Shadow Rites

“Alex!” Eli barked. Alex had been hacking again, and though his parole was over, all it would take was one mistake to make Homeland Security revoke it. They had the power to do anything.

“I’m safe. No worries, my brother,” he added in the New Orleans patois.

“Reach would know that,” I said, “so he’s using one just so we can track him?”

“Messing with us. Chances are he tossed it into a passing bus.”

“But you know he’s in Chicago?”

“With a ninety percent certainty,” Alex said, “partially based on the idea that he wants you to find him. As soon as I know more, I’ll be checking nearby security cameras for footage of him.”

Reach might want me to find him? Huh. “Keep us in the loop.”

Eli and I left via the front door, which he had recently repaired, using a false stained glass window to keep it from breaking every time someone tried to kill us. Which happened with depressing regularity. My partner beeped open the armored SUV provided for us by Leo for as long as I worked for him and we found our way into the traffic. New Orleans traffic was always bad, but this time of day it was usually stalled in a bumper-to-bumper crush in the French Quarter. Heck. Everywhere. According to the traffic updates on the SUV’s computer screen, today it was less dreadful than usual, and we made it to the site of the upcoming Witch Conclave in good time, two hours before night fell.

The witches had rented out the Elms Mansion and Garden at St. Charles Avenue and Eighth Street for the weekend for the Witch Conclave. The house was a two-story home with period décor and filled with period pieces, from marble fireplaces, delicate antique parquet flooring, swags and draperies and tassels and vases and rugs and silver and priceless antique wooden furniture. It was elegant and a little froufrou, appropriate for a conclave that would house some two hundred witches and some of their human partners and spouses for a daylong meeting, most of the witches female. If a dictionary or the tourist department needed a photo to illustrate the phrase New Orleans mansion, the Elms would have been perfect.

The biggest part of the security measures would be handled by the witches themselves, with wards, once they were all in place. Yellowrock Securities had been hired to oversee the off-site things, like parking and transportation, as well as the security of the house and grounds until the wards went up. The logistics of our part was beginning to look like a nightmare, which matched the nightmare of the second area of our responsibility. Or my responsibility. The part where I was responsible for Leo’s safety. As Enforcer, I held the well-being of his undead un-life in my hands. He’d be there to meet and greet, to give a speech, and to share a meal with the witches, probably to indicate to them that vamps were something more than fanged and taloned killing machines with a special hatred for witches. I wondered if they would fall for it. And if they would all sign papers swearing fealty to one another. That swearing was important to the future safety of the entire city when the Euro Vamps came. There was a lot riding on this conclave.

Which was why today’s meeting was so important. In every respect, the mundane security measures suggested by YS had been turned down. The house’s owners had nixed the installation of cameras for fear we would ruin the hand-carved wood and plaster-of-Paris moldings. The double front doors were stained glass. Real stained glass, perfect for breaking with a grenade or a rocket launcher or a well-placed fist if the wards went down, and they had refused when we offered to replace the doors with five-inch-thick steel. Too trashy by far for the Elms.

A four-story building overlooked one side, with plenty of vantage sites for sharpshooters. The mansion’s windows were not bullet-resistant polycarbonate glass and the owners had refused to allow us to replace the window glass in the room where Leo would be delivering his speech—the Grand Ballroom, with its white Italian sandstone fireplace, European tile, Doric columns, Irish linen wall hangings, and, of course, the grand piano. And lots of windows. Traffic was permitted on every street around Elms Mansion, and the powers that be in NOLA had refused to shut down the side streets even if it meant better safety for the citizens. Stupid city ordinances. All it would take was one inciting incident and this would FUBAR all the way, dead citizens and a witch/vamp war.

We parked on a side street and knocked politely on the front door for our official visit. The previous discussions and tour had been all online, so the meet and greet and real-time walk-through were essential. The woman who answered was tall, middle-aged, graceful, and elegant. Instantly I felt like a knobby-kneed teenaged girl with broccoli in her teeth. Oh, crap. I had forgotten to brush my teeth. I kept my lips tight against them as I said, “Jane Yellowrock and my partner at Yellowrock Securities, Eli Younger, ma’am.” Eli handed her one of our business cards, gave a little half bow, which was a real classy maneuver. I’d never have thought of it.

I don’t know what I was expecting from the woman. Maybe a sneer? Maybe tilting back her head so she could look down her aquiline nose at me? Instead she accepted the card with a smile, stepped back in welcome, and said, “I am Amalie. May I call you Jane and Eli?”

Eli said, “We’d be honored, Miz Amalie.”

And he put his hand on the small of my back to push me inside. The door enclosed us in a wonder from another time. I had thought I’d been prepared for the interior from the online tour we had taken, but the place blew me away. I suddenly understood why the owners had said no to everything we suggested by way of security updates. The word desecration came to mind, with sacrilege and defilement close behind. It was so visually amazing that I hardly noted the scents of lemon oil, food, coffee, and fine cigars.