Shadow Rites: A Jane Yellowrock Novel (21 page)

If anyone could do something with the list of names, Alex could. Maybe he’d have something for me when we got back. Like full names. Photos. Their social media pages. Or their favorite things—walks in the rain, puppies, honesty, and laughter. Oh! And using magic to try to kill Jane Yellowrock and start a vamp-witch war.

Maybe not. I was good at the moment, no matter what he discovered. Mostly because of Edmund’s words “Yellowrock Clan,” which still reverberated through me.
Yellowrock Clan
. Yeah. I could live with that.

*   *   *

We went through security measures at HQ, much more stringent than the ones we had been through before. We were issued the brand-new, updated headsets, each with a small built-in camera. They were heavier, more bulky than the older models, not only so we could communicate with the security team while we were on the move, but so we could see what they saw if the poo hit the prop. I didn’t care for the extra weight, but for the upcoming events—all of them—the portable cameras might come in very handy proving innocence on the part of the team.

While we were still at the front entrance, Wrassler limped up and delivered to Eli the carved box holding the brooches. “Courtesy of Leo,” Wrassler said. “He knows you have the Truebloods at your house. He wants you to have them inspect the magics on the pins and see if they can track the witches on the other end.”

“Sneaky,” I said. “Pit the Truebloods against the witches who probably want the conclave and the witch-vamp parley to end before it begins. Divide and conquer. No wonder Leo’s so politically successful. What did he do? Study under Machiavelli?”

Wrassler rubbed his hand over his shaved skull and gave the old grin, the one he used back before he’d been so terribly maimed under my watch. Seeing it made my heart tumble over. “Not exactly. But it’s my understanding that the MOC owns one of the few copies of the sixteenth-century political treatises, in the original Latin, by the Italian diplomat and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. It’s
possible
that they were pals. I never asked.” Wrassler winked at me, turned on his prosthetic leg, and disappeared into the bowels of HQ.

Eli tucked the box under his arm. “One should remember the source when making fun of fangheads,” he said to me.

“True. Let’s check in with HQ’s security arrangements for the conclave and get outta here. I’m still beat.”

The meeting with the security team covered every planned moment from the time Leo left his private rooms, walked through the building, exited under the porte cochere, and was whisked into his limo. It covered the two other teams in similar limos who would leave at staggered times to throw off any bad guys or media types who might be watching HQ through telephoto lenses or drones. It covered the armored and well-armed SUVs that would keep pace with Leo’s limos. And it covered the motorcycle backup, crotch rockets carrying armed guards, most of them in white riding leathers and with full radio coms beneath the white helmets.

Weekend traffic in New Orleans wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t good either. I had learned firsthand how trapped a
car could become. I still missed my bike and the ability to weave between cars, take one-way streets the wrong way, outsmarting traffic and never being late. I had big plans to head to Charlotte the moment the Harley was repaired enough for a test drive. Until then, I was making sure that Leo had motorcycle backup among his guards and among the police.

We also discussed with Derek which shooters would be utilizing the rooftops surrounding the Elms Mansion and Gardens, what ammo and equipment they would have access to. And who was in charge of their taking a shot. If our people shot anyone—even an attacker—there would be hell to pay, not only with the legal system, but also with the political situation. The smart thing, and our second choice, would be to have observers only, no weapons, but if our men saw a bomber or witches casting a deadly spell, and they didn’t intervene, the consequences could be even more lethal. The third option placed off-duty NOPD officers on the roofs with high-powered rifles. There were dangers in each of the three options. It was such a dicey discussion that by two in the morning, we called Leo and Grégoire in on it.

The two joined us in the conference room and sat side by side, listened to our proposals, and studied the photos of the Elms and the surrounding buildings and streets. When we were done, they conversed in low voices, in ancient French, the black-haired Leo leaning often to listen to his blond, blue-eyed bestie and secundo heir. They looked like very young, elegant, princely, educated, moneyed, metrosexual men who lived in a constant state of ennui, but they were also fighters with over nine hundred years of warfare and politics between them. Finally Leo sat upright and asked, “Jane, which option do you prefer?”

“I’ve become a control freak working for you, so I think we need armed men, our men, and that Derek should run things.”

“Eli Younger? You are the most currently experienced warrior in this room, even more so than my own men, with the most up-to-date knowledge of electronic warfare. What say you?”

Eli glanced sidelong at me and said, “If we were on foreign soil, I’d be all over Jane’s choice. But I’m torn between using our own men and using police. They might not take a shot our own men would, but they would also be responsible for any political fallout.”

“Derek?” he asked his soon-to-be-full-time Enforcer.

“I don’t want any of my men facing charges,” he said. “I say use cops.”

“And, Grégoire? Your thoughts?”

In a languid tone Grégoire said, “We could use off-duty police officers in tandem with our own men, and put them all under the control of Jodi Richoux.”

Which was bloody brilliant. It put all the responsibility under the wings of an NOPD officer, it divided the responsibility of whether to take a shot or not, and it placed any political or legal fallout in the hands of cops. I started laughing. So did the small team gathered there as they understood what the implications were.

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.

I made a small “Mmm” of pleasure and he chuckled, that manly, exhausted sound they make when they know just how well they have pleased. The vibration of the quiet laughter shook his chest. I rotated my head to rest it on his shoulder, my body in a C shape that should have been uncomfortable but was instead cozy.

Bruiser was one of very few men taller than I was, tall enough to make me feel small and delicate sometimes. Like this time. My hair slid across him and he gathered it up, smoothing it back.

“I love the way your hands feel on my hair,” I said on a sigh.

“And I love the feel of your hair,” he said. So far, that was the closest we came to saying the three magic words. After the debacle of Ricky-Bo’s betrayal, I wasn’t ready to say words that were more . . . sugary. And Bruiser acted as if the words were not even in his vocabulary. Which suited me just fine. Really. It did.

He freshened our mugs and I added more sugar and cream to the extra-strong English Breakfast Blend. It was
the perfect start to a day destined to be anything but perfect, because the conclave was soon and the final preparations had to be honed and refined and today was the day for hundreds of details to be dealt with. Already a few witches were descending on the city and taking hotel rooms, gathering in cafés, chatting informally in bars. Starting the political yammering and lobbying and scheming and intriguing, trying to firm up or change the agendas. Trying to create or destroy alliances. Stuff I hated. Stuff that would change the world as I know it.

Yet, around us, the night lightened, graying the world through a rare fog, misting its way off the Mississippi River and through the Quarter. The fog made everything seem personal, intimate, as if we were the only people left in New Orleans. Bruiser tickled my soles and I kissed his scruffy chin. It was a rare, peaceful moment and I so totally owed Eli for making it happen.

Behind us, framed in a shadowbox and hanging over the bed, was a brown, yellow, and pink T-shirt, ugly as all get out except for the cute pig on it. And the logo
BACON IS MEAT CANDY
. It was the T-shirt I’d worn the first time I came to visit him here, bringing lunch from Cochon Butchers, and had ended up staying for more than lunch. As long as my T-shirt hung over Bruiser’s bed, I knew we were good, no matter how bad things might get in reality.