Traffic was at a crawl when Eli casually said, “Nice weather we’re having.”
It wasn’t funny but I started laughing, too long and too unsteadily. “Yeah. We need the rain.”
Eli smiled, the twitch of lips that meant he had relaxed. “Alex texted me that he found some more humans and vamps who came ashore. They came in from Lake Borgne through Bayou Bienvenue Central Wetlands in an air boat. Private surveillance cameras got some pretty clear shots for night cams.” He thumbed on his cell and handed it to me. He turned the wipers on high, trying to keep up with the increasing volume of rain. I checked the time and realized the rain was right on time. The magical storm had a specific and unrelenting pattern.
I studied the vamps sneaking into the country without going through customs. In the best still shot, they looked very unhappy, maybe even a little seasick, which gave me a case of the cheerfuls. One female was wearing a tall wig, which she held in place with both hands. She was dressed in an old-fashioned ball gown with a hoop skirt and lots of ruffles. She was soaked through and looked weighted down by the wet fabric and soaked wig, which had tilted alarmingly to the left. If the airboat sank or she was tossed overboard, she’d sink like a stone. “Do vamps swim?” I asked.
“Never asked. But this batch made it to shore fine,” Eli said
“Sad, that. I’d like to see them tip over and Marie Antoinette sink like a stone. We got a name?”
“Not Marie Antoinette but close. According to Alex it’s one of Marie Antoinette’s ladies-in-waiting, Marie Claudine Sylvie de Thiard de Bissy, Duchesse de Fitz-James.” Eli stumbled over the French, but it didn’t matter. I got the gist. “She died in 1812.”
“Right now she looks like it. She never got over the royal fashion styles of her time,” I said. “Who’s the vamp dude?”
“Charles the Second of Spain. He died the first time in 1700, childless. He’d probably been a vamp for years.”
“Hmmm. He likes modern clothes and fancy suits. And the little female?”
“Her name is Alesha Fonteneau. She’s so pale, I’d say she hasn’t been allowed to feed. Prisoner, most likely.”
“Oh,” I murmured, liquid shock flooding through me. I knew that name. “The underfed vamp is Katie’s sister. She’s in trouble, a hostage.”
“Do we need to go back to HQ?” Eli asked.
“I think . . . not.” I quickly gave him a rundown on the paintings and Troll’s broken jaw, and sending him to be healed and read by Leo. It was evident we needed a long and detailed debriefing. Things were happening fast and we were not keeping up. Someone was gonna get hurt if I wasn’t careful. “By now, the MOC knows that Katie hid things from him and might be a spy in his court, willingly or not. That’s all MOC business, not Enforcer business,” I said. “So why did these vamps, in particular, come ashore?”
“Don’t know.” Eli turned into our street. “But whatever it is it won’t make us happy.
“Babe?” he added. “We got company.”
I looked up from the cell and spotted two witches on our front porch. Lachish Dutillet and Bliss. I hadn’t seen either since the Witch Conclave and they looked good—or as well as soaking-wet women could. They were confronting two armed men on the stoop, two of Derek’s six-man security sextet. Unit. Whatever. The former military types had weapons drawn and the witches were retreating slowly, while drawing up power, one from the storm and one from the earth. This day would never freaking end.
Eli pulled to a stop and I jumped out just as he lowered his window and let out a piercing whistle. I’d never heard him do that before, and I flinched. Fortunately he was looking away from me. The four near-combatants started too. Also fortunately, no one fired a weapon. No one died.
“Idiots!” I yelled as I slogged through the rain and the standing water. “Stand down!”
“We thought they had you captive,” Lachish called.
I stomped my wet boots up to the porch. “I wish someone had me locked in my house, nice and dry and sleeping. Let’s take this inside. Boys, report to Derek. And get a list of people he thinks is okay to knock on my door.” I stopped. “Who fixed my door? It was busted in.”
“That would be me, ma’am,” one of the guards said.
I recognized him but didn’t remember his name, and he wasn’t wearing a name tag. “Wayne Mac something?”
He smiled with real pleasure at being recognized. “Wayne McCalla, ma’am. Fixing the door was my pleasure.”
“Nice work,” Eli said as he moved the door back and forth. It didn’t even squeak. The witches stepped in and Eli closed the door behind us.
Inside, the DBs and puddles had been cleaned up, the house smelling like citrus instead of death. I hadn’t even thought about that when I opened the door. I held in a grin at the imagined expressions on the witches’ faces.
Alex had placed towels and bathroom rugs all over the foyer, along with a metal rack that was usually in the laundry, used by Eli to hang his clothes when he ironed. In a basket were towels, blankets, socks, and robes. Smart boy. I’d have to give him pizza. I pulled off everything I could while maintaining some form of decency and wrapped up in my robe. The two witches stood and watched me. As I dressed I asked, “What can the Enforcer of the Master of the City do for the witches of New Orleans?”
“We’ve never seen such a storm,” Lachish said.
“Cold,” Bliss added.
“Uh-huh. I smell tea. Want some?”
“No,” Lachish said. “I tried your cell phone. I e-mailed. Your cell’s out of order or no longer in use and you haven’t answered e-mail.”
I chuckled, chucked my shoes and wet socks, and pulled on dry, warm, wool socks. “Little busy. And I’ve lost two cells this week already.”
“New record?” Lachish asked.
I laughed harder and stood upright. Lachish looked like normal, gray-haired and a little stout, a woman who dressed to look more matronly than she had to. She had a dry sense of humor and depths I hadn’t taken the time to explore or learn.
Bliss looked good, if good meant beautiful—Sleeping Beauty, with white skin, black hair, and witch energy that softened her even more. She looked like a victim and maybe she had been one once, but she was nowhere near prey, now that she had begun to learn how to use her magic. The little witch seemed to glow.
I knew that the local witches were in danger because of the EuroVamps. Would the fangheads try to turn them? Kill them outright? Kidnap them? I realized that I had been staring too long and asked, “You okay? The local witches okay?”
“You mean since the European vampires started coming ashore in small groups and casting storm magic?” Lachish asked, annoyed. “You didn’t think to call us? Ask us for help?”
“Ummm.” Not really. And that was stupid.
“For a very bright woman you do tend to overlook your assets,” Lachish said. “Too much the loner for too long.”
I couldn’t argue with that. “Come in to the kitchen? Have some tea?” I repeated.
“Thank you, no. We’re here with witch gossip.”
I had learned that gossip in the Deep South was a thing. A very important thing. A newspaper society-column-innuendo thing. So witches here with gossip-mill info shouldn’t be surprising, but that they’d offer it without the social niceties was. Normally, gossip was shared over tea and coffee, maybe some coffeecake or beignets. The fact that they were bypassing propriety meant the info was important and they were in a hurry.
I guessed. “You’re here to tell me that a vamp-witch on board a ship in Lake Borgne is bringing in the storm.”
She looked mildly impressed and then spoiled it with her next word. “No. The storm and the riots are being generated and controlled by an unknown witch on land, not on ship. We’ve managed to locate her general vicinity, near the Lafitte Greenway Trail.”
That was where the car used to transport Grégoire had been left. I had assumed that the kidnappers had taken him far away when they changed vehicles, but what if they had just driven around the block a few times? What if they were keeping him hidden right under our noses? “Do you have any idea who it is?”