by Unknown
Chapter THIRTEEN
Hidden Rooms and Locked Away Princesses
The sunlight was just barely trickling in through the open window of my room when I cracked my eyes open. It wasn’t long past sun rise and I could smell the dew that lay in the grass outside. I stretched as best as I could but was hindered, my movements quite restricted by the hefty lump next to me.
The previous night had ended much better than I’d anticipated that morning. Rhys had kissed me into oblivion, washing away any doubts I may have had about how he felt and where he wanted to be. So there I lay, in bed, staring up at Rhys’s handsome profile which was just barely visible. It was stiflingly hot to be close to him. The man was like my own personal heater. If you paired that with no air conditioning and the Louisiana swamp, it was a miracle that I hadn’t melted yet. Despite the sweltering heat, I was averse to rousing the man from sleep when he looked so peaceful laying there dreaming. It was almost time to leave.
New Orleans was under attack and its people didn’t realize how much trouble they were in. Undoubtedly, the other supernatural races would have taken notice, and from what Rhys was saying the night before, it sounded like chaos had broken loose. People were scared and had every right to be.
I slipped from the bed, shrugged into my clothes and tiptoed across the floor boards to the door.
“Leaving without a goodbye?” a groggy, deep voice said from the bed behind me just as I was easing the door open. I turned back towards the bed with a small smile.
“No, just didn’t want to wake you yet.” I padded back to the bed and plopped down next to him. A piece of his dark hair had fallen across his forehead into his eyes so I reached out to brush it back. My fingers made the faintest of connections with his skin, but it was like a current ran from him to me. It was exhilarating. He leaned into my hand reflexively, hungry for more.
“We need to leave soon,” I said, just above a whisper.
“Are you sure we can’t stay and play for a while?” Wagging his eyebrows at me, he brought my attentions to his nether regions. He was most definitely ready. His eagerness was shifting the sheet covering him enough to see almost everything.
I bit my lip. “I wish we could, but we don’t have time. We need to get back to New Orleans. I’d like to make it back by this afternoon.” The regret made my voice wobble. I wasn’t sure if I would ever get the chance to experience the blissful intimacy that I experienced when we lay together again.
He nodded. “I know.” He scrubbed his hands over his face before swinging his legs around to the side of the bed and sat upright. The bedsheets draped over his lap, covering all of the important bits. Still, he was a sight to be seen for sure. He resembled a handsome sculpture that could be found in one of the great art museums, like the Louvre.
I passed him his briefs and he slid them on, then gathered the rest of his clothes. We didn’t have much time to dawdle before we would have to make the precarious journey back through the swamp in the tiny boat I was certain would lose the battle should we come across another one of the swamp’s notoriously large reptiles. We collected ourselves and made our way to the kitchen, where Mama already had a hearty breakfast prepared for us.
“Thought ya both could use the strength what with da excitement of yesterday’s events and gettin’ on your way today,” Mama crooned, giving us both a knowing glance.
Oh god, she had heard us the night before. My cheeks burned hot with embarrassment. Rhys settled his hand on the small of my back reassuringly, I peered up at him. The man was like a strutting tom cat, too damn proud for his own good. I narrowed my eyes at him, he was not helping the situation. We pulled up stools to the multipurpose table to dig into the feast that laid before us. Fresh biscuits with honey, crisp bacon, and cheesy grits awaited us. We tucked into our meal with such zeal that one would have thought we were half starved.
Sometimes, I wondered how Mama managed to live out there, so off the grid and close to nature, then I remembered she didn’t do it alone. She had Rhys and he undoubtedly made numerous trips between the city and her little cottage, bringing her a multitude of supplies. Staying there had shown me that the land wasn’t for the faint willed. Danger lurked at every corner, be it man eating alligators, venomous snakes, or the much more elusive dark spirit. I most certainly had never thought that I would appreciate a slice of bacon so much either. We finished our respective meals silently with haste and cleaned up before we made to say our goodbyes.
Our bags had been set by the front door the night before so that we wouldn’t have to scramble to get everything together that morning. Mama wouldn’t be joining us. She wouldn’t leave her sanctuary nor would she allow herself to get involved in the fight to come. I didn’t understand why though. Why rely solely on me when there were other practitioners that could aid in the coming war? It seemed that the task would fall to me and Rhys, although I wasn’t sure in what capacity he would be helping.
There was only one task left before we could shove off-find Moonbeam. The cat had become accustomed to disappearing around the cottage, not to be seen for hours on end. I hadn’t the foggiest clue what she was doing, but I needed to find her right then. She would be a vital part of our plans, being a spirit familiar. It was her job to guide me when I was lost. I would need all of the guidance she had to offer once we got back to the city. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t terrified and worried that I was wholly inept for this task.
Making my way through the door to the front porch, I searched around not seeing her anywhere, although in my gut, I knew she was outside. I had searched the house and had come up empty handed.
“Moonbeam?” I called out.
Nothing.
Rhys came out behind me, stopping just short of the stairs.
“I might know where to find her,” he said and took off around the corner of the house.
Sure enough, he came back almost five minutes later carrying the black mass in his arms. I smiled at the sight. How could a man that appeared as though he could crush another man’s head with his bare hands and brute strength, carry an animal with the gentleness of a mother with her baby?
“Where did you find her?” I inquired as I slipped my arms around my feline friend and hefted her into my own embrace. She had definitely eaten well while we’d been out there. I’d wager that she had put on a few pounds by the feel of her.
“There’s a hollow up in one of the trees out back, she was inside. I think she’s been standing guard in there for a while… if the mice she’d caught are anything to tell by.”
We made our way back into the house. The sun was almost entirely over the horizon. We didn’t have long before the sweltering heat would be unbearable.
Rhys began hauling the few bags we had out into the center of the tiny pirogue while I said my farewell to Mama.
“When all of this is over, we’ll be back to visit,” I said, embracing the old woman. A stray tear threatened to escape. I had never been good with goodbyes. It didn’t help that true goodbyes had been too frequently robbed from me.
“Lookin’ forward to it, child!” Mama patted me on my back. We had formed a friendship through everything that had transpired since my abrupt appearance at her little corner of the swampland.
“Best ya be on your way. Men like this one don’t stay idle long,” Mama said as she stared at me. “Ya know, I knew her? Your great great great grandmother, Marie. She was a force to be reckoned with to be sure. You are so much like her, that same fierceness, conviction. Not many like that, tis’ refreshing to see in one so young as yourself,” Mama recalled.
“Wait, you knew her? How? Wouldn’t that make you over two hundred years old? Is that even possible?” Her revelation shocked me. All of those stories she had told me about Marie Laveau, I thought she’d learned them from a book and was relaying that information, but no. She wasn’t. She’d been there to witness it firsthand.
Mama nodded. “We all have secrets, my dear. Perhaps, one day I shall tell you mine.”
She finished with a wink and pushed me towards the door.
I waited outside for Rhys to wrap up his farewell with his adoptive mother, pondering all the things that Mama would have seen throughout the course of her very, very long life. Was a life that long a blessing? Or a curse? After a moment, Rhys joined me as we climbed aboard the miniscule vessel and shoved off from the rickety, old dock. At least I then understood why the house seemed so aged and dilapidated. It was. Mama had probably lived there for over a hundred years. Now with the understanding of just how old the cottage was, the house was in pretty good condition and well cared for through the spectacles of knowledge.
As we left, I could feel the change as we passed through the wards of her property. It was an unusual combination of sensations. Freedom mixed with danger. A pressure was physically lifted with the new pressure resulting from the unknown of what lay out there waiting, being added. I didn’t want to sit and ponder what lay out there so I decided to take action instead. Grabbing one of the oars, I started rowing with Rhys.
Two hours later, when we pulled up to the banks where his car waited, I was drenched in sweat and blisters had long since formed and broken on my hands leaving them very sore and raw. My back, arms, and legs were rebelling against my torture of them. Gingerly stepping from the small craft, I twisted and stretched as much as I could manage to relieve the cramps that had formed.
The trip had been uneventful. No more run ins with alligators threatening to capsize us, nor any shadows launching an ambush. Both were seen, however. The most excitement had come when a very large water moccasin had fallen from a tree into the water mere feet away from us. There was a panic that ensued mostly from my very apparent ophidiophobia, or fear of snakes. It was a great benefit to the pair of us when it paid us no attention and gyrated its way back to the shore. Moonbeam sat regally watching the small fish darting around past our little boat, but she never made a move to catch one. Smart cat.
Rhys packed the bags into the car with remarkable speed by the time I finished working out the accumulated kinks. Maybe he was part vampire or shifter, what with his speed and lightness of foot. It occurred to me that there was no way really to tell. He didn’t have any recollection to speak of about his parents or what his life had been like before Mama had found him and taken him home with her. We hadn’t spoken of it, only of the latter parts of his life, AM, or after Mama. He seemed to have been quite happy after finding her welcoming home, even when he learned to practice the craft and became assigned to be my guardian, he had no complaints. He liked his life just the way it was.
“Ready?” he asked.
My neck popped, relieving some of the tension. “Yes sir,” I said, saluting him like a grunt would to their commanding officer.
“Let’s go.” He turned to get into the car with a hearty chuckle. I followed his lead and climbed into the other side of the car as he started the ignition and pulled the car into gear. We were off onto the second leg of our journey.
The second half of our trip proved to be much, much shorter than it had been the first time. It only took about an hour and a half, and most of that could be chalked up to the unusual winding roads of Louisiana. Rhys wasn’t so worried about being followed this time and our anxiety had lessened in each others company compared to when we had left my apartment. We talked easily about so many things that there was never a silent or awkward moment between us in the car.
We entered the city at about noon and it became very apparent that Rhys had no intention of taking me back to my apartment, at least not that day. My home had become a place that I couldn’t retreat to and expect myself to stay safe. The sanctity of the place had been shattered by the brutal attack that had been launched when Angie was kidnapped. Angie. How had I forgotten why I was doing this? Even for a second, it just felt like I was failing her. I had become so caught up in my studies, the Baron Samedi, and Rhys that I hadn’t had her at the forefront of my mind for a while. Did that make me a horrible friend and person? I hoped not.
The neighborhood was familiar when we pulled up in front of a large two story brick building with Spanish wrought iron railed balconies. It was a block off of Bourbon Street, on Royal Street in the heart of the French Quarter. I knew this neighborhood. It was one of the routes I took regularly for a walk when my apartment became too confining and I needed an escape. This was one of the best streets to watch people on. You didn’t have to deal with the drunk tourists and the ghost tours frequently passing by, weaving tales of the city’s sordid history of ghosts and the vampires of the Old Ursuline Convent. They never knew how right they were and that was precisely the way the supernatural communities preferred it, or so I had been told.
Yes, I knew that neighborhood. It was my favorite. And what’s more, I knew this particular house. It was a house I had frequently envied. There were all sorts of neat little details that I had collected while admiring the house from afar. It was a single occupancy and dated back to roughly the founding of the city. It had far more room than I would ever need, yet I couldn’t help but want it. It had character. What I couldn’t understand was why we were there. Why was Rhys there of all places?
“What’s this place?” I asked, tentatively.
With a suave smile and a wink, he got out of the car and walked around to my side. He opened my door like a true gentleman and even bowing at the waist with an arm out. I felt like a princess, if only for a moment.
“Welcome to my humble abode, madam,” he said.
My jaw dropped. This was his house?
“T-this is your house?” I couldn’t believe it.
He nodded. “I know you love it, so let’s go inside and get settled. We’ve got a while before we need to get out there and locate some people.”
“How can you afford this house?” The question spilled from my lips before I had the chance to think about it and how rude it was to ask such a thing of him.
He smiled warmly, waving off the apology that was quickly following my word vomit. “Is there any reason you would suspect that I shouldn’t be able to afford this house?”
I blushed, knowing that I had more or less just made an ass out of myself.
“Well, um…” My ears felt hot and I wasn’t quite sure what to say. “I guess I just assumed that, with being an orphan and all, and doing what it is you do, wait, what is it that you do?”
“Private investigator officially.”
“And unofficially?”
“Depends. I have been a man for hire occasionally. I’m rather good with stocks and accounting, and I own several buildings around the Quarter that I rent out.”
My eyebrows raised thoroughly impressed with his lengthy resume. But I did have one question.
“When you say, a man for hire, you don’t mean that you’re a male prostitute do you?”
He laughed hysterically at that. Tears ran down his cheeks and he was wheezing for air with no signs of coming back anytime soon. He finally calmed down enough to answer me, wiping away the moisture from his cheeks.
“No, I am not a prostitute. I have been known to be a bodyguard and a few other more private professions that it would be best if I didn’t get into.” Well, that had a bit of mystery and danger to it. He walked me inside and showed me to my room, which, I discovered was directly across from his room on the ground floor.
“Really? We aren’t going to share a room?” This time it was his turn to blush.
“I just thought you might like some privacy and some space. If it suits you better, we can move your things into my room and you can stay there?”
I agreed. I didn’t want to be away from him right then, not unless I could help it. After all, who knew how much time I had left to enjoy his company?
Rhys showed me around the kitchen and entertainment rooms before we climbed the stairs. The second floor split at the top, Rhys steered me towards the left hallway and into a small library. A gasp left me as I saw the shelves full of books. I knew I was home and walked around the space running m
y fingers over the many spines. He cleared his throat to shake me from my short vacation on cloud nine. Rhys reluctantly pulled me from the room and showed me to the the other room in the corridor. It was his office. Papers were stacked neatly on his rich mahogany desk with his computer next to them. We left the room undisturbed and he started down the stairs without showing me the other half.
“What’s down there?” I asked motioning to the hall on the right.
He stopped and peeked towards the right wing. “Oh. Nothing. That’s just some closets and storage.” He headed the rest of the way down the stairway and stopped at the bottom. “You coming?”
“Uhh, yeah.” I eyed the dismissed hall once more before following down after him to finish the circuit.
The interior of the home was everything I’d imagined it would be. It was a bachelor pad at the moment though. It noticeably lacked all of the little feminine touches that would make it much more homey. Many of the pieces of furniture were a rich cinnamon colored wood that worked well with the exposed brick wall running between the sitting room and the kitchen. Like many of the old homes in the French Quarter, original fireplaces were to be found in many of the rooms. The outside wall of the kitchen was painted a rich forest green. It was a nice contrast to the more neutral colors. but it still tied it all together well with the wooden accents throughout the house. His bedroom though, was a mystery. It lacked almost all personal effects. There were no pictures. Nothing that would indicate he had any kind of real life or specific interests. It was quite sad really. The home surprised me by how much of it reflected something along the lines of what I would pick for my own home. It was charming.
Rhys left me to take care of some business elsewhere in the house, so there I was, wandering through the home aimlessly. Somewhere on the second floor, past several spare bedrooms was an almost undiscernible crease in the wall at the end of the hallway. It ran from the floor to about three inches below my modest height of five foot six inches. I backed away a bit, scanning for any more. There were none that I could see. Feeling like a complete idiot, I started knocking on the wall in various places and then compared it to the two walls that boxed it in; I had seen it once in a movie and thought it might work. It all sounded solid until almost a foot inwards from the crease there was a very resounding thud.
