Belle Chasse

by Suzanne Johnson

  I also was in no mood for sexual banter. “Jean, I thought we’d agreed that I was with Alex and that you and I were going to be friends.” We’d had that relationship talk a couple of weeks ago, finally getting everything out in the open.

  “As I recall, Jolie, what we agreed to, as you say, is that maintaining your affair with Monsieur Chien was a great deal of work and that I am a patient man who can wait until you tire of him and realize how well-suited we are for each other. I am not, however, a blind man, and patience does not prevent me from enjoying your beauty, non?”

  Oh, brother. “Whatever.”

  Taking that as an assent to … something, Jean moved to sit beside me on the settee, and I tucked the full folds of the skirt more tightly around the site of the missing pantalettes. What was he doing sneaking around in my room checking on my underwear status, anyway?

  He reached over and wrapped his hand around mine. Never mind his age of about 230, give or take a decade; his hand, though scarred, was tanned and firm, with strong fingers that could probably snap the neck of a misbehaving pirate. Or wizard. “You should not be lonely, Jolie.”

  “I never said I was lonely.” So why did I want to cry all of a sudden? I’d become so pathetic it was pathetic.

  And yet … once again, Jean had seen me with a clarity I could never achieve. Eugenie’s troubles grew by the day, and her baby had to come first. Alex was trying to change things from the inside to make both our lives better—not to mention saving mine. I was surrounded by people, but as selfish as it felt to even think, I longed for real companionship. Someone to be with who didn’t have an agenda.

  I turned to try and express some of this to Jean, who always had an agenda, but instead found his mouth an inch from mine and moving closer. He kissed me, a soft pressure of lips and then a pulling back, but only a fraction. I didn’t react; my brain had frozen, my thoughts drilled down to the scent of cinnamon, the pressure of his hand on my waist, a second kiss.

  Did I kiss him back? I wasn’t even sure. He smoothed my hair away from my face, still leaning close, his eyes an impossible rich shade of cobalt blue.

  I should slap him. Bitch at him. Call him a cochon. Not just sit here frozen and staring.

  “Well, ain’t this cozy?”

  I jumped like I’d been beaten with a bullwhip, which I should be. Thank God. I’d never been happier to see Rene Delachaise and it had nothing to do with the armload of bags he dumped on the floor in front of me as I moved to the opposite side of the settee from Jean.

  “We were waiting for you.” I willed the heat from my face, which had probably turned the shade of the awful pink bikini panties Rene pulled from one of the bags and dangled from his finger.

  “Yeah, I can see that, babe.” Rene shot the panties like a rubber band toward Jean, who caught them in midair, examining them with much interest. Too much interest.

  “Those are not mine,” I assured him. I wasn’t a pink kind of girl.

  “Yeah they are.” Rene smiled, but he had fatigue lines around his eyes. Guess vampire orgies were exhausting. “I couldn’t get within a block of Eugenie’s house or your papa’s place in Lakeview or the Hotel Monteleone. I had to shop.”

  He said shop as one might say horse manure.

  I had a moment of panic. “How much did shopping cost?” I’d given him a huge list, and I was currently unemployed. Even when I’d been employed, my salary had been barely enough to make ends meet.

  “Don’t worry about it. I got it covered. It’s worth it to see that.” Rene nodded toward Jean, who’d set the panties aside and was pulling other goodies out of the nearest bag. Pink bras, teddies, and more pastel panties were taken out and examined, held up for display and turned in different directions. God help me.

  Rene could afford it, between his successful shrimping business and his off-the-books smuggling with Jean Lafitte, but I paid my own way. I’d find a way to repay him, eventually.

  Jean made an appreciative clucking sound at a particularly lacy pair of garters. Who the hell wore garters? Nobody in my circle. “Those are for Eugenie, and she probably wouldn’t appreciate you mauling them,” I said, punching Jean in the biceps nearest me. No way Rene would buy me pastels and lacy garters. I didn’t own one single pastel stitch of clothing for a reason.

  “Oh no, all the pink and lace is for you,” Rene said. “The colors are sweet, which you aren’t, babe. Plus, I was pissed at having to shop for women’s underwear three days before Christmas, me and every loser who’d forgotten to buy his wife a present.” He pulled a sheer pale-pink whisper of a negligee from a Victoria’s Secret bag and held it up for Jean. “Plus, since I couldn’t get the holy water you asked for from your house, I had to steal some from the Prompt Lady of Succor so I’ll probably go to hell, too. You owe me.”

  “I should like to see you wear these items, Jolie,” Jean said, grinning at the evil look I shot his way.

  “Enjoy fondling them; it’s as close as you’re gonna get.” His chuckle told me he thought otherwise, but his chuckle lied. “And the name of the church is Our Lady of Prompt Succor. If you don’t know the name of the patron saint of New Orleans, you probably won’t go to hell for stealing her holy water.”

  Rene laughed. “Yeah, you right.”

  “What’s going on at the houses—have the wizards posted guards? Did you try to go to Alex’s place, too?” These were things I needed to know before tonight’s secret mission, assuming all went according to plan with Eugenie and the funeral.

  “There’s some kind of magical shit around them, like a force field—the whole buildings. Your office, too. I figured if I went through it, an alarm would go off somewhere we didn’t want it to. And yeah, Alex’s house is warded. Think he knows?”

  Good question. “Yeah, I think he’d have to.” Those kinds of wards had to be set in person, so a wizard—probably Green Congress, which made it sting even more—would’ve had to walk the property, planting charms and sealing it with blood and holy water.

  That meant I’d have to catch Alex somewhere in public tonight. Maybe at dinnertime; the man never cooked. One of the things I loved about him was that he didn’t expect me to cook, either. I refused to believe he had a new girlfriend; Rand was just trying to torture me.

  “Thanks for doing all this shopping.” I began gathering the bags. “I need to go up and help Eugenie get dressed.” I hoped he’d bought something besides underwear.

  Turns out he had not only jeans and sweaters in pretty close to the right size for both of us, but also a few maternity tops for Eugenie and a simple black sheath dress and pumps for her to wear to the funeral. Rene was an unexpectedly good shopper.

  “I need hose.” Eugenie pulled on the dress, which was at least a size too big but that might be for the best. No one would know she was pregnant unless she wanted to tell them, which meant no explanations. She’d grow into it pretty fast if she had the baby closer to the elven term of seven months instead of the human nine.

  “Wear the black tights you had on when you got here.” I rummaged around the armoire in the room she’d claimed as hers, near the stairway on the second floor. “It’s going to be really cold if Christof has to do his Prince of Winter thing.”

  If our houses were warded with magical alarms, I doubted this funeral would go off without drama. I hadn’t told Eugenie about the security at her house; she was barely holding it together anyway. I’d have to tell Christof, though, so he wouldn’t let her talk him into popping over to New Orleans. He was supposed to set up a transport from Faery into Shreveport, which meant Eugenie would transport first to the Winter Palace and then to the new spot, with no need to go anywhere near her house. Still, so much could go wrong.

  A soft knock on the door preceded Collette, who stuck her head inside. She was moving a bit slowly after her close encounter of the fanged kind, but had almost healed. “Christof’s here.” She smiled at Eugenie. “You look beautiful. Pregnant women really do glow.”

  It was true. Onc
e you got past the dark circles under her eyes, which she’d managed to cover up pretty well with the makeup, Eugenie looked beautiful. Her heart-shaped face had filled out a bit, and her auburn hair shone now that she’d finally been able to wash it with real shampoo. Pregnancy agreed with her, even if the baby’s father was a devious, petulant elf.

  She picked up the small black purse—Rene had thought of everything, which made me suspect he’d had some help from either one of his string of romantic conquests or one of his sisters. My buddy the merman had a reputation as quite the aquatic playboy.

  “I guess I’m ready.” Eugenie took a deep breath. “What am I going to tell Matt if he asks me to stay and help with the twins?”

  I thought about it on the way downstairs. “Tell him you’re having a difficult pregnancy and have some tests scheduled.” That was the truth, only her brother-in-law could never guess how difficult, and Eugenie’s upcoming meeting with Rand, which we’d set up for tomorrow, already had me feeling testy. “Does Matt have family?” I knew Eugenie’s parents had died quite a few years ago, and she and Violette were the only siblings.

  “Yes, his parents and a couple of sisters, and they’re both within an hour’s drive.” She nodded. “That’s a good idea about the pregnancy. They knew I was seeing someone. Too bad it turned out to be Quince Randolph.”

  That was the God’s honest truth.

  Christof stood in the entry hall with Rene and Jean, and he cleaned up nice, as my grandmother back in Alabama would say. He’d gone for a very mainstream human look, with his dark hair short and styled. He did an admirable job of filling out a conservative black suit.

  “Oh, I like Christof with the blond hair,” Eugenie whispered. “He looks so handsome.”

  The only blond hair in the room was mine, and I started to say so. Instead, intrigued to try out a theory, I tugged the chain containing Alex’s locket from around my neck and laid it on a side table. This time when I looked around at Christof, his hair was almost shoulder length and blond. Unfortunately Rand-like, in my opinion. His features also were softer, his nose and chin less sharp, his cheekbones not as pronounced.

  I suspected Christof would not be pleased to know I could see through his glamour, thanks to that little tuft of Gandalf’s fur. I’d be wearing it constantly from now on, even if any faeries I encountered thought I reeked of dog. I slipped it back around my neck, relieved to again see Christof as he really looked.

  The faery and the merman and the pirate had paid us no attention at all, so deeply were they engrossed in conversation. Nor was it a lighthearted chat, judging by their expressions.

  The last phrase I overheard before they noticed us and shut up like uncooked clams was coup d’état.

  I wasn’t sure which state they were talking about, but it had been overthrown.

  CHAPTER 11

  “Okay, let’s have it.” As soon as the others left, I pounced on the pirate. Christof and Eugenie, looking like a proper mourning couple, had strolled off toward the transport, followed shortly by Rene, who’d be trailing them to Shreveport in case of trouble. “Talk to me.”

  “Bien sûr, Drusilla.” Jean’s mouth widened in a smile that didn’t quite put the usual dancing light in his eyes. “On which topic would you enjoy conversing?”

  I’d been patient while Christof admired Eugenie’s dress and face and hair ad nauseam, and she admired the blond hair he wore today—wait till I told her he was a brunette.

  Those two had entirely too much admiration for each other, which as Eugenie’s friend I found terrifying, given the political landscape and the encyclopedic knowledge of what I didn’t know about faeries. I knew two things. First, the fae were scary as hell: Such was the conclusion I’d reached after my first and, I hoped, only trip to Faery. Second, Eugenie did not need to get mixed up with one of them, especially while she carried a half-elven child and the prete world was on the brink of war. Talk about asking for trouble.

  Now my patience had disappeared like last week’s New Orleans snowstorm. A faery-induced snowstorm, no less.

  “Don’t give me that charming routine, Jean. What were you and Christof and Rene talking about when we came downstairs? You’re still thinking about it, and it upset you. I can tell.”

  Jean liked to say he understood me, and he spoke the truth. However, I also understood him. I could read his moods without the benefit of my now-replenished mojo bag. Rene could shop for me anytime.

  He sighed. “Mais oui. Allow me to speak with Jacob first, and then we shall talk.” Without waiting for a response, he turned and strode onto the verandah, where Jake and Collette waited. They planned to spend a romantic day as transport guards. Sometime today, I planned to move Barataria’s only transport closer to the house, where Jean claimed he’d have more control over it.

  It was isolated. I’d walked down the beach and onto the island interior last night to transport to Old Orleans in my search for Eugenie. My other travel option, sailing a flat-bottomed pirogue steered by an undead pirate, failed to appeal.

  In the excitement over losing Eugenie, and then getting her home from Louis Armstrong’s apartment in the Old Orleans version of Storyville, the 1920s New Orleans jazz and red-light district, I had overlooked an important point about the vampire attack. We didn’t actually know what they were after, or who their target was. We assumed it was Eugenie, but what if it wasn’t?

  If Rand hadn’t planned it, and I didn’t think he had, then who were the vampires’ targets? What was their endgame? Going after Jean, Dominique, or any of the other undead pirates made no sense because, really, what was the point? One could kill them but in a few days or a couple of weeks at most, they’d be good as new and out for revenge. Plus, although I’d never share this opinion with Captain Lafitte, in the grand scheme of preternatural politics, he wasn’t that important.

  He might become very, very important if things fell apart in the way he anticipated, but not yet.

  I couldn’t imagine any reason that the vampires, or anyone who might hire them, would be after Jake or Collette. The loups-garou didn’t have a power structure; the whole idea of leaders ran counter to their anti-pack nature. They didn’t even participate in the were-shifter alliance.

  Terri Ford, Adrian’s main squeeze, had seen an opportunity to escape Vampyre, where she’d been under the watchful gaze of the Vice-Regent, hoping she’d lure Adrian back to be controlled and used as a weapon. I believed her when she said she didn’t know who’d hired the vampires; she had everything to lose by lying.

  That left two potential targets among Jean’s current menagerie: Adrian and me. Adrian had very little power. His wizard’s Blue Congress magic worked a little in the Beyond but not reliably. He hadn’t been a vampire long enough to know what he was capable of or how strong he might become vampire-wise, but his magic would eventually wane. He was considered tainted merchandise by the wizards but he might be of interest to the elves or vampires in case of war—if they could control him. My gut told me Adrian wasn’t the target of tonight’s raid, however.

  Which left me. In trying to figure out who might want to kill me, the list was long and ugly. I had value because I could do both wizard’s and elven magic. I was dangerous because I’d proven unwilling to blindly follow orders. I was a threat to Willem Zrakovi’s political ambitions, and vampire Vice-Regent Garrett Melnick didn’t exactly belong to my fan club. Rand had made no secret that he wanted me living with him in Elfheim, but I’d already scratched him off tonight’s list of suspects—this wasn’t his style.

  Zrakovi had the biggest target on his forehead. I didn’t necessarily think he wanted me dead; I thought he wanted me under his control, and if I died in the process? Oh well. He’d look like a stronger leader if he taught me a lesson, plus he’d have a clearer shot at Eugenie and a better chance of solidifying his alliance with the elves.

  The idea that my own people had sent vampires to capture me, with Eugenie as a bonus, was both depressing and infuriating. Didn’t Zrakovi k
now that I wanted to support the wizards? That until a month ago I’d actually admired him? That I’d supported his promotion to First Elder?

  He sure wasn’t making it easy.

  I needed to think about something else, at least until I could set up a meeting with him.

  I went to my bedroom, picked up a big blue and white plastic Walmart bag from among Rene’s purchases, and took it to Jean’s study or, as I was tempted to now think of it, The Room That Shall Not Be Named.

  Rene had done a good job of either buying or stealing what I needed to replace the scrying gear I’d requested from my late father’s half-gutted, Katrina-flooded, and now-unapproachable house in Lakeview. First was a large mixing bowl made of dark glass, followed by a package of pungent patchouli incense cones and enough holy water to fill three bowls. I laughed; Rene must have cleaned out Our Lady of Prompt Succor. Was this their first holy water theft? Did one report the theft of holy water to the sheriff of St. Bernard Parish?

  The final thing I’d need for scrying was Charlie, and I pulled the ancient elven staff from my messenger bag and laid it on the table alongside the other materials. The magic would work better with some of the ruby chips I kept in a glass jar in my makeshift workroom at Gerry’s, but the constant full moon of the Beyond, which amped up magic, should more than compensate. I had never tried scrying from the Beyond, but since it was elven magic, I thought it would work.

  I planned to watch the funeral, and then I planned to track down Alex Warin. I only wished I’d thought of it sooner so I’d know what was going on. The only wizard still alive who understood what I could do with my ability to scry was Adrian Hoffman and, strange though it seemed, he and I were on the same team. We’d never be friends, but we were coexisting, albeit mostly by ignoring each other. Being members of Jean’s band of misfits had made us allies.