Shadow Rites

Leo said to me, “And so you see the benefit of a few centuries of political strategizing. I’ll have my Enforcer, Derek Lee, contact Detective Richoux when she goes on duty this morning. We will allow her to choose the men and women she wants on the roofs. Derek, it will be up to you to assign men and women who will work well with the people Ms. Richoux suggests.”

“Yes, sir,” Derek said. “I’ll handle it and bring the full team in for vetting and instructions. Unless you think that should take place off grounds?” he asked Grégoire.

“If you could arrange that meeting for NOPD Eighth District, that would be preferable.” Grégoire sent me a smile, the kind that belonged on the face of the teenager he looked. “I do believe that Jane and George Dumas have recently met the police commissioner?”

“Yeah. Go, me. You meet all sorts of people when you get handcuffed and taken to the pokey.”

Grégoire looked at Leo and they smiled together. “The pokey,” Grégoire said.

“She is charming, is she not?”

“Yeah, whatever,” I said. “I’ll call the woo-woo room and see if I can get you on a conference call before you go to bed in the morning.”

“Excellent,” Leo said, standing. “Shall we?” he asked his secondo heir, and led the way out the door.

When it closed, Eli said, “And that right there is why fangheads scare me. Three moves ahead of us on the chessboard.”

“At least,” Derek said.

“Later,” I said. “I need my bed. Almost dying takes a lot out of me these days.”

“Wimp,” Derek said.

I just shook my head and left the room for the outdoors, dialing NOPD, the in-house number of the woo-woo room, the Paranormal Cases Department, headed up by Jodi Richoux. Eli was close on my heels as I set up a conference call between Derek and the woo-woo cops. I could mark one conclave responsibility off my shoulders.

* * *

The lights were on in Bruiser’s apartment when Eli deliberately drove slightly out of our way and pulled into an empty but illegal parking place on St. Philip Street. He didn’t look at me, staring out the windshield, his thumbs tapping out a slow, syncopated rhythm on the steering wheel. “Fine,” I said.

“You’ve been saying that a lot lately, usually when it isn’t fine. Wanna talk about that or you wanna go bump bones with Bruiser?”

I yanked my cell out of my pocket and texted Bruiser, Out front.

He didn’t text back. Instead he stepped onto the third-floor gallery of his apartment, unit eleven, and leaned out, hands on the iron railing. He was wearing a pair of loose pants. No shirt. Even through the distance and the armored glass, I could feel his eyes on me.

“Fine,” I said to my partner. “I know when I’m outsmarted.” Not that I didn’t want to go up. It just sounded so much like a booty call. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I opened the door and stepped into the fall heat and the cooler night breeze. The winds changed direction often, the Mississippi, the bayous, Lake Pontchartrain, and the Gulf of Mexico creating their own unpredictable weather system. Eli pulled away from the curb, the car door shutting on its own.

Heels tapping louder than I wanted, I went in through the wide hallway-like entrance and climbed the stairs to the top floor. I smelled Bruiser before I saw him. Man and Onorio and heat and that vaguely citrusy cologne he wore. Just a hint. Not too much to mess with my sensitive nose. Saw the light pouring across the floor, angled to indicate his door was open. I climbed the last steps.

Bruiser was waiting in the doorway, one shoulder on the doorjamb, still shirtless, barefoot. His pants rode on his hips, abs ripped in the angled light, the line of hair pointing down from his chest, to disappear beneath the low-hung waistband. There was heat in his eyes, though his face showed nothing. No emotion at all. I didn’t drop in often. Okay, never. Except for that first time, I always waited to be asked. Waited to be invited. This was different. I could feel the Onorio heat of his body when I slowed two feet away.

On the music system, something classic R&B with a hint of rambunctious country in the instrumentation was playing, a musician I didn’t know. The lyrics flowed out into the hallway.

“Blindsided by love, with no chance to put up a fight.

Well, I never saw it coming. I know I can’t recover. I’m a victim of the night. . . .”

The words were perfect for Bruiser and Leo. Or for Bruiser and me. Ohhh, I thought. Bruiser and me. I realized I had stopped moving and forced my feet to take the last steps. Right up to the man in the doorway. He smiled at last, and when he did, he caught me up in his arms, one arm like a vise across my back pulling me to him. The other hand slipped up to cup the back of my head. His brown eyes sparkled with laughter and a curl of dark hair dropped forward, to tangle in his eyelashes. The lyrics continued.

“Blindsided by love. Yes, I’m a victim of the night.”

His lips hesitated before they met mine, a millimeter of space between our mouths. I let my lips curl up and felt the tension slide away from me. I lifted my arms to his shoulders, wrapped them around him, wanting out of the shoulder holster that was suddenly constricting. “Blindsided, huh?”

“Everything’s better with bacon,” he whispered. And that was the last thing either of us said for a very long time.

* * *

On Bruiser’s gallery, we drank tea and ate French toast that had been delivered exactly five minutes after I woke. Wearing his shirt and nothing else. My ankles were crossed, resting across Bruiser’s legs, and we were nestled close on the love seat that hadn’t been there the last time I visited. He leaned in and licked syrup off my lips with a quick flick of his tongue, reminding me of other things he had done with that tongue during the night.