“Just keep it in mind.”
“You win the lottery and you can buy the house. I like it where we are. I won the house fair and square.”
“Go ring the bell. Say hi.”
My partner had a plan. Maybe nothing more than poking an anthill to see what climbed out, but it felt more like throwing rocks at a hornets’ nest. I handed him the blood bottle, opened the door, and got out, leaving the car door open to the rain. “All the men are nuts,” I said to the storm. “And naked. And Katie is nuts. And I must be nuts too, to be out here in the rain.” I walked up to the gate, which was wrought iron, the top railing a good ten feet high, with spear points rising above that. I stared at the camera and rang the buzzer. The camera mounted on the left of the gate made a soft whirring sound and turned to me. I gave it my most forbidding face, though how forbidding I was, in the rain-drenched everything, I didn’t know. I said. “I’m Jane Yellowrock. I don’t know who owns this house but be aware. I know about it.” I spun and got back in the limo, closing the door. “Happy?”
Eli laughed, that odd and wonderful sound. I wondered how often Sylvia heard it but decided it was better not to ask. “More so than you know. Alex thinks Louis Seven owns it from back in the seventeen hundreds.”
Exhaustion wrapped her arms around me. I slumped in the seat. “You coulda told me. Home, James,” I said.
“Not my name,” Shemmy said easily, spinning the tires and taking us back toward the house.
Moments later, I opened my eyes. “On second thought, take me to Bruiser’s apartment.”
“Getting that room?” Eli asked.
“Shut up.”
• • •
I crawled into bed with Bruiser. The smell of him filled my nostrils, the heat of him bathed my flesh, and he gathered me into his arms and pulled me close. In the cold of the storm, and with the dearth of insulation in his old apartment, his warmth was like a furnace and I melted against him with a small groan of pleasure. He slid one hand up along my hip, feathered it across my stomach, and cupped my breast. His mouth descended to mine and my moan softened. “Yes,” I whispered. “This.” Things proceeded to become a great deal hotter.
• • •
After a shower, a nap, another bout of fun and games, and another nap, Bruiser woke me at sunset with an early dinner of eggs with green and red chilies and ricotta cheese and shrimp and grits. Comfort food, high in protein, served in front of the burnt-persimmon living room couch, both of us wearing a pair of Bruiser’s flannel PJs against the cold, and a cushy comforter tucked over us. New Orleans houses and heaters weren’t built with cold in mind, and drafts were everywhere. Bruiser had a one-day beard, a scruffy look that made him look sharper, harder, and maybe a little mean. I liked it, and kept scrubbing my knuckles over the scratchy pelt. Beard. Whatever. His skin was hot beneath my knuckles. It felt good in the icy weather.
Our plates were nearly clean when the knock came at the door and Bruiser let Eli in.
The guys fist-bumped, which looked all wrong on Bruiser, but when he saw me watching over the back of the couch, he just smiled. “Breakfast?” he asked my business partner.
“I’m good. We got problems. Exactly one minute after dusk, a riot broke out near Tulane, one at the St. Vincent de Paul Society cemeteries on Piety Street, and a third one at Rosemary Place. College kids get riled and cut the fool from time to time, but there’s nothing at Rosemary to incite a mob. It’s a residential street.” He dropped a heavy gear bag on my lap. It landed with a thump and a rattle. It mighta bruised me some too.
Bruiser said, “However, Carrollton Cemetery is near Tulane. Metairie Cemetery and Cypress Grove Cemeteries are near Rosemary. And the St. Vincent is a cemetery.”
“Yeah,” Eli said. “Cute jammies.”
“Thanks,” I said as Bruiser pulled up a map of the city on his tablet.
Eli sat on the edge of a white leather bar chair and said, “It forms a triangle, which might be witch magic.”
“What it does is send us all over,” I said. “Spread resources. Create discord.”
Bruiser said, “Let’s get to HQ first. We need to check some things.” My partner had brought dry leathers. Admittedly they were my dress black set, and they squeaked when I moved sometimes, but at least they weren’t drippy and slimy. I changed and tossed my wet leathers at Eli. “These need your special touch.”
Bruiser removed a basket of rags from a long cabinet, each neatly folded. Folded rags? I had a feeling my honeybunch was a tad OCD. Eli stuffed the sleeves and the legs of the leathers with balled-up terry strips. It was better than I had done. I’d left them dripping in the shower. When this gig with vamps was over, we needed to invest in water-wicking, water-resistant poly-cotton-nylon suits. They were lighter weight and cost a lot less than the leathers Leo bought me. The military was coming up with mix-and-match uniforms and gear for all weather conditions, and the civilian providers weren’t far behind. I was sure we could get the Seattle coven to provide anti-spell gear. For a price.
I stomped into my boots and followed the guys out. Shemmy was again behind the wheel and since he was part of the team for this gig, I took the time to look him over. Mixed race with brown eyes, bald head, ready laugh, and a physique that screamed bodybuilder. His back strained his pale gray suit, his neck was big enough to need its own horse, shoulders Atlas would have admired, and a waist tight enough to make a pole dancer envious. “Atlanta?” I asked, wanting to know where he had come from.
“Got it in one.”
I nodded and took a seat next to Bruiser as the limo moved away from the curb at speed. I heard a faint ding and Shemmy raised the privacy panel to take a call. Above us, lightning lit the clouds like fireflies in a bottle, making the storm clouds look like puffy cotton balls and Christmas tree lights, innocent and nonthreatening, but I kept expecting them to trigger my magics. They didn’t. It was almost as if the lightning were playing. Or maybe just warming up for the main event.
I tilted my head as a stray thought speared into my brain and took root. “What’s happening to the SOD in this storm?”
Bruiser focused on me intently. “He’s in sub-five basement. He’s too far down to be, do, or feel anything. As far as I know his brain is still trying to regrow.”
“Huh. Yeah. When I first saw him, he was clawing into the copper wiring. It was doing something to him, giving him a jolt of power. What if the storm is jolting him. Hitting his magic.”
“Accelerating his regeneration,” Bruiser said, evaluating my theory. “I’ll take a look.”
The limo swerved and accelerated. Bruiser hit a switch. “Shemmy?”
“The Council Chambers is under attack by revenants and members of the Bloods and the Crips. The gangs are working together, more or less, which Derek says is nearly unheard of. He’s called in reinforcements.”
“A ruse?” I asked. “Another one? Or the purpose of the riots, resources already divided, and so they strike at their central target.” The two gangs were Derek’s old enemies, and they had been fighting over his neighborhood way back when.
“Two enemy gangs working together?” Eli said. “What? Under some kind of truce? Or did some vamps pay them? Or drink them down and roll them?”
The limo swerved and slid on the water in the streets, hydroplaning, headlights bouncing across the buildings and reflecting from vehicles nearby. We sideswiped a car parked on the side of the street, fishtailed, and hit a second one on the other side. The impacts sent us grabbing for the emergency straps overhead. Mildly, Bruiser said again, “Shemmy?”
“I’ll come back and call the police, leave a report and my card. Cops won’t come, not for something small like this, but at least there’ll be a record at dispatch.”
Two blocks later, Shemmy roared up under the porte cochere and we boiled out of the limo to see people running away, into the dark. HQ’s security team was pulling two wounded in through the back entrance. The attack seemed to be over. The thought was half formed when I saw a human shape dressed in black pants and red jacket roll across the top of the brick fence and drop to the ground. Then two more. So the attack was coming in waves. Slight forms, short and skinny, underfed. Teenagers. Maybe hopped up on meth. Or spelled by the storm to more extreme and violent tendencies. And there was zero chance that the cops would show up here.