by Chloe Neill
“Soil samples,” she said. “I want to figure out a way to reverse the effect of magic, to make it usable again.”
“That would change life in the Zone,” Liam said, obviously awed.
“Yeah, if I can experiment without running afoul of Containment, actually get it to work, figure out a way to scale it up if it does, and get Containment to buy into it.” She smiled. “That’s why I said it would require patience.”
We’d covered New Orleans, the Zone, and the soil. But that left one big gap in the plan.
“If this gets worse,” I said, “it’s going to get worse for the Paras inside Devil’s Isle first. They aren’t allowed to have weapons, they can’t use their magic, they can’t leave, and from what Lizzie tells me, they have trouble getting basics from Containment. So how do we help them?”
Malachi smiled knowingly. “Instead of asking me, and presuming I can speak on behalf of a thousand very different people, why don’t you ask them?”
I did not have a good response to that. “Point taken,” I said, and Malachi nodded. I guessed I’d be going back to Devil’s Isle. Maybe Lizzie or Mos could help with the introductions.
Before we could discuss it further, the door opened with a slow creak, and we all turned toward it, hands and bodies ready for trouble.
And trouble walked right in.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Gavin Quinn, Liam’s younger brother, was just as tall, just as dark-haired, and just as blue-eyed. His body had been honed differently; he was finer-boned and leaner than Liam, but no less handsome. And like his brother, he knew it.
Gavin exuded that confidence despite the black eye, the cut lip, the faint bruising around his jaw. His heather gray T-shirt and jeans were dotted with blood and smeared with what I hoped was mud.
“What the hell happened to you?” Liam asked.
Gavin glanced at his brother. “Work.”
“And yet you’re alone,” Malachi said, and he didn’t seem happy about it.
“Give it a minute,” Gavin said, walking forward. “She’s probably putting her face on.”
The door opened again, and a woman—tall and willowy, with tan skin and coal black hair, walked in. She wore a red tank top and a long skirt, her long hair pulled into a braid that rested on her left shoulder. Her eyes were wide and dark, and there was a half-moon shadow beneath her left eye. And when she put her hands on her hips, her knuckles were split and bruised. She looked like a goddess, which might very well have been true if she was a Para.
Malachi smiled grimly. “Hello, Erida.”
It took her a moment to answer, and in that intervening silence, she looked at all of us. Her eyes widened slightly when she looked at me, but the apparent surprise faded before I could make anything of it. It was probably because I was the only human in the room who didn’t have some previous connection to Delta, to Containment, or to Paras.
“You called?” she said, sliding her gaze to Malachi again, her voice fluidly accented.
“It’s good to see you home again,” Malachi said.
“This isn’t my home.”
“Neither was Lake Borgne,” Gavin said.
She cast a narrowed glance at him. “I was doing just fine until you showed up.”
“And now you’ll do just fine here,” Malachi said.
Darby moved closer to me. “You think humans are dramatic?” she whispered. “You’ve never seen Paras bicker. Watching them is one of my favorite hobbies.”
I glanced at her, eyebrows lifted. “It’s possible you need some healthier hobbies.”
“You wouldn’t be wrong,” she said, but kept her gaze on the pair.
“It looks like you both worked out some aggression,” Malachi said, glancing between Erida and Gavin.
“Not enough of it,” she said, leveling a stare at Malachi. “Why am I here?”
“Excuse us for a moment,” he said, and drew her toward the back of the church, where the stained glass window spilled blue and red light over them.
While they chatted, and Burke and Darby did the same, Gavin walked over to us. “Claire, Liam. A pleasure to see you again.”
“And how was your vacation?” I asked pleasantly.
Gavin snorted, pointed to his face. “This sums it up pretty accurately.”
“Are you going to punch your brother hello?” I asked. That was how he’d done it the last time he reunited with Liam, and right in the middle of Royal Mercantile, giving me and my customers a pretty entertaining show.
He grinned, winced at the pain. “No.”
“I’d ask how you got the shiner,” Liam said, sliding his glance to Erida, “but I’m pretty sure I already know the answer.”
“It looks like you were pretty evenly matched,” I said. “I mean, given your injuries.”
“Agreed,” Liam said. “How’d you get her to come back?”
Gavin grinned, lighting dimples at the corners of his cheeks. “I’m very good at persuasion.”
“Bullshit,” Liam said through a cough.
“She’s a goddess of war,” Gavin said quietly.
I looked at her again, the perfect posture, the slim but toned shoulders and arms. She looked to be lecturing Malachi, gesturing wildly, and not very happy about it.
“She wasn’t fighting to avoid coming back,” Liam said. “She was fighting because that’s what she does. She’s one of Malachi’s marshals—his soldiers. Let me guess,” he said. “She challenged you, and you stupidly accepted?”
“Hey, I’m still walking. She didn’t break anything.” But he winced when he rolled his shoulder. “This is an old baseball injury.”
“Sure it is,” Liam said, and clapped him hard on the arm.
Gavin’s face went a shade paler. “Asshole.”
“Back at you,” Liam said. “I’m glad you’re back. We’ve got trouble.”
Gavin nodded. “I heard about the bombing. You remember that piece-of-shit marina on the north side of Lake Borgne?”
Liam closed his eyes and nodded, as if trying to remember. “Owned by an asshole with a domestic violence habit?”
Gavin nodded. “Beat the shit out of his wife in front of his kid and a Containment agent.” He looked at me. “Real class act.”
“Sounds like it.”
“The kid, Jasmine, is all grown up now,” Gavin said with a grin. “She runs the outfit. Pretty nice operation, actually.” He smiled. “Pretty nice Jasmine.”
Liam rolled his eyes. “I’m shocked you’d use a contract as an opportunity to get laid.”
“I’m no monk. And the point is, the marina’s a way station. It’s the only operating marina for twenty miles. They want gas, food, water, they go to her.” Gavin looked at me, grinned. “It’s the power of the hot girl in retail.”
“My duct tape brings all the boys to the yard,” I said dryly, and both brothers smiled.
“I bet. As to the marina, you get shrimpers in and out, the occasional Para in and out. I used the marina to find Erida, and to find out about the bombing. Word had traveled from New Orleans.”
Malachi and Erida moved back to us.
“Erida,” Malachi said, “this is Liam Quinn and Claire Connolly.”
She looked at me, nodded. There was nothing unfriendly in the gesture, but nothing particularly friendly, either. Maybe she was the all-business type.
“We should stay in touch,” Malachi said. “Particularly now. Sharing information about Reveillon may be the only way to stop them.”
Liam nodded. “We’ll let you know if Containment learns anything else. And send a pigeon if there’s trouble.”
Malachi nodded. “We should assume Reveillon will attack again. We try to stop them if we can, and minimize casualties if we can’t.” He looked at me. “We’ll train again,” he said, which made Liam shift ever so slightly beside m
e.
“When?” I asked, ignoring the movement.
He smiled lightly. “When I show up.”
I shouldn’t have bothered asking.
“In that case, we’re going to get back,” Liam said. “Claire needs to at least make an appearance at the store today, or people will start getting suspicious.”
“And we’re taking you back to the store,” I said, pointing at Gavin. “We’ll get you fixed up.”
“I’m fine,” he said, but winced and touched his lip. “But I wouldn’t say no to a drink.”
—
Burke drove us back. Because Gavin called shotgun before Liam and me, we shared the bench. Gavin almost immediately dropped his head back and closed his eyes. He looked, now that I was looking for it, completely exhausted. Maybe finding Erida had been harder than he made it sound, notwithstanding the bumps and bruises.
We updated Gavin on the way back to the store; then he, Liam, and Burke talked through the ins and outs of Containment bounties, strategies for locating Reveillon members in a city as big as New Orleans—with a million places to hide.
“Thanks for the ride, Burke,” I said when he pulled up in front of Royal Mercantile. “You want to come in?”
He smiled, shook his head. “Thanks, but I need to get to the Cabildo. We’ve got shipments coming in and convoys heading out, so I need to get my people prepared.”
“Stay safe out there,” Liam said, tapping the side of the jeep.
Burke gave a salute and headed down Royal.
Gavin stretched his arms over his head, showing just enough abs to prove he and Liam also had good definition in common. “I am starving. Who’s got eats?”
Liam looked at him. “Your apartment is down the street. Why don’t you go get something?”
He grinned. “Because I haven’t been home in two weeks, there was boudin in the fridge, and the power’s probably gone off more than once.”
Liam and I both made faces of disgust.
“Your apartment is going to need fumigating,” I said.
“It’s going to need an exorcism,” Gavin said, opening the door to Royal Mercantile, and holding it open so Liam and I could go inside. “Which is why I’d love to share a meal with two of my favorite people.”
I shook my head, glanced at Liam. “As his older brother, you should have done a better job teaching him how to lie.”
Liam snorted. “Consider who he just escorted to New Orleans. It’s unlikely he’d take advice from me, no matter how good.”
Gavin turned, walked backward through the store. “Technically, she challenged me. No respectable man could say no to that.”
“Since when are you respectable?” Tadji said, stepping in front of us.
“Long time no see,” Gavin said, giving her a hug. He walked into the store, took a look around. “Claire, I like what you’ve done with the place.”
“That’s all Tadji,” I said. The store looked the same as it had last night, which relieved me more than it should have. I guessed I still needed my comfort zone.
There weren’t any customers in the store. “Slow day?” I asked Tadji.
“No,” she said with a smug smile. “Check the receipts.”
That was an offer I couldn’t refuse, so I walked to the counter and flipped through the stack, calculating them mentally.
Then I stared at her. “Are you serious?”
She put a hand at her waist, made a bow. “I am good.”
“You are a freaking genius.” I held up a receipt. “You even sold two walking sticks!”
She nodded, her expression sobering. “People are nervous about the attack on Devil’s Isle. I reminded folks they made good weapons in a pinch.”
“They’d be great weapons with a little training,” Gavin said, leaning on the counter.
“Maybe you could offer a class,” Liam said.
“Maybe I could.”
“Should I ask about . . . ?” Tadji began, and drew a circle in the air around Gavin’s face.
“It speaks for itself,” Liam said. “He got himself beaten.”
“I chose to fight an incredibly sexy and skilled woman for the challenge of it.”
Tadji looked dubious. “And how did she fare?”
“Better than him,” Liam said, and pointed to the paper bag on the counter. “Let’s move to other topics. I brought that in this morning.”
I hadn’t noticed him bring it in, but I knew what bags like that usually held. “Is that what I think it is?”
He uncurled the top, pushed it toward me. Two rounds of crusty bread sat inside. Eleanor’s bread, if I was any judge. The woman had an amazing hand with flour.
“Oh yes,” I said, realizing I hadn’t eaten anything all day. “Please tell me this is lunch.”
“And that you’re willing to share?” Tadji asked, hands pressed together in hope.
“Of course he is,” I answered for him. “I think I have some peanut butter. We could make a meal out of that.”
Liam made a sound of disgust. “This bread is not for peanut butter.”
“There’s nothing wrong with peanut butter,” I said, heading to the kitchen. God knows I’d eaten and sold enough of it.
Liam followed me. “Bread this good deserves more than chewed-up peanuts.”
There was a lot of conviction in his voice. “That doesn’t adequately capture the glory that is shelf-stable peanut butter. And you sound a little bitter.”
I walked to the refrigerator, pulled out the bottle of iced tea. Sniffed, just in case it had gone bad in the night. It smelled fine, which was our primary food safety test these days.
“I once spent two weeks on a run near Monroe in August, ate peanut butter every day,” Liam said. “Can’t even look at it now.”
“I could eat it by the spoonful.”
“That’s because you’re a redhead.”
I gave him a look. “I’m pretty sure there’s no correlation there.” I pulled open the nearest cabinet, took out a bulk jar of peanut butter, and scanned the shelves. “Now, what else do we have?”
Ever helpful, Liam opened another cabinet, produced a roll of duct tape. “Why is this in a kitchen cabinet?”
I took it from him, put it back in its spot, closed the cabinet again. “It’s in every room in the building, as it should be. Duct tape cures all ills.” I found a jar of anchovies, held it out.
Liam looked absolutely disgusted. His being naturally gorgeous, the expression still looked pretty good on him. “No.”
Frowning, I looked over packages of MREs, dried beans, rice, cornmeal. A slender jar of sun-dried tomatoes hiding in the back of the cabinet got a thumbs-up, so I put it with the pile. “Someday I’d like to have a big kitchen. All the bells and whistles.”
“Is that because you cook, or you want to have a pantry full of food?”
“Mostly the food.”
Liam could cook. We’d shared roasted chicken one night at his place in Devil’s Isle.
“Feel free to take a look,” I said, and waved game-show-style to invite him to review our options.
He stepped in front of me, his big body leaving that cologne lingering behind him. His Henley was fitted enough that it snugged against the taut muscles of his back, then curved into a perfectly bitable ass. I wanted to put my hand in the hollow of his back, feel strength and muscle shift and contract beneath my fingers.
“Don’t you think?” he said.
I blinked, realizing I hadn’t even heard what he’d asked me, and yanked back my hand.
Liam glanced over his shoulder. “You okay?”
“Fine,” I said, turning to face the other side of the kitchen while my blush faded. “Just thinking about apples. I should have grabbed a few when I was in Algiers.” It was a cover, but it happened to be true. Next time Malachi and I p
racticed, maybe.
I grabbed a butter knife. “Why do you think Erida’s here?”
“I don’t know. Things are getting dangerous. Maybe he’s calling his people home.”
Tadji pushed the curtain aside. “You two ready? We’re starving out here.”
“On our way,” I said, and we gathered our bounty.
—
We had iced tea, amazing bread, decent peanut butter, and a surprisingly delicious tomato spread that Gavin put together from the sun-dried tomatoes, salt, and olive oil. The latter was one of the few “gourmet” ingredients I could get relatively easily onto the Zone caravans. And thinking of that, I made a note to myself to add Lizzie’s orders to my next request.
But first, the mystery.
“So, what’s with Erida, and your mission to bring her back?” I asked, slathering on tomato spread.
“She’s a soldier; he’s her commander,” Gavin said, pouring iced tea into a glass. “He made it worth my while not to ask questions.”
“He paid you?” I asked, frowning. How did an angel get money?
“He did. I’m guessing there are human sympathizers with funds,” he said to my unspoken question.
“I bet Malachi has something specific in mind,” I said, picking a piece of bread from the shard in my hand. “Maybe he’s planning for what I saw on the other side of the Veil.”
The Veil had passed over me at the Memorial Battle, and I’d seen an army of Paranormals with their golden armor and shields, including a warrior on her steed, clearly eager for battle.
“Maybe,” Gavin said. “I left before the bombing, so it’s likely not related to Reveillon.”
Tadji frowned. “But the Veil’s closed, right? So why would that matter?”
I didn’t know the answer to that, which was probably for the best, I thought, slathering peanut butter on bread. Unfortunately, while peanut butter was great, and Eleanor’s bread was great, peanut butter and Eleanor’s bread were not great together. They somehow managed to bring out the worst in each other. Like Gavin and Liam, I thought with a smile. And the joke almost made the gluey texture worth it.
“Why are you smiling?” Liam asked, eyes narrowed.
