[Bayou Gavotte 03.0] Heart of Constantine

by Barbara Monajem

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text copyright © 2013 Barbara Monajem

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  ISBN-13: 9781477834770

  ISBN-10: 147783477X

  To all birds everywhere—even ostriches, of which there are none in this book. If I’d thought about it earlier, there would have been.

  CONTENTS

  START READING

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Spirit guide: An intangible life-form charged with guiding a human being. Guides may remain in spirit form or take temporary possession of living creatures—most commonly, birds. Spirit guides have their work cut out for them, as human beings are notoriously unwilling to listen to advice.

  – D. Tull, Encyclopedia of Not-So-Mythical Beings

  CHAPTER ONE

  Constantine Dufray stood, brushing pine straw off his jeans, and told his pesky spirit guide to take a hike. The guide took possession of an owl and flapped away to a bald cypress by the bayou. Constantine sucked in the moist dawn air at the top of the Indian mound, where he’d spent the night trying to center himself. He doubted the spirit’s choice of vehicle had anything to do with the last shreds of darkness. Being a bird of ill omen was just its damnable sense of humor. Although no one had died at Constantine’s impromptu midnight concert, the night was not quite over.

  Look on the bright side, the spirit said from its distant perch. You didn’t annihilate that fan. You didn’t even snarl at him.

  Fine, but it didn’t mean he’d succeeded in controlling the powers of his mind. After the tightly built, dark-haired youth at the front of the crowd had gawped at Constantine for a full hour, giving him a knot in the solar plexus and a tingling in his arms that made him long to strangle or punch or… Instead, he’d given the guy his guitar.

  So what? Everybody gave away guitars. The ecstasy on the guy’s face had made Constantine want to puke, which was annoying since he’d thought himself long past caring one way or the other about hero worship, but that wasn’t the issue. Something about the young man’s eyes, maybe, or his stance, had given Constantine a sensation of worms crawling through his gut, awakening the anger that always nested inside him.

  But he’d mastered resisting the urge to smash through the worship with terrifying thoughts. If Constantine imagined the guy pulling a knife and stabbing himself, the guy might really do it. Instead, he’d channeled the anger into passionate treatment of his sappier songs and sent out terrifyingly positive thoughts: love, peace, harmony. It was a crock of shit, but…

  Unlike the catastrophic concerts of several months earlier, there’d been no riot, no fights or knifings, no one carried away broken and bleeding or dead.

  In other words, success. Right?

  Someone’s coming, the owl said.

  Constantine cocked his head; the tree frogs and katydids had sung their last chorus before dawn, and all he heard were the morning’s first birds. Dancing Dude again? The guy who sang and prayed on the mounds by night had idled his black van on the far side of the biggest mound earlier, but departed without performing one of his rituals.

  No, it wasn’t the familiar rumble of the van that greeted him now, but the soft thud of footsteps. That damned fan again! Constantine didn’t have to see him clearly against the faintly pink sky to know. A worm pinged at his gut once more. He ignored it, stretching his hamstrings as the guy pounded across the grassy top of Baby Mound, the smallest of three built by prehistoric Indians. More by ear than sight, he sensed the guy’s sure-footed leaps down the scrubby sides of the hill and his steady progress across the long field below and up the side of Mama Mound. Constantine blended with the tattered pine under which he had spent the last few hours and waited for the guy to be safely out of the way.

  The youth thudded past him and down the other side toward Papa Mound. A huge live oak dominated one corner of the sixty-foot-high hill. Right outside the perimeter of the tree, a foot or two from the edge of the mound, something moved. A pale female form wavered on hands and knees, head hanging, long hair brushing the grass.

  The guy reached the base of Papa Mound and started upward with all the finesse of a freight train. At Constantine’s warning shout, the guy shot a glance behind, then pounded even faster toward the flat top of the mound. Too late, he hesitated, tripped, and dove over the girl, toppling her, and landed in a lopsided shoulder roll on the lawn.

  The dark van hurtled toward Marguerite McHugh, purring its deadly message. I’m coming for you, you’re next, you’re next, you’re—

  It slammed into her, and she burst from the dream she’d had almost nightly for the past two weeks. She took a few deep, shuddering breaths and tried to open her eyes. All she needed was to be calm. She was safely in bed, not dead on the road like Pauline, and in a few seconds she would wake properly, and everything would be fine.

  “Marguerite?” She knew that voice. He sounded desperately frightened, but she had no idea why. Fingers fumbled at her wrist. “You can’t be dead.”

  No, no, I’m not dead! Pauline is the dead one. But Marguerite’s mouth refused to move.

  “Please don’t be dead!”

  Zeb?

  Marguerite felt her eyelids flutter, but she couldn’t break the surface to reassure him. She heard Zeb say, “Thank God” and felt him let go of her wrist. She must be alive. Relief washed over her.

  “What am I going to do with this shit?” Zeb said. “Oh, fuck, he’s coming. I have to go, but he’ll help you.”

  She heard Zeb hasten away, his footfalls pounding into the distance. Her mattress was too lumpy and the birds were too loud, and she couldn’t figure out what Zeb had been doing in her bedroom, but her eyes still wouldn’t open, and her brain felt like sludge. She drifted into an uneasy doze.

  She woke again. Now… someone else was near.

  She blinked away the fuzz in her eyes and her mind. She wasn’t in her bed but outdoors, lying near a vast tree. Under her was a blanket, with blades of grass pricking through here and there. A crow cawed high above her. She hadn’t been run over by the dark van of her dream.

  She wasn’t dead, like Pauline. What time is it? Where am I? Somewhere a car door slammed, followed by urgent voices. She sat up and looked around for Zeb but remembered his retreating footsteps. Then she saw the man. Her heart thumped dizzily against her chest. He stood a few feet away, silhouetted against the pink and gold of dawn. He wasn’t looking at her but toward the voices. Blinking again, she followed his gaze but saw nothing but a vast field and, in the distance, the haphazard tops of a stand of pines. She was on a hill… She returned her eyes to the man. He was tall and wi
de-shouldered, with a long, dark ponytail hanging down his back.

  What the hell is going on? How did I get here? She didn’t remember a thing.

  Then her sixth sense woke up, and she really saw him: a cacophony of colors, a spiked wheel of rage and despair. It hurt. God, it hurt. She clutched her hands to her head, gasping, and the rage withdrew, the spikes of the wheel turned inward, and the man shuddered as if he truly were impaled.

  “Sorry,” he said softly, his tone tight and flat.

  The other voices neared. Two men, one with untidy blond curls and a darker guy carrying a camera, appeared over the brow of the hill and charged across the lawn. Fully alert now, Marguerite bristled with loathing. There were always a few paparazzi in town, and she recognized these two. They were obsessed with Constantine Dufray, and—oh!

  God, he was beautiful. She had seen him before, of course—pictures aplenty and occasionally in person—but never this close. What presence the man had. It wasn’t just the gorgeous high cheekbones and the copper skin of his half-Navajo heritage or his graceful build. He radiated power—intense, a little frightening, and fascinating at the same time.

  “Got you!” cried the blond guy. “What could be better? Murder was bad enough, but now you’re drugging and raping innocent women. You’ve had it, Dufray. Face it, you’re dead.”

  “Sure am,” said Constantine Dufray. Marguerite ignored the photographer capering about and stared up at the rock star, wondering if he recognized her. She’d seen him now and then at the Impractical Cat, the restaurant where he hung out, and she’d done her best to read his aura, but he’d become something of a recluse lately. He’d had the most awful bad luck at some of his concerts—even riots where people were killed. Sure, he was one of Bayou Gavotte’s vigilantes, but would he try to murder his own fans? No way.

  Go ahead, a voice said dully. Who’d said that? Not the reporter or his sidekick, and Constantine wasn’t looking at her but up at the crow, which had fluttered down to a branch just above his head. The colors that surrounded him roiled and churned, fizzled and spat. His aura stretched and reached out toward her.

  Accuse me. Get it over with.

  Damn. She hadn’t heard a voice in her head for years. It wasn’t one of her favorite experiences. In fact, it ranked right up there with her worst. But this wasn’t someone’s secret wish sent out involuntarily. This was a voice that intended to be heard.

  She found her tongue. “What did you say?”

  The reporter bent down and shoved his recorder in her face. “Tell us about it, love. All the gory details.”

  Marguerite pushed his hand away. “I’m not talking to you.” She’d known a few people who projected their thoughts, particularly when their auras were in turmoil, but nothing as clear and directed as this. It seemed that the rumors about Constantine Dufray’s telepathic abilities were true.

  Accuse me, the flat voice said again. That’s what you’re here for, so just do it. A maelstrom of bitterness and despair swirled around and above Constantine like a tight column of flame. The crow cawed loudly and skittered sideways along the branch. Marguerite knitted her brows, trying again to take it all in, and realized at last that she was on top of one of the Indian mounds, the only hills in Bayou Gavotte.

  Oh. Now she remembered: Constantine’s impromptu concert on the field below. His first public performance in months.

  “Can’t let him get away with it, love.” The blond wasn’t an Englishman, so the pseudo-Brit endearment only emphasized his obnoxiousness.

  Marguerite frowned up at Constantine. “Get away… with what?”

  Come on now, girl. Didn’t he prep you better than that?

  “Prep me? I don’t understand.”

  Constantine rolled his eyes casually, indifferently, but his aura writhed toward her, flickered and shuddered, its message utterly contradicting his behavior and making her head hurt again. Drugging and raping you, to be followed by ritual murder. His aura withdrew, and the pain went with it. It’s all right, babe, you can play your role. I won’t harm you, I swear.

  Constantine had raped her? A brief terror ran through her, but she shook it off and cleared her thoughts. Somebody must have drugged her—but Constantine? She didn’t believe it. She fought away the last of the fog, blinking up at him and his aura. She sensed pain and anger and an overwhelming despair, but nothing of the predator in that whirlpool of emotions.

  The reporter blathered in her face. “He’s gotten away with brutal beatings, torture, and murder. You would have been next if we hadn’t gotten here in time.”

  Marguerite dragged her eyes from Constantine and took a good look at the reporter and his smarmy grin. This was the kind of person whose aura she did her utmost not to see. Eagerness hissed and seethed in the reporter’s aura, as if he relished this opportunity.

  Maybe it wasn’t an opportunity at all. Prepped, Constantine had said. Play your role. Maybe it was a setup… and he believed she was part of it.

  Fury boiled up inside her—fury from years ago that would never go away. The media had destroyed her father. She hated reporters. She still wasn’t sure what was going on, but she refused to give this one what he wanted.

  She wiped the sleep from her eyes and smiled tentatively at the rock star. “Sorry, Constantine,” she said. “Meditating’s not my thing. I must have dropped off to sleep.”

  “Sleep?” the reporter shouted. “He drugged you! Don’t you understand? He was going to rape you. He brought this bizarre paraphernalia up here.” He waved a hand to where, several feet behind her, the photographer was taking shots of some firewood, a tin cup, and a copper mask. “God knows what horrors he had planned, but we’ve finally caught him at it. You’ll be famous, your picture on the covers of magazines and all over the web: ‘The Girl Who Brought Him Down.’

  How dare they? “What are you talking about?” she said.

  The crow flapped away, and for the first time Constantine faced Marguerite. She tried to stand, but her head spun, and she swayed. Instantly he was there with a hand, warm and strong, pulling her up and setting her firmly on her feet. His eyes were cold, a disturbing contrast to the heat of his hand.

  A blue jay screeched nearby, and another joined in. Grab your moment of fame and run with it, babe.

  “Like hell I will,” she said.

  “Don’t be afraid of him, love,” the reporter said. “We’ll get you away from here, keep you safe.” The flash went off in her face.

  She wasn’t afraid. She was furious. “Damn!” she said, still shaky, but entirely sure of what she had to do. She put a hand on Constantine’s arm and leaned into him. “Where were you?” she said, putting on a plaintive voice. “I meditated for ages, but I got bored waiting for you. That’s why I fell asleep.”

  Constantine’s cold eyes bored into her for a long moment. “Yeah, but on the wrong mound,” he said, his aura suspicious even as he played along. “I said Mama Mound, not Papa.”

  The reporter huffed. This wasn’t enough for him. He wanted a story, and if they didn’t give him a good one, he would revert to the rape scenario.

  “Whoops.” Marguerite managed a giggle. “It’s already morning, and we didn’t even…” She paused. Through her fury, a sensible core suggested this was crazy and almost certainly stupid, but she knew the media, and nothing less would work. “We didn’t even do it,” she finished.

  Constantine let out a long whoosh of breath. His lips curled in his famous grin, but his eyes remained cool and distant. The storm of color was quieter now, although still dense with pain. She was no telepath, and she didn’t consider herself a reassuring sort of person anyway. The best she could manage was to squeeze his arm.

  “Sorry, Nathan,” he told the reporter. He took Marguerite’s hand and swung it gently back and forth. “I guess there was a little too much meditating and not enough… doing.”

  She poked him in the chest. “You owe me. You can’t promise a girl tantric sex and then not deliver. It’s simply not fair.” />
  Constantine put the question to himself and his spirit guide, which for the moment was occupying a crow: Why would this woman, who was participating in an attempt to destroy him, change her mind and protect him?

  The most obvious answer: She’d decided sex with a rock star was worth more than whatever pittance Nathan Bone had offered to pay her. The next most obvious: She was working for someone else besides Nathan—most likely Constantine’s elusive Enemy—and this apparent about-face was part of the plan. The third possibility: She was an innocent pawn.

  It’s because you’re horny, the crow said in Constantine’s head, which made no sense but was entirely true. Gingerly, Constantine put an arm around the woman. His rage was well under control—she wasn’t cringing or clutching her temples—but since she’d mentioned tantric sex, it was all he could do to keep himself from wrapping his arms around her… breathing her in… consuming her.

  Tantric sex? Hell, any kind of sex would do. Damn, she smelled good: sleep-tousled woman and the outdoors. The jays had gone about their business, and the crow taunted him from high in a pine. Lately, his guide had encouraged him to try having sex again—the last time had been eons ago, before the death of his wife—and the crow had been particularly persistent about this girl. Her name was Marguerite, and she’d done the faux finish on a few benches for the patio at the Impractical Cat. Constantine had made a point of avoiding her because her fresh beauty made him yearn. With his telepathic powers out of control, he couldn’t afford anything so maudlin—and dangerous—as yearning.

  He shouldn’t be surprised she’d ended up selling herself for a media stunt. That was the way of the world. He suppressed a pang of disappointment. He must be getting soft.

  No, just slow, the crow said. You should have done her when I told you to.

  This was typically exasperating bird logic—advice so incomprehensible that Constantine couldn’t bring himself to follow it. The last thing he needed was a turncoat girlfriend. When Marguerite’s roommate, an older woman, had been found dead a few weeks earlier near his property on the bayou, he’d congratulated himself on ignoring the bird’s pestering. Nathan had done his best to implicate him in the death—without the slightest justification, as the police had confirmed. Not that speculation about Constantine was unusual: He was a rock star and a vigilante, and even two years after the fact, some people still suspected him of poisoning his drug-addicted wife—but someone was systematically feeding Nathan with nasty accusations. Fortunately, it turned out that Marguerite’s roommate had committed suicide with her own prescription meds. Someone had run over her when she was already dead—probably some poor fool driving too fast in the dark.