Well, wasn’t Zrakovi efficient these days? Trying to prove himself decisive First Elder material, no doubt.
“Where’s it going to be?” The cabbie who’d brought me to the hotel from Eugenie’s house had talked of nothing but the explosion on the Tulane campus.
Jean retrieved a sheet of paper from the end table, shrugged, and handed it to me.
I scanned it. “The New Orleans Museum of Art, at ten p.m.?”
It made some sense, I guess. NOMA would be closed by then, and the Celebration in the Oaks holiday light show, which spread behind the museum through City Park, would be closed as well. They’d been shutting down early each night because of the weather.
Still, the museum had quite a good collection, and the council meetings had proven destructive. I hated to see priceless art in jeopardy.
“Okay, I’ll let you know something in the morning,” I said. “For now, I’d recommend you at least go into Old Orleans for the night, Adrian. I think you’re pretty low on Zrakovi’s to-do list right now, but you can be tracked eventually if you’re in New Orleans.”
Adrian stood. “Yes, I just wanted to talk to you first. I hope you’ll do the right thing, DJ.”
That made two of us.
I said good night and returned to my room, pulled a diet soda and a candy bar from the mini-fridge, and took out my cell phone.
I needed some advice.
CHAPTER 27
An hour later, I sat on the bed in my hotel room, watching Rene Delachaise take me at my word when I said, “Order whatever you want from room service.”
After he’d placed an order for turtle soup, grilled grouper, pecan-crusted trout, and cheesecake, I stopped trying to tally up the financial damage in my head. Good thing my credit line had recently been increased.
He held his hand over the phone and spoke in an exaggerated whisper. “What you want, babe?”
“A plate of andouille and a bottle of bourbon.” I stretched out on the bed, pulling a pillow over my face and wondering if I could suffocate myself without chickening out. It would solve so many problems.
Rene jumped on the bed with a bounce and sat cross-legged; I could see him from underneath the edges of the pillow.
“Okay, you said you needed to talk, and lucky for you I was already in town ’cause the roads to Plaquemines done been closed again and I can’t get home. It’s too damned cold to swim.” He grabbed my pillow and tossed it aside. “We could cuddle up in bed again, but you look like hell, babe.”
“Thanks.” Glad to know my looks matched my mood. “I needed to talk preternatural politics with someone neutral.”
Rene scratched his chin. “I ain’t exactly neutral, DJ. My papa’s the head of the water clans and Jean, he’s my friend and business partner.”
I sat up and scooted until my back rested against the upholstered headboard. “I know, but you’re familiar with the players yet not involved in this particular problem.”
Rene stretched out and bunched up my face-covering pillow beneath his head. “Okay, shoot.”
I went through the story as Adrian had told it to me.
As usually, Rene’s sharp mind distilled it into its simplest issue. “So you’re wondering who can get this information to Zrakovi and cause the least amount of shit to fly.”
“Right. Let’s go through the possibilities, assuming we have a taped version of Adrian’s testimony against Garrett Melnick and Mace Banyan. Melnick won’t be at the hearing tomorrow night, but Mace will. Adrian doesn’t dare show up in person.”
Rene pursed his lips. “You think they’ll believe him, even on tape?”
Good question. “I don’t know. Maybe. I think even Zrakovi would admit that Adrian’s real crime was getting in over his head and succumbing to blackmail. As far as I know he doesn’t have any personal grudge against Adrian.”
Rene nodded. “Why can’t Jean take the tape in?”
“The biggest problem with Jean is that Zrakovi already distrusts him.” Never mind Alex. “And Jake works for him, so they’d expect Jean to come up with something to get Jake off the hook. Mostly, though, Jean only understands a recording in a very theoretical sense. If he shows up at the council meeting with a DVD, they’ll know Adrian’s hiding out with him or else someone is acting as go-between.” Someone like yours truly.
“Yeah, you right,” Rene said. “Mark the pirate off the list.”
I was pretty sure Jean had come to the same conclusion, or he wouldn’t have called me in the first place. “Mark me off the list, too. If I show up with Adrian’s testimony, not only am I already in hot water with Zrakovi for disobeying a direct order, but I have a history with Jake and…”
Holy crap. Double holy crap. Mace Banyan knew that Jake had lost control and infected me with the loup-garou virus a couple of months ago. He couldn’t prove it, but he knew damned well that I’d bonded with Rand to keep from turning loup-garou. He had witnesses to plundering my memories and learning about Jake.
A loup-garou losing control meant a death sentence in our world. And now he could claim Jake had lost control twice, with me and now with Hoffman.
All of which I shared with Rene as soon as he forged my name for room service and wheeled over the huge tray of food. “I hate those fucking elves,” he said amiably, inspecting his dinner options. “What direct order did you disobey?”
I filled him in on Eugenie’s pregnancy and Zrakovi’s orders, delivered via Alex. “I lied to him, Rene. I couldn’t do what Zrakovi had ordered.”
“It was a stupid order. Bet Alex didn’t like it either, but the shifter, he’ll always try to follow orders ’cause that’s how he’s wired.” Rene chewed for a moment. “Gotta tell you, my papa don’t like Zrakovi much. Says he’s too ambitious now that he’s seen an opening in the power structure. He don’t much like your new uncle, either.”
Rene opened the bottle of bourbon, poured a generous few inches into glasses for each of us, and shoved one toward me. “This is a big mess, babe.”
Tell me about it. “I thought about having Adrian send the tape to Alex, but he’s got a credibility problem, too. Jake is his cousin.” Plus, there was no way in hell I’d put Alex in the middle of this, making him choose between saving Jake and lying to his boss.
“Zrakovi’d believe Alex, though.” Rene slurped up a spoonful of rich, reddish-brown turtle soup that had a fine sheen of sherry floating on top. I munched a hunk of smoked sausage. Freakin’ elves.
“Probably.” As far as I knew, Zrakovi still trusted Alex.
“Definitely,” Rene said. “Alex is in Z’s back pocket, or at least Z thinks so. Papa thinks he’s angling for head of the shifter/were group. Notice they didn’t have a representative at the last meeting? Alex was filling in.”
I frowned. No, I hadn’t noticed. I’d assumed Alex was strictly security. But I thought Rene was wrong. Alex might be named head of the shifter/were group, but it would be because he earned it, not because he’d played politics. “Alex would never sell himself out for a seat on the council. He’s a good enforcer, and Zrakovi knows he’s loyal.”
I worried that he’d confused loyalty with blind loyalty somewhere along the way. To me, there was a big difference.
“What about your elf?” Rene asked. “Seems if anybody would be able to take on Mace Banyan, it would be Randolph.”
I’d thought about that as well. “It would be a stronger case if Rand were genuinely surprised by it during the council hearing,” I said. “Part of that’s selfishness on my part. Zrakovi’s already furious at me for running to Rand with his plans to get rid of the baby. He’d suspect that anything coming from Rand also involved me. The elf needs to be clueless.” Which is why I’d had my mental loins heavily girded throughout this conversation.
We ate and drank in silence for a while. In the background, the local weather forecaster broke in the middle of a sitcom to issue another freeze warning and blither on about another foot or two of snow expected overnight. New Orleans’ weather had
become the focus of nationwide pontificating about global warming. The Weather Channel was broadcasting live from the Quarter daily now, with meteorologist Jim Cantore bundled up like an elf in a deep freeze.
“What about Christof?” Rene said. “He and Jake hang out some in Old Orleans and they’ve gotten to be buddies. Nobody on the council knows that except Jean and us.”
I chewed on my andouille and thought about it. Using Christof was an interesting idea. “Plus, he has no stake in this,” I said. “That’s perfect, if he’ll do it. We just need to make sure Jean has a way to get Jake out and back to Barataria in case everything blows up.”
Rene nodded. “You can set up—”
A knock on the door silenced him, and I crawled off the bed and went to answer it, returning with a folded sheet of paper. I stared at it a moment in horror. “Holy shit.”
Rene sat up. “What?”
I read: “Your presence is required at tonight’s Interspecies Council meeting. Please be prepared to testify regarding an incident in November involving Jacob Warin that allegedly left you exposed to the loup-garou virus. Also be prepared to explain how you were able to avoid contracting the virus and why the Elders were not notified. The meeting time has been changed to eight p.m.”
It was signed Willem V. Zrakovi, First Elder. No Acting in front of his name.
Mace had already struck. “This is an automatic death sentence for Jake. Why the hell does Mace want to destroy him? He doesn’t even know him.”
Rene sat, drank his bourbon, and thought a few seconds. “Jake’s just a means to an end, babe. Banyan wants it all.”
I crawled back on the bed. “How does getting Jake executed get him anything?” Other than ripping my heart out again and destroying a good man who’d worked hard to put together a life for himself. And destroying Alex. Surely Z wouldn’t order Alex to take out his own cousin.
“It changes everything,” Rene said. “Alex loses someone he loves. He loses ground with Zrakovi because he kept your and Jake’s secret. You’ll lose your job, at the very least; maybe you and Randolph even get accused of conspiracy since your bond was the main reason he got on the council. If you’re on the outs with the wizards and Randolph’s connection to them is gone, it leaves Mace Banyan stronger, the wizards’ dependence on him greater, and the vampires with nice, clean hands.”
Damn it, it was a brilliant plan. But we might be able to stop it.
“Christof’s the one to take it to the council, as long as Jean trusts him.” I rubbed my temples. “But we need a backup plan to get Jake out. Even if he’s cleared of killing Hoffman, they’ll know about what happened with me. I think Alex will be okay.”
Alex knew Jake had infected me, and he’d kept that secret. But he didn’t know about the bond with Rand until after it happened, and he went to Zrakovi immediately. His hands were mostly clean.
Mine were not. I’d probably lose my job, maybe even be stripped of my Green Congress license. I could be mixing illegal potions to sell on the black market.
Rene belched and pushed the tray away. I swear, for a wiry guy not an inch over five-nine, he could put away prodigious amounts of food. “I got an idea about getting Jake free if it all goes to hell, but we need Christof for that, too.”
After another hour, we’d moved our planning base back to Jean’s suite. I’d called the concierge, and they’d been oh so happy to run through the blinding snowstorm to Canal Street and pick up a video camera and DVD equipment.
By the time Adrian had recorded a halting, but effective, testimony, complete with the dates, times, and locations he’d seen Mace Banyan and Garrett Melnick together, Christof had arrived.
I thought Adrian was going to have heart failure when he realized who his delivery boy was going to be.
“You can’t trust the fae,” he whispered, pulling me aside. “We don’t know where their loyalties lie.”
I stepped back and gave him a hard look. “You need a reality check, Adrian. If there’s anything I’ve learned in the last couple of months, it’s that every group’s loyalty lies only to itself. That includes the wizards. Nobody’s looking out for the greater good. Nobody’s looking long-term.”
He glanced down, and when he lifted his gaze toward me again, his face was vulnerable and naked. “Unfortunately, you’re right. I…” He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry for having been so weak. I feel like I set all this in motion. I love Terri, but it shouldn’t have come to this.”
Christof had entered the suite carrying a half-gallon of generic store-brand ice cream and now was in search of a spoon. “There’s one on the tray in my room,” I said, and Rene went to retrieve it. “If you like ice cream, you should buy Blue Bell.”
Christof paused with an ice cream–covered finger stuck in his mouth. “It is good?”
“I would almost kill for it.”
“Bring it to me.”
I studied his face to see if he was joking—and to see what face he’d worn. Mr. Imperious today was about eighteen, with a Justin Bieber haircut and dimples. It was downright freaky.
“Fine.” I called my friend the concierge and asked if there was anyone who’d trudge through growing heaps of snow to buy two or three gallons of Blue Bell Ice Cream. “Make sure one is the homemade vanilla flavor,” I said. “Surprise us with the other two.”
If I had any money left on my credit card when I checked out, the concierge was getting a big tip.
Fortunately, ice cream seemed to put Christof in a jovial mood, especially when the Blue Bell arrived in fairly short order and he dipped a big spoonful of vanilla directly from carton to mouth.
A wide smile crossed his face. I’d looked in the bag. Wait till he tried the pralines and cream.
“What can I do for you, my friends?” he asked around a pint-size mouthful of ice cream. A literal pint-size.
Jean explained the problem, and posed the idea of Christof being the one to present the magical testimony at the council meeting. In hindsight, Jean was probably the last one who should be explaining video.
“Of course,” said the gluttonous Prince of Winter. He’d eaten a third of the vanilla while Jean talked, and now peeled off the top of the Tin Roof.
“Chocolate?” he asked, brows raised.
I nodded, being unfortunately well acquainted with the company’s entire roster of flavors. “Fudge and peanuts.”
He handed it to me. “Cocoa is harmful to the fae; even small amounts make us ill.”
What a sad, sad thing. No chocolate and no dogs. I said a prayer of thanks that I had no fae blood. I’d rather risk spontaneous hibernation than be forced to give up chocolate.
“You’re safe with the pralines and cream,” I assured him, watching in fascination as he peeled off the lid and dug out a mound of ice cream the size of a softball. It balanced delicately on the bowl of the Monteleone silver spoon while he licked his way around it with the tongue from his Justin Bieber mouth.
“We also wanted to see if you could help get Jake to safety if things go badly,” I said. “I’ll let Rene explain.”
“I will already say yes.” Christof finally set the carton of ice cream down, although he looked at it with regret. “Jake is a loyal friend. How could I do otherwise?”
I sort of liked this guy, in some freaky, otherworldly, totally surreal kind of way.
“Here’s my idea,” Rene said. “DJ and I can go to the park early to see the lights; I’ll run interference while she sets up a new transport behind the museum somewhere on the grounds.”
So far, so good. Although I was finding a polar fleece outfit to wear beforehand. “How do we get Jake to the transport if he’s wearing chains?” They’d shackled the prisoners the first time.
“Make up one of your little potions that could take care of it. You create a diversion while I use the potion to free Jake. I’ll get him out of the building.”
“What do you wish from me?” Christof, showing signs of sugar shock, had slumped on one of the sofas with his e
yes at half-mast.
“You create a diversion outside,” Rene said. “Some of this thick snow—maybe even thicker. Enough to give us a camouflage. Then somebody’ll have to break the transport.”
“I’d say whoever gets there first.” I figured it might be me. Unless I was testifying or they had me in chains myself, I’d probably be pretty low on everyone’s radar if pandemonium broke loose. I could create a diversion in the room without being near the source. A nice smoke bomb or something. “And Jean, you should go to Barataria with Jake. If anyone tries to follow, you need to make sure your ducks are in a row.”
He frowned at me. “Les canards? I do not trade in poultry, Drusilla. I shall be prepared nonetheless.”
I wanted to sleep so badly my bones ached, but there was no time. I had to warn Alex that Mace was going to rat out Jake, in case he didn’t already know. I had to warn Rand that we might be in deep-shit trouble. I had to go to my freezing house in Lakeview and cook up some potions. And I had to check on Eugenie.
All in time to meet Rene in City Park at seven p.m. to set up an illegal transport in the midst of a blizzard.
Running away from home had never sounded so good.
CHAPTER 28
I checked my cell phone on the way back to my room and found two missed calls from Rand, and two from Alex.
Any conversation with Alex would be an emotional wringer, and Rand had probably been pounding on my mental stronghold, so I dropped my shields. Rand!
Where the hell have you been? Transport here now. And stop yelling.
I took a quick shower and put on four sweaters. After a moment of thought, I tugged on the bottoms of my flannel Harry Potter pajamas and managed to get my jeans over them. Housekeeping kept vacuuming up my transport, so I dug out my vial of salt and laid a new one, grabbed Charlie and my messenger bag, and transported to Rivendell.
Rand was sitting in the gazebo, looking like the world’s most petulant elf. I’d known the real Quince Randolph would show up eventually, but I wished he could’ve behaved until I’d gotten some sleep.
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