“Okay, but stick with the plans. Don’t freelance.” And after this was over, if we were still alive, my cousin and I were letting Lennox in on our growing friendship.
After Rene and Collette returned, I made up a couple of confusion charms and freezing potions with my limited supplies, double-checked that the dagger and Charlie were ready to go, and mixed the noxious aura-masking potion.
“Audrey, you and Collette probably don’t need this—no one’s on the lookout for you, so it’s optional. I recommend you take a pass.” I handed generous cups to Rene and Jake. Jake made a face; Rene gagged but kept it down. The girls said if I could do it they could do it, so we all drank.
After we’d chased it with enough of Jean’s brandy to get rid of the taste, we got in the transport, and I checked Jean’s list of secret faery transports. There were several along the Mississippi River riverfront, one just east of the convention center at Race and Henderson. That was our way in.
I prayed again, even though my response so far had felt far from divine, and said, “Port of New Orleans.”
We landed at the transport at a quarter until four; thanks to lingering clouds from the storm, dark had already begun to settle over the city. We had a two-block, slightly uphill walk to reach the end of the row of warehouses that made up the working part of Mardi Gras World.
It might be two days after Christmas and technically a workday, but the place was deserted—except for the guard I spotted walking near the end of the nearest warehouse. I opened my senses and got nothing but shapeshifter, loup-garou, and wizard, all of which seemed to be coming from us. Human security guard, then.
We had all dressed in black, which meant I’d borrowed a sweater from Rene to avoid being the pink member of the crew. In some macho ritual, Jake had found black markers and made straight dark lines beneath our eyes, and since Jake and I had blond hair, Rene had brought us both black Saints caps. We looked like the world’s worst football team, back from the days when locals rightly called the Saints by another name: the “Ain’ts.” The shifters all had guns; Audrey and I were our own weapons, plus I had Charlie.
Jake motioned us to gather behind a semi parked near the warehouse entrance. “Let’s give him time to get out of sight.” He gestured toward the guard. “No point in hurting anyone until we have to.”
Sounded good to me. I checked my pockets for the charms and potions—freezing on the left, confusion on the right. The dagger remained clipped to my forearm. I couldn’t spring it out one-handed like in a movie, but I could get at it quickly. Charlie was clutched firmly in my right hand. The wood was warmer than usual; he was ready to rumble.
Once the guard was out of sight, Jake went first, running in a slumped position to make himself look as small as possible. In the darkening dusk, he was almost impossible to see. We followed one by one, with Rene bringing up the rear.
Once we reached the big warehouse door, I used Charlie to magically pop the lock and we slipped inside. Security lights gave us enough visibility to see where we were going and yet not so much light that we couldn’t hide in shadows. So far, so good.
I’d never given much thought to what hell might look like if it were a physical place, but this might come close. When a dragon head was on one of the big Mardi Gras floats, it looked reasonably small. Standing beside it, detached and lying on the ground, it was the size of a VW Beetle. And that was the small pieces.
This was obviously the Land of Mardi Gras Detritus, cast off and set in the back room until someone else had a need of a troll, a giant plaster Chucky doll head, or a chicken foot.
Walking in single file through the first long warehouse, we passed Elvis, a herd of three-dimensional representations of artist George Rodrigue’s Blue Dogs, Queen Elizabeth, several kings I didn’t recognize, and four different Marilyn Monroes.
What I didn’t see was Boeuf Gras. Not yet.
I took the lead, kept my empathic senses open, and scanned around us, learning the auras of my companions so I could discern when any new prete came nearby, hopefully not savvy enough to be wearing peridot to keep me from reading their auras. Of course, I couldn’t read elves or fae anyway, but I wasn’t worried about elves for a change. I thought Rand wanted to stay far, far away from tonight’s nasty business, although he had to be worried that I’d screw up and get myself killed.
He should be worried.
“Wait.” I sensed the buzzy energy of a werewolf ahead of us. Two of them. I held up two fingers and pointed at Jake and Collette, then pointed ahead—our agreed-upon shorthand for two werewolves in front of us.
These could be general guards, or they could be Alex’s guards.
It seemed as if we’d walked a quarter mile of warehouse already. A wide path ran down the middle, with Mardi Gras heads and tails and animals and vehicles jammed into both sides.
I stopped and held up a hand. I’d heard something, and turned to look at my shapeshifting companions. They had a lot better hearing than Audrey or I. Jake pointed ahead, repeated the two werewolves sign, mimicked talking, and mouthed “next section.”
Okay, almost showtime. The long warehouses were open to each other, so entering the next one wasn’t such an obvious transition. We slowed down, moving in silence, looking everywhere. The werewolf auras weren’t too far ahead now, so I skirted behind a big statue—as in maybe fifteen or twenty feet tall—to take a look around.
Rene poked me in the arm and, when I turned, pointed up. I craned my neck only to see a bad representation of Jean Lafitte. I gave Rene a grimace and moved out.
Another ten yards or so and I caught a flash of white ahead and to my right. Again, I stopped, this time behind a giant gator head. Through his open mouth, I pointed out the massive white bull, Boeuf Gras. By shifting a little farther toward the center aisle, I was able to spot Alex. He was sitting up again, facing the bull, so we’d be coming in on his right side.
Jake pointed just past the bull, and there were our two werewolves. He gestured to himself and Collette, then across the aisle to a big plaster version of St. Louis Cathedral, then crisscrossed his downturned fingers to symbolize walking. Rene pulled out his pistol to provide cover and I held Charlie at the ready as first Jake, then Collette, sneaked across the aisle. They’d be able to slip up on the guards from behind now. Of course, chances were good that Alex would spot them as well.
That, I didn’t worry about. Alex was a damned good enforcer. He could keep a blank face better than anyone I knew, as evidenced by his response to his travesty of a trial.
I knew the moment he’d spotted Jake and Collette, or at least when he spotted movement. He didn’t change position or expression, but there was a minute tensing of his shoulders.
From our position behind the faux cathedral, I couldn’t tell Jake from Collette, only discerned movement behind the two weres, who were chatting, none the wiser. Until suddenly, both of their heads were facing the wrong way on their bodies. Audrey let out a high-pitched noise, then stopped abruptly when Rene clamped a hand over her mouth.
I closed my eyes, queasy. Like two well-oiled machines, Jake and Collette had clamped hands on either side of the werewolves’ heads, twisted, and snapped their necks like gruesome synchronized athletes. Then the guards were gone, dragged back into the shadows, where their bones would eventually repair themselves but not anytime soon and not without a lot of pain.
I reminded myself why we were here, and that this had never promised to be a pretty business. I turned around to Audrey and put a finger over my lips, warning her. No more noise. She nodded.
Slowly, Alex stood, hands propped on his hips, staring into the shadows where the guards had disappeared. I spotted Jake nearer us again, across the aisle. He pointed to his head and his nose; he wanted me to check for auras again.
I closed my eyes and opened my senses, weeding out my companions and Alex, dismissing the smells of motor oil and paint and adhesive and plaster, reaching for anything that felt out of place. There was at least one more werewolf
here besides the dead ones.
I held up two fingers, pointed at Jake, and held up my hand, palm outward: wait. Closing my eyes again, I focused on the new werewolf auras; they seemed to come from overhead. I looked up, squinting into the rafters. Sure enough, two guards were standing directly over Alex’s circle, and they were looking hard back at the corner where Collette remained with the first two guards.
Two fingers, pointing at Jake, then pointing at Alex, then upward. Jake followed the track of my fingers and gave a short nod. He disappeared for a moment, then reappeared.
A clang from Collette’s direction distracted the guards, not to mention almost giving me a heart attack. It gave Jake enough time to get back to our side of the aisle, exchange some motions with Rene, and wait to see what our guards would do.
If they came down to our side, Rene and Jake would take them. If they went to the sound of the noise—Collette’s distraction—Jake would go back and we’d have two more broken werewolf necks. At least in theory.
The guards were smarter than they looked; they split up. The taller of the two, pistol drawn, jumped down with an enviable nimbleness and edged into the shadows toward Collette. I’d have broken an ankle on this concrete—or my skull.
Rene eased his way toward Alex, so he was waiting when the second guard jumped from the rafters. Never mind that the guy had at least fifty pounds and four or five inches on him. Rene grabbed him and snapped his neck before he had a chance to react.
I didn’t see the other guard, but Jake and Collette appeared across from me again, asking me to again sniff out any pretes. I went through the routine, but this time the place was clean. At least for now.
I nodded, and stepped out from behind the cathedral. Alex sensed movement and turned, and the look on his face dug another crack into my fractured heart. Such love and joy and misery and, yeah, grim frustration. “You aren’t martyring yourself for me,” I said softly, approaching the containment circle. I reached out with Charlie and broke the plane, freeing Alex. “And I’m not leaving you here.”
He pulled me to him with such fierceness that my breath was cut short. I didn’t care.
“What the hell are you doing in here?”
We both whirled to the source of the voice and saw the same human security guard as before. Behind my back, I gestured with my palm down: I’ve got this.
I gave my best girlish laugh. “I’m sorry. We just thought it would be cool to come in here and, I don’t know, take some pictures or something. We didn’t hurt anything.”
“Ma’am, this is private property.” He was an NOPD officer working security off-duty; his badge identified him as McGarrity. “I’ll have to escort you out now.… Alex, is that you? Man, you know better than this.”
Oh shit. It would have to be somebody Alex knew. Then again, he knew a lot of NOPD cops from having worked in the local FBI office.
“Ah yeah, sorry, Jack.” He wrapped an arm around my waist. “But hey, could you resist this face?”
Please. This face had barely been washed in the past two days and had black football player grease on its cheeks.
We didn’t have time for this. I walked over with my hand out, as if to introduce myself. “Hi, Jack. Sorry about this.”
Then I pulled a vial from my left pocket, flipped off the top, and slung the contents in his face, turning Jack McGarrity into a big old NOPD statue.
“Jake, can you and Collette haul him somewhere out of hearing range?”
They finally emerged from the shadows, and Jake grinned. “Hey, cuz. I’d like you to meet my fiancée. Collette, Alex. Alex, Collette.”
Alex was going to strangle him, judging by the look on his face. “Do none of you follow directions?”
“Hell no, shifter.” Rene joined us and Alex clapped his hands over his eyes. “Who else is here?”
“This is it,” I said. “Now, let’s get the hell out of here.”
A crackling noise sounded from the floor. “Hey, Jack, check in. Everything okay?”
The police radio. We all stared at it for a few seconds, but finally Alex picked it up, clicked on the talk button, and drawled, in a pretty good local accent, “All good here. Gonna finish my round, over.”
“Roger that.”
Alex turned off the radio. “You guys need to leave.”
I stared at him, not believing what I’d heard. “We are not leaving you here.” I spoke in an exaggerated whisper. “I don’t know if you missed the memo, but you’re going to get shot in the head in about”—I looked at my pink watch—“an hour.”
He shook his head. “I can’t live on the run, DJ. I thought about it, and I don’t know how to live that way. I’m…” He paused and lowered his voice. “Damn it, I’m not strong enough to live that way. It scares the hell out of me.”
Oh good grief. Now was not the time for an existential crisis of self-confidence. “You’ll figure it out. Now get your ass out of the middle of this aisle and let’s go.”
“DJ!” Jake hissed from behind me. “I hear somebody coming. More than one. Lots more.”
Crap. “Let’s go.” I grabbed Alex’s wrist and pulled him exactly nowhere. He wasn’t budging. I tried to beat him over the head with Charlie and he took the staff away from me. Damn it.
“Charlie. Come to me.”
The staff shot sparks, making Alex hiss and open his grip. The staff flew into my hand.
I sensed wizards, plural. And werewolves. Also plural. “Stay in the circle and pretend you can’t get out,” I whispered, backing into the shadows and finding Rene and Audrey. Across the aisle, Jake and Collette also backed up.
Alex sat down in the middle of the containment circle with his legs crossed, and turned to watch the newcomers.
Damn it to hell and back. Zrakovi led his little procession of death, accompanied by another man—a wizard, I assumed from the aura—and two werewolf guards.
Time for Plan B. If we had one.
CHAPTER 35
I held my breath as Zrakovi approached Alex. He stopped several feet away. “Where are your guards? Didn’t you send guards, you fools?” The last was directed at the burlier of the two werewolves. I wonder how they felt about the execution of one of their own?
“There were four here; I talked to ’em less than an hour ago.”
He sniffed the air and pointed toward the corner where the four broken-necked werewolves had been laid out like chickens in a meat case. The other guard followed his nose and in a few seconds, he said, “Dack, you better come back here.”
Dack, the burly guy, disappeared and I could tell when he saw his buddies by the loud round of colorful cursing in a heavy local accent.
“They’re not dead but they won’t be doing any work for a while,” Dack said, walking back to Zrakovi with his proverbial tail between his legs. Guess we knew who was alpha wolf in this pack. “Necks have been broken. All four of ’em.”
“Damn.” Zrakovi looked around him, squinting into the shadows, suddenly aware that—duh—someone might be watching. “The next question is why you are still here, Mr. Warin.” Zrakovi reached out and waved his hand where the containment circle’s cylinder was supposed to be. “Especially since you have been freed.”
Alex stood up, holding his hands up in a gesture of no-trouble-here. He towered over Zrakovi but he didn’t have a weapon and he didn’t have magic. “I’m still here because, as I explained to the people who came to free me, I am innocent of the things you’ve charged me with. I have done nothing wrong. I’ve done nothing to betray you. Ever. I hoped you’d realize that.”
Zrakovi managed to look up at Alex and look down his considerable nose at the same time. “And the people who came to free you. I assume that’s our former sentinel and her band of misfits? Perhaps your out-of-control cousin?”
“I never said that. Maybe it was who you say, maybe it was a vampire, maybe it was faeries. Maybe it was goddamned Peter Pan.”
Good. Alex was getting mad, and it was about damned time.
/> Zrakovi didn’t seem to appreciate Alex’s humor. “Let me introduce you to my associate, Mitchell. He is a Blue Congress wizard, and quite good at the art of re-creation. Mitchell, why don’t you re-create the events of the past hour here in this spot.”
“Sure thing.” Mitchell was about five two, maybe weighed a hundred and thirty pounds, and was dressed in green from head to toe. He was a freaking leprechaun.
A leprechaun about to set up a show. He did some pretty magic with his fingers, creating a holographic image of a trapped Alex next to the live Alex. He spread his fingers to expand the image, which included more of the aisle and side areas. Damn it. If he went all the way through this he’d see Jake and Collette and Rene as well as me. At least Audrey had remained hidden.
I turned back and put a warning finger over my lips to Audrey and Rene, then stepped out into the aisle. “You can stop your freak show, Zrakovi. Here I am.”
“And me.” Jake stepped out from the other side. He was going to save Collette and, if I could, I was going to save Audrey and Rene. Although if I knew Rene, he’d be in the middle of whatever was going to happen. The merman liked a fight, he liked Alex, and he hated every wizard except me and, maybe, Audrey. It would be more than he could resist. But Audrey and Collette could walk out of here, if we were lucky.
Zrakovi couldn’t keep the broad smile off his face. “Finally. Do you know how much trouble you’ve caused?”
I took a move out of the Alex Warin playbook and just smiled.
“I’ve tried really hard,” Jake said in his best Mississippi drawl, earning a sharp look from Alex. I hated to tell the love of my life, but since turning loup-garou, his cousin had become a smartass with very little filter between his brain and his mouth. Jake was gonna say whatever Jake was gonna say.
I’ve never been a patient person, but I had no choice. The next move had to be Zrakovi’s.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait long. “Dack, please disarm Mr. Jacob Warin; Carl, please handcuff Ms. Jaco—as I recall, she is afraid of guns.” Just to prove he wasn’t, Zrakovi pulled out a pistol. I wondered, not for the first time, how much physical magic Zrakovi had at his disposal; like me, he’d been a Green Congress wizard. I’d never known if he had magical talent or was just a good politician.
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