Pulling back, she looked me in the eyes and gave me a tentative smile. “Thanks, Rico. I think I needed that. Maybe we can talk once we’re settled at your compound. Right now, I need to get my butt in gear and finish the packing. We’re almost done, maybe another hour, and we can safely leave the store.”
“Perfect. I have a van coming your way any minute now.” I looked over my shoulder to see our van pulling in.
“Speak of the devil. Joseph and Luke are here to help as well.” I waved the guys over once they parked.
“Come on, the girls are almost done. Looks like they were up before the crack of dawn getting ready for today.” I high-fived Joseph as he walked past me in his rain gear.
“Jenna, good to see you doing so well. Damien told me all about your adventure last night. I think the pack would like to hear your version once we all get settled.” Joseph was always asking everyone about their fights with vamps or witches.
He seemed to be writing it all up. I wasn’t sure if he was preparing to write a book about it or just for the pack’s history. Either way, it was a good idea to keep this info written down for the future generations.
“Sure, it’s probably a good thing to talk about. Hopefully, it will help to get the creepiness out of my system. I’m still having a tough time thinking about it all. Especially the bite, and how he seemed to enjoy it.” Jenna visibly shivered.
My instincts screamed at me to wrap my arms around her and tell her it was going to be alright.
“Jenna, I think I know a few things that might help you get a good night’s sleep tonight. Once we’re settled, and you have told everyone your story, we should take a walk.” I rubbed her back and gave her a half smile.
She returned the smile and turned around without a word. When she walked back inside the store, I wasn’t sure if that was a yes or no to my offer of help.
***
It took less than thirty minutes to finish preparing the store for the coming hurricane and possible damage. These girls really did have a great system for packing up. They have probably had way too many opportunities to practice.
If you didn’t pack up at least the lower half of your store, then products were damaged every year. I had seen it too many times with store owners who were new to NOLA. We saw several storms a year that could cause a flood at the very least.
Those who grew up here knew the drill. Even if the city didn’t flood, it was best to be prepared. The Boy Scouts motto was right on, always be prepared.
“I gotta say, I’m impressed with how organized you ladies are. You’ve got it down to a science. How many times a year do you do this?” I was driving their van, packed with their personal gear and the band’s equipment, while Joseph drove our van packed with some of their more expensive items.
“We grew up doing this. I think we can all do it in our sleep now, right girls?” Kat was the matriarch of the group. She was only a couple years older than the rest, but she had taken on the motherly role when their adopted parents died. She took very good care of her adopted sisters.
“Sam, Kyrie’s looking forward to challenging you on Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed. I hope you’re up for it.” I chuckled thinking about how the next few days might go.
I had no doubt Sam would be in heaven playing video games with Kyrie or any of the younger guys in my pack. However, Sam and Kyrie seemed to get along much better than anyone else did. Maybe these next few days would help him to get over his fear of rejection and finally ask her out.
And maybe, just maybe, I might as well.
“Wow, the roads are packed! It’s a good thing we left early.” Jenna was sitting in the front with me, and her sisters were in the back bench seat. Behind them was all of the stuff they were able to fit into their van.
“I hope we make it back to the compound before the hurricane hits.” Just then the rain began to pelt our windows hard. It was as though someone turned on a spigot. I wondered how long before the winds got above forty miles an hour as I gazed into the black, storm clouds.
“Nice going. Way to jinx us, Rico! I just hope we don’t get stuck out here.” Kat sure had a way with words.
We inched our way along the highway with rain coming down in sheets, and the wind whistled all around us.
“Do you think we’ll be able to make it? Will the vans stand up to this beating?” Jenna looked out the window.
“As long as the winds don’t get much worse, we should be able to weather this ride home. Both vans are loaded down pretty well, so it should help us to stay upright. It just means we have to drive slower, along with everyone else on the road.” I looked at my speedometer, we were only doing thirty miles an hour.
“Whoa! What was that?” Indie screamed from the back.
Something had hit the roof of the van creating a loud thumping noise. We skidded off the side of the road, but I was able to get control back and get us up on the blacktop again.
“Was that a tree?” Kat asked.
Jenna turned in her seat and looked through the back windows of the van. “I think it was. We’re lucky it went over the top and didn’t go through the windshield.”
***
Thanks to the traffic, the wind, and the rain, it took us an extra hour to get home. It was a good thing we’d left when we did because the levies were on their way to overflowing. When we walked into the compound, all the TV’s were tuned to the weather channel. Not the local NOLA one, but the national one.
We didn’t have any more problems after the tree passed us, thankfully. Just lots of rain and a few gusts which made it difficult to keep the van on the road, but we made it.
The wind was making a mess of our compound already. It was a good thing we were able to unload the vans so quickly. Winds had to be gusting over fifty miles an hour already. I hated to see what it would have been like once the gusts reached fifty if we were still on the road. Those wind speeds could have easily toppled our vans since they were riding so high.
“I don’t know why they are still in town! Look at that guy! He’s got his slickers on, but you know he’s drenched straight through to the bone. If he’s not careful, he’s gonna be stuck in town and not be able to get out before the worst of it hits.” Damien was watching the news along with most of my pack.
Another pack member commented, “Those winds are too strong for a regular human. If he doesn’t move to higher ground, he’s going to be picked up on one of those gusts and thrown all over. The winds there have to be close to sixty miles an hour now.”
“Hey, can we get some help to unload? It’ll go quicker the more hands we have.” I knew my pack would help, even if they wanted to stay glued to the TV. They were always looking for ways to help, especially when pretty girls were involved.
“Sure!”
“You bet.”
“Always willing to lend a helping hand.”
“Are the Dolls here? I’ll help!” Kyrie had been anxiously awaiting Sam’s presence.
All of the men in the pack lounge got up to help. Each person only needed to make one trip to get both vans unpacked.
“I was thinking I would set the girls up in the meeting room. We can put their belongings in the room with them. Can someone get me four rollaways? I don’t want them sleeping on the ground.” I had put some thought into where the girls would sleep.
I knew I couldn’t have them in my house, even if I felt that was the safest place for them. The next best place was the pack lounge, even if it was the busiest.
“Sure thing, boss.” Luke took off with Brandon to grab the rollaway mattresses.
“Come on. Follow me with your suitcases, and I’ll show you where you can stow it all.” I waved for the girls to follow me down a narrow hallway.
“The women’s restroom is to your left. It has a shower but, sorry no bathtub.” I nodded toward it as we walked past.
“You saw the community kitchen when we walked in this building. Sorry, but it’s open 24/7 to the entire pack. I’ll put the word out you�
��re sleeping here, but with the storm, I expect most of the pack to hang out here watching the TV. We have satellite here. Most of the homes on the compound only have an HD antennae to get the local stations.” I was carrying four of their suitcases, and they each carried two. It was mind-boggling how much clothing they needed for just a few days.
“How many outfit changes do you go through over the course of one storm?” I chuckled as we walked into the large, oblong conference room.
There was a large wooden table that took up over half of the room, but we could move it to the side in order to open up some space. The chairs would most likely need to be rolled out to the main room anyways, what with all of the pack members who’ll make their way here shortly.
“Hey, it’s not all clothes in those suitcases! We brought supplies to make more voodoo dolls and even a few potions. That is, if you don’t mind me using your kitchen to brew a few ingredients?” Jenna dropped her suitcases on the table making a loud clunking noise which led me to believe they were heavier than they looked.
“Feel free to keep your suitcases on the table, and I’ll get the boys to take the chairs out for you.” I put the four cases I carried on the conference table before pushing it to the far corner, opening up just enough space to fit four rollaways. It would be snug, but I doubted they would spend much time in here when they were awake.
“Thanks, Rico! We actually do need to change clothes already. Just bringing our stuff inside got us all soaked to the bones.” Jenna was dripping wet, as were her sisters.
I didn’t even notice. Living out here, you get used to wet wolves tracking in all sorts of mud and water.
Man, I hoped the storm wasn’t bad. I would much rather spend this time getting closer to Jenna or even training her. That was actually a great idea. Since they were all stuck here for a few days, training them to fight would be a fantastic way to spend the time. Better than staying glued to the boobtube.
Chapter 5
Rico
“Jenna, I let the kitchen staff know you might be doing a few chemistry experiments while you’re here. They’re fine with it. Just be sure to clean up after yourself. If you have any questions, ReeAnna will be able to help you out.” When Jenna walked into the room my eyes trailed right to her, even though I was very focused on the weather report.
“Now for the latest from the French Quarter of Louisiana where Hurricane Gerttie is getting ready for landfall.” The weather anchor introduced the same guy from earlier, only this time it looked like he had moved to a safer part of town. At least he wasn’t standing right next to Lake Pontchartrain this time.
Everyone turned their attention back to the seventy-inch flat screen on the wall. “Thank you, Lisa. As you can see, the rain is coming in hard. Along with the wind. Wind gusts have been tracked up to one hundred miles an hour, but they weren’t sustained gusts. Some trees have already been toppled onto a few cars. Power lines have been brought down just from the sheer force of the rain and winds.”
“We expect this to be a category 2 when it hits within the next hour. Our forecasters believe it will lose steam once it clears a path right next to New Orleans. The current models show the trajectory to hit south of the city and head out to the west where it should quickly turn into a tropical storm.”
“If you haven’t already left town, you are most likely stuck as the roads are washed out, and the winds will make it almost impossible to stay on the roads that aren’t already underwater. Please get to the nearest hurricane shelter. I wouldn’t try riding this out at home, unless you also have a boat sitting on your roof, like this guy here.” The TV image changed to a guy sitting on his roof with a zodiac boat and what looked to be a case of beer.
The idiot was actually going to ride out the storm sitting in a boat on his roof drinking beer. I didn’t know what would kill him first, the rain and winds, or the drinking. If he keeps drinking he won’t be able to get himself to safety. Some people. Really, where do they get these asinine ideas?
The images changed again to a street near the lake. It was covered in water and debris. There wasn’t a weatherman visible in this shot. It must have been a camera they installed before the weather turned too bad.
“Greg, can you zoom in on the Pontchartrain camera? There looks to be a person on the ground.” I watched with rapt attention as the camera zoomed away from the surrounding storm and into the murky water running along the road next to one of the clubs I recognized, The Blue Bayou.
Everyone in the room gasped at the same time as the weather man did. “Lisa, I think that’s a body on the ground. Are you seeing this? Do we already have a fatality?”
The image quickly went back to the woman wearing a pink dress in a warm and comfortable studio somewhere far from here, probably in New York or LA. Her eyes were wide, and she cleared her throat before reading from the teleprompter.
“Well, as you can see, it’s very dangerous in New Orleans at the moment. Please remember to stay safe and don’t go near running water or downed power lines. That’s a surefire way to injure yourself or worse. And now a word from our sponsors.” The commercials started and everyone in the room began questioning what they saw.
“Rico, I know it was a dead body, but it looked like she had vampire bites on her neck.” Jenna sat next to me on the leather couch.
“We can’t know that for sure. She was probably in the clutches of a gator, those could have been alligator bites on her neck.” I really hoped those were gator bites on her neck. The young woman, or at least it looked like it was a young woman, was missing an arm and a few chunks were taken out of her torso as well.
Other than those missing freshman, who left notes and cleaned out their dorm rooms, there weren’t any other missing women I knew of. If those were vampire bites, it meant we had more rogue vamps in the area.
Once this storm cleared out, and the roads were open again, I’d have Joseph head into the county morgue and see what he could find out. Joseph was friends with a few of the pathologists in our local morgue. They usually called him when they found anything that looked like paranormals may have been involved.
They would never call it paranormal activity. The authorities would just claim it’s above their paygrade, or they don’t have the tools to investigate a particular body properly.
“Jenna, are you ready to tell everyone what happened last night? I know the guys would love to hear how you kicked that vamps butt and sent him back to hell!” Joseph wasn’t going to let her get out of this.
It would be good for her. The more she talked about it, the easier it would be to get past it. Bottling up pain was never a good idea.
“Do you really want to know? I mean, you guys kill bad guys all the time, don’t you?” Jenna was cute when she scrunched her nose and looked all innocent.
“Hellz yeah, we do!”
“You know it!”
“Come on, don’t be so shy. You know you want to tell us how you sent that blood-sucker to its death!” Damien had heard the story already, not sure why he was getting into this.
“Actually, we don’t kill too often. Only when a vampire has gone rogue do we have the right to kill. Or the occasional werewolf who can’t be stopped.” It was almost always my call if someone could kill a para or not.
“Too bad we can’t kill the witches! They seem to be the ones behind most of the issues.” Luke exclaimed.
“They certainly don’t help matters, but with their council located here, we have to report those who are out of line and let their leadership deal with them. Usually, the punishment fits the crime, if they are caught.” I knew for a fact a few got off easy.
For the most part, they did get punished. A few even had their magical abilities taken from them. Although, that punishment was as rare as death.
“The fight didn’t last too long, I don’t think. Maybe twenty minutes? The toughest part was making sure to stab him in the heart. It took two tries before I got him. Thankfully, I had a second stake in my boot. Also, they’
re kinda dumb.” Jenna gave a nervous laugh before telling us all her story.
I hated hearing the part about that demon spawn’s lips on her.
“Wait, you mean to tell me he was going to drain you dry, if you didn’t agree to be his acolyte?” Joseph was in note-taking mode.
“Yup. I used his desire to trick him into letting my neck go. If I didn’t, he would have drank too much of my blood, and I never would have gotten away. I guess pop culture saved my life last night.” Jenna looked at me.
She knew I was close to changing again. My skin was shimmering, and the pack all looked at me with wide eyes.
“Rico, let’s take a walk. I think we should check on the roof. Make sure those gusts aren’t taking it all off.” Damien stood up and moved closer to me.
Jenna should have moved further away from me, but instead, she did the opposite.
“Rico, it’s alright. I’m right here. He wasn’t going to get me as an acolyte. You’ve trained me too well for that. I promise. I’ll work even harder so I’m never in a situation like that again.” When Jenna put her hand on my shoulder, I felt the anger dissipate. The storm outside matched the storm inside until she touched me.
After I took a few calming breaths, I noticed the tension in the room had dropped away. My pack members knew I would never hurt anyone, but if someone was too close when I shifted, they might get injured. I think that’s the only reason I didn’t shift this time. Jenna was right next to me. My wolf would never allow any harm to come to her, no matter how angry I was.
“Jenna, it might be best for you to back up if I’m ever too angry to control my change. You know I would never intentionally harm you, but if you’re too close when I begin to change, you could be injured. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I hurt you in the process.” I took ahold of her hand and squeezed it.
“Rico, I know your wolf would never hurt me. I also know my touch can calm you when you’re too worked up to calm yourself. I’m not afraid of you.”
“You were last night when I shifted. I smelled it on you.”
Hurricane of Magic Page 3
