by Chloe Neill
“Is that unusual?” Liam asked.
“Not necessarily. We oversee operations in Devil’s Isle, Containment operations in the New Orleans quadrant. That’s a small slice of the PCC’s pie. But Broussard was one of our people. I’d know about anything he was working on.”
“And what was he working on?” Liam asked.
“Nothing unusual,” Gunnar said, meeting his gaze. “We’re more than a month past the battle and still processing the intel on Reveillon, working through the individuals we arrested. He’s been in on that. But Reveillon’s old news, according to Gavin’s report.”
Gavin nodded. “Sporadic discussion in the Zone. No action I could find.”
“Like I said, I’ll look into it. And I’ll let you know what I find.”
“There’s more,” I said, and looked at Malachi. “There are Paranormals at Vacherie. One’s sick, and one was sick but passed away. Both were friends of Malachi’s.”
“Man, I’m sorry,” Gunnar said.
Malachi nodded.
“What kind of illness?”
I described what we’d seen. “Does that ring any bells for you? Sound familiar? It’s unusual, and we want to make sure it’s not spreading.”
“I’m not aware of anything,” Gunnar said. “Lizzie would know better than me, since she’s at the clinic, but she’d have reported something unusual, and she didn’t. She did tell me she appreciated your package.”
That was something, anyway. “The Paras are being treated at the farm, because they think if they come into the clinic, they won’t be able to leave again.”
“That’s a possibility,” Gunnar agreed after a moment. “Based on the phrasing of the regulation.”
I nodded. “If you’ve got any extra medics, maybe you could send someone out to look at them?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Appreciate it,” Malachi said, and Gunnar gave him a nod.
“Go back for a minute,” Liam said. “What package did you give Lizzie?” He’d introduced me to her; she’d been his friend first.
“Goods for the clinic,” Gavin said. “Delta’s been busy in the last few weeks.”
“Gunnar arranged the logistics,” I explained. “Moses and I scavenge. Lizzie gets whatever we can find for the clinic, and we don’t get nabbed for dropping it off.”
“How do you do that?” Liam asked.
“Delivery entrance,” Gunnar said.
“Devil’s Isle doesn’t have a delivery entrance.”
“It does now,” Gunnar said with a smile. “The battle did some damage to the walls. We took the opportunity to do some upgrades.”
“They’re going to build a gym,” Malachi said. “For the residents.”
“A gym?” Gavin asked.
“Recreation facility,” Gunnar said, “for the kids who’ve been born in Devil’s Isle.”
“Innocent kids,” I said, and he nodded.
“Yeah. Kids who need an outlet.”
“How’d you get the taxpayers to foot the bill for that?” Liam asked.
Gunnar’s smile widened. “They didn’t. It will be built thanks to a very large donation from the Arsenault Foundation.”
Liam’s brows lifted in surprise. I guess Eleanor hadn’t told him about that, assuming she’d known. The decision could have been made by her friends in Washington.
“There’ve been a lot of changes while I’ve been gone.”
His words seemed to change the temperature of the room, putting a chill in the air.
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have left,” Gunnar said. “You ready to talk about that? Because several of us have questions.”
“Many questions,” Tadji said. “And also some declarative sentences.”
Liam looked at me, the heat in his eyes sizzling enough to scorch. “I did what I had to do.”
“Which was?” Tadji prompted.
There was silence for a long time. And then he looked at me. “What was necessary.”
The pain in his eyes was clear enough, and the room went quiet. And so the mystery of Liam’s missing weeks still hung in the air.
“Have you been eating?”
I looked at Gunnar, and it took a moment for my brain to catch up with the abrupt shift. “What?”
His gaze narrowed. “You’ve lost weight you didn’t need to lose. I’m making you a grilled cheese sandwich.”
“I don’t need a grilled cheese sandwich.” Never mind that my weight was none of Gunnar’s business. But that didn’t stop him from playing big brother.
“Tough. I don’t need you out there on your own, forgetting to eat.”
“I don’t forget to eat.” I just didn’t care that much about it these days. Which, when you put it that way, made it sound like he was right. My jeans had felt a little looser.
Not taking my word for it, Gunnar rose to go into the kitchen.
“I guess we’re having grilled cheese,” Tadji said, then stood and took my hand. “Come on, Claire. Let’s get you fed.”
• • •
I could feed myself. And did, when I needed food. But the grilled cheese still hit the spot. So did the second one that I accepted after everyone else was satisfied. Gunnar felt better for having done it, and the bread and cheese laid a nice foundation for the alcohol.
We were having an impromptu reunion, after all. And now that the business was done, we decided to make the most of it.
Gunnar played tender at the built-in bar on the other side of the room. “What’s everyone drinking?”
He was answered by a chorus of requests.
“Excellent,” he said. “You get Sazeracs or you get nothing.”
“Claire makes a fantastic Sazerac,” Tadji said.
“Oh, I know,” Gunnar said with a grin as he added bitters to highball glasses. “Who do you think taught her how to do it?”
“I assumed she taught you,” Tadji said with a wink.
“The memory is somewhat hazy,” Gunnar said.
She grabbed the first two glasses he’d filled, then gestured toward the door.
“Claire and I are going to take a walk. You gentlemen do what you will.”
“Poker?” Gavin asked.
“You cheat,” Liam said.
“You just don’t like losing.” He glanced at Malachi speculatively. “You ever played poker?”
“I have not.”
Gavin’s grin said all we needed to know about how that was going to go.
Tadji said to me, “Let’s go into the orangery.”
“You just like saying ‘orangery.’”
“True. But mostly I like being in houses that have them.”
In that case she’d come to the right place.
• • •
The Landreau house was enormous—a late 1920s mansion with a lot of style.
The orangery was pretty much as described: an octagonal peninsula off the back of the house. Five orange trees in terra-cotta pots were blossoming in front of the windows, perfuming the air with floral and citrus scents.
The floor was covered in marble tile, and the ceiling was a cage of glass and steel. If you needed a break from sniffing orange blossoms, there were wicker couches and chairs with deep cushions, and small stone-and-metal tables with matching chairs.
We took seats on the couches. Tadji was already barefoot, and she tucked her feet beneath her as she sat.
“Now that we can talk,” she said, turning to face me, “what the hell is the story with Liam?”
“I don’t exactly know,” I finally said, and told her about our conversation in the garage.
“What do you think happened?”
“No idea. I assume it has something to do with his magic, and that it’s not good. But that’s based on the look in his eyes. He won’t
talk about it, and I’m not going to fall at his feet just because he’s here.”
“Nor should you.” She thought for a minute, swirling the liquid in her glass, and nodded. “Ball’s in his court until he fesses up.”
“Agreed.” I took a drink.
It was potent, but layered with flavors. Complex, just like New Orleans. Gunnar did make a pretty good Sazerac.
“I heard about Burke,” I said. “Have you heard from him?”
Tadji and Burke, a former Delta member, had been progressing their relationship very slowly—at her request. But he’d been reassigned after the battle, shipped back to DC and PCC headquarters.
“He’s doing all right, as far as I can tell.”
“And how are you?”
She was quiet for a moment. “Do you believe that absence makes the heart grow fonder?”
“Evidence says yes.”
“Well,” she said, “then let’s just leave it at that.”
She was clearly eager to change the subject, so I shifted it back to my first love. “The store looks good.”
She looked at me, eyes wide with surprise. And then they narrowed with obvious anger. “What do you mean, ‘The store looks good’?”
“Which part are you unhappy about?”
“First of all, the store looks phenomenal,” she said, counting off on her fingers. “Second of all, you shouldn’t know that. You shouldn’t know anything about the store, because you’re supposed to be staying away from it.”
Perversely, the irritation in her voice made me feel better. If she was angry that I had seen her at the store, that meant she wasn’t angry that I hadn’t. She didn’t feel burdened by taking it over, or at least not enough to be angry at me over it. That lifted some of the psychic weight I’d been carrying around.
“I just wanted to check on things. How’s the dissertation?” I asked, trying to change the subject for my own benefit this time.
“Two more chapters done.”
I stared at her. “While running the store on your own? How are you doing that?”
Tadji grinned, pushed hair behind her ear. “Honey, I’m not doing it on my own. I’ve hired people. There’s money in the budget to do that now.”
Touché, I thought, with only a little shame that I hadn’t been able to get the store to that kind of profitability.
“And, it turns out, I really like being busy. It makes me more productive to have a tight schedule. It’s harder to make excuses when you know you have less time. So I made myself a schedule, and I work in the back office while Ezell—he’s one of my probationary hires—watches the store.”
“There isn’t a back office.”
She just looked at me, the same way Liam had looked at Gunnar when Gunnar told him about the delivery entry to Devil’s Isle.
“Damn, you’re good.”
“I know,” she said with a cheeky grin.
“How do things feel in the Quarter?” I’d missed seeing my regular customers, getting a feel for Containment by watching soldiers moving in and out of the neighborhood. Being in isolation was, well, isolating.
“There’s a weird mood,” she said, setting her drink on the coffee table.
“How so?”
She frowned, crossed her arms. “Before the battle, we’d gotten comfortable. Maybe not entirely comfortable with Devil’s Isle, but we’d gotten used to the way things were.”
I nodded. We’d learned to survive during the war. When it was over, it had taken time for us to accept that we were safe, that a battalion of Valkyries wasn’t heading for the city, golden weapons at the ready. But we’d made new lives, begun to accept our new world.
“Since the battle,” she continued, “it’s like we’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. For another battle to begin. People look over their shoulders a lot more, wondering if there are more Reveillon members out there.
“But at the same time,” she said, “there’s a new kind of camaraderie because we fought together. Citizens and soldiers and Paras. We hold coffee klatch on Thursday nights. Someone brings coffee, someone brings a snack, I bring the room and the electricity. And we talk. We’re honest. That’s a pretty big change.”
“It’s good,” I agreed. “It’s very good.” I thought of Broussard and the apparent frame job. If anyone knew the word on the streets of New Orleans, it was the woman who ran Royal Mercantile.
And I felt a little pang that I wasn’t that woman right now.
“What are you hearing about Containment?”
She glanced back at the doorway, checking that we had privacy. “Nothing about Icarus. If that’s part of this. I haven’t heard the word since my last myth and mythology class.”
“If you hear anything specific, let me know.”
“I will.” She crossed her legs. “What have you been doing since the battle? Other than delivering goods to the clinic and occasionally spying on my store?”
That was pretty much it. Like everyone else in the Zone, I’d been surviving. There wasn’t much to say beyond that. But I told her what there was to tell.
“And how is Moses?” she asked with a grin.
“Grouchy.”
“So about the same.”
“Pretty much.”
She paused. “What are you going to do about Liam?”
“I don’t know. I guess just see where it goes.”
She patted my leg. “You look exhausted, and you’ve had a helluva day. You’ll get some sleep, let it simmer, and have a clearer outlook.”
I hoped she was right. Because right now things were pretty damn murky.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I was hoping for a ride back to the gas station. It was more than four miles from Gunnar’s house, and I’d done plenty of miles today. Besides, the Sazerac was doing its job. My legs felt all warm and soft. By the time we got back to the living room—a good two-minute walk from the orangery—I was ready for bed.
But we found the living room empty.
“Maybe the poker went bad, so they decided to go with a duel?”
“Possible,” I said, “but I don’t think Gunnar would allow that.”
Voices lifted from the doorway on the other side of the room, so we walked that way. And stared.
At the very formal dining table, in a room with walls papered in large flowers, sat four attractive men, shirts discarded, locked in combat. They faced each other in pairs, right hands locked together.
They were arm wrestling.
“Did I drink straight absinthe?” Tadji asked, cocking her head at the scene.
“If so, we both did.”
“Not that I’m complaining,” Tadji said, her gaze full of appreciation.
Gunnar glanced up at us, sweat popping out on his brow, biceps bulging as he and Gavin struggled for control. “Gun. Show,” he muttered through teeth clenched in concentration.
“And are we fighting for money,” Tadji asked, “or just to caress our egos?”
“For glory,” Gavin said, but didn’t take his gaze off his opponent.
Malachi and Liam didn’t talk at all. They just stared at each other, knuckles white with effort as they battled.
“Go blow in his ear,” Tadji whispered. “Distract him.”
“Which one of them?”
“That’s my girl,” she said with a grin. “Gentlemen, it’s getting late. So if you’ll wrap up . . . whatever this is, someone needs to give my girl here a ride back to her sanctuary.”
There were manly grunts, guttural screams, and finally fists pounded the table.
Gunnar beat Gavin.
Liam beat Malachi.
More power to them.
Gavin rubbed his wrist. “Haven’t had a workout like that in a while.”
“Y’all have the brains of a fourteen-year-old boy,” Tadji said.
“Collectively.”
“Probably.” He glanced at Liam. “Big brother managed a good win.”
Without comment, Liam stood and put his T-shirt back on. And didn’t bother to avert his gaze. He watched me as I watched him, and there shouldn’t have been so much power in a look, in the simple act of a beautiful man pulling a shirt on.
“Oh, you are hosed,” Gunnar muttered, sliding behind me to grab his own shirt. “Not that I can fault your taste.”
“Physically, no,” I said. “But emotionally?”
“Maybe he’ll have convincing things to say.”
Maybe. But he had to be willing to talk. And he wasn’t there yet. I didn’t know what could happen between us—but I knew it could only start with honesty.
“You can sleep here,” Gunnar said to me. “Plenty of bedrooms.”
The idea was inviting—spending the night in a cozy bed in this castle of a house, knowing that I wouldn’t be alone. But my being here would put him in danger, and that wasn’t worth the risk.
“Thanks, but no, thanks. I’ll head home.”
“When will I see you again?” Tadji asked, concern pinching her features.
“I don’t know.” I’d tried to reassure myself that solitude wouldn’t last forever. But so far, Containment was still Containment. “Hopefully sooner rather than later.”
“If I find out anything on my end,” Gunnar said, “I’ll let you know. I’m going to have to look into it very discreetly. So it may not be tomorrow. But I’ll let you know as soon as I have information.”
“We can meet at Moses’s house in the morning,” I suggested. “Maybe he’s found something else about the stub.”
Gunnar nodded. “Fine by me.”
“While we’re making arrangements,” Liam said, “I want to see Broussard’s place.”
Gunnar was quiet for a moment. “That will take time to arrange. The building’s sealed, and I don’t have authority to let you in.”
“How long?”
“A few days, maybe. I’ll have to call in a favor.”
That didn’t calm Liam’s obvious impatience. “I’m accused of killing him. I have the right to see the scene, to see what I’m accused of.”
