This was me, being cautious.
Two tall, beefy guys stood near the transport. A New Orleanian could identify tourists by their very clean white tennis shoes because our fair city, while extremely high on the entertainment scale, ranked pretty low on the cleanliness meter. Both of these guys were more scruffy than well-scrubbed. One had stringy blond hair that looked like he’d been washing his hair using the soap in Old Barataria and a long goatee that looked like the tail of an anemic squirrel. The other had shoulder-length braids and wore a Saints jersey.
Not tourists, but enforcers, waiting to grab me when I transported in for the noon meeting.
I headed back through the Quarter, staying on Bourbon and Royal to keep myself surrounded by the tourists who wandered the streets, shopping and eating, and the locals, who’d only venture into the city’s old district in the winter, when the tourists were at a minimum.
The people around me barely registered, though, because my fury had overshadowed everything else. Zrakovi had failed me again. My First Elder was probably sitting at home by his phone, waiting for word that I’d been apprehended so he could gloat. I wasn’t sure what pissed me off more—that he’d set a trap before hearing me out, or that he thought I’d be stupid enough to walk into such an obvious setup.
Or that I’d come without backup. I smiled at the sight of Jean’s brother Pierre and one of his undead minions strolling a block ahead of me, heading for the rendezvous point at the Napoleon House. Too bad the transport there had been closed; it would’ve been convenient today.
The plan was for Pierre to get me the hell out of Dodge if Zrakovi showed up with guards in tow. Otherwise, the pirate and his companion would have a drink, stay hidden, and transport back to Old Orleans. Pierre wasn’t anywhere near as strongly remembered in the modern world as his baby brother Jean, but he had enough memory magic to levy a day or so at a time in the modern world.
I had objected to the plan because, like Jean’s half-brother Dominique You, Pierre Lafitte had little regard for me. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure he’d save me, especially since Dom was still gimping around from his latest death.
Thus, my dagger and Charlie. I could handle myself. Alex once said that everyone looked at me and saw a young woman, not a strong wizard, so they always underestimated me. Zrakovi sure did. He could’ve at least sent enforcers that didn’t look like enforcers.
It was still a few minutes before noon, so I took a seat inside the first-floor bar of a restaurant near the corner of St. Louis and Chartres, close enough to see the entrance of our proposed meeting spot and decide on my next tactic.
The movement of clouds to the south caught my eye, dark gray-edged billows forming a solid wall. Maybe I could get out of the city before it started raining, because that looked like a frog-splasher. Then again, it wasn’t like I wouldn’t get wet transporting back to Barataria.
The Napoleon House had always been one of my favorite spots in New Orleans, seeped in elegant decay and early nineteenth-century New Orleans ambience. The bar played classical music, served sweet, bubbly Pimm’s Cups with cucumber garnishes, and was open on the side along St. Louis Street to provide patrons with a prime people-watching spot. The central courtyard dining room surrounded diners with banana trees and brick.
Upstairs, in the second-floor room rented out for parties, Jean Lafitte and I had formed our first uneasy alliance in the days following Katrina. If anyone had told me then that the pirate would become one of my closest allies and confidantes, I would have laughed.
I also would never have imagined myself watching the door of the restaurant to see if the wizarding world’s highest-ranking member would show up for a meeting or send his hired muscle to arrest me, maybe to kill me if I resisted. Surely Zrakovi wouldn’t be that brazen in the middle of a crowded restaurant at midday. At least that was the strategy.
I glanced at my watch. Ten minutes had passed since our meeting time, so Zrakovi should have gotten word that I was a no-show at the transport. I pondered my options and decided I’d wait for him inside the Napoleon House bar since a table had become available on the side that opened on St. Louis—the better to make a quick escape. If Zrakovi didn’t show up, I’d have a drink and leave. I should have about forty-five minutes of energy-shielding time left, judging by the amount of foul swill I’d chugged down.
Checking to make sure Charlie was within easy reach in my bag and my new dagger from Jean was tucked into a makeshift sheath on my forearm, I ambled across the street and took a seat facing the door.
I ordered a Pimm’s Cup and got it in no time, delivered by a flirtatious waiter. In New Orleans, wait staff were either surly or shameless; no middle ground existed.
“This your first time in town, darlin’?”
I must look awfully clean—had to be the pink sweater. “Nope, I’m a local, but I’ve been out of town. We expecting a storm?”
His eyes widened. “You have been gone. Honey, we went under a hurricane warning this morning. There’s a cat two headed straight for us—rain should be starting anytime.”
A hurricane in December? “That’s insane.”
“Yeah, you right. You want a sandwich?”
I assured him I was waiting for someone but would probably want another drink, and he went off to flirt with a tourist more likely to leave a big tip. I’d just taken my first sip when a short, sour-faced man with an oversize nose and a navy suit filled the doorway. At least for now, no guards were visible behind him.
I waved, and Willem Zrakovi’s anger reached me all the way across the crowded bar. He jerked out the scarred wooden chair opposite mine and flounced into it more like an angry teenage drama queen than the king of all wizardkind.
“Don’t look so put out just because I didn’t fall into the waiting arms of the were-goons you had waiting at the cathedral transport. All I want is to try and have a conversation with you, sir.”
I’d already decided that I was not going to be meek. I wouldn’t plead and beg, especially since he’d tried to set me up. I would, however, try to be respectful and reasonable. Try being the operative word.
He didn’t deny setting the trap, but instead ordered a scotch and soda from the waiter, who wisely turned off the flirtatious charm. Zrakovi and I stared at each other until his drink arrived. It was awkward, but small talk seemed inappropriate.
His first question astounded me with its shortsightedness. “How did you get here without a transport?”
No, let’s not talk about the looming war, or how I can help you, or how you can help me, or how we can promote peace, love, understanding, and preternatural world accord. Let’s talk about transportation.
“I did use a transport, just not the one you expected me to use. I’m sure you understand why I felt the need for extra precaution.”
He leaned back and studied me, so I did the same. Dark circles rimmed his lower lashes and his eyes were bloodshot. He looked exhausted, but I had trouble summoning any sympathy.
“What do you want, DJ? I’m frankly surprised you reached out to me considering all the harm you’ve done.”
The only harm I’d done had been to his ego, and maybe indirectly via my escape, to the roof of the New Orleans Museum of Art.
I’d play his game, however. “I’m sorry things went so badly earlier this month, but I reached out because I hoped you’d realize that I am loyal to the wizards. I am a wizard. I want to support you.”
At least I wanted to if he wouldn’t make it so damned hard.
I took a deep breath and continued. “I hoped I could make you realize that, with my ability to do some elven magic, I could be an asset to the wizards should the two groups not be able to reach an accord.”
Because whether Zrakovi knew it yet or not, Rand had a scheme in the works and it had nothing to do with Eugenie. He needed me, damn it.
Time for the final push. “I’d hoped enough time had passed that you realized why I made the choices I did, and would be willing to move forward.”
/>
With my job and license back, preferably.
He sneered. There was no other word that fit the curled lips and flared nostrils. “And in return for all that forgiveness and understanding, I get what—you? An arrogant renegade who lies, refuses to follow orders, and flaunts her use of illegal magic? I think not.”
I swallowed a lump of anger, along with some fizzy liqueur and soda. Think before you talk, DJ. “So your solution is to kill me? Because that’s what would happen at Ittoqqortoormiit; I’d go into elven survival mode and never come back from it. That’s really what you want?”
He blinked and looked away. I’d needed to be sure he realized what that unspecified jail sentence meant for me, and the discomfort and guilt he radiated told me he knew exactly what he was doing. I’d known it deep inside, but it still hurt as if Jean’s dagger had been shoved into my gut. Zrakovi wanted me dead.
“If you want to kill me, why be so passive about it? If you want to show your power, why didn’t you have me executed right there at the meeting?” I’d gone off-script, but the raging bull was out of its pen. “Why send me off to freeze to death? Why, for God’s sake, sneak around and hire a crew of vampire thugs to come and get me in Barataria?”
“I have no idea—”
“Why have you gone to so much trouble to avoid killing me outright? Oh, wait. I know the answer. Because I’ve done nothing to deserve a death sentence and you damn well know it. You wanted to keep your hands clean.”
His face assumed the hue of a ripe creole tomato in June. “How dare you speak to me this way, in such a tone! You’re just like—”
“My father, I know. So you’ve said.” I took a deep breath. I’d never intended to go off on him. “I apologize for my tone, Elder Zrakovi, but I am a wizard. Whatever you thought of Gerry St. Simon, he raised me as a wizard and I have always been loyal to my kind. Last month, you asked me to do something that I truly believed was wrong—to use my magic to take a life, not in self-defense, but for political reasons. The life of my best friend’s child. I couldn’t do it.
“I wish I’d found a way to avoid it without disobeying your orders, but I can’t apologize for making the only decision I could live with. I can only promise to try my best to work with you in the future. I can help you.”
He looked at me with a blank, steady gaze that seemed to last a week and a half. “This meeting is over. There is nothing else to be said.”
God, this had been a mistake. Alex and Lennox had been right. Maybe if I’d come in crawling and simpering it would have …
Hands the size of baseball mitts dropped onto my shoulders, and I tried to struggle from beneath them. When fingers slipped beneath the neck of my sweater and dug into my skin, holding me in place, I craned my neck up to see Dreadlocks gloating down at me from behind. One of his front teeth had been capped in gold and had a star shape cut into it. Squirrel Chin stood beside him.
Damn it, I’d lost my temper and stopped watching my back. Where was that damned pirate?
CHAPTER 26
“I suggest you stand slowly and walk out with my men,” Zrakovi said, tapping a napkin against his lying, two-faced mouth and putting a twenty on the table to cover the drinks. “If you make a scene, innocent humans will be injured. I have a Blue Congress cleanup team in place, however, so if you want to fight in public and damage a few humans, knock yourself out. It will only add to your list of crimes.”
I stood slowly, gritting my teeth when Squirrel Chin patted me down while feeling me up and making it look like a romantic moment. He’d been so busy feeling the naughty bits that he missed both Charlie, sitting in my bag next to my foot, and the dagger attached to my inner forearm.
Idiot. Alex would never have been so sloppy. If Alex had patted me down, he’d have found not only the weapons but also the portable magic kit.
From the corner of my eye, I saw a tourist taking cell phone shots of us. He’d no doubt email them to all his friends back home with stories of those crazy New Orleanians and their public displays of affection.
I considered trying the faux fainting trick again, but I was too badly outnumbered for it to work. Like my friend Jean Lafitte, whose help I could use about now, I didn’t want to try something unless it had a reasonable chance at succeeding. I also didn’t want to pull Charlie out and risk humans getting hurt.
Pierre Lafitte was AWOL. He’d probably seen me with Zrakovi, spotted no enforcers, and gone home.
“Walk out the door onto Chartres and turn straight toward the cathedral.” Zrakovi pulled his jacket aside enough for me to see a shoulder holster. I hadn’t even known the man could hold a gun, although for all I knew about guns it could be a water pistol.
The walk to the cathedral transport was three very long city blocks. My best escape opportunity would be near Jackson Square. When the muscular goons tried to turn me left toward the cathedral, I’d try to break and run right toward the river, where I could get lost among the wharves and docks long enough to draw and power a transport. Of course in order to run, I’d have to get away from the clinch of Dreadlocks and Squirrel Chin. Charlie could take care of that.
I slipped the messenger bag over my head slowly, and not even Zrakovi noticed the stick of wood protruding from the top by a couple of inches.
Not to be redundant, but … idiots.
None of us spoke as we proceeded down Chartres Street, where, to our south, the clouds continued to build. The wind had grown stronger and drier. The hurricane was sucking all the humidity out of the air, all the better to gain intensity. I hoped Zrakovi, a Bostonian, would enjoy his first storm. I hoped a live oak landed on his head.
He’d been walking behind me, but now he stepped alongside me and pointed ahead. “What the hell is that?”
At first I thought he meant the clouds, but then I saw another threatening sight. A block down Chartres, moving slowly toward us, pranced a man in a red glitter-covered suit and hat. He shuffled his red shoes in time to the small brass band that followed him, trumpets and trombones and a big bass drum, all played by young men in black pants and white shirts. They cranked out a sloppy rendition of Rebirth Brass Band’s “Do Watcha Wanna,” a classic New Orleans second-line tune.
It was a good second-line parade, too. New Orleanians often formed their own impromptu parades, dancing down the streets behind other parades (the first line), jazz funerals, or just for the hell of it.
In this case, behind the official parade loomed a massive procession of people clad in red and white satin dresses and suits, and behind them, as near as I could tell, a throng of tagalong people joining in the fun—sort of a third line. About half of the official procession twirled lavishly decorated red and white umbrellas above their heads, and the other half danced in circles, waving white handkerchiefs.
“It’s a New Orleans second-line parade,” I told Zrakovi, raising my voice so he could hear me over the slightly off-key trill of the trumpets. “It’s a tradition.”
“It’s stupid, is what it is.” Zrakovi poked at Squirrel Chin, shouting, “Go around it.”
The enforcer tried to cut left to the sidewalk, but the sidewalks had already begun filling with people and we were in the middle of the block. There was nowhere to go but through the crowd, straight ahead.
Even with the onslaught of emotions coming from the people approaching us, I could tell Zrakovi’s blood pressure was shooting into stroke territory. If only I’d be so lucky and he’d just keel over on the pavement.
My adrenaline level, on the other hand, was shooting sky-high. Never had a second-line parade been better timed.
“Hold on to her!” Zrakovi shouted at Dreadlocks. “Don’t let her go!”
This was my chance. Dreadlocks kept a tight grip on my left arm as the brass band weaved around us with deafening blares of their horns. Then came the satin-clad procession itself, jostling and bumping us. I firmed up my grasp on Charlie, whose presence remained unnoticed.
I waited for the right time. Waited. Waited. Waited.
Finally, as a tall woman in a poufy red dress waltzed past, twirling her umbrella over her head, I gave Dreadlocks a good zap with the staff, shoved him toward her, ducked, and zoomed through the crowd like a pinball, head-butting anyone who didn’t move fast enough. I bounced off an umbrella twirler and was shoved toward a handkerchief waver, then did it again. At the end of the procession there was a lull where three guys in elaborate full-face court jester masks were doing a dance routine on Chartres in between the official marchers and the crowd of tourists and tagalongs. I put Charlie away and prepared to go through them.
All three were about the same height and build, all wearing fitted black long-sleeved T-shirts and black pants. Each mask was slightly different, but it made an eerie sight as they did a slow, hypnotic dance, moving their bodies in rhythm to the brass band but with their heads tilting only slightly to left and right. They weren’t very good at it, but it was still creepy.
The guy in the center seemed to be focused on me, dark eyes glittering behind the eyeholes of his mask of ivory, gold, and royal blue, with blue and gold jester bells coming off the headpiece. He was paying way too much attention to me. I zigzagged toward the sidewalk, hoping to get lost in the crowd, but the jester left his dance, grabbed my arm, and hustled me ahead of him so fast that I almost fell.
What the hell? I planted my feet and pulled Charlie back out of the thigh holster, prepared to zap him as soon as I got a clear shot. He cocked his head, and though his voice was muffled behind the mask and all the noise, his words were clear: “Put that damn stick away and run, babe.”
Only one person called me babe. “Rene?”
“Who the hell you think it is, Santa Claus?”
He didn’t have to tell me twice. We raced down Chartres, separating around the large groups of tagalongs. He was headed toward the cathedral but I had a closer spot and screamed, “Cut left on Toulouse!”
Belle Chasse Page 21
