House of the Rising Sun

by Kristen Painter

  Dulcinea was very happy to take advantage, literally, of those visitors. And was doing just that as he approached.

  She had a victim—ah, tourist—at her table, her fae tarot cards laid out between them, no doubt spinning some grand tale that would result in the tourist forking over more money to hear what else their future might hold, or where their great-aunt Sally had buried a stash of gold coins or what numbers they should play in next week’s lottery. It seemed likely to Augustine that Dulcinea’s mulligan stew of a gene pool must hold a healthy dollop of haerbinger fae, the same as Livie’s did, because both women had a good knack for knowing the truth about a person.

  Dulcinea just embellished the truth with liberal abandon as befitted the needs of the poor sap in front of her. He sidled closer to listen.

  “This card means death.” She tapped one black-painted fingernail on the tarot card. The female tourist gasped, fear obvious in her eyes. Dulcinea raised her hand. “This death is not yours.” She passed her hand dramatically through the air. “It’s the death of all ill will against you. The death of your enemies’ desire to bring harm against you.”

  “My enemies?” The woman wore jeans with a matching jean jacket and a bright white T-shirt that read “I got Bourbon on Drunk Street.” Her fingers strayed to the St. Christopher medal around her neck. “I don’t feel like I have any enemies.”

  Dulcinea leveled her gaze at the woman, cocking her head slightly. “I see someone at your church. Another woman. She has dark hair and is a bit meddlesome.” Dulcinea squinted and tapped the side of her head like she was on the verge of a psychic breakthrough. “She desires to…”

  The woman’s mouth went open. “Helen Kettell! I knew it. My coconut cream cake outsells her German chocolate every year at the bake sale.” The woman covered her mouth with her hand for a moment. “What’s she planning?”

  Augustine snorted. Dulcinea glanced back, her eyes lighting when she saw him. She turned to the woman and sat forward in her chair. “You’ll have to come back tomorrow. I’m closed.”

  “What? Closed? But you’re talking to me right now.”

  “And now I’m not.” Dulcinea jumped up and walked toward Augustine, ignoring the sputtering woman behind her. She flung her arms wide. “Gussie!”

  He laughed, even though he’d kill anyone else who tried to call him that. “Hey, Dulce. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “You didn’t. I was done.” She kissed him on the mouth, then stepped back and grinned, crinkling the skin around her heavily lined eyes. “Really good to have you back in town. I guess you were too busy last night to say hello.”

  So she had seen him. Not surprising. “Yeah, well, I’m here now.” He shook his head at the lip-to-lip contact. Also not surprising. “And it’s good to be back. I owe you one for checking on Olivia and Lally while I was gone.”

  She hitched up one shoulder. “You would have done the same for me.”

  “You know it.” Not that Dulcinea seemed to have any family for him to check on. She claimed not to know anything about her parents and that she was raised as an orphan by a distant aunt until she’d ended up in the same gang as him. Then the crew had become her family. He looked at her now-deserted table. “Business been good?”

  “Crazy good, but I can only stand so much contact with these people.” She hissed at a couple as they passed by, causing them to shrink back and almost run into another artist’s stall. Then she gave the side eye to one of her competitors. “And then there’s that one.”

  Augustine turned to look. Right in front of the fence, under a beautiful ivory pavilion, sat a woman who was as sleek and sophisticated as Dulcinea was not. “Ah.” He nodded. “Giselle.”

  “Witch,” Dulcinea spat.

  Augustine smirked. “That’s not much of an epithet considering she is one.” Giselle Vincent wasn’t just a witch. As the daughter of New Orleans’s coven leader and High Wizard, she was witch royalty. Her father, Evander, was a fourth-level wizard and the final authority when it came to all things witchy in NOLA. Well, until the Elektos got involved. They were really the final authority due to the treaty established after the messy business of the curse.

  He could see why Dulcinea would feel threatened by her, though. Giselle’s reputation also made her one of the most sought-after fortune-tellers. Combine that with her rank and yeah, Dulcinea wouldn’t be Giselle’s bestie anytime soon.

  “Yeah, well the High Priestess of Mean can get bent for all I care.”

  “What’s she done to you?” Dulcinea and Giselle had never been friendly, but this blatant animosity was something new.

  “I overheard her telling some tourists I have bedbugs living in my hair.” Dulcinea flicked two fingers at Giselle in some sort of Dulcinea sign language for suck it.

  Augustine popped a brow. “Do you really think she’d say that? Maybe I should have a talk with her.” When they ran the streets as part of the same crew, he wouldn’t have hesitated to come to Dulcinea’s defense, but now that they were living more separate lives, he didn’t want to overstep.

  “No. Don’t say anything. When it’s time, I’ll deal with her.”

  Giselle looked up, pushing her long black hair out of the way. From under the fringe of heavy bangs, her dark eyes pierced straight into Augustine. He held her gaze. She might be a witch, but she didn’t scare him. Actually, she was kind of hot in an untouchable, pristine way. He couldn’t imagine her hair messed up or her pristine white outfits dirty or wrinkled. Or maybe he could. He pulled his gaze back to Dulcinea. “If you’re sure.”

  “I am. Leave the freak to me,” Dulcinea added. “I mean, who wears white in this city? It’s witchcraft, I tell you.” She made crazy eyes. “Witchcraft.”

  “O-kay, how about we get you out of here for a bit?” He rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. “Forget Giselle, I think being next to all this iron is starting to affect you.”

  She stared at the fence for a second. “Yeah, that is kind of bothersome. Whatevs.” Then she turned to him and smiled brightly. “Let’s go drink. But not Belle’s. I don’t go there much anymore.”

  Dulcinea’s standard hangout, La Belle et la Bête, was the same as the rest of the othernatural population in town because it was the oldest othernatural bar in town and specifically designed to keep mortal eyes from prying. He’d ask why not there later. “Fine with me. I need to be a little more inconspicuous at the moment anyway.”

  “Elektos doesn’t know you’re back, huh?”

  “Nope.” He looked at her a little harder. “Is that why you stopped going to Belle’s? Were the Elektos hassling you about me?”

  “Nobody hassles me. Except for you.” She winked. “It was just… this and that. You know. C’mon. I know a good place.” Without another word, she turned and started walking.

  Damn, the Elektos going after her made him mad. He could understand the high council looking for him at Olivia’s, but bothering his friends crossed a line. He jumped to catch up with her. “I’m sorry about that. Anything else going on?”

  “Yes, but…” She shot him a look. “When we’re settled.” Then Dulcinea’s gaze traveled higher. “I like the full-on horns. I bet those fae-loving female tourists do, too. You letting them grow now?”

  He touched one self-consciously. In truth, he was kind of over them. “I’m not keeping them this way. Just did it to blend.”

  She shrugged. “Your head.”

  They crossed the street and swerved through a few blocks of tourists until she pushed through a nondescript wood door. A simple hand-painted sign above read “Stella’s.” He followed after her. The place was lit mostly by a bunch of holovisions showing various sporting events. The few solar tubes there looked like they hadn’t held a full charge in years, which was fine with Augustine because he wasn’t sure the place would hold up to bright light. The sticky floor grabbed at his boots with every step and dust coated the Mardi Gras beads that hung off the beer signs.

  Dulcinea had already found a spot
at the bar. He took the stool beside her, hoping nothing in the joint was communicable. “Nice place.”

  “Isn’t it?” She perked up. “Stella’s is my other joint. They leave you alone in here.”

  “They leave a lot alone in here by the looks of it.”

  The bartender stopped leaning and walked toward them, nodding at Dulcinea. “The usual?”

  She held up two fingers. “Double it.”

  “Really,” Augustine started, “you come here that often? What’s your usual?” With Dulcinea, nothing was a given. Once upon a time, it had been white Russians, heavy on the white.

  “I come here enough, I guess.”

  “Must have started since I left because you’ve never brought me here.”

  “You’re too fancy for joints like this.” She stuck her tongue out at him.

  “Fancy?”

  “Yeah, you like the kind of places where the beautiful people hang out.” She batted her lashes at him, then gave him a wry smile. “I guess I should say the beautiful women. That you then seduce and take home.”

  “Hey, now.” He pointed a finger at her. “I never take them home. It’s their hotel or nothing.”

  She laughed. “You’re such a man whore.”

  He waggled his eyebrows. “That didn’t stop you from taking a dip in this pool.” A dip that had happened ages ago and only that one time, as they’d quickly come to the mutual understanding that being friends was more valuable.

  The bartender set two bottles of Abita, the local beer, down in front of them, answering the question about what her usual was. She took a long pull off hers before responding. “That’s because I liked to swim and your pool was always open. Also, we were young and stupid.”

  “That we were.” He sipped his beer. “Dulce, you know you could swim in any pool you wanted.” She might be odd, but there were plenty of humans who’d developed a fae fetish since the covenant had fallen and to them there was no such thing as a normal fae anyway. Something he’d taken full advantage of.

  She leaned in, clinking her bottle against his. “Maybe, but I don’t want some mouth breather following me around, moon-eyed and dopey with love. I want what I want until I don’t want it anymore.” She tipped her bottle in his direction. “With you, it was just like you said. We were young and dumb. No emotional strings. Just like all those tourist chicks you pick up. Except I never tried to hunt you down afterwards.”

  He nodded, slightly sobered by her frankness. “None of them have tried to hunt me down.”

  “That you know about.” She set her beer on the bar, her expression growing earnest. “I really am glad you’re back. Things are getting a little hinky in town.”

  “This about what you wouldn’t tell me outside?”

  She glanced around, but the few other patrons in the bar were some distance away and definitely not interested in what they were doing. “Vamps.”

  Not what he’d wanted to hear. He shook his head. He hadn’t seen a single vampire on his walk here, despite the fact that they could daywalk within the limits of the Orleans parish thanks to a nearly two-century-old curse leveled against the city by a heartbroken witch. “Is that why you were over at Olivia’s?”

  She kind of half shrugged. “That and you were gone. Figured it couldn’t hurt.” The label on her bottle slowly disappeared under her fingernails. “Khell’s got his hands full, but you ask me? It’s his people to blame. I’m sure there’s a soft spot in his ranks.”

  “So someone’s getting greased, letting them in.” Bribes were as much a part of New Orleans history as the vampires, but Augustine had thought the new Guardian, Khell, wouldn’t have stood for that garbage. He didn’t know Khell well, but the guy seemed a by-the-book type. Maybe his lieutenants were dirty. Augustine shook his head. Maybe? More like definitely. Few people in this city turned down a bribe.

  Her odd eyes went a little darker. “Worse. I think one of them might be bringing the vampires in. Promising La Ville Éternelle Nuit to whoever can pay the price.”

  “Damn. That is hinky.” La Ville Éternelle Nuit was what the vampires called New Orleans—except they didn’t really know it was New Orleans they were referring to as the City of Eternal Night. After the witch had her heart broken by her fae lover and cursed the city into becoming a vampire playground, the ruling Elektos had been able to temper the curse with a secondary spell that erased the memory of New Orleans from a vampire’s mind when they left.

  Now La Ville Éternelle Nuit existed in vampire legends, more a myth than a real place. Like Atlantis or the Lost City of Gold.

  Still, there was something in the witch’s curse that caused the city to act like a beacon to the pasty bloodsuckers, drawing them to the place over and over to the point that New Orleans had at one time seemed synonymous with vampires.

  Even in current times, the leeches managed to evade the fae checkpoints and bribe their way in on occasion. They might not understand why this place held such allure, but the draw remained. Eliminating the original witch’s curse would probably be the only way to break it, but so far no one had found a way to do that.

  “Told ya.” She emptied her bottle.

  He was only halfway through his, but he took a good swig in an effort to catch up. “Just one more reason I’m glad I never got sucked into that Guardian business. Bunch of hypocrites. You can’t tell me Khell doesn’t know what’s going on right under his nose.”

  “Maybe he does. Maybe he doesn’t. Just giving you a heads-up, I know you’re out and about a lot. You might run into one.”

  “I appreciate the intel. I’ll keep my eyes open.” He squinted at her. “You haven’t had any issues, have you?”

  She smiled, eyes glinting. “You know I never go anywhere without a reasonable amount of steel strapped to me somewhere.” She swung her leg out to rub against his. “Care to check the blade currently sheathed to my inner thigh?”

  He snorted. “I believe you.” He had a dagger in his boot but that was it, unlike the old days when he wore as much weaponry as he could, like the rest of his crew. Seemed it was a habit Dulcinea hadn’t broken. Wasn’t that unusual, really. Most fae went out pretty heavy, but he was trying to put that part of his life behind him for Livie’s sake. Besides, when you had the amounts of smokesinger and shadeux blood that he did, weapons were extraneous. Some days he wondered what Mortalis or their father could have taught him, considering he’d learned to master his skills on his own and with some help from Dulcinea, but he was already lethal. What more could there be? “Maybe there’s a bright side to these vamps in town.”

  “For real?”

  “Well, if Khell and the Elektos are busy with that issue, maybe they won’t care that I’m back.”

  She stared at him like he’d suddenly sprouted a third nostril. “Dude, you let a human into the Claustrum. They’re never going to let that go.”

  He sighed. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  “But,” she added, “they are plenty racked with this other business. Maybe if you catch a vamp or two, the Elektos would let things slide. You know, perform a couple of good-faith stakings.”

  He shook his head. “That’s not my way anymore, you know that. I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

  “You used to be both. Hey, you going to do Nokturnos this year? Or you think the Elektos will be watching for you?”

  “I’m sure they will be, but I’ll have a mask on so how are they going to find me? I wouldn’t miss it.”

  “Cool. Meet me at Mena’s beforehand and we’ll grab some dinner, then do a little pub run before the festivities get under way.”

  “It’s a date.”

  She gave him a look, then inhaled, lifting herself up slightly. “Okay, I gotta run. This is on me.” She slapped some plastic bills down on the bar top, hopped off her stool and without so much as another word, she left.

  Typical Dulcinea. He sat awhile longer, thinking about what she’d said. It wasn’t a bad idea for him to bag and tag a few of the vampire
intruders—if he could find any. Bringing the vamps in could help, but it would also put him squarely in the Elektos’s crosshairs. Not only would they know he was in town, but they might get the wild idea that he was angling for the Guardianship next time it came open.

  He crossed himself, a habit instilled by his mother and one he’d yet to shake. He hadn’t meant to wish any ill will toward Khell. Although no doubt the Guardian was under orders to bring Augustine in, probably alive but with the Elektos, that wasn’t a guarantee.

  Someone behind him dropped a bottle. The pop of shattering glass set his nerves on edge. He shouldn’t be out anyway. He slipped off the bar stool and headed for the john.

  Once inside the cramped stall, he pulled his mirror from his pocket and left Stella’s behind for a dinner of Lally’s RB&R, followed by his bed and a long night of hopefully dreamless sleep.

  “Please tell me you’re kidding.” Harlow stared at the fourth desk clerk she’d talked to in the last hour and a half. Driving twenty-four hours nonstop wasn’t really as fun as it sounded, even while listening to the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. Her last energy drink had worn off in Mississippi. Now every blink felt like sandpaper scraping her eyes. On top of that, she was being forced to talk to people. And they were everywhere in this crowded city. “I called from the last hotel. You said there were rooms.”

  He sighed like he didn’t have the time for the conversation. “You didn’t speak with me.”

  “Whoever I spoke with said there were rooms. They said they would hold one. I gave them my credit number.” A risk considering it might alert the CCU she was out of town, but as soon as she was in her room, she’d log on and take care of that.

  He sighed. “Your name again?”

  “Harlow Goodwin.” She rubbed at her eyes, which only made them worse. All she wanted was a bed.

  His brows rose. “Any relation to Olivia Goodwin? She lives here, you know.”

  “No relation, sorry.” It wasn’t fair to use the power of her mother’s name when they weren’t even on speaking terms.