Royal Street

by Suzanne Johnson

  CHAPTER 24

  As long as Alex and I were posing as a couple, we might as well go to dinner. A few restaurants had opened in Jefferson Parish, and anything that wasn’t an MRE, a sandwich, or a protein bar sounded like nirvana. We’d just reached the outskirts of Metairie when Alex’s cell rang.

  “It’s Ken, from the NOPD,” he said, flipping the phone open. The conversation was brief.

  “Another voodoo murder.” Alex clipped the phone back to his car’s visor and took the next exit. We turned around on Veterans and headed back toward New Orleans.

  “Where did it happen?”

  “In Lakeview—another National Guardsman.”

  “Is Ken going to let you look at the crime scene?” You meaning us.

  “I’m not officially on the case yet, but we need to see it anyway.”

  We dodged military checkpoints and went back to the house first so I could get my backpack. I ran up the stairs and into the library, hopping around as I tried to simultaneously pull on my boots and find magical items that might help us sneak into a muddy, roped-off neighborhood with no electricity and lots of cops. At least most of the post-Rita floodwaters had finally drained out of Lakeview.

  I procured the ingredients for a variety of spells, stuffed them in my backpack along with my mojo bag, and slipped a light-emitting obsidian amulet around my neck. As I headed toward the door, I tripped over the elven staff, which had placed itself in my path. The thing’s ability to track my movements was downright unnerving.

  “Oh no you don’t, buddy. I’m not ready for you yet.”

  I took the stairs at a fast clip, sliding at the bottom as I rounded the corner. Alex hadn’t been idle, either. He was nestling his biggest handgun into its shoulder harness beneath a black jacket, and I saw a couple of knives strapped inside the coat. It didn’t bother me a bit. In fact, I hoped he had the grenade and the shotgun loaded for undead pirates and voodoo gods.

  We drove the five miles back to Lakeview and parked next to the mountain of storm debris on Pontchartrain Boulevard.

  “How far to the crime scene?” I asked, watching the glow on the horizon from the lights in Metairie. Everything on the Orleans side of the 17th Street Canal was dark. Across the narrow canal, on the Jeff Parish side, life buzzed almost at pre-storm levels.

  “I’m not sure, just that it’s on Fleur de Lis, a few blocks from the levee breach. We’ll have to walk in from here and stay hidden. Everybody’s twitchy. They might shoot first, then worry about who they’re shooting at.”

  I dug in my backpack, handed him a piece of peppermint candy, and took one for myself.

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “To keep us from coughing. We didn’t bring masks and we’re trying to be quiet. This will help.”

  We climbed out of the car, closing the doors softly to avoid being heard, and walked west toward the canal. I tripped over something in the dark—a board or tree limb, or at least I hoped that’s all it was. Alex caught my arm before I went sprawling. Light reflected from the corner of Fleur de Lis, so we approached slowly, peering around the edge of a house at two policemen with light sticks, stripping crime-scene tape across neon yellow sawhorses. Red flashing lights reflected on the police car windows from the ambulance parked a block on the other side of them. The surrounding streets were empty and silent and very dark.

  “How’s your pitching arm?” I whispered, opening my pack and feeling around for three small bags of powder. “I want you to throw these bags one at a time in different directions, as far as you can, away from the crime scene. Then we’ll slip over there.”

  I also handed him a small vial of fluorescent green liquid. “Before you throw, drink this.”

  “What do they do?” He looked at the vial and the bags, frowning.

  “Camouflage and fireworks. Just do it.”

  Alex shrugged, tossed back the vial of liquid with a grimace, and threw each of the bags in succession, far into the night in different directions. When each bag landed, an explosion echoed through the neighborhood and sent off flares that illuminated the ghostly, empty houses and reflected off small ponds of remaining floodwater. The guardsmen and police shouted as they jumped in vehicles and headed toward the noises.

  Alex and I slipped past the barricades and ran toward the house nearest the ambulance. At least Lakeview had lots of empty buildings to hide behind. The bitter taste of my own chameleon potion lingered in my throat. The police and EMTs ahead of us might think they saw movement but we should be well hidden. Unless, of course, one of them was a telepathic wizard.

  By the time we’d run the long block, I had to sit on an overturned tree to catch my breath. Alex wasn’t even breathing hard, damn his healthy, protein-shake-drinking hide. I could almost see him biting his tongue to keep from making a smart-ass comment.

  Once I could breathe, we crept along the side of what used to be paved roads. Now, as near as I could tell, they were covered with a thick layer of sand. You’d never know asphalt lay underneath. I hadn’t been this close to the breach.

  I injected a little energy into the obsidian amulet to help us see without attracting attention, but it wasn’t enough.

  “Oof.” Alex grunted and hit something, then I ran into his back. We’d collided with the side of a house, a big one, skewed diagonally in the middle of the road where it had washed off its foundation. Working our way around it was treacherous. I gasped as I tripped again, and ran my hands lightly along the edges of jagged wood, trying to feel my way around the building slowly without impaling myself on anything. Creating a bigger light source was too risky.

  Finally, we got within a few yards of the crime scene, and the emergency lights made it easier to see from our vantage point behind an empty house. “Let’s split up, move around, and see what we can. Meet back at that house in the road in fifteen minutes,” Alex whispered.

  I stared as he pulled a handgun and three knives out of hiding places in his clothing, thrusting them at me, handles first. Then he peeled off his jacket and shirt, folded them quickly, and laid them on the ground. Shoes came off next, followed by pants and briefs. Flashing red lights bounced off his body.

  “Uh.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Hot damn seemed inappropriate given our situation.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Stop gawking. I’m going Gandalf on you.”

  “Right.” I knew that.

  Alex knelt and the air shimmered around him. Within seconds, my old buddy stood in his place. The shift had seemed effortless. Weres suffered through their change, all cracking bones and reshaping skeletal systems. Lycanthropes might be tougher, or so I’d heard, but shapeshifters had a more pleasant time of it.

  “We’ll meet back here in fifteen. Guess you can’t wear your watch, so just wing it,” I said. Alex’s Rolex lay atop his stack of clothes. I picked it up and slipped it on my arm, above my Timex. Life wasn’t fair.

  Gandalf ran north of the police cruisers and out of sight, so I edged to the left, heading toward the ambulance. I squatted behind a pile of debris and peered around it. A young guardsman lay on a stretcher, his chest rising and falling with rasping breaths. He’d been gutted, and the EMTs worked to secure his spilling organs enough to get him in the ambulance. Another body lay on the ground, covered. Dead. Two of them this time. On cop shows, they call that escalation.

  My gag reflex tried to kick in, and I closed my eyes and willed it to pass. I eased around the ambulance and tried to see the crime scene through the ocean of legs. A movement caught my eye and I saw Gandalf prowling the opposite side of the circle. He seemed to have a better angle.

  “Hey, buddy.” A cop standing at the edge of the onlookers spotted Gandalf and reached down to pet him. Gandalf wagged his tail, gave his best doggie grin, and moved into prime viewing position. Suck-up.

  Alex had given me his tracker before he shifted, and I pulled it out of my jacket pocket and checked the signal: a faint pulse. I closed my eyes and let my mind empty so I could feel the energy
around me: magic, faint and dissipating. We were too late again. Whatever did this was long gone. All I could tell was that it was the same cold, liquid energy I’d felt that first day at Gerry’s.

  I worked my way around the ambulance to get closer to the wounded soldier, kneeling behind the rear tire. A man wearing a conservative suit and an expressionless cop face squatted beside the stretcher as EMTs hooked up monitors and worked to stabilize the victim. Stress tightened the skin around his eyes as he watched the emergency techs work. He didn’t look like he smiled a lot.

  “Detective Hachette, you might as well leave.” The EMT who seemed to be in charge, a woman with a headful of braids and a take-no-prisoners attitude, looked up from working on the injured man and glared at the detective. I took a closer look at Ken Hachette, former Marine buddy of Jake’s and former co-owner of the Gator. He looked to be in his early thirties, and was of African-American heritage and serious demeanor. He’d been the one feeding Alex information about the murders.

  “Has he been conscious?” Ken leaned toward the stretcher, looking at the soldier’s face. I crept a little closer, grimacing as my knee hit an empty can. The detective’s sharp gaze shot in my direction, hesitating a second as it passed over where I knelt, hopefully looking like anything other than a short, blond wizard-in-hiding. He turned back to the soldier, holding up a hand and signaling the EMTs to wait.

  “We’ve got to get him to the hospital now, detective. He’s not going to be talking to anybody for a while.” The EMT bullied him aside, clearing a path to the rear of the ambulance. “In fact, he’ll be lucky if he makes it. Somebody sliced this boy up good.” She blocked my view of the techs as they raised him carefully.

  “Where you taking him?” Ken asked the second EMT, a pale young man who looked like he should be at a library, working on his calculus homework. He seemed in danger of either fainting or throwing up.

  “Goin’ to EJ,” the woman said. East Jefferson General was across the parish line, only a few miles and a civilization away from this wasteland. “He needs the Big Charity trauma unit, but it’s probably shut down for good after the flood.”

  I stole away from the ambulance as she crawled inside with the soldier, then slinked behind police squad cars, trying to stay as close as possible to Ken in case he talked to anyone else. But he got in a light-colored sedan and sped toward Metairie, ahead of the ambulance.

  I crept back to the rendezvous point, and Gandalf trotted in a couple of minutes later. He shifted back, pulled on his pants and shoes, threw on his shirt and shoulder holster, and carried his jacket. We retraced our steps to the car, not talking till we got there.

  “What did you find out?” I said, panting as we buckled up and headed back toward town.

  “One guardsman from North Carolina dead, his throat cut. The other one gutted—you saw him. They don’t think he’ll make it.” His expression was still and serious. “It’s such a waste.”

  “Could you see any of the crime scene? I couldn’t get close enough.”

  Alex nodded. “Same as before. Dead chickens, candles. The symbol—what did you call it, the vévé? It was drawn on the side of the house nearest the body. Any signs of magic?”

  “Dissipating, as usual.”

  We fell silent as we drove back into the small section of New Orleans that had working streetlights, and I squinted at the brilliance of them after the blackness of Lakeview.

  “It’s only nine,” Alex said. “We’ve already broken curfew, and they don’t seem to be enforcing it anyway. Why don’t we go to the Gator, get something to eat? Jake’s staying open till eleven now. They don’t serve anything except fried stuff, but it beats another MRE.”

  I thought fried stuff sounded great. “And we need to talk to our spy. He hasn’t reported in lately.” In fact, he hadn’t told us anything useful yet at all. But Louis seemed to be enjoying himself, Jake was making a ton of money, nobody was getting hurt, and—so far—the Elders hadn’t busted me.

  The Quarter was getting more crowded by the day, mostly with soldiers and reporters and construction workers. No one else had anyplace to live, so the daily traffic in and out of the city was a nightmare. Jeeps and pickups lined Bourbon Street near the Gator, so we parked a couple of blocks away on Royal and Alex pulled his coat back on to hide the gun. Had it only been a couple of weeks since I’d chastised him for carrying too many weapons? Boy, had my tune changed.

  We’d almost reached the bar when I realized I’d left my cell phone in my backpack. “Give me your keys. I need to go back and get my phone.” One never knew when the Elders might call. “Go on in and order me an Abita. It’ll make Leyla’s day if you go in without me.”

  Alex rolled his eyes and tossed me the keys. “Dark or amber?”

  “Surprise me.”

  I headed back to the car, enjoying the breeze as it came off the river. The air finally had a touch of coolness to it. I loved fall in New Orleans, the one time of year when climate control was optional.

  I retrieved my phone and headed back toward the Gator. I’d just reached the alley next to Jake’s building when a man stepped out of the dark and clamped a hand over my mouth. I wriggled against his arm as it locked around my waist and tried to bite the fingers pressed hard against my lips. It didn’t do much good—he was strong. He dragged me the length of the alley and into a dark area behind the bar I hadn’t known was there. Calling it a courtyard would be too generous.

  I tasted blood as I finally managed to nip his hand and jerk away from him. He responded by shoving me to the ground. My face hit the dirt before I could break my fall.

  My attacker said something in French and grinned. I couldn’t understand the words, but I knew the score. When faced with a guy who spoke French and was dressed like Yul Brynner in The Buccaneer—bad pirate garb, in other words—I pretty much knew who he worked for. He was a young, greasy-haired blond, and hadn’t seen a dentist in a while. Maybe never.

  I eased my cell phone from my pocket and managed to punch speed-dial three and send before he kicked the phone from my hand and clocked my chin with the toe of his boot.

  I rolled into a fetal position, moving my jaw back and forth to make sure nothing was broken. God, I hated pirates.

  I got a foot underneath me and rose to my feet, backing away from him and rubbing my chin. He was a very happy boy. I knew because I’d left my mojo bag in the car and could read him like a map.

  “Where’s your boss?” I asked, trying to ease my way around him toward the back door to the Gator. I’d worry about whether or not it was locked when I got there.

  “Boss?” Pirate Bad Teeth cocked his head and grinned.

  “Yeah, boss. Jean Lafitte?”

  The grin widened. Lafitte should offer his hired help a dental plan and some personal hygiene classes. I struggled to remember some rudimentary French. “Où est Lafitte?” Not that I wanted to see him, but at least he could threaten me in English and he didn’t smell bad.

  Bad Teeth didn’t want to talk. He motioned with his hands for me to come to him. Yeah, like that was happening. I made a run for the door but he caught my arm as I went past, and my forward momentum took us both to the ground.

  I clawed at him and got a forefinger in his eye, which accomplished nothing except to make him bellow and raise a fist to hit me. I closed my eyes and tried to shield my face with my hands, waiting for the blow. It never fell. One second he was on top of me, and the next he was flying backward, courtesy of Jake.

  Alex dragged him into a dark corner of the alley, while Jake jerked me to my feet and hustled me in the Gator’s back door.

  A gunshot brought us both to a halt.

  CHAPTER 25

  I turned and tried to head back out, but Jake stopped me. He pulled a key ring from his pocket, slid off a gold-colored key, and put it in my hand.

  “Top of the stairs, to the right. See about your face. I’ll help Alex.”

  I wanted to make sure Alex wasn’t hurt. And if Alex had shot someone
from the Beyond, I didn’t want Jake to see a pirate’s body disappear into the ether. But I couldn’t say that. I nodded.

  He touched my cheek with his fingertips and went back out.

  I drooped against the wall for a few seconds, fighting a wave of dizziness, then pulled myself up the stairwell that rose off the back hallway. The sounds of the crowd, Louis singing, beer bottles hitting tabletops—all of it blended into a single wall of noise.

  The second-floor landing was a small rectangle with dark wood floors and doors opening off each side. I stuck the key in the door on my right and took a look at Chez Jake. It was so not Alex. Not a set of weights, an iron, or a protein bar in sight. Just an old collection of furniture that probably came out of his parents’ garage, a fancy sound system, and a shadow box displaying a Purple Heart and a Navy Cross.

  I didn’t stop to snoop, but headed through the bedroom and into the bathroom. A bruise was already forming, a turquoise smudge on my chin, visible even through the dirt. I opened a couple of cabinets, found a washcloth, and cleaned up as best I could. I didn’t know what else to do for it.

  “That’s not going to be pretty come tomorrow, darlin’.” Jake stood behind me with a grim expression, watching me in the mirror.

  “What happened?”

  “Come on downstairs. I need to close.”

  I gave him the key and followed him into the hallway and down the stairs. “Is Alex okay?”

  “He is.”

  Turning monosyllabic under pressure seemed to run in the family.

  Jake stopped in the tiny kitchen and talked to the cook, got Louis’s attention and slashed a finger across his throat, then leaned over the bar to talk to Leyla. The band stopped mid-song and Jake got onstage, giving everyone ten minutes to finish their drinks. “Sorry to cut it short tonight folks, but it’s a family emergency. Hope you’ll come back tomorrow.”

  People began moving toward the door. I sat on a barstool and waited while Jake and Leyla rushed the stragglers out, then Leyla grabbed her purse from under the bar and made her own exit.