Royal Street

by Suzanne Johnson

  He and Jean were still making Rambo eyes at each other, and his voice came out as half-Alex, half-growl. I hoped Gandalf wasn’t about to make an appearance. “You’re leaving him here?”

  God save me from alpha males. “Yes,” I snapped. “And so are you. Jake’s on the way.”

  Alex pulled himself upright, thanks to a death grip both on my bad shoulder and the wall. I tucked myself under one of his arms, took as much weight as I could, and helped him hobble to the door that led to the landing.

  “Bon chance, Drusilla,” said a soft voice behind me.

  I looked over my shoulder. “Stay away from New Orleans till this blows over, Jean. It’s not your fight. You don’t want to make an enemy of the wizards.”

  He took a puff of his cigar and nodded. “Samedi will not give up. But should you survive this attempted coup, remember the bargain we made.”

  Like I could forget. I had practically agreed to be Jean Lafitte’s modern-day sugar mama.

  Alex and I made our way slowly down the stairs and out the hallway, using my amulet to light the way. Jake was already outside by the time we got there, standing against a red late-model truck. He didn’t ask what happened—didn’t say a word. He just pulled Alex’s arm around his shoulders, half-carried him to the passenger door, and shoved him onto the seat.

  “You coming?”

  I shook my head. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  He gave me a grim look before pulling away.

  I limped toward the Gator on foot, moving slowly in the shadows of the buildings. I needed the ten minutes of walking and the slap of cool night air to ponder what Jean had said. Samedi was on a power-grab, using a human murderer to make his blood sacrifices. And he was nearing his goal: to get enough power to stay in the modern world indefinitely, in defiance of the Elders. Gerry was alive and in New Orleans, or at least he had been when that transport was established. Samedi planned to double-cross Gerry, if he hadn’t already, and eventually he wanted all the local wizards dead. Wanted me dead—or to be his new partner, which was worse. And the other pretes were using Samedi to do their dirty work.

  I pulled Gerry’s staff from my backpack, tracing my fingers across the runes. A couple of red sparks flew out as I touched it. Using that staff had felt amazing. I’d felt strong, powerful, without the energy drain of my own magic. I wondered what it could do other than setting tables and ceiling fans on fire.

  All that euphoria had disappeared now. My head throbbed where I’d hit the table, both shoulders ached, and the longer I walked, the more new pains popped up.

  A drop of blood fell on my hand, and I looked down to see more blood on the front of my sweater. It looked black under the streetlights. Add a freakin’ nosebleed to my litany of injuries. Lafitte had really slapped the crap out of me. If he’d done this much damage backhanded, I’d hate to see what he could do with his fist. Maybe now that we had some nebulous relationship, I’d never have to find out.

  CHAPTER 31

  I didn’t see Jake when I went into the Gator, but Louis was onstage belting out his final encore. He missed a few words of “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?” when he saw me, eyes widening with alarm. I gave him a thumbs-up and walked to the bar.

  “You look awful!” shouted Leyla over the noise.

  I gave her a limp wave as I eased onto a stool, wincing at the pain that shot down my back and into my hip. I wondered if there were any chiropractors in town.

  After snagging a Diet Barq’s and making a slow, careful climb up the back stairs, I knocked on Jake’s apartment door. There was no answer, so I tried the knob and found it unlocked, opening into pitch-black. I stood in the doorway for a second, trying to decide whether to stay or leave.

  A soft voice came out of the darkness. “Come on in, DJ.” A click, and Jake turned on a small lamp next to the old, battered armchair where he sat, a rifle across his lap and not a dimple in sight.

  I entered the room just far enough to close the door behind me, then leaned against it. The soft lamplight harshened the frown lines creasing Jake’s face, and he watched me without blinking. We seemed to be playing a game of chicken to see who broke first, similar to the stare down he’d had with Alex after Bad Teeth got shot.

  “Well, hell.” I groped the wall next to the door till I found a light switch and flipped it on. My patience for drama had about reached its limit.

  Jake’s face changed when the light hit me, from anger to surprise to concern, then back to anger. I was too tired to block out his feelings, so I knew all those emotions had run through him in quick succession.

  “What in God’s name have you and Alex been doing? I didn’t get a good look at you earlier—you look worse than he does.”

  “You sure know how to sweet-talk a girl.” I sighed and held on to my rib cage as I sat on the worn brown plaid sofa. The more time that passed, the more I hurt. A stabbing pain ran from my lower back to my right knee, and I suspected my face was swelling where Jean had bounced me off the table—either that or I was going blind in my left eye. I put the Barq’s on the coffee table. It hurt too much to drink it.

  “Is Alex okay?”

  “He’ll be sore for a while, but nothing serious. Used superglue on the wound. We’d have to take him all the way to Metairie to get stitches.” Jake got up and rummaged around in the small kitchen off the living room. “Want a real drink?”

  He came back with a bottle of Four Roses and a couple of glasses. A second trip to the kitchen yielded a dishcloth, a couple of gel ice packs, and one of those bulky first aid kits made for campers. I spotted a small mirror in the kit and picked it up to look at my reflection. Weary eyes stared back at me from above a purple, misshapen jaw on one side and a bloody, ragged cheek on the other. Not my best look, although the older bruise on my chin matched my eyes.

  “Turn toward me.”

  “Easy for you to say. I think an eighteen-wheeler ran over my back.” I managed to avoid whining as I twisted on the sofa to face him. The warm, wet cloth felt good on the noninjured parts of my face and sent new waves of pain shooting into the rest. His hands were gentle as he bandaged my cheek and sat back to survey his handiwork, then handed me the ice packs.

  “One for your face, and the bigger one on your back,” he said.

  I sighed as the cold pack hit my back. “Feels good.”

  “Take those home with you and keep ’em in the freezer. I have plenty here for my knee. If you and Alex are gonna keep playing war games, you’ll need them.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “Don’t guess you’re gonna tell me what happened back there any more than Boy Wonder, are you?”

  He didn’t seem to expect an answer, just picked up the glass of bourbon and held it toward me. I shook my head. I could barely stand upright as it was. A shot of bourbon and I’d be spending the night on the brown plaid sofa.

  Jake kept the glass for himself and leaned back, squinting a little as he studied me. “I’ve been thinking about you two. No way Alex is regular FBI. Even their field agents don’t go in with the kind of gear he carries. I’m thinking more like special ops of some kind. He’s been on the road a lot the last few years, and now he shows up here attached to you like a dog on a leash.”

  I choked at the irony, which made me cough, which in turn shot stabs of pain through my midsection. Jake interpreted my sudden inability to swallow as a cue that he was on the right track.

  It was as good an explanation as anything I could make up. “You’re sort of right, but I can’t say anything else right now. I’m sorry. It’s safer for everybody that way. You know the drill.” He was a Marine. Surely the Marine Corps had a don’t-tell-them-the-gory-details-for-their-own-good drill.

  He growled in frustration. “I don’t need protecting. Did it ever occur to you I might be able to help?”

  I smiled a little, at least till the pain started, and reached out to stroke his cheek. He took my hand and held it against his chest. “Not going to let me in, are you?”
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  “I can’t, not yet. But soon.” I rested my head on the sofa back and closed my eyes. I meant it. If we made it through this, I’d tell Jake what I was and see if he could handle it.

  “We need to leave.” I jolted upright as Alex emerged from the bedroom, much improved since I’d last seen him. The stab wound was covered in a white bandage, and he wore an open flannel shirt that was too tight for him—Jake’s, I assumed.

  I squeezed Jake’s arm in thanks, groaned as I hauled myself off the sofa, and followed Alex out the door, grabbing the staff from where I’d left it propped in the hallway. At least it hadn’t followed me into the apartment.

  “I’m parked a block down.” Alex said as he eased down the stairs, not asking if I could walk that far. He crossed the barroom in long strides. Keeping up with him would require running, and there’s no dignity in running after any man for any reason, injured or not. I let him march off to the car while I took my time, waving at Louis and Leyla on the way out.

  Alex didn’t speak on the drive home, or as we went inside, or as I started a pot of water for tea. Fine. He’d work up to it, then he’d yell at me. I had plenty of time.

  By the time the water was boiling, so was Alex.

  “Okay, let’s have it,” I said, throwing my hands up after he’d slammed his third kitchen cabinet drawer. I’d let him get it out of his system, then I’d tell him everything I’d learned.

  He lit into me like Sherman burning Atlanta. “What were you thinking? You weren’t thinking, that’s what.” He choked the words out. “My job here isn’t just to help you run errands and dig up facts. It’s to keep you alive. We’re partners. What part of not running into dangerous situations alone without backup do you not get?” He proceeded along those same lines for another couple of minutes before he ran out of steam, flopped into a kitchen chair, and glared at me.

  “How did Lafitte lure you to the Napoleon House?”

  “He didn’t. I decided to go looking for him.”

  Alex’s face turned an alarming shade of red.

  “I had the situation under control,” I said. “Jean gave me a lot of useful information.”

  “Jean. You’re calling him Jean now?” Alex took Jake’s flannel shirt off and threw it on the floor. His stab wound didn’t seem to be bothering him very much.

  “We had reached an understanding,” I insisted. “Jean wasn’t going to kill me.” Chain me up in the swamps and turn me into a pirate floozy, but no point in adding that part.

  Alex threw up his hands and stalked out of the room, swearing. “Jean. She’s calling him Jean.” The last words I heard before he slammed the door behind him were “damn stubborn woman” and a couple of F-bombs.

  Well, that went well. I followed him, at least as far as the door to the downstairs bathroom. The door was ajar. He’d pulled off the bandage and was examining his wound in the mirror.

  I peered around his shoulder. Not only had the wound stopped seeping, but the edges had begun closing over.

  He looked in the mirror and eyed me standing behind him. “So, what’s this valuable information you got from Jean?”

  “You better come back in the living room and sit down. It’s going to take a while.”

  As soon as I’d gone through the story with Alex, he called the Elders and got sent past the Speaker and on to Willem Zrakovi. He put his cell on speakerphone.

  The Elder didn’t bother telling me how deeply I’d disappointed him this time.

  After Alex gave the condensed version, Zrakovi said, “Let Drusilla tell me Captain Lafitte’s exact words.”

  So I went through it again. Samedi using the killings to gain power, influencing a human follower to do the dirty work. His plans to kill the local wizards. Gerry setting up transports. Samedi’s plans to kill Gerry and either co-opt or kill me. Jean’s refusal to play along.

  Zrakovi’s silence went on several minutes. I opened my mouth to ask a question—namely, how the Elder thought Gerry managed to avoid detection—but Alex shook his head and held a finger in front of his mouth.

  So we waited what seemed like a week. Elders move at the speed of glaciers.

  Finally, Zrakovi spoke. “I need to confer with the Elders’ council, and then I have a meeting with the fae leaders that will tie me up the rest of the day. Have a transport ready Thursday at nine a.m. your time. We will talk then.”

  Grit teeth. Another day of waiting.

  “And Ms. Jaco?”

  Ungrit teeth. “Yes, sir?”

  “Stay at home.”

  WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2005 “Nearly a month after the New Orleans area was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, residents arereturning to some neighborhoods … . And as signs of life slowly return to the city, the search for storm victims is winding down.”

  —THE TIMES–PICAYUNE

  CHAPTER 32

  Alex got cabin fever before I did. By noon, he’d decided to head to the NOPD and look at the murder files again now that we knew the killer was a human under Samedi’s control, possibly by possession. I also suggested he swing by the Gator to see if he could get information on the murders out of Louis. Our spy hadn’t been a rousing success, but he had at least given me the tip that led to Jean Lafitte. He might know more than he realized.

  Earlier, I’d arranged to meet Eugenie in Metairie to help her find a new refrigerator, but I called and rain-checked. I didn’t want to explain my cuts and bruises. I’d been rain-checking her a lot in the last week. I hoped she didn’t think I was avoiding her.

  I finally pulled out Gerry’s journals from the nineties again. I’d only gotten through 1997. I cranked up Irma Thomas on the iPod and eased my sore bones onto the sofa. By the time I’d read 1994–96, both Irma and I were in a stupor, so I limped to the bedroom. Sometime during 1992, I dozed off and drooled on Gerry’s lengthy review of Anne Rice’s latest vampire novel.

  Finally, it was almost four p.m., and only 1990 remained unread. Alex was still gone, and rain threatened to make my gloomy day complete. Not that Gerry’s journals were all boring, but they made me think of him, and thinking of him made me sad and angry and confused.

  My mind kept returning to the questions that hurt the most: Did Gerry know about innocent soldiers being sacrificed on Samedi’s orders? I couldn’t believe the man who raised me would stand by and let that happen. I had to believe he was unaware of it.

  I went downstairs for a candy bar because I thought chocolate would ease me through the final journal. January 1990. Gerry stayed on a month-long tear about the Soviet Union’s political activities and the end of the Cold War.

  I got a second candy bar. February 1990. More of the same. I thought about another nap but made myself keep reading.

  February 27, my tenth birthday. I smiled as I read Gerry’s account of taking me to the Lundi Gras parades and remembered the fun we had. He’d taken me every year since I moved in with him, holding me above his head to get beads and stuffed animals off the Mardi Gras floats till I’d gotten too big. By my tenth birthday I’d have been screaming for my own beads and darting into the street between floats to snatch more.

  DJ is growing up so fast, and looks more like Carrie every day. I see myself in her too. She’s stubborn and, oh, what magic she has! Not just her mother’s ritual magic but my physical magic, too. Elven blood from both of us. She’s special, but of course a father would say that. Must bring her along slowly …

  Pressure built behind my eyes as I reread the paragraph. He’d thought of himself as my father, even saw traits of himself in me. The journal entry showed a sentimental side of Gerry I’d never seen, and wished I had. And had he known my mom? It sure sounded that way.

  I read the rest of the entry for that day, but it was just an accounting of our Lundi Gras. We’d bought cotton candy from cart vendors and gone to dinner at Bruning’s up on the lakefront. Gerry had let me order softshell crab for the first time, then traded his shrimp for my crab when I refused to pull its legs off and eat them.

  I
kept going back to that earlier paragraph. Why hadn’t anyone told me that Gerry and my mom knew each other?

  Unplugging my cell phone from its charger, I called Gran, only half expecting her to answer. Wednesday was dinner night at church, and she was usually there when the doors opened, ready to socialize with the other Methodist matrons.

  She picked up on the third ring, sounding out of breath.

  We had our usual “how are you” conversation—nothing deep. I’d never been the granddaughter she wanted, and she’d never given me the emotional support I needed. We just accepted it and did the best we could. Maybe most families are like that, magical or not.

  Then we settled into silence as she waited to find out why I’d called.

  “I was reading some old journals of Gerry’s.” I struggled for the right words. “He wrote some things that made me wonder …”

  “What is it, Drusilla? Just ask your question.”

  “Why did no one ever tell me Gerry knew my mother?”

  She didn’t answer at first, and only the sound of music playing in the background let me know she was still on the phone. I could picture her in the kitchen, music drifting from the old radio in the window over the sink. She always left it on when she did housework.

  Gran sighed, a soft, unhappy sound, even from two states away. “You need to talk to your father. Can you come up here?”

  “Gran, you know I can’t, not now. There’s too much going on and things are getting worse. Just tell me.”

  “It’s not my story to tell.”

  I tightened my jaw, and it hurt. I didn’t have the patience to spare her feelings.

  “That’s crap. Just tell me, bottom line.”

  She laughed, but sounded more sad than amused. “You sound like Gerry. Never mind the preliminaries—just out with it. Well, I’m telling you to call your father.”

  “Fine,” I said through clenched teeth. “Talk to you later.” I hung up before she had a chance to respond.