Cold Reign

“Not one.”

“What if it’s a male witch?”

Lachish took a towel from the basket and handed one to Bliss, perhaps deciding that if she was going to stand inside she might as well not drip. “Your question and your expression suggest that you know more than we supposed,” she said with asperity. As if blaming me for her inconvenience in coming here, in the rain, and getting wet.

“I don’t know much, except a witch-vamp named Adan Bouvier was once strong enough to cast storms. He left for France a long time ago. He might be back.”

“Another male witch,” Lachish murmured. “And he’s a vampire?”

I almost asked who the other males were, but now was not the time. “Yes. He’s old. Like centuries. Like from before the vamps killed off all the European witches, back when the EuroVamps were turning them instead.”

Eli was standing wrapped in a robe and looked like candy on a stick, if the look in Bliss’ eyes was any indication. He asked, “Is there any way to tell if the witch is storm-making by choice?” When Lachish looked at him blankly he said, “He could be a prisoner.”

Lachish shrugged and rubbed her head with the towel. When she came out from under it, her hair was a wiry cloud, but she looked more cheery. She said, “I’m not sure. I’ll ask my coven. Either way, the storm’s not abating and it’s creating a storm surge. The pump system was improved and updated after Katrina, but it’s not up to a prolonged surge. We think the witch is somewhere near here.” She pulled a sealed plastic bag from her pocket and handed it to me. Inside was a scrap of a map of New Orleans with a red circle around one area. Alex took it out of my hand before I could get a good look and started tapping on a tablet, doing his electronic wizard thingy. I hadn’t even noticed him standing in the doorway.

I’d had a glimpse of the location, however, in the second or so I’d held the map. Enough to guess that it must also be where our missing vamps and Onorios were. Lachish had tracked the magics to St. Louis Street, just off the greenway near where we found the car that took Grégoire. The greenway was three miles long, but this was the third tiny clue that pointed us to this section of the city. We’d been so close. Alex turned his tablet to us, showing a satellite map of the circled area. It was mostly houses except for one larger building that was a warehouse with a false front, a new metal roof, and a lightning rod mounted on the highest point. A lightning rod. In a magical storm with lots of lightning. If lightning struck it, what would the power be used for? To ground a witch-working? To power a working?

“It’s a trap,” I said.

“Of course it’s a trap,” Eli said, a grin on his face that looked a little like a death’s head, all ferocious teeth and intent. His expression was like an aphrodisiac to Bliss. Ailis Rogan, that was her real name. “Babe, our day is just starting to get good.”

I wondered how much of what he was talking about had to do with his need to fight something. At the possibility of violence, he looked chipper and alert and ready to rumble. I felt tired and worn and ready for bed. If my new mattress had been delivered. I’d forgotten about that.

“No riding to be a hero, Batman, not right now,” Alex said. “Now that we have a location to start from I need to ha—check out all the surveillance cameras nearby. So you and Catwoman get to take naps and I get to work.”

“Without energy drinks,” I said.

“Pretty much.” His young face twisted up in what could have been sorrow or laughter. “I think I nearly killed our resident bloodsucker.”

Yeah. Laughter. Kids think the weirdest things are funny.

Eli said, “I’m for bed. Ladies.” He lifted two fingers to them in an abbreviated salute or maybe a half-connected hat tip, it was hard to tell, but he headed up to his bed, feet silent on the steps. Bliss’ eyes followed him all the way to the top. He didn’t look back. Eli had been present at the Witch Conclave. So had Bliss. Eli had an admirer.

“We’ll leave you,” Lachish said. “Call if you need me present when you enter the building.” She placed a card in my hand: copper-colored, metallic coated, with raised lettering. It felt cool to my fingers, as if it had been in the fridge, and it didn’t warm as I held it. Odd. I put it in my robe pocket and gave her a head-tilt/mouth-down-turning expression that meant, I can do that. Lachish opened the front door on the storm and left, Bliss trailing behind her. I realized the young witch had said only a single word while here and wondered if she was in training as Lachish’s assistant. Which would be a cool gig if she got it.

I grabbed a towel and scrubbed my hair, my gold chain clinking softly against the nugget that kept me tied metaphysically to the location in the mountains where I relearned what it meant to be a skinwalker. I seldom thought about the necklace, but I touched it now. It was warm to my cold fingers. I couldn’t remember when I’d been so cold, not even in the mountains in midwinter when a prolonged freeze would hit. It had to be the storm.

Satisfied that I had done all I could, I went to my room, closed my door, stripped again, and crawled under the covers of my newly made, brand-new bed. The mattress supported, engulfed, and pampered my body. It was even better than the last one. Being the MOC’s Enforcer had serious perks. I reached up and repositioned Bruiser’s boxing gloves, his scent intensifying for a moment, soothing me.

As I rolled over, I caught sight of le breloque. It was resting on the table. My insides stilled. I had left it in the SUV, forgotten it even. Yet it was back here. It had followed me. Like a dog to a master. That seemed ominous. But not enough to keep me awake. I let sleep take me.

• • •

When I woke, I was human-shaped. The light through the windows was the dark of deep storm clouds and pre-dusk, and someone was knock, knock, knocking on my door, a little like the tall skinny guy on The Big Bang Theory TV show. Five hours had passed, and I rolled over for the first time to get off of the fabo dreamy (ha-ha) mattress. “Be out in a minute,” I said, my voice rough with sleep. I pulled out old comfort clothes, warm sweats from my Appalachian-living days, and made myself decent if not fashion conscious. I smelled tea when I opened the door, a soothing chai made with piri-piri peppers and lots of whole clove. Someone had finished the laundry and there was a white basket loaded with folded clothes to the side. I scooted it inside. The house was mostly dark, lit by tablets and screens and lighted keyboards. I dragged myself to the kitchen.

In the shadows of the veiled sunset, I met Eli at the table, and of course he looked wide awake and well groomed, though he was nursing a small cup of espresso like it was the elixir of life. I sat in front of the soup mug of tea at my place and added a huge dollop of Cool Whip, stirred it with a soup spoon, and drank a quarter of it in a series of long slurps. Tea, the food of the gods, and I didn’t care what coffee drinkers said about coffee. I wiped my mouth with a sweatshirt sleeve and spotted the cookies, two kinds: white chocolate macadamia nut and lemon-lavender. I took a lemon-lavender and it melted in my mouth. In a voice that was clogged by cookie and sleep, I asked, “Do you know why he waked us up? Woke us up? Whatever.”

“No. I threatened to shoot him. He kept knocking.”

“Three bursts?”

“Yeah. The knocking. Not the shooting. I’d only need one round.”

“Ha-ha.”

“You two awake yet?” Alex asked from the opening to the living room.

“No,” we said together. I took another cookie.

He placed two tablets on the table, on stands, between us, positioned so we could both see the screens. There were images on them. Still shots plucked from security camera footage. The photos were of two vamps as they parked on a street, got out of the car, and vanished around a corner of a building. Sleepiness fell away from me like rain off a metal roof. The woman was exquisite, black-haired and dark-eyed, with alabaster skin and a swan neck. The man beside her, as always, looked cynical and bored and cruel. “Amitee and Fernand Marchand,” I whispered, putting all the relationships in order. I knew, somehow, that all the pieces were on the board now. “The Marchands were brother and sister, formerly of the Rochefort clan in France, and they had been associated with the Damours. The Rocheforts were pals with the dog-fanged vamps in Europe. Leo’s son met Amitee there, when she was still a blood-servant to the Rocheforts and she turned so she could marry him.