I gave him a look. A mean look. But the compassionate one I got in return suggested that I’d sent him a seasick look instead. I took his hand and let him help me onto the deck.
He stood behind me and wrapped one arm around me, holding me close. With his other hand, he pointed out in the rain and wind, and across a mucky sandbar. At first I didn’t see it, but then I realized that my eyes were slipping past something, almost as if it were pushing my attention away. “Obfuscation spell,” I said.
I felt his jaw move beside my temple, close enough for me to hear softly spoken words. Bruiser was taller than me, so the sensation was both familiar and unusual. “The spell was never intended to work with rain. Unlike light, which can be reflected or refracted, the rain hits the boat and trails down it, giving us an outline.”
“You discovered this how?”
“Coast Guard investigated a fisherman’s report of a ghost ship and asked the local Mithrans to check it out.”
There was something in his tone that suggested he knew my next thoughts even before I voiced them. I pressed my head against his and said, “A water witch with strong air witch tendencies must be aboard. The storm systems colliding feels wrong. Not natural.” He waited until I said the more likely possibility. “But since the witch conclave ended and the witches and Leo are in each other’s pockets, this is either an unknown witch group attacking New Orleans, or a powerful water-witch-turned-vamp.” I wrapped my arms around his, holding us together. My nausea slipped away, replaced by an adrenaline spike that I knew he could smell. “There are no witch-vamps among Leo’s own who could do this. Therefore, there is most likely some unknown European vamp-witch sitting in a spelled boat, just off our shores.”
He nodded. “I hope you don’t mind, but I asked Alex Younger to research the histories and see if he can discover who might be causing the storm. He’s binging on energy drinks already.”
“Yeah,” I said softly, watching the rain conflict with the obfuscation spell. “Can you tell how big the boat is?”
“We can’t risk getting close enough to get a firm reading, but smaller than Her Royal Majesty’s Queen Mary Two, larger than a tramp steamer. If the winds abate, we’ll send a drone over it. But it’s big enough.”
Big enough to ruin our safety and our lives. Got it.
Bruiser said something to the captain and guided me back inside, where he poured another cup of ginger tea. He left me sipping while he returned to the deck and chatted sea-type stuff with the captain. Manly stuff about Mississippi River men.
Mississippi River men were legendary. They knew the river, every turn, every sandbar, every wreck buried in mud. Nothing moved up or down the powerful waterway with its shifting bottom without them. The entire nation’s trade depended on them. I could feel the pull of Onorio magics, new to me, potent and surging as the tides, as Bruiser encouraged the maritime types to like him, to trust him, to talk to him like a friend. When he had won their trust, he asked how the Mithrans who protected the city—that’s what he said, protected the city—might discover who among the elite group of river men had been contacted to bring the ship’s passengers ashore, or the ship to a berth. They started bandying names back and forth. All palsey-walsey.
I sat on the cushioned bench for the trip back and texted. Eli got a full description of the boat with a suggestion that he contact those people he had mentioned, the ones in Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the multiple branches of the U.S. military. If a ghost ship was coming ashore, we’d need all the help we could get. I queried the Kid for updates. There was nothing new except a small fistfight turned gun battle outside of Arceneau Clan Home. There was a magical storm and multiple riots at the same time. Riots in a storm. People didn’t riot in storms.
Grégoire, Leo’s boy toy and second in line to the Mastership title, was safe in HQ, but I had never believed in coincidence. Arceneau Clan Home would be my next stop.
• • •
Leo’s limo maneuvered the streets through the storm and the traffic that looked like a dozen kittens had attacked a ball of yarn, Bruiser and me tapping and swiping our electronic devices. The intimacy of the twenty-first century. Not. But we felt an expectation of Big Bad Uglies heading our way, and good coms made us safer.
Brandon and Brian were standing under the small porch roof at Arceneau Clan Home, decked out in the Enforcer version of riot gear. A moving van was out front and burly blood-servants and -slaves were loading up the house’s contents. “Grégoire’s moving?” I asked.
Bruiser’s lips twitched with satisfaction. “No. Leo decided a week ago that the accommodations at any of the five-star hotels in the city were”—his voice took on a French accent similar to Leo’s for the next few words—“‘simply not up to Mithran standards.’ In his position as host, he decided to garrison half of the Europeans here and the rest of our visitors in the Council Chambers. Scrappy drafted the letter on parchment with all proper calligraphy, Leo signed it, and it went on its way, airmail. Leo found the entire ploy entirely too amusing.”
I didn’t comment on his use of the nickname Scrappy. Leo’s secretary’s real name was Lee, but I had been calling her Scrappy because of her red hair and fiery temperament. It had caught on. Maybe even with Scrappy. “But the purpose was to divide and conquer?”
“Exactly. The soldiers will be billeted here.”
“I like.” Pulling our ponchos over us, we stepped into the downpour. Water ran in the streets and had been running long enough that the filth had been deposited into the city’s drainage system, leaving the surface of the earth nice and clean. The city even smelled fresh, an uncommon occurrence. Walking in the rain, I stomped once in a puddle. And stopped. I hadn’t intended to do that, not consciously, but the splashing water was kinda nice. I stomped again, the water spraying up over my boots. Bruiser was watching me, a look of . . . something . . . on his face. He held out his hand, I took it, and together we wove through the workers who were carrying out priceless antiques covered with plastic. We were met in the entrance of the Clan Home by the Robere twins.
“Howdy, boys,” I said. “So tell me about the security upgrades. Alex has all the deets but I’ve left it to him. Oh. And the hidden cameras Leo authorized and had Derek install without my oversight? I totally get it now, with the plan to park some of EVs here.”
“You knew about those?” Brandon said.
“Of course I knew. Derek and Pauline Easter are good, but they’re amateurs. The Kid is a felon with employment offers from the DOD. He’s better than good.”
The twins exchanged looks, one of those multilayered communication things twins can do. “We see,” they said together. I just narrowed my eyes at them and walked into the three-story house. It was larger and deeper than it looked from the outside, forty-six feet across the front, and twice that deep on its small lot. The central hallway led past a wide staircase in the foyer, the floors and stairs carpeted with Oriental rugs in shades of blue and gray and black. The dining room was off the foyer, with a hand-carved cherrywood table and chairs and loads of china showing through glass doors of the built-in cabinetry. Across the hallway from it was a parlor filled with antique upholstered furniture, statues, and objets d’art. Gilt-framed paintings hung on the right wall in the wide hall, and a mural graced the left.
The scent of coffee and tea lingered on the air from a butler’s pantry that separated the dining room from the expanded kitchen added on in back. There was also an old-fashioned music room behind the parlor and a library behind that. Staff quarters were on the left at the back of the house, for the servants, including security. Arceneau Clan Home was überfancy and überexpensive, tasteful in ways I had yet to become comfortable with. The cameras were set into the light fixtures, complicated things with sensors and on-off switches. When the place was swept for electronics, Alex or someone at HQ could deactivate them and then reactivate them once the EuroVamps felt secure. The cameras were everywhere. And even with my experience, I couldn’t spot them.
“Tell me about the gunfire,” I said when I was done with my inspection.