Frenchman Street_A Novel of The Sentinels of New Orleans

by Suzanne Johnson

  Rand touched him on one pasty, rounded shoulder, concentrated a few moments, and then released DeFazo, who lifted his head and looked around him, bloodshot brown eyes growing wide and round as he realized what he’d done.

  Bingo. Now the man looked truly frightened. I’d have felt guilty if the stakes weren’t so high. We might have been able to place an insider in a more conventional way, but we didn’t have time.

  “Let’s start over,” I said, and began to tell the mayor of New Orleans about who really inhabited his city.

  Two hours later, a shaky Antoine DeFazo was on his second cup of coffee—turned out the guy didn’t drink—and was on his newly returned cell phone talking to human resources and security. A French national from the city government of Bordeaux wanted to observe all phases of planning for Mardi Gras, believing they might wish to implement a similar celebration in their city. He didn’t require a salary, but did need clearance for a lot of events and meetings.

  Our own French native of Bordeaux, or so he said when he wasn’t claiming to have been born in Saint-Malo or even in the West Indies, was on his way to meet his new colleagues.

  Elaine had brought in muffins to rejuvenate us after such a long meeting, and I munched on a banana-nut monstrosity more from nerves than hunger. I’d almost rather have had any of my acquaintances infiltrate Mardi Gras planning than Jean Lafitte, but his skills were best used here. Other than the little matter of being immortal, he was essentially human. He couldn’t fight on an even playing field with any prete. It said a lot for his integrity that he was willing to admit it and take a non-combative role.

  Besides, he was the biggest gossip I’d ever met, dead or alive, and a shameless eavesdropper. Plus, he could lie like Satan himself.

  “Listen to everybody and everything related to the Mardi Gras parades,” I’d told him on the phone last night. There were a lot of balls and private events over the next two weeks, but none that would draw the publicity of the parades. “Write everything down, especially if it doesn’t make sense to you. Guess at names as best you can. Since you aren’t pretending to be American, don’t hesitate to ask people to spell things for you. Don’t offer any advice or tell any war stories.”

  All his stories were from the War of 1812.

  If I were a faery prince wanting to sow seeds of chaos and attract attention, I’d use my ability to glamour. Hints in the newspaper that a slew of last-minute celebrity parade marshals were to be announced in the next day or two already had my faery antennae at attention.

  Finally, we all were waiting for Jean. The mayor, now on his third cup of coffee, was so nervous he had to hold his coffee mug with both hands to avoid splashing. “This is the real Jean Lafitte?” he whispered. He’d already asked twice. “Will he kill anyone?”

  “Just don’t piss him off,” Rand said, smiling, his eyes dead and flat. The elf did not like the mayor. Maybe it was the tasteless boxer shorts. Then again, he didn’t like the pirate, either, although I think Jean was growing on him. No one liked Rand. Perhaps he should take a lesson from that.

  A knock on the door caught our attention, and we turned to see a giggling, blushing Elaine. Oh God, Jean must have arrived with charm in tow.

  “Mr. Lafayette is here,” she said. “Should I send him in?”

  DeFazo seemed to have lost his voice, but nodded.

  When Jean entered, it was my turn to be speechless. He wore a modern black suit, a white silk shirt with the top button unfastened, and shiny black loafers. His hair was pulled back in a short ponytail. This was no pirate; this was a playboy straight from the French Riviera…or Bordeaux.

  “Merci, Mademoiselle Elaine. I am most certain we will meet often in the coming days,” he said, bowing and kissing the back of the woman’s hand. She was in her fifties or sixties, wore a severe gray business suit and sensible black pumps, and giggled like a fifteen-year-old.

  I understood. He’d had the same effect on me and might well do so again.

  “Bonjour, Drusilla.” He kissed me on both cheeks. “Monsieur Randolph.” He shook hands with Rand. “And you must be Mayor DeFazo. I am most charmed to meet you.”

  Jean shook hands with the mayor, who seemed to have relaxed.

  “I was expecting….” he faltered.

  “He expected you to be wielding a sword and have a patch over one eye, like the movie we saw about you,” I explained.

  “Ah yes, I could wear such things if you wish,” Jean said to the mayor. “But I thought the clothing and sword might alarm your crew. I do have this, however.” He drew a pistol from inside his coat.

  “Put that away,” I hissed, reaching out to catch the mayor’s coffee cup on its way to the floor. “And he has a staff, not a crew.”

  “A staff like the one you carry, Jolie?”

  I turned to glare at Jean but then saw the amusement on his face. He was playing all of us.

  We chatted with the mayor a while, a few members of the mayor’s staff came in to be charmed by Jean, who was on his best behavior, and then Jean and the tourism director, Linda, left for a daily update on Mardi Gras planning.

  “Meet us at Rand’s house for dinner at eight,” I whispered. “Write down everything.”

  He ignored me as he walked out of the office beside Linda.

  She was giggling.

  Chapter 23

  After lunch, while Rand checked on Pentewyn and transported to Elfheim to see what Florian had done to his house, I walked over to see Rene. He’d furnished his place already; it looked a lot like Edmee’s home, only less lived-in. Rustic pieces of native hardwoods were accented by curtains and cushions in teals and blues and aquas that somehow managed to look masculine.

  It already felt like a home, and Rene looked right sitting in the little dining nook with a bottle of Abita and a newspaper. “How’d you get this stuff so fast?” I asked, examining a pretty dolphin that looked hand-carved from driftwood.

  “Most of it comes from my place down in Plaquemines Parish,” he said. “Had some’a my cousins bring it up last night. How’d your meeting go with the mayor?”

  I filled him in on the morning with DeFazo. “You should have seen Jean in his business suit,” I laughed. “He’ll have every woman in that building telling him their life stories before this is over.”

  Rene grinned. “Who do you think helped him buy that suit, babe? I tried to get him in a tie, but he’s all hung up on nooses, and he wasn’t havin’ it.”

  Yeah, the pirate had weaseled his way out of a few nooses in his human life, and hanged a few men himself. It probably was a sore subject.

  “Did the elf behave himself, or would I rather not know?” Rene finished off his beer and replaced it with a bottle of water. “Want one?”

  “No thanks. And yes, Rand handled himself very well. Of course, he had an incentive.”

  Rene took a sip of water. “Don’t like the sound of that.”

  I shrugged. “He wants to see his son, and I held that over his head. I can’t blame him, but I think it’s too early to get that baby in a transport, and I can’t transport Rand to Edmee’s house without him knowing their hiding spot.”

  “Hm. Well, if he was a premature human kid, yeah, you wouldn’t take him out this soon. But the weather’s warm right now because Florian wants a perfect Mardi Gras. You could drive up to Slidell, rent a hotel room, and set up a transport there.”

  “That’s brilliant.” Edmee could take the baby to the room, and Rand could transport to us. “Rand would only see me and the baby. But check with Coraline first, and see if she thinks it’s safe to take him out for that long.”

  While Rene made the call, I wandered around his living room, honing in on a framed photo of two strong, wiry guys with Van Dyke beards standing beside black and white pickup trucks with MERTWIN 1 and MERTWIN 2 license plates. It must have been taken right after I’d met them. Rene still drove MERTWIN 1 because he was fifteen minutes older than Robert. Now, except for his wealth of tattoos, Rene looked more like his
brother. His black hair had gotten long and had just enough curl to make it sexy. He’d grown more of a scruffy beard.

  He never talked much about Robert, but I know he missed his twin. I’d felt it during our power-share—an empty spot in his heart where his brother had always been.

  “Cora thinks it’s fine to take the baby out—he’s way farther along than a human baby would be. Edmee says she can go over to Slidell late afternoon. I’ll text you her number so you can call her when you have the hotel room.”

  I nodded and held up the photo I’d been studying. “I never thought you guys looked that much alike, but it was the hair. Now that your hair’s longer, I can see it.”

  He took the photo and looked at it with a ghost of sadness before replacing it on the shelf. “We’ve all made some bad choices in the last few years, DJ. I couldn’t even look at that photo for a long time, but I saw it in the box of stuff last night and realized I can think about him now and remember some of the good stuff, if that makes sense.”

  “Perfect sense.” It still hurt to think of Gerry and Tish, but I could remember good times now, not only loss. Jake and Eugenie? Not yet.

  It was loss that preoccupied me as I made the forty-minute drive across the narrowest eastern edge of Lake Pontchartrain to reach the city of Slidell. I checked in at a mid-price chain hotel, and texted Edmee the information.

  Less than an hour later, I held Michael in my arms again. “I brought a new little outfit for him in case elves are like shifters and can scent where he’s been,” Edmee said, smiling down at the sleeping infant. “He must have a lot of human in him. Elves aren’t so nice.”

  I laughed. “Tell me about it.”

  She left with plans to hit some local shops, and I sat alone with the baby a while. He woke up a couple of times, enough to blink at me with his father’s brilliant blue-green eyes, and I had to wonder about how human he was. He could visualize me clearly enough to send the image to Rand. He was small, but when he cried, there was no sign that his lungs weren’t as strong as a full-term infant.

  He had little round cheeks and a rosebud mouth. He might eventually have dark hair like his mom—it was too soon to tell—but he was going to be as pretty as his father.

  Speaking of which. I sighed and opened up my mind to the elf. Rand—are you home yet?

  I’m in New Orleans. My home in Elfheim has been defiled by….where are you?

  I had set up a transport before Edmee arrived, so I told him to transport to “Slidell One.” It took him less than a minute.

  Rather than charge over and grab the baby, as I’d expected, Rand stood in the transport and stared. I was sitting on one of the hotel beds, holding the sleeping baby, so I got up carefully and took him to his father.

  “Meet your son,” I said, placing the infant in Rand’s arms. “Michael, I think you already know your daddy.” And if you ever, ever hurt that child there will be nowhere far enough for you to run, in this world or the Beyond, to escape my wrath, I added—but not where Rand could hear.

  “Dru, he’s beautiful.” Michael woke at the sound of his father’s voice and waved his tiny fists in the air. “You were right. He can’t be anywhere near that mess in New Orleans.”

  I nodded. “I want you to think about him the next time you want to annihilate the wizards, or anybody else. You owe it to that baby to create a safe world for him to grow up in, a world where he’s free to travel and learn about different kinds of people without fear.”

  Rand looked up at me. “I need you to help me raise him.”

  I’d shot that notion down so many times, it should be dead by now. Except before, I hadn’t seen the baby. I hadn’t known he would lose his mother. I owed it to Eugenie.

  “I want to be a part of his life, always,” I said.

  “We will live as a family.” Rand seemed to be daring me.

  “No, but maybe I’ll live across the street.”

  Rand frowned, and Michael let out a startled cry. “With that dog? Or that merman?”

  “By myself, in Eugenie’s house. I know it’s going to come as a shock, but women actually survive quite well without men.”

  I’d buy Eugenie’s house, maybe open up a bookstore where her salon had been since I was unemployed. I knew a really rich pirate who’d be willing to loan me the money for the house, especially if it meant I owed him favors.

  “It takes a man to make a baby,” Rand said with a snort, looking down at little eyes just like his as they looked back up at him.

  I had to help raise that baby just to keep him from becoming an overbearing ass like his male role model.

  “No, it takes a sperm donation,” I said. “The man doesn’t even have to be there for the event.”

  Fortunately, it was hard to argue in the presence of cuteness, so I stretched out on the second bed and let Rand bond with his son. Surely he couldn’t imprint sexist, elitist nonsense on him at this age.

  I read for an hour, then told Rand to leave. “I need to take him back to his safe place, and you’re hosting a dinner party tonight.” Jean would give us his first report on the mayor’s office, and I’d invited Rene as well as Faulkner and Lia Hearne. “Order pizza.”

  He grumbled a few minutes, but finally settled Michael back in my arms. “When can we do this again?”

  I lifted my shoulders in a shrug. “Depends on how things go. I think we should try to track Florian down before the parades start—interrupt all his plans.”

  “You mean go into Faerie? I’m in, and I’ll pull a team of fighters from Elfheim together.” Rand’s fingers curled into fists. “If I can’t find him, I can at least burn down his precious Summer Palace. He has desecrated my home in Elfheim.”

  We had one small window left before the beginning of Mardi Gras parade season to go on the offensive against Florian, so we’d need to be strategic.

  As soon as Rand transported out, I broke the transport and called Edmee.

  Then I scrolled through my contact list. We needed help, and while I couldn’t rely on the wizards as a group as long as Willem Zrakovi was in charge, I could talk to my Uncle Lennox. And track down Adrian Hoffman. A spare set of fangs always came in handy.

  Chapter 24

  To accommodate our dinner guests, Rand had pulled one of his long potting tables into the big greenhouse space, empty now that Pentewyn had returned to Elfheim to recover from his rat binge.

  I covered it with a bedsheet, helped him scatter some stray chairs around it, and piled on a variety of pizzas and cold bottles of beer. I set off another air-freshening charm in case there were traces of dragon gas and we’d gotten used to it.

  Gruff and Sebastian were both locked upstairs. The Fae Hunters would find the dog aroma more offensive than dragon farts, and Sebastian would be on the middle of the table, stealing the pepperoni and stalking Rene as if he were a talking lump of fish tartare.

  Rand had gone upstairs to get them settled when Faulkner and Lia arrived, looking grim. “Is the Lord of Elfheim here?” Faulk asked.

  “I’m here.” Rand entered and gave a slight bow before shaking hands with both of them. “Prince Falconer. Thank you for your help in freeing me yesterday.”

  “Just in time,” Faulk said. “I had one of my hunters positioned in the police station to give us ears on the inside, and my man Methier was found dead this morning. We managed to see the camera footage, and it was Florian disguised as a guard—he dropped his glamour when he got close enough to pick up on Methier’s faery aura, then killed him in a fit of rage without even knowing who he was. So everyone at the station thinks Lord Randolph is dead.”

  We sat quietly for a few moments. “I’m sorry,” I said, “That whole scheme was my idea.” Hurricane DJ just kept destroying and destroying.

  “Don’t be sorry,” Faulk said after Rand echoed his condolences. “Methier was a troubled man, and I’m not sure he would have succeeded as a Hunter. I hate to lose him, but in the grand scheme of things, Lord Randolph’s safety is paramount.”
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  I hoped Lord Randolph appreciated that, once again, someone had died to keep him in power. At least he hadn’t done the killing this time.

  I went to the door, dropped the wards with today’s security words—Bag End—and let Rene and Jean inside, along with Adrian Hoffman. Guess Jean had gotten my message to find him.

  Adrian hugged me. “You saved me back there. They’d have done to me what they did to Terri.” He still looked like a dapper, handsome Montel Williams, but I could tell he was one exhausted vampire. His eyes looked tired and new lines had etched themselves on either side of his mouth.

  “Are you still at Jean’s apartment in Old Orleans?” I asked.

  “No, I felt too exposed. Right now, I’m staying with Louis Armstrong, although I think he doesn’t quite trust me not to bite him no matter how often I tell him I can’t feed from the historical undead.” He sighed. “I hate being a vampire. Now that Terri is gone, I have to go hunting for food every night.”

  I empathized; I’d hate it too. Vampires fed best from each other; human or other prete blood was more like an addictive snack. Except for mine.

  “My sister Coraline’s at the house; she’d probably let you feed if you like shifters,” Rene said, ignoring my look of outrage that he’d offer up his sister as vampire dinner without asking her. “She dated a vamp for a while, and I think she misses the rush.”

  Oh. Well, then. To each his own. I wanted no part of Adrian’s fangs.

  I filled them in on the Florian situation while we walked to the greenhouse-turned-dining room. Adrian looked with longing at the pizza, but I was distracted by a whispered argument between Faulk and Rand.

  “What’s the problem?” I asked Lia, taking a chair next to her and dragging a slice of vegetarian pizza onto my plate, followed by a slice of double-pepperoni. I figured they would cancel each other out from a health standpoint.