think he wanted me dead. Of course, I’d been wrong before.
“Like I said, let’s forget about it.” Alex said. “DJ and I need to go.”
Jake stared at him. “You don’t seem real upset about shooting a guy dressed in a bad pirate suit behind my bar, Alex. For that matter”—he turned to me—“neither do you. So how ’bout you tell me what’s going on?”
Alex cleared his throat. “I don’t know—”
“Just don’t even start with that
I don’t know
bullshit.” Jake kicked at the table, making the glasses rattle. Coils of his anger and frustration slithered over my arms like snakes. I shivered. Why-oh-why hadn’t I stuck my mojo bag in my pocket instead of leaving it in the backpack?
“I know you aren’t just down here helping Drusilla clean out her uncle’s house. For one thing, you’re not the manual labor type. And at this point, seeing as I suddenly have a dead-ringer for Louis Armstrong playing inside my bar and a dead pirate behind it, I think I have a right to know what’s going on. So don’t sit there and tell me you don’t know.”
At this point, I could have been floating around with a lampshade on my head, playing maracas and singing show tunes. Alex and Jake were having a full-tilt stare down. This was a Jake I hadn’t seen before. Under that laid-back charm and all the dimples, he had a hard inner core. All I saw now was the Marine, or
what happened to the Marine after life slapped him around too hard.
When I’d first met them, Alex had called Jake a tough SOB and Jake had called Alex a marshmallow. I’d thought they were deluded. Now I thought they knew each other pretty well.
The marshmallow broke first. He blew out a sigh, leaned back in his chair, and stretched his neck with a series of audible cracks. One of his stress habits. He’d be thrumming his fingers on the table next. “Okay, fine. DJ and I are working together on a case, a tough one, and I’m sorry you got caught up in it.”
He looked at me briefly, as if to warn me to keep my mouth shut and play along. No problem. My lips were zipped.
“I can’t say any more right now, except I’ll try to keep it away from the Gator. When I can explain it to you, I will.” Alex locked eyes with Jake, waiting to see if he’d buy it.
Jake rested his elbows on the table and studied his cousin for what seemed like a day and a half. “Fine. For now. But as for me and the Gator, don’t change what you’re doing. For whatever reason, it seems important for
Jackie
to be workin’ here. I’m drawing good money off him. Just warn me if anything’s going down I need to know about. And for God’s sake, don’t get Leyla or the band involved in anything. It’s too hard to find employees right now and I don’t want them getting hurt or scared off.”
Jake shifted his gaze to me.
I couldn’t decide whether to try and look contrite, scared, or defiant. I settled for blank-faced.
“When this is over,” he said, “we’re all gonna sit down and have a chat about what’s going on—not just what happened tonight, but all of it.”
Alex looked relieved at being let off the hook, at least temporarily. Come to think of it, I felt pretty relieved myself. I had already envisioned having the little speech that goes something like,
Sorry, Jake, but the world isn’t exactly what you thought it was.
The monsters you believed in as a kid are real, and your cousin just killed one behind your bar. Oh, and he can turn into a dog, and I’m a wizard.
We might be forced to have that conversation down the road, but not tonight.
Jake pushed his chair back and stood, signaling an end to his part of the conversation. When Alex told him again not to call the cops, he nodded, went behind the bar, and started clearing out the cash register.
Alex and I headed for the front door. As I passed him, Jake motioned for me to stop. He propped his elbows on the bar and reached over to pluck a leaf off my shirt. “You sure you’re okay?”
I nodded and tried to smile, but Jake’s emotions were freaking me out a little. His anger and frustration had been replaced by a heady dose of adrenaline and envy. Part of him had liked the rush of tonight’s drama and wanted to be part of it.
I
walked down the stone corridor once more, and again I knew it was a dream. The corridor had changed. The smooth stones along the walls were rutted and chinked as if someone really strong had taken a mallet to them. Chunks of rock littered the pathway. Only one in three gas lanterns burned, so the shadows fell heavy and long. The door at the end of the passageway creaked when I opened it, hinges coated red with rust.
I walked into the room and saw Gerry waiting in the same chair as before. He wore a dark sweater I’d never seen, and his hair was down. His eyes were intense, and his mouth tightened in a straight, grim slash.
“You aren’t making it easy for me to protect you, Drusilla. You’re drawing too much attention to yourself.”
When I first came in, I’d thought he was angry. But he was scared. I could feel his emotions, which I rarely could with Gerry. Plus, this was a dream, right?
“Protect me from Jean Lafitte?” A bit late for that.
He stood and paced the edges of the room. “It’s bigger than Jean Lafitte, girl. Defend yourself against Lafitte if he comes
after you, but don’t do more. Stay away from anything to do with the Beyond.”
Gerry came to a stop in front of my chair. He leaned over me, his face close to mine. I smelled Ralph Lauren aftershave, and his aura crackled over my skin. He was one step shy of panic. “Tell the Elders you know I’m dead. Have a damned memorial service if you want to.” He pulled away and returned to his chair. “Just stay away from this, DJ, and keep the enforcer out of it too if you don’t want him killed.”
I sighed. “I hate these freaking dreams.”
“This is no dream, and you best not treat it as such. Did you find the staff?”
“That thing is dangerous.”
He smiled for the first time. “You can use it then? I had hoped …” He trailed off. “Don’t let anyone know you can use it, or they’ll try to exploit you, Elders and elves alike. It’s important.”
“Fine, I can’t control it anyway. Gerry, what can I do to bring you home? If this isn’t a dream, if you’re still alive, tell me where you are.”
“Pretend I’m dead, for now at least. Did you read the journal?”
“Which journal? There are three dozen journals.”
“Nineteen-ninety—”
The dream ended abruptly as a car alarm echoed through the neighborhood. I tossed until my legs were twisted in the sheets, trying to go back to sleep, to continue the dream. Finally, I just flopped on my back and stared into the dark.
A journal from the 1990s, then. That narrowed it down, although I still didn’t know what I was looking for. Or would I just be wasting time?
Okay, so these dreams didn’t feel like the ordinary Freudian brain-dumps, where a bicycle meant sex and your first-grade
teacher on a bicycle meant you needed therapy. These dreams, or visions, or whatever they were, had too much information in them I couldn’t pull from my subconscious because I didn’t know it to begin with.
Once I accepted that, the next step came more easily. I crawled out of bed and went into my library. Boxes of books sat everywhere, and another stack of loose books was piled on my worktable where Alex had been sorting them.
The journals had gotten scattered. I had some of them downstairs but some were still up here, and I still wasn’t sure we’d found them all. I began dragging boxes of books aside and digging through them. I winced as a heavy volume on the history of dragon lore fell off the table and crashed on the floor like a boulder. I hoped Alex was a heavy sleeper.
Apparently that wasn’t in the enforcer job description. Only a few seconds passed before I heard him climbing the stairs. He appeared at the door wearing low-slung jeans and a rumpled frown. In other circumstances, I’d have stopped to admire the view.
“Insomnia?” His frown deepened as I replayed my dream.
I tried to be dismissive. “I know it’s probably just a dream—it’s normal that I’d dream of Gerry.”
“Are you sure? Did you and Gerry ever communicate mentally?”
I snorted. “The only people with fewer psychic powers than Green Congress wizards are Red Congress wizards.”
“Well, we’re up now,” he said. “Why not at least take all the journals to one place and pull out the ones from the nineties?”
We gathered them up and took them to the kitchen table, sorting out ten journals dated between 1990 and 1999. I opened one, running my fingers along the lines of tiny print. A bunch of little leather books representing the sum of a man’s life.
Alex reached out, took the journal from me, and set it on the table. “We can do this tomorrow. Between the pirate and the dream, you’ve been through enough tonight.”
The pressure of unshed tears built behind my eyes, and I turned to go back in the living room, not wanting him to see me awash in my own pool of self-pity. He reached for me again, and gathered me into a hug, holding on even when I stiffened and tried to pull away. I didn’t grow up around touchy-feely people, and didn’t know how to let him in or even know if I wanted to. Finally, I let myself rest my cheek against his chest and inhale the scent of soap and sandalwood aftershave, comforting yet exotic.
He leaned in, his lips hovering over mine, hesitant. I kissed him, whisper soft, and he took the invitation. The hard muscles of his back bunched as he lifted me to sit on the counter. He trailed his fingers over my face where the bruise ached, then wedged his body between my knees and kissed me again, his hands holding me against him, mine sliding around his waist. I reached out to him with my mind and felt his want, his protectiveness. The worry and fear of the day melted under his warmth. Scent. Taste.
I finally pulled away, my voice ragged. “We can’t do this.”
It was two a.m., and both of us were vulnerable. Alex’s feelings for me were all mixed up in his rivalry with Jake, and I didn’t know what I wanted. We were just learning to work together. Maybe we were even becoming friends. Anything else had Big Mistake written all over it. It would be so easy to do but so hard to fix.
Alex backed away, looking rattled, and I eased myself off the counter. We busied ourselves piling the journals from the nineties in one box, and the rest of the journals in another. I took the small box to the living room. He stayed in the kitchen.
Not that we were avoiding each other or anything.