by Chloe Neill
“That is . . . unsettling,” Tadji whispered. “I’d prefer she not sexually harass the customers. Let me help you, Mrs. Proctor,” she said, more loudly, and walked forward.
“There’s a Containment agent outside,” Gavin said. “Said he’s here to take a look at the truck.”
“Gunnar came through,” Liam said, and headed for the door to chat with the woman in fatigues, clipboard in hand, who stood on the sidewalk outside.
“Did you get an earful?” Gavin asked when we were alone.
I looked back at him. “What?”
“This morning, when you were listening from the stairway.”
I could feel my cheeks warming.
“He’s right,” Gavin said with a grin. “You can see every expression on your face. I wasn’t actually sure if that was you—I just heard the creak on the stairs. But thanks for confirming it for me.”
“I didn’t mean to intrude.”
“But you couldn’t turn away.”
I lifted a shoulder. I couldn’t really argue with that.
“No harm, no foul,” Gavin said, patting my arm. “Brother o’ mine isn’t exactly chatty about his feelings—or free with them. He’s guarded, careful, and honorable to a damn fault.”
I couldn’t help snorting. “And you’re the sexy rogue who leaves a trail of hearts behind him?”
He smiled wolfishly, rubbed a hand over his abdomen. “I am a sexy beast. But the broken heart is sometimes mine.”
I almost patted his arm supportively, but I didn’t want to encourage him.
—
Mrs. Proctor bought two boxes of baking soda. No sugar, no vanilla, no flour. Just baking soda. Either she was building a science fair volcano, or she’d been so awed by the brothers Quinn that she wasn’t thinking straight.
“Are you sure that you need all this?” I asked her for the third time.
“I’m sure,” she said with a grin, looking over the counter at Gavin. He’d moved behind it to stand with me so she couldn’t grab his ass again. Of all the people in the Quarter, she wasn’t the one I’d expected to be an incurable flirt. I guessed she just hadn’t yet seen what she’d really wanted.
“Would you like to walk me out, dear?” Mrs. Proctor gazed at Gavin over the bag I’d given her.
“I—sure,” he said, and squeezed my butt on the way around the counter.
“I should get a little fun, too,” Gavin said, and began an exceedingly slow walk back to the front door. Mrs. Proctor was making the most of the opportunity.
There were no other customers in the store at the moment, and Liam was still outside with Containment. Good. That gave me a chance to do something else that needed doing.
“And the shelves are clean,” Tadji said, walking back and putting the feather duster on the counter.
“Appreciate it. Um, can we talk for a minute?”
Her eyebrows lifted, but she nodded. “Sure. Actually, I’ve been wanting to talk to you, too. But this was your idea. You can go first.”
“No, that’s okay.” I hadn’t yet decided exactly how I was going to say what I knew needed to be said. “Go ahead.”
Tadji nodded. “So, I guess I wanted to acknowledge that Royal Mercantile is important to the Quarter, to the people who’ve stayed here and stuck out life in the Zone. And for a long time, the store was your life. And that was fine. But now, for lots of reasons, you have other things to think about. And that’s fine, too.” She linked her hands in front of her. “You need someone to help. I’m that someone. I want a job. And a paycheck.”
That made it easy, since I was going to make the same offer.
I wasn’t swimming in money; dry goods weren’t exactly a high-margin business. On the other hand, it was easy to be frugal in the Zone. There wasn’t much to spend money on. Regardless, she was already doing the work; she should absolutely get paid for it.
“Done.”
“Well,” she said. “That was easier than I thought.”
“That’s what I’d wanted to talk to you about.”
Her gaze narrowed. “And you made me do the asking?”
“You said you wanted to talk to me.”
“I guess I did.” She frowned. “The thing is—you’re a little possessive about the store.”
I had that coming. “Listen, that day, after the attack on Devil’s Isle—”
“I picked a bad time to change things around, disrupt the balance.”
“No—well, yeah. Not because of the attack. The store was hardly the important thing there, but it made me think about some things. Face some things emotionally that I hadn’t really wanted to think about.”
I told her about it. About my regrets, my jealousy, my “safe space.”
“Then I’m here at the right time,” Tadji said. “Because there’s an entirely new world opening up for you right now. A dangerous and occasionally sickening and cruel world, but a world filled with Cajun bounty hunters and lively conversation about peanut butter.”
“You do make it sound so glamorous, what with the peanut butter and all.” I tilted my head at her. “Are you sure this is what you want to do? I didn’t think ‘retail merchandising’ figured into your five-year plan.”
It had been a very detailed plan. With spreadsheets and colored tabs.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” she said. “Someday I’m going to finish my dissertation research, and then what? I’m going to leave the Zone and try to get a job at some college, telling people how dangerous and mysterious the Zone was? Don’t get me wrong—I love what I do, what I study. But for all its issues, I don’t want to live anywhere else.” She pressed fingertips to her chest. “It gets into your heart.”
“No argument there.”
“As for right now, I want to keep interviewing people, learning about their language. I think I can do that here: I can help run the store while you’re doing your thing, and I can talk to people. There’s really no better place to do that. Unless that’s a problem for you.”
“I want to be in a footnote.”
“Done,” she said with a grin.
“How much do I pay you?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t think we’d get this far. I figured there was a chance you’d boot me out for asking.”
“Never,” I said. “Think about what you want salary-wise and let me know.” I had no idea what the going rate would even be. Even prices were wonky in the Zone.
She held out a hand. “Deal.”
We shook on it, but I didn’t let her go. “Your skin is crazy soft. What are you using?”
Tadji smiled slyly. “I’ve been mixing up this concoction with olive oil. If you can get me some more, I can make you some . . . and some to sell.”
“This is clearly the beginning of a beautiful entrepreneurial relationship. Although,” I said, frowning as something occurred to me, “as keen as I am on bringing you into the biz, people might ask questions if I’m not here.”
“They aren’t asking any fewer questions when you leave the store locked up for a couple of days.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
“We’ll think of an answer. We’ll make it work,” she said with a nod. And for the first time in a long time, I felt like I had a partner.
“I actually have a first task for you,” I said, and told her about the orders for Lizzie. “But I’ll walk you through ordering and all that jazz. Oh, and you can take all the early shifts so I can sleep in.”
“No dice.”
“Worth a shot. I will give you a handy Royal Mercantile apron.” I stepped back, frowned down at the rows of shelves beneath the counter, remembering that I’d lost two of them when we left Camp Couturie. “I just have to remember where the extras are.”
“Those are the ones with the pockets in front?” she asked, moving her
hands in front of her thighs to mimic their location.
“That’s them.”
“Good. I really like those.”
“About you being gone . . . ,” she began, then paused. “It’s going to get worse, isn’t it? All of this?”
Tadji had a bad history with magic, a childhood that had made her wary of it. She’d recently begun to come to terms with that, and with the family who’d instilled that wariness in her. So I wanted to lie to her. I wanted to tell her everything was fine. But shielding her from the truth—keeping her from preparing herself—wasn’t going to help.
“It’s going to get worse,” I said.
She nodded gravely, as if trying to adjust her expectations.
“I don’t know how much worse,” I said, wanting to give her some hope. Because what was the point of living here without it, full heart or not? “It depends on how fast Containment can find Ezekiel and shut down Reveillon. Maybe they found him overnight at Camp Couturie.”
“And if they didn’t?”
“These are bad people, Tadj, especially Ezekiel. They’re believers, and they’re believers who are willing to be martyrs. They’re violent, they’re dangerous, and they believe they are absolutely right. They won’t stop until this is done—whatever that means. So if you see any of them coming, you run in the other direction. Walk right out the back door, go to the Cabildo—to Gunnar or to Burke—and don’t look back.”
“You’ll be careful, too?”
I pulled her into a hug. “With friends like you guys, how could I not be?” I just had to hope we could all keep one another safe.
—
Liam strolled in a little while later, sweat beading across his brow. It was a hot day, and he’d been monitoring whatever the Containment agents had been doing to his truck outside.
“You want to take a field trip?” he asked when he’d grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. “Take a look at that address?”
It took me a moment to realize what he was talking about. When I did, I stared at him suspiciously. “To Mid-City? Yeah.”
He nodded but looked over the store, then took a step closer. “Tell Tadji we’re going to check something out, if you want, but skip the details. Just in case.”
I frowned at him. “Just in case what?”
He leaned down. “Just in case this is something your father only wanted you to know about.”
“I trust her,” I said, irritation blossoming.
“It’s not her I worry about,” he said, gaze still and serious. “But those who’d use her to get the information.”
That lifted the hair at the back of my neck. I hadn’t even thought that far ahead—of the possibility it was a building that would matter to anyone other than my father. That would matter to Containment. Considering that possibility made me want to visit it more—and absolutely not mention it to Tadji.
“And I’m going to have Gavin stay here with her while we’re gone,” he said.
I frowned. “Stay here with—” I began, then realized why he’d suggested it. “In case they hit Royal Mercantile. You don’t think Containment got him.”
“There’s a chance he ran after we left. And even if he didn’t, the camp is big. It would take a lot of hours and a lot of manpower to clear the entire camp. As for the store, Ezekiel took his first shot at Devil’s Isle. I don’t think the store is high-profile enough for Ezekiel.”
“Even if he’s now pissed at me?”
“Even if.”
I looked over the store. “We could close it up. Lock the doors and wait for all this to be over.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Liam said. “And we won’t be gone long. Gavin will keep her safe, Claire. He knows how to handle himself.”
I nodded. “What should I tell her?”
“The truth,” Liam said. “So she’s prepared, just in case.”
Damn it, I thought, and went to find her again.
“Tadj,” I said, and her dark hair popped up behind a bookshelf she was swishing with a feather duster.
“Liam and I have to run out.”
She nodded. “No problem.”
“Liam’s going to have Gavin stay with you while we’re gone.”
She figured it out faster than I had, and her eyes went wide. “You think they’ll come here?”
“Liam doesn’t think so. There’d be no political benefit to hitting the store. But better to be safe than sorry. If you’re not comfortable with it, we can close down. The Quarter will live without us for a few days.”
The door jangled as Gavin walked in again, and Liam stopped him. After a moment, Gavin looked over at us, nodded.
Tadji looked at me, chin lifted. “No,” she said. “We’re not closing the store. We’re not going to cower from bullies.”
“If you need to go,” I said, giving her a quick hug, “just go. You’re more important to me than the store.”
Tadji grinned. “I’m sure that’s at least sixty percent true. Go do your thing. We’ll be fine.”
I wouldn’t have called myself especially religious, but for the second time that morning, I offered up another silent prayer for a friend.
—
“I hired her today,” I said as we left the store and walked back into punishing humidity.
“About damn time,” Liam said. “How much are you paying her?”
“We haven’t gotten there yet.” I stopped short on the sidewalk, staring at Liam’s truck. The glass had been repaired, dents from gunshots flattened and filled. It didn’t look good—Liam’s truck would never look good—but it certainly looked better.
“Bulletproof glass?” I asked, walking toward it and tapping a finger against the back window.
“No. The Commandant wouldn’t spring for that,” Liam said irritably, opening his door.
“Still, it looks pretty good. And they made fast work of it.” If Containment hadn’t been involved, it probably would have taken weeks just to get the correct windows.
“I can’t complain about that,” he said, and started the engine when I climbed in, closed the door.
It shut on the first try, which had us both staring at it.
“Huh,” he said.
“Yep. No bulletproof glass, but a functioning door’s a nice thing.”
He didn’t argue about it but headed to the edge of the Quarter and then north to the address my father had left behind.
I had no idea what we’d find when we got there. But I hoped some questions would be answered.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Mid-City had been one of my favorite neighborhoods in New Orleans. Like the Quarter, it had kept a lot of its unique architecture, although the war had destroyed many of those buildings.
We’d rolled down the windows. The breeze carried the scent of smoke, which grew stronger the farther north we drove, until the air was hazy with it. Then we saw the plume of smoke rising into the sky about half a mile uptown.
“I want to check that out,” Liam said, and I nodded my agreement as he turned toward it.
We didn’t get very far. Dark Containment vehicles blocked the street two hundred yards from the inferno that engulfed a Containment precinct office. Even that far away, the heat that rolled off the fire was absolutely brutal.
Liam pulled up to the blockade, leaned out the window. “Hitchens!” he called out, and an agent turned around, nodded at Liam, and jogged over.
“Hey, Quinn.”
“The hell happened?” Liam asked as Hitchens passed a hand over his damp forehead.
“Reveillon. They went on a spree overnight. Torched four buildings owned by PCC or Containment.”
“Damn,” Liam said. “Any injuries?”
“I’ve heard a dozen with smoke inhalation, burns, but no deaths. Reveillon left its calling card—painted ‘Traitors
’ on the street in front, just in case we were confused.”
One of Ezekiel’s favorite words.
If Reveillon had been setting fires overnight, Containment clearly hadn’t gotten them all. And if there was some sort of coordinated arson, Containment probably hadn’t gotten Ezekiel at Camp Couturie.
“Assholes,” Liam said.
“Agreed,” Hitchens said, then slid his gaze to me, back to Liam. “You working the Reveillon bounty?”
“Yeah,” Liam said. “Claire, this is Tucker Hitchens. Claire Connolly. She runs Royal Mercantile.”
“Sure, sure,” Hitchens said. “I know it. I don’t live in the Quarter, so I don’t get down there, but I know it.”
I lifted a hand, offered a smile.
Another agent called Hitchens’s name, and he tapped the doorframe. “Gotta get back. Take care of yourself out there.”
“You, too, Hitch.”
The man ran back to his comrades near the vehicles.
“Ezekiel’s still free,” I guessed. “And he’s pissed.”
“Yeah,” Liam said. “And New Orleans will pay the price.” He put the truck in gear. “Let’s get going. I don’t want to be far from the Quarter for too long.”
I didn’t argue.
—
New Orleans was relatively flat, so we drove to a spot where the buildings had mostly been destroyed, climbed into the back of the truck, then onto the roof, to get a look at the city.
“Four,” Liam confirmed, shifting his gaze from each of the four plumes that rose into the sky at what looked like random spots across the city. Except they weren’t really random, at least not politically.
“‘And the nations were angry,’” Liam said quietly. “‘And thy wrath is come.’”
“The Book of Revelation,” I said, and he looked surprised that I’d recognized it. “My dad loved horror novels, and he thought Revelation fit the genre.”
Liam smiled a little. “Possibly sacrilegious, but it works.” He climbed smoothly down into the back of the truck, offered me a hand, helped me step down gingerly beside him.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go take a look at your father’s mystery building. Maybe we’ll find a magic carpet that will transport us all into Happy Land.”
