“Trying to kill Etienne Boulard,” I said, not willing to sugarcoat it. “Unfortunately, he didn’t succeed. I burned Etienne’s ass with the staff, though.” And Melnick and, now that I thought about it, Hoffman. Charlie had been a busy staff. “And before you ask, yes, they all got away, even Hoffman.”
I wanted to share the hilarity of watching the pompous First Elder’s expression of horror when he realized his magic wasn’t going to work against me, but knew Alex wouldn’t think it was funny. I wanted to tell him how badly I needed to save Jean after what had happened last month, but realized he wouldn’t understand. Not only wouldn’t understand, but would be angered by it. In Alex’s black-and-white world, Hoffman was now a criminal who needed to be apprehended. Jean Lafitte was a menace he’d prefer to never lay eyes on again. I was the woman who didn’t have the sense to stay out of trouble.
That realization hurt most of all.
Tears built behind my eyes, and I fiddled with a loose thread on the arm of the sofa. Damn it, I wasn’t going to cry like a girl just because I was tired and he’d hurt my little feelings. Until he said, so softly I thought I might be imagining it, “I’m sorry.”
I looked up at him, one telltale tear escaping. He returned to the sofa and pulled me into a hug. It sent a blast of pain through my shoulder, but I didn’t care. Damn it, I wanted to make things work with Alex, but why did it have to be so hard?
“Let’s forget it.” He stroked my back, making me want to purr like Sebastian with every stroke of his fingers. “I keep underestimating how well you can handle yourself. And Lafitte pushes my buttons.”
“He shouldn’t.” Or should he? I pushed the annoying mental question aside.
A sizzle of power flicked across my shoulder blades, making me shudder.
Alex pulled back. “What is it?”
“Daddy’s coming home.” I pointed at the transport, where Willem Zrakovi materialized a few seconds later, carrying the smoke-infused tatters of his black robe.
He broke the plane of the transport and stepped out, walking straight to the recliner in the corner and collapsing with a noise that sounded like half sigh, half wounded water buffalo. “I need to talk to you two briefly before heading to Edinburgh. We’re having an emergency meeting of the full Congress of Elders in”—he looked at his wristwatch—“two hours. We have to form a strategy and establish stability before reconvening the Interspecies Council day after tomorrow to finish this sordid business.”
“What about the First Elder’s seat?” I briefly gave Zrakovi an account of following Hoffman and the others into Vampyre.
“The Congress’s first order of business will be to formally remove Geoffrey and name an interim replacement as First Elder. If that person is not from the UK or Europe, we’ll need a new Elder for that position since Geoffrey served as both.”
Alex stood up and paced, which he tended to do when he was thinking hard about how to phrase something. “You’re the senior Elder, sir. It would make sense for you to step in as First Elder.”
That could be a good thing, and Zrakovi had a hard time feigning disinterest. The idea had occurred to him already; I could feel the surge in his emotions. My empathic grounding had worn off sometime during the courthouse monsoon.
“Well, we shall see.” He leaned forward, a short, balding, soot-covered man in a ripped black business suit, in whose hands rested the fates of wizardkind and, to a great extent, the other pretes and the human world beyond. “I have assignments for both of you in the meantime. Alex, form a team to monitor the two main transports into New Orleans from the Beyond—the one at St. Louis Cathedral and the one at City Park. I also want someone watching L’Amour Sauvage around the clock. If Garrett Melnick or Etienne Boulard show up, they’re to be detained.”
Alex propped an elbow on the fireplace mantel. “And if they resist?”
“Don’t kill them. We need more proof than the word of Jonas Adamson—the late Jonas Adamson—that Garrett Melnick was involved and playing the elves and wizards against each other. It would be easy for him to pin everything on Etienne. Our best hope is getting Etienne to turn on his Vice-Regent, but that won’t be easy.”
“Jonas spoke the truth. I could tell, and Rand could tell,” I said, trying to settle my shoulder into a comfortable position. It throbbed like it had its own heartbeat.
“I have no doubt of it,” Zrakovi said. “Which brings us to you, DJ. I have something for you.”
He reached in a pocket and pulled out his wallet, then extracted two plastic cards and held them out to me.
I took them and frowned. The first one was a corporate American Express gold card, with Drusilla J. Jaco, Crescent City Risk Management as the cardholder. The second card was sable and gold with a magnetic strip on one side and a fleur-de-lis on the other, with no writing.
I held it up. “This looks like a hotel key card.”