Royal Street

by Suzanne Johnson

  I forced myself to finish the thought. I couldn’t wait to tell Gerry.

  I dug out a pair of black shorts and a lightweight sleeveless top that set off my eyes. Then, realizing I’d done it so I would look presentable to the chiseled war machine downstairs, I tugged it off and pulled on a black tank that washed me out, but would be cooler. If my partner was wearing all black again, we’d look like a goth matched set.

  I pulled my damp hair into a ponytail to keep it off my neck and stuffed my makeup bag in a drawer. It was too hot to try and cover my bruised face. Besides, it matched the cuts and bruises on my arms and legs. The enforcer could think what he wanted. I was the soul of indifference.

  I tugged on white socks and Nikes—no more bare feet for this wizard—and padded into the library, stopping to mourn my poor, violated door. With damaged houses in town numbering in the hundreds of thousands, the home-improvement warehouses would do a killer business as soon as the power came back on. I wondered if there was time to buy stock in Home Depot before the rush hit. Then maybe I could retire and spend my days hiding from Jean Lafitte.

  I strapped my watch on my wrist and did a double take at the time—almost ten a.m. I’d lost nearly half my day already, buried in sleep. First things first, though. I threw a cushion in the middle of the library floor and set lavender and vanilla candles on either side of it. I stuffed my earbuds in, turned my iPod playlist to chamber music, and pulled out the magically treated rubies I used for grounding. I needed to be in control when I went in Gerry’s house today.

  He always told me empathic skills were both a blessing and a curse. So far, I was taking his word on the blessing part. Oh, being able to ferret out a liar came in handy, but sometimes believing the lie was less painful. And in a situation as emotionally charged as going to Gerry’s ravaged house? I could only hope my preparations would keep me from turning to Jell-O and embarrassing myself.

  After a quiet half hour, I put everything away, prepared to fend off emotional assaults. Well, almost. I pulled out bottles of dried acacia and hyssop and refreshed my mojo bag, then stuck it in my shorts pocket. Now I was ready.

  Next on the agenda: food. I went downstairs and stopped in the office to make sure the landline phone was still out of commission. I’d have to see if local towers were repaired enough to call Tish on my cell. Funny that calls to and from the Elders didn’t seem to have problems going through. I stared at the daybed. Alex’s briefcase and arsenal were neatly arranged on top of it, but it didn’t look slept in.

  “About time. Thought I was going to have to drag you out.”

  I jumped at the smooth-as-pecan-pie drawl coming from behind me, and turned to see New Orleans’s new cosentinel leaning against the office doorjamb, a coffee cup in one hand and what looked like a bagel in the other. His black T-shirt had an outline of two canoers with the words Paddle faster. I hear banjos.

  “Cute,” I said, pointing at the shirt. “I didn’t think you had a sense of humor.”

  He gave me a sly smile. “I have an excellent sense of humor. You just haven’t said anything funny.”

  I sidestepped him and went into the kitchen, where a huge pile of MREs—military freeze-dried Meals Ready to Eat—had taken up residence in one corner, each wrapped in identical mud-colored plastic with the entrée name stamped on front. On the table sat a notebook and pile of papers.

  “Looking for an apartment?” I asked.

  “Paperwork.” He thumped his pen on the notebook. “Lafitte was an unauthorized kill, so I have to explain it in triplicate to the head of the enforcers and the Elders. You know, about how I came in and had to save my new partner, who was unarmed and rolling around on the floor with the big bad pirate while wearing not much more than good intentions. It’ll make a great water-cooler story back at headquarters.”

  Jerkwad. I ignored him, grabbed a bag of Cheetos off the counter, and ripped it open. I dug out a fluorescent-orange fried stick of perfection and crunched on it while I pondered the idea of Alex, my supposed equal in this partnership, filing paperwork with people who outranked me on the magical food chain. I’d need to file my own report to the Green Congress, asserting his gross overuse of violence, and copy the Elders on it as well. Alex wouldn’t out-bureaucrat me, by God.

  He snatched the Cheetos out of my hands, pulled out an MRE that said Cheese & Vegetable Omelet, and ripped off the top.

  “You need real food. If you’re going to be my partner, you should at least be moderately healthy. There was nothing to eat in this kitchen but junk.” He handed me ajar of instant coffee, a bottle of water, a mug, and a battery-operated mug warmer. I eyed my warm Diet Barq’s with longing.

  “Food nazi.” I leaned over and retrieved the Cheetos bag from the trash. I considered my lack of domestic skills a badge of honor and, besides that, who the heck did he think he was? “I eat out a lot. Didn’t really even have to clean out my fridge before I evacuated.”

  “Well, at least we don’t have to drag it out to the median,” he said, fiddling with the MRE. “When I was out running this morning, I saw at least one dead refrigerator on every corner.”

  I’d seen them as I drove in yesterday, and most were either duct-taped shut or had rotten food spilling out. Two weeks of ninety-degree weather without electricity had turned them into maggot factories.

  I spooned some coffee into the mug, stirred in the water, and set it on the warmer. “We call them neutral grounds, by the way, not medians.”

  “Whatever.” He walked to the table and shuffled through the papers, pulling out the sketch of the symbol from the voodoo murders. “I found this same symbol on the sidewalks in front of several houses this morning. Where can I find out what it means? We need Internet access.”

  This town no longer had electricity or safe drinking water. Internet access was probably way down on the recovery priority list.

  I took the paper and looked at it again. “It could be a gang tag, but it’s awfully detailed. The gang tags I’ve seen are simpler than this.” I turned the sheet, looking at it from different directions. “I can give you the addresses of some of the voodoo places in town—they sell supplies for rituals, although I haven’t heard of anybody using this kind of black magic in decades. And there’s the Voodoo Museum down in the Quarter. Of course, nothing’s open right now since the evacuation orders are still in effect. You really think this symbol has anything to do with our breaches?”

  “I’m not sure, but I thought I’d send it in with my report to the enforcers.”

  “No, why don’t I include it with my report to the Green Congress?” I would not be one-upped in the Report Olympics, at least not until I figured out what Alex Warin was up to.

  A hint of a smile crossed his face. “Fine. We’ll both report it.”

  We stared at each other until the MRE omelet got hot. I sat in a chair at the old chrome and red Formica-topped table I’d found at a yard sale and looked at my military meal: the rubbery omelet and hash browns with bacon-like chunks in them, plus some saltines, a candy bar, and a packet of Dijon mustard. Whatever military genius devised these meals obviously hadn’t had to eat them. Maybe the mustard was for the crackers, and the candy was to get rid of the lingering aftertaste of everything else.

  I dug in anyway. The texture caused a gag reflex at first, but I was hungry enough to push past it.

  “Love a woman with an appetite.” Alex sat at the table opposite me, arms crossed, watching me eat.

  Sarcastic cretin. I glared as I chewed, but it was halfhearted. I hadn’t eaten more than a cereal bar in almost twenty-four hours. I didn’t need to be skipping meals. I couldn’t look for Gerry if I got sick.

  “How was the daybed last night?” I asked. He was way too big for that frilly little single bed. “It didn’t look like you used it.”

  “I stayed in the living room, on one of the sofas,” he said. “I wanted to keep an eye on the doors.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Of course you did. Kill anything?”

 
; “No. I thought I smelled mold, though. Sneak any dead pirates in your bedroom window?”

  Now he was just being petty.

  “Thanks for breakfast,” I said. “Now, when are you leaving?”

  It was like pulling hen’s teeth, as Gran would say, but I finally weaseled enough information out of Alex to find he’d made arrangements to take an apartment in the French Quarter over a bar that belonged to his cousin Jacob. I wondered why he hadn’t moved there in the first place. Either he saw me as a damsel in distress who needed a big bad protector, thought he might get a taste of eye candy, or had some other agenda, like sabotaging me with the Elders during this so-called probationary period. Maybe all of the above.

  I had a thought. “Is Jacob an enforcer too, or a were?”

  Alex frowned. “Jake is probably the least magically inclined person on God’s green earth.” He didn’t offer more, so I didn’t ask.

  I finished my breakfast in silence, then trashed the MRE wrappings. I wondered how many months it would be before things like mail and garbage pickup would resume. I already had a pile of street and yard debris the size of a small car in my side yard.

  “I’m heading to Gerry’s this afternoon if you want to go,” I said. I thought it was a generous offer, an olive branch of cooperation and goodwill.

  He looked up from his report. “I think we should call the Elders to see if there are any breaches they want us to check out first. Besides, Lakeview’s still flooded. You planning to swim?”

  I looked at Alex, his pen poised over that damned report like the Sword of Damocles. Screw it. “You check on breaches. My top priority is finding Gerry. The Elders might be ready to write him off, but I’m not.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “The Elders aren’t writing Gerry off. They’re taking his disappearance very seriously.”

  Yeah, right. “You don’t seem in any hurry to help look for him.”

  “Wasted effort. If Gerry is alive, what makes you think he wants to be found?”

  Of all the idiotic … “You think he’s playing hide-and-seek for the fun of it? At a time like this?”

  Alex laid the pen down. “Look, I read his file as well as yours. Gerry’s had his issues with the Elders. He doesn’t like the way they run things. I’m just saying maybe he has his own reasons for disappearing at this particular time, and I’m not sure walking around his empty house will tell us anything useful.”

  Understanding finally slapped me on my bruised cheek. “You think he’s disappeared deliberately so he can, what, enact some devious plot against the Elders?” My blood pressure soared. The nerve of this guy. His gall knew no bounds.

  Alex shrugged and stuck his papers in a manila envelope. “It’s a possibility.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Gerry was a complainer but he wasn’t a traitor. He thought the Elders were bureaucratic idiots, but he also drilled every magical law into me like gospel.

  This big jerk wasn’t going to help me find Gerry. He wanted to catch Gerry. Big difference.

  “Fine,” I said. “You flit around town running errands for the Elders like a good little soldier. I will look for Gerry myself.”

  He sealed the envelope and stuck it in the back of his notebook. “I repeat: How do you plan to get into Lakeview?”

  Like it was any of his business. “I’m calling Tish—Gerry’s girlfriend—to get contact info on some of her coworkers from the Port of New Orleans, and see who’s in town with a boat. If I find a boat, I’ll get in.”

  “She’s a wizard?”

  I nodded. “Green Congress, an engineer. She’s as worried about Gerry as I am.” And would snatch Alex bald when she found out he suspected Gerry of disappearing on purpose.

  Alex looked at me a few seconds, drumming his fingers on the table. “I might have a quicker way.” He pulled out his cell phone and hit a speed-dial number. “Jake, do you … Damn.” He clicked the phone shut and tried the call again. And again. Fourth time was a winner.

  “Jake has his dad’s boat and can meet us in Lakeview about one thirty,” he said when he ended the call.

  “What’s this we business? I thought you had breaches to find.”

  He stood up and stretched, rolling his head side to side and popping his neck. “Partners, remember?”

  Like I could forget. Still, it solved my boat problem and gave me an hour to unload the rest of my stuff from the truck. Jean Lafitte had thrown me off schedule. Without a way to get ice, the perishable herbs were going to have to be trashed, but I lugged everything else upstairs.

  Alex helped, pausing to look at the mangled library door. “What happened here?”

  “Jean Lafitte happened,” I said. “My house has sustained more damage in the last twenty-four hours than in the whole last century.”

  He raised an eyebrow at the aluminum pan that still lay on the floor, coated with ashes. “Do I want to know?”

  “Homemade smoke bomb. It got me away from the pirate. Well, for a while.”

  He fought to keep the serious look on his face. “You really do need a gun.”

  Yeah, and I had lots of ideas on what to do with it. I grabbed the pan and set it on the worktable without comment.

  He continued his inspection of the library, pausing to look at jars and amulets, plants and powders, occasionally asking questions. Fine, let him snoop. I had nothing to hide.

  It was clear from his comments he was pretty well-versed in magic, but then again, I guess he’d have to be.

  “Have you worked with a lot of wizards?” I asked as he scanned the titles in the shelf where I kept most of my personal spellbooks.

  “A few—all Red Congress,” he said. “Enforcers usually get pulled in last, when the wizards have done all they can, or else we get called when the Elders need something taken care of fast. Red wizards don’t have all this stuff.”

  I smiled. “No, physical magic is pretty straightforward. No bells and whistles. I like to think ritual magic is more flexible, though.”

  He stopped at my worktable and ran a hand along the dark mahogany wood beginning to turn red with age. Since I had been gone for a while, the table was mostly empty except for a layer of dust and a large wrought-iron cross I’d found in an architectural salvage yard and paid a local welder to put on a stand. It kept me centered, reminded me who was really in charge when things got crazy.

  “I like this.” He fingered the cross. “I used to not buy into my family’s religious beliefs—thought I was too smart for it. But the more evil I see, the more I realize it has to be offset by an ultimate good, or else there’s no point to it.”

  Sheesh. Talk about a hot- and cold-running enforcer. Just when I decide he’s an Elder-toady conspiracy theorist, he turns into a philosopher.

  I made a concentrated effort to read his emotions, opening up my mind to anything that might drift my way, but got nothing except a light magical buzz from the magic-infused herbs in my library. Maybe the renewed mojo bag and grounding was blocking him.

  “Stay out of my head—it’s invasive,” he said, giving me a sharp look.

  I opened my mouth to tell a big, whopping fib of denial, but stopped myself. He’d caught me. “Sorry,” I said. “I just can’t figure you out. How did you know what I was doing?”

  “Enforcers learn how to put up mental blocks and recognize when someone’s trying to get in. You’re the first empath I’ve met, but some pretes can play serious mind games.”

  “So you were shielding yesterday.” No wonder he’d been such a blank, although he could still be a soulless freak. Jury remained out on that one, although I couldn’t imagine a soulless freak with eyes the color of dark chocolate.

  I didn’t have to be an empath to interpret his tight smile. “You bet I was. Took a lot of concentration, too. I wasn’t planning to come in with such a bang.”

  No kidding. “You do know Jean Lafitte’s not really dead, right?” I asked, not sure how often—if ever—enforcers came up against the historica
l undead. “All you did was send him back to the Beyond, slow him down a little, and make him even madder.”

  He shrugged. “No problem. I’ll just kill him again.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Truth be told, I’d rather have gone to Gerry’s house alone, at least this first time. Not just because of the inevitable onslaught of memories, but so I could really look around without Alex watching me. Despite a couple of hints that a decent guy might lurk beneath all the cold iron and hot ammo, we didn’t have the same agenda. I wanted to find Gerry, and he wanted to find out what Gerry was up to.

  I’d be watching Mr. Warin, and not just because he was easy to look at.

  “I’ll drive,” he said, heading toward the small parking area behind my house. It had enough space for both my truck and the vehicles belonging to the young couple who owned the dark-green shotgun house next door. I figured I’d seen the last of Bill and Eileen. She was pregnant, and their business had flooded. They had nothing to come back to.

  I looked at the spotless Mercedes sitting next to my dusty Pathfinder. Black, of course. What a surprise.

  “Do you really want to take your nice, shiny Batmobile into the flood zone?” The thing reeked of money and frequent, loving hand-washings. Apparently, assassins got paid better than deputy sentinels. Bet you didn’t see Alexander Warin buying cheap Winn-Dixie rum to save a few bucks.

  “It needs washing anyway.”

  “Okay, your choice.” I stuck my keys in my backpack and headed for the Mercedes. I’d never ridden in one anyway—it might be my only chance. Besides, despite all my preparations, I wasn’t sure how seeing my childhood home in ruins would hit me. Even driving to Lakeview would be stressful. Might as well let him handle that part.

  I settled into the buttery soft seat—black—and strapped myself in. It still had the new car smell to it. “So, why aren’t you driving some big studly truck with Playboy Bunny mud flaps?”