Chapter Twenty-six
Augustine was about to pull into Evander’s driveway when the com cell behind his ear sent a familiar chime through his head. “Answer.”
“Augustine, where are you? Can you come home? I need you to come home.”
He’d never heard Harlow so panicked. “What’s going on? Are you hurt? I’m in the Garden District so I’m not far.” Without waiting for her answer, he shifted into reverse and spun the car around to head home. If Harlow needed him, he was there.
“I’m not hurt, I’m just really, really freaked out. How soon before you’re home? I don’t want to talk on the phone.”
What the hell had happened? “Two-three minutes. Sit tight, okay? Don’t freak out, I’m on my way.”
“Okay, good. Thank you.”
“Dulcinea still there?”
“She’s here. I’ll be in my room.”
True to his word, he was bounding up the stairs two minutes later. He lifted his hand to knock, but Harlow opened the door before his knuckles touched wood. “Come in.”
She was pale, her freckles exaggerated by her lack of color, and her gloved hands twitchy, moving nervously against one another, rolling the hem of her big sweatshirt, brushing hair out of her eyes that wasn’t there. “Hey,” he said. “Whatever it is, it’s okay. I’m here. We’ll figure this out.”
She shut the door behind him. “It’s Branzino.”
Augustine went on guard. “He was here?”
“No.” She walked to the bed and pointed at a box sitting near the edge. “He sent this.” She pulled the flap open. “Read the card.”
He dug into the tissue paper and whistled. “That’s a lot of cash. How much is in there?”
“I haven’t counted it, but I’m guessing two or three million.” She stared at the box. “Enough to buy you out.”
He unfolded the card and read it. “What’s he mean about the proof and your webcam?”
She hit a button on her open laptop and the holoscreen projected above it, showing a slightly washed-out close-up of a bed. “Look at the nightstand next to the bed.”
He peered closer, then stood up and looked at her. “I thought you didn’t know anything about Branzino before he showed up at the cemetery.”
“I didn’t. That picture of him on my nightstand? Someone put it there. Recently.”
“Sturka.” Anger rose like bile in Augustine’s gut. “He was in your house.”
She shook her head. “Probably not him, but someone who works for him. I think he’s still here. In town.” She tapped another button on the keyboard and the holoscreen vanished. “Worse than that, he knew when I took delivery of the package and knew when I logged onto my system and had control of it. The second I clicked on the bedroom camera, it began to move, focusing in on that picture while I watched.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “What am I going to do? How can I go home knowing he’s been in my place?”
He wanted to hold her, to reassure her that he could keep her safe, but right now, Branzino had the advantage. “This is your home now. Stay here until you have to turn yourself in.”
She hesitated like she wanted to believe that. “I guess I could. But that messenger came right to the door. What’s to stop Branzino from coming back? Or doing something worse? All my life I wanted to know my father, then he turns out to be a complete creep.”
She twisted a hank of hair around her hand. “And you’re moving into the Guardian house and taking Lally with you.” She shook her head. “Maybe I’ll turn myself in early. Get a head start on doing my time.”
“I’ll stay. Here.” He knew that longing of wanting a father. And of being disappointed in the one you had.
She looked at him. “In the house? You can do that?”
He nodded. “If you want me to. And yes.”
“That would be… good.” She sank down beside the box of money, her gloved fingers pushing the flaps down.
He nodded. “Then it’s settled. For as long as you need me, I’m here. And now that I’m Guardian, there’s a lot I can do to increase the security of the house, too.”
“Fae things?” Her nose wrinkled.
“Yes, fae things. You might not like them, or want to admit it, but they’re a hell of a lot more powerful than anything humans can provide.” He gestured to her laptop. “A house warded with a fae spell can’t be breached without serious effort.”
“Okay,” she said softly.
“It would really help if we knew what kind of fae he was.” Augustine looked at her. “No idea, huh?”
She frowned. “That’s like asking me the current temperature on Jupiter. You know a lot more about fae stuff than I do.”
“Which isn’t that much. Fortunately, I have resources.”
“Good.” She shoved the box a little farther away. “I wish I could keep this. It’s like he knows how desperately I need the money.”
“For what? You own half this estate. What else could you need?”
She snorted softly. “Eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
His brows shot up. “That’s a pretty specific amount.” He grinned. “You have a gambling debt you’ve been hiding?”
“No.” Another sigh that sounded like she was exhaling the weight of the world. “It’s the amount of my fine.”
“You have to do time and pay a fine?”
“No. One or the other.”
“So pay the fine.”
Her head snapped up and she gave him a look that said she thought he’d lost his mind. “Why didn’t I think of that? I totally forgot about my secret Swiss bank account.” Then she stilled. “Do you think there’s any chance, I mean, Cuthridge said at the will reading that the estate’s money was specifically to be used for the upkeep and maintenance of this place. I wonder if there’s any way he could extend that to keeping one of the estate’s owners out of prison.”
He nodded. “It’s worth talking to him about. I would think keeping one of the estate’s owners out of jail would be a reasonable request for the use of funds.” And if Cuthridge didn’t think so, Augustine would talk to Fenton about just how deep the Guardian’s pockets were. Harlow was not doing time on his watch if there was a way to prevent it.
Her mouth opened slightly and she stared into the room. “I need to see him first thing in the morning.” She glanced at the box. “In the meantime, what should I do with all this money?”
“Send it back to Branzino.”
“I don’t have an address. And what if it doesn’t arrive and he takes that as a sign that I’m down with his plan?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s the assumption he’s working under regardless of how you actually feel.”
She closed her eyes for a moment. “I can’t deal with this.”
“Leave it to me. I’ll figure something out.”
She stood and backed away from the box. “Great, because I don’t want it in here. Take it. Put it in your room, put it on the curb, I don’t want anything to do with it.”
He took hold of her shoulders. “Nothing is going to happen to you. I promise.”
Her eyes gleamed with a strange glint. “I appreciate that and I’m grateful you’re going to stay, but you should know that it’s purely for my own selfish security reasons. Nothing else.” She pulled back so that his hands came off her shoulders. “In other words, no more… kissing. Not when you’re already involved with someone else.”
“I told you I wouldn’t do that again until you asked.” He frowned. “What do you mean, involved with someone else?”
She crossed her arms. “Please. I know all about you and Dulcinea. I saw you two together when I was reading the cross.” She challenged him with a look. “I’m not here to be another notch on your bedpost.”
“I would never—Dulcinea and I, damn it, we are not involved. We are friends, nothing else, and that was a long time ago.” He’d never regretted a single woman in his past until this moment. Until this woman. Now he regretted every one of them.
“I don’t care if it was yesterday.” She picked up an earpiece from the dresser and tucked it over the curve of her ear, adjusting the hair-thin mouthpiece until it sat at the edge of her lips. Lips he’d like to get close to again. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to call Cuthridge, then I have some gronks to kill.” She opened her laptop and started typing. A holoscreen popped up with an image of a dense, foggy forest. “Shut the door behind you.”
He picked up the box and left, the sound of her fingers tapping on the keys fading as he closed the door. He had work to do, vampires to hunt down, Evander to visit, Fenton to update, this money to deal with and yet… all he wanted to do was stay here with Harlow and try to make her see he wasn’t such a bad guy.
But he didn’t know where to start.
Giselle knew Augustine would arrive at her father’s before her, but such was the disadvantage of relying on public transportation. Oddly enough, when she hopped off the trolley and walked toward his house, there was no car in the driveway. None on the street, either.
Augustine had either already been here and left, which seemed unlikely considering the lengthy conversation that would ensue over this black magic accusation, or he’d been bluffing and never planned to tell Evander anything.
She’d still have to talk to her father, suss things out. She couldn’t take the chance that Augustine had said anything without her being able to defend herself. Cormier answered the door.
“Is my father in?”
“No, Miss Giselle. He’s out at a meeting, I believe.”
“Has anyone else been by to see him today? Anyone fae?”
“No, miss. You’re the first visitor today.”
She nodded. That was a nice bit of news. “Thank you.”
He gestured into the house. “Did you want to leave a message?”
“No.” But Cormier would mention she’d been there either way. “Just tell him I haven’t heard anything about the list yet. He’ll know what I mean.” Her father would wonder why she’d bothered to tell him such an insignificant thing, but she’d work that out later.
She headed back to the trolley stop, thinking through what her next steps might be. If Augustine had someone capable of reading that cross, then he might already know who the fae was who’d paid her for the binding spell. But why come to her about it then? Why not just go after the fae?
Was his visit a chance for her to come clean and save herself? She stood in the shade of one of the big oaks lining St. Charles. Well, she’d done that, hadn’t she? She’d given up the man’s name, which was without question not his real one. That was all she really knew about him, although with her skills, she could find out more if she wanted.
What if Augustine actually found the fae? And what if the fae gave up her part in bringing in the vampires? Bespelling that silver cross was one thing, but the other spell she’d created, the spell that would allow a fae to pass as human… She reminded herself that all she’d done was create the spell with the blood provided. She’d never met the fae who’d used it. Unless that fae was also Dell. And she was sure he wouldn’t care if the witch he’d used got caught in the crossfire.
She shivered with sudden fear. She could not allow that to happen. Bringing in the vampires might have been the fae’s idea, but she’d helped because she’d seen the potential to destroy New Orleans’s Haven status and bring it back under the rule of her people.
Things had gotten out of control. She couldn’t have this mess snapping back at her. The trolley was approaching. There could be no trace of her involvement, but at the same time, she had to find a way to clean this up.
There was one person who could help her. She’d end up owing him, but what was one more debt if it meant she got away clean. The trolley rolled to a stop. She stepped on, waved her pass under the reader and found a seat, a brand-new destination in mind.
Augustine took the box of money downstairs with the idea that he’d store it in the panic room hidden behind one of the library’s bookcases, but when he got into the room, another thought occurred to him. If Branzino was smart enough to find his way into Harlow’s security system, why wouldn’t he also be smart enough to put some kind of bug in the money or the box?
He sat on the couch and took the stacks out, laying them on the coffee table as he inspected each one. With no idea what he was looking for, he hoped something would jump out at him. All counted, it was exactly eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The same amount Harlow needed for her fine. He tucked that info away for later and went back to his examination.
The bands wrapping the bills were all the same, no bumps or grooves that might be a hidden wire or receiver. He thumbed through the plastic bills, crisp and new and redolent of the chemicals used to recycle the plastic they were made from. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but that didn’t make him feel any better. He wasn’t exactly an expert on stacks of money.
Next, he felt inside the box, shook out the tissue and inspected the card. All of that seemed normal.
But the idea that Branzino had done something couldn’t be shaken. There was no way Augustine was leaving this box in the house, panic room or otherwise, as long as that man was a threat. He wouldn’t put Harlow under that stress.
Which meant he had to find a different place to store the money. He thought about asking Fenton, but Mortalis had once trusted the Elektos with a valuable ring and Loudreux had required a heavy favor to return it. Not that Augustine thought Fenton had the same motives, but leaving the Elektos out of this for now seemed a better option.
No, this was something he would take care of himself. He packed the money back up, folded the box flaps under each other to secure them, then left the box by the hall table and went to his room to collect a mirror. After that, he fetched a shovel from the garage. When he came back in, he gathered up the box and stood before the hall mirror.
A flicker of thought, the brief tug of magic and he was through, standing on the fae plane, facing the Claustrum. He walked toward the gates, close enough that the noise of those locked inside began to reach him. Their muted howls and moans were torn ragged by the wind, shredded into unearthly sounds that punctuated what a desperate, awful place the Claustrum was.
Choosing a point he would remember, he started digging. No one would find the box. No one would even know to look for it here. And if Branzino did have some kind of tracker on it and he followed it here, he couldn’t claim Harlow had kept the money. Not to mention he’d get a nice reminder of where he belonged.
The wind licked at the sweat on Augustine’s neck, curling around him and whining like a stray dog. He rammed the shovel into the hard, rocky ground again and again until he’d made a hole big enough, all the while listening over the Claustrum’s noise for the soft almost-voice he’d heard the last time. The sound that had seemed very much like his name trilling over the gray plane. It never came.
He dropped the box into the hole and started shoveling in the dirt, the crunch of gravelly earth against the cardboard satisfying in a way he couldn’t quite explain. At last, he stamped the dirt down and threw a few rocks over the spot to disguise it until the wind could do the rest. He wiped his hands on his jeans and stood back, looking through the Claustrum’s gates into the dark maw beyond.
As Guardian, the day would come when he’d be responsible for another fae being sent here. They’d have done something to deserve it, but the idea of being in such a position gave him pause.
Power was a heady thing, but nothing he’d ever actively sought out. Sure, when he’d been running the streets, he’d felt like the king of his world, but that position had come with a very high price. Now real power had been thrust upon him. A useful tool in this new job, he knew that, but at what cost? He’d saved his own skin from the Claustrum so that… he could send others here? The irony wasn’t lost on him.
He worried what the job would turn him into. How it would change him. Without Livie to temper his moods, how long before he turned back into the sharp-edge
d, hair-triggered rebel he’d once been? Harlow might be able to fill that role, but that would require her desire to do so, something he doubted she’d ever feel.
Would she be able to get over his part in her mother’s death? Already he knew he would kill whoever was responsible for letting the vampires in, once he found them. Without compunction, without hesitation, he would take a life, and his position as Guardian meant he’d suffer no consequences for it.
If necessary, he’d kill Branzino, too, if and when the time came, although when felt much more likely than if. The man was hiding something and if Augustine had to guess, he’d say Branzino’s money had come from less reputable sources than importing and exporting.
Maybe he should stop denying his own dark side and give it rein again. There was so much anger in him, suppressed for years as a kindness to Olivia, but he could easily release it. Be the Guardian everyone feared. He didn’t need to be loved. His mother had taught him years ago how to live without that.
That thought brought the prickle of dark heat to his bones. Made him want to rage against all the injustices that had occurred to him.
“Livie,” he whispered. “I wish you were still here.” She was, in a way. Her ashes anyway, which for him made this a sacred place. “I wish you could tell me what I need to do to get through to Harlow. To get her on my side,” he added, then slung the shovel over his shoulder and turned to put the Claustrum out of sight.
As he dug in his pocket for his mirror, the wind whipped up, scouring him with dirt. He scrubbed at his eyes, blinking them open only to slits.
The whirlwind of dust he’d last seen after spreading Olivia’s ashes had returned. He shook his head. It was just dirt, not ashes. Not her in any way.
But as it began to take on her familiar shape, that became harder to believe.
“Livie?” Hope sprang up in him, only to die a few seconds later when the wind vanished and the dust fell back to the ground.
His anger clawed to be released, to hunt and destroy. He nodded, giving it some space. He’d get Dulcinea to guard the house, then he’d go into the Quarter and look for vampires.
House of the Rising Sun Page 30
