by AJ Larrieu
“Yeah, well, I don’t believe in God and all that shit. But I know the devil is real.”
I didn’t have a response to this. He didn’t seem to need one.
“Anyway, Frank trained me up and put me through the transition. Took months.”
“Transition—so—you mean you weren’t born this way?”
He cocked his head at me. “Nah. Don’t you know how it works?”
“New Orleans hasn’t had a guardian in generations. I didn’t know you guys existed until a few months ago.”
He nodded as though this didn’t surprise him. “We’re not born. We’re chosen. I was just a regular guy until Frank told me I could do this. Anchoring, they call it. That’s why I can’t be too far from my city. Once I got my wings, I was tied to the place.”
“What, like, forever?” Was that what we needed? Someone who loved the city enough to never leave it?
“Doesn’t bother me. Never really wanted to leave. I grew up there, got my whole family there. Only now I can’t see them anyway, so.” He gave a huffing, humorless laugh. “Anyway, first thing I did after I got my wings was track those sacks of shit down. Maybe they weren’t holding the knife, but they damn sure knew who was. I guess I got them spooked.”
His memories shifted. I felt the flash of panic as two men barged into the bedroom where he slept. The painful clench of his hand on the hilt of a knife he pulled from under a lumpy mattress. The crush of flesh as he struck, the blood.
“But it was self-defense. Right?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Could be they only wanted to scare me. This...” He flexed his hands and stared at them, raised and spread his wings. “I’m not used to it yet. The strength.” Remembered emotion boiled to the surface and overtook him. They weren’t the first lives he’d taken, but they were the first he’d taken in panic, the first he’d taken not knowing his own strength. His memory of his bloodstained clothes bristled with details made sharply clear by adrenaline. He closed his eyes under the weight of it.
“So you were arrested? Surely, a jury—”
“They never got the chance. Frank and Susannah—they got me into hiding. I can’t keep the glamour up. Not for very long. If they put me in jail, well...” His wings shimmered in and out of view. “Even if I got off, there’s no way I could keep these hidden. I guess they couldn’t let that happen. So here I am.”
“Here you are.”
“Figure the least I can do is help with your vampire problem. She kidnapped the girl, right? I’ll take her down. End of problem.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “It looks like it’s a little more complicated than that.”
Ian went to the pull-up bar still braced in the bathroom doorway. He gripped it with both hands and looked at me. “Then you’re thinking about it wrong.”
Chapter Eleven
Shane and I spent the rest of the afternoon at the hardware store.
“What about these?” He held up a black fluorescent bulb in a plastic blister pack.
“Do they give off UV light?”
“Not sure.” He peered at the back. “Doesn’t look like it.” He put it back and picked up a standard fluorescent bulb. “What about these?”
“Do we really think light bulbs are going to stop a vampire?”
“Don’t ask me. I didn’t know they existed yesterday.”
“Y’all need some help?”
We both jumped and turned around. A guy with short dreds and a red smock stood behind us. His nametag read, “My Name is Ray and I’m Here to Help!”
“Uh...yeah. We need UV light bulbs.”
“Sure.” He turned, hands still in his smock pockets, and led us three aisles down to a display of outdoor pond liners and plastic frogs designed to spout water from their mouths. “This what you’re looking for?” He pointed to a display labeled Water Sterilization.
I picked up a bulb in a cardboard box. The package claimed it offered the most powerful UV sterilization on the market. “I think this’ll do.”
“Y’all putting in a pond?” Ray asked.
“Yep,” Shane said. “A big one.”
* * *
We bought them out.
It wasn’t cheap.
Three bags of pond sterilization lights and electrical wiring. I dumped them on the brick patio. The sun was going down, and it felt like an hourglass receding.
“Where do we want them?” Shane asked.
I glanced around the yard and sighed. If I’d had to pick any place in the Quarter to defend against vampire attacks, a two-hundred-year old building full of unlockable windows surrounded by a three-foot wall was the worst possible choice. Couldn’t we at least have one of those fences with spikey wrought-iron finials on the posts? “Everywhere,” I said.
Shane installed the first light, and I stood by, handing him tools and supplies when he asked for them. While we worked, two of the guests—the young guys who’d laughed at Mrs. Robards—came out onto the back patio with a six pack of beer.
“Mind if we sit out here?” the taller one asked. He was wearing a strand of Mardi Gras beads and a shirt that said I got WASTED on Bourbon Street. Classy.
“Go ahead,” Shane said.
“You guys renovating?” The shorter one, a redhead. He had on a Saints cap that looked as though he’d bought it three hours ago at a souvenir shop.
“Bug zappers,” Shane said smoothly.
“Yeah, you guys have some big mosquitoes down here.” Wasted Guy cracked open a beer and grinned at me. “I bet they’d like to carry you off.”
I didn’t smile. “I’m not that easy to carry.”
Shane gave the guy a warning look. He was oblivious. He sipped his beer and gave me a wink. I turned my back on him.
We formed a perimeter around the house, a light every three feet along the wooden fence, the low brick wall, through the patio garden and on the stucco outer face of the main kitchen. Shane’s movements were practiced and quick as he cut and married wires, fixed the sockets to the fence and the eaves. The sun stained the sky orange, and it glowed through the canyons of the quarter.
“You guys aren’t messing around,” Wasted Guy said, spinning one of his empty beer bottles on the table.
“Your comfort is our priority,” I said through my teeth. I was using them to hold a length of wire, since I couldn’t do it with telekinesis.
“Should we be worried about giving them skin cancer?” I sent to Shane.
“I’m more worried about giving him a black eye.”
“They’re the only guests we’ve got left.”
“If this is the best we can do, I’d rather Lionel sold the place.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Have you seen what’s in his head?” Shane caught my eye and cast an unfriendly glance toward Wasted Guy, who cracked open his fourth beer. Shane glowered. “It’s probably better if you don’t.”
The B&B usually attracted guests who were more interested in the culture than the alcohol, but now wasn’t the time to be picky. Business had been slow, and bookings for the next month were thinner than usual.
Shane installed a final light on the back porch and picked up the remains of the wiring.
“Dinner?” he said.
“Sounds great.”
I leaned in and kissed him, and he wrapped his free arm around me and pulled me in close. Wasted Guy gave off a little jolt of shock, and we both rolled our eyes. Some idiots still thought an interracial relationship was something to be surprised by.
“Come on.” I tugged his arm and went up the back steps, but we both froze when we heard raised voices in the kitchen. We paused on the porch, listening with our minds when we couldn’t make out words with our ears.
“We’ve got enough to see us through.” Lionel’s voice,
placating.
“But what happens after that? What happens when we don’t make enough next month? You don’t owe that girl anything—send her off.” Bruce’s voice, angry.
“I can’t do that.” Lionel’s shock was plain. “She needs us. You want me to put her out on the street where that—that thing could get her anytime? Bruce.”
“I know, I know. But what’s going to happen when she comes back?”
“We’ll handle it.”
Bruce huffed out a sigh. “You’ll handle it. You’ll always handle it. What happens when you can’t?”
I chewed on my bottom lip. Lionel and Bruce almost never fought.
“Let’s go around front,” Shane said.
“Yeah.”
We cut through the narrow alley alongside the B&B where Lionel kept the trash bins. We had to levitate them up to get past, but there was no one to see.
“We still have that cash—” I began as we made it to the street.
“It won’t come to that,” Shane said. I hoped he was right.
We replaced half the bulbs along the front of the B&B and tested them. The violet glow was almost pretty if you didn’t realize what it was.
“There’s got to be something more we can do. I mean, this isn’t actually going to stop her.”
“No,” Shane said. “But hopefully it’ll slow her down long enough for us to prepare.”
“Lionel doesn’t know the rest of it, does he?” I didn’t truly have to ask. I knew Shane wouldn’t have wanted to worry him with Diana’s prediction.
“We don’t even know if that’s real.”
“She seemed pretty certain.”
“We’ll handle it,” Shane said, and the echo of Lionel’s words was eerie. I thought of Bruce’s reply. The same words were in my head, even though I didn’t speak them. What happens if we can’t?
* * *
I lay awake all night. Partly I was waiting for Annette to show up, planning how I’d rip out her heart. Mostly, I imagined pulling.
The desire snuck up in little, empty moments. I mentally investigated a creaking board on the back porch that turned out to be just the settling of the old house, and when I brought my awareness back in, the thought was waiting for me, an ambush. Ian was only yards away. What if I took a little while he slept; he would never feel it. I shoved the thought aside, checked that our perimeter was still on by feeling for the heat in the bulbs. The desire crowded its way back. Just once. Just a little. Shane’s quiet, even breath was as steady as the ocean. I focused on the rhythm, on the constancy of his presence. It didn’t help. What if she comes back? You need this.
I got out of bed and paced the room. It wasn’t just Ian anymore. It was the whole house. The few guests we had left, Lionel, Bruce, Diana. Shane. I watched his chest rise and fall, and a panicked sob choked me. I ran from the room.
I didn’t pay attention to where I was going until I ended up outside on the back patio, UV light making my skin glow lavender.
I could still feel the guests. I could still feel Ian.
The house next door to the B&B, on the opposite side from the converted apartment building where I’d so recently almost died, was a private residence. The owners kept to themselves and mostly lived in Texas, or so we’d heard. They were supposed to have a gardener come once a week, but while they were away, the guy came every other month at best. Sugar gum saplings were turning into trees in the backyard. They weren’t much, but they were something.
I leaned against the wooden fence and pressed my forehead into the grain. The pull wanted Ian. Above all, it wanted Ian. It would make do with Shane, with Lionel, with Wasted Guy or his friend, but it wanted Ian. I focused on the spindly gum saplings, already withering from weeks without water in the heat, but a piece of my focus was still on the warm bodies in the house.
“Hey, iss the bug zapper girrrl.”
I whipped around. On the back porch was Wasted Guy, still drunk. Maybe drunker. I gave him my best glare.
“Saw you down hirrr from my window. Waitin fer somebody?” He grinned. It was lopsided. For a single, terrifying instant, the pull I’d been preparing to sink into our neighbor’s weed-choked yard clawed its way toward him, seeking and starving, knowing his life would blunt the need.
“You shouldn’t be out here.” My voice was hoarse, barely controlled.
“Sez who? You? C’mon, I jus wanna talk to you—” He reached for me. I swatted his hand away with a panicked burst of telekinesis.
“Don’t touch me.”
He staggered back, confused, but fortunately he was too drunk to notice I hadn’t touched him. “Jeez, why you gotta be such a bitch, huh? Just wanna talk. Wha, you don date white guys?”
The question bordered on hostile. Just when I’d thought he couldn’t get any dumber. I clenched my fists.
It would be so easy to knock him out...just a little sip...
I was a hairsbreadth away from snapping, and the realization terrified me. I pushed past him and went straight for the garage, ignoring the way he called after me, ignoring my rampant desire to go back. I had to get out of here, had to get away from all these people.
I could go to Shadow House. Why wait for Annette to recover and come back? There were plenty of guards in that house—I could pull from them, hold her down while I cut out her heart with a goddamn kitchen knife, end this problem. The keys were in Lionel’s truck. I opened the door.
“Don’t go.”
I jumped and hit my head on the door frame. It was Diana.
“What are you doing up?” I rubbed my head.
“You were going to go there. To Shadow House. It’s not a good idea.”
“No I wasn’t.” How could she tell? “I was just going to go for a drive.”
Diana shook her head. “Bad idea. Very bad. You show up in the driveway, Greg comes out with his nine millimeter to distract you, and you won’t have time to stop her before she snaps your neck and drains you dry.”
“Okay.” I shut the door again. When the woman who could see the future told you something was a bad idea, it was a good idea to listen. I leaned against the side of the truck. “What are you doing up?”
“I don’t sleep much.” She stepped down into the garage, walking over to the bay of shelves where Lionel kept his tools. Her hair was out of a ponytail for the first time since I’d met her, and it looked as though she’d trimmed it herself with a blunt knife and no mirror. “I heard them fighting. Your dads.”
“They do that sometimes.” Could she tell I was lying? “It’s fine.”
She cast me a look, and the lead blocks were up again in her mind. Her large dark eyes held mine a few beats longer than normal. Then she turned and picked up a can of black spray paint. “It’s changing—everything’s changing.”
“You mean your visions?”
She nodded.
“Is that...normal?”
“Sometimes. I’m interfering by telling you things. It alters the path.” She picked up another can of spray paint, and another. I was betting there was at least a ten percent chance she was going to spray-paint something just to see what would happen. At least she wasn’t close to Shane’s car.
“I don’t think I should stay here,” she said
“You can stay here as long as you need to.”
“No—I should leave.” She sat down on the concrete and stacked the spray paint cans. One, two, three. It was a very precarious tower.
“Where would you go?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Diana.” I sat in front of her and waited for her to look at me. She didn’t, so I went on anyway. “I got you out of there. I’m not going to just give up and let her take you back because things got hard.”
“You don’t get it.” She stood up fast, and it was only my
quick telekinetic response that kept the paint can tower from falling. She walked to the other side of the garage, threading her way through the two cars and staring at the wall. “If she doesn’t kill you and Shane, you’re going to kill her. I want her dead. I do. But I don’t want to be there to see it.” She finally met my eyes.
I remembered the complicated emotions of the much younger Diana watching Annette feed. I didn’t have to know her whole story to understand what this was like for her.
“I’ll make some calls,” I told her. “We’ll figure something out.”
We went back upstairs together, and I paused at the door to her room.
“Try to get some rest,” I told her.
“You too.” Something about the way she said it made me shudder.
Chapter Twelve
I slept a little next to Shane. Not enough. The slice of Bruce and Lionel’s quiet tension woke me up before dawn. They went down the stairs with such outward quiet and an inward anger, it startled me out of sleep. Shane stirred and burrowed deeper into the pillows. I slipped out of bed and dressed without waking him.
The street was nearly deserted. Morning—just about the only time the Quarter was relatively quiet. I soaked in the bliss of it for a few moments, then I dialed Susannah.
“What now?” she said instead of hello.
I started to explain, but I didn’t get past Diana’s abilities before she stopped me.
“A sibyl? A real sibyl?” There was actual surprise in her voice. “Where did you find her?”
“She found me, actually. The thing is, that vampire I told you about is after her, and I’m not sure we can protect her.”
“I can handle vampires.”
I was sure she could. “Can you take her in? She’s a little bit...” I paced in the street, unsure how to put it into words. “Complicated.”
“They usually are. Get her over here. I’ll make sure she stays safe.”
I waited for the rest, specifically what this was going to cost me.
“It’s worth one of your favors if you do.”
I stopped pacing. “Really?”
