In fact, half of those I’d seen urgently needed a trip to the dentist.
“We aren’t going to be there long,” I warned her, in case she had delusions of hanging around to meet the undead pirate of her dreams. Been there, done that. Well, okay, I hadn’t done that. “I just need to see how Jean’s doing and when he’s planning to come back to New Orleans.” And then get back to Alex’s and see if I needed to do damage control, depending on what Zrakovi’s reaction to the news had been.
“How bad was Jean hurt? Did that vampire bite him?”
I hoped curiosity didn’t kill the human. “No, he has a stab wound, but I don’t think it’s too serious. He’s probably immune to vampire bites.”
She shook her head. “I can’t believe you got bit and you didn’t even get an orgasm out of it. I guess True Blood isn’t true after all.”
Thank God for small favors. The road to O-Town was somewhere I never wanted to travel with Garrett Melnick or any other vampire.
We walked the length of Jackson Square, stopping to look at the work of a couple of artists who’d set up their sidewalk shops for the day.
“Look.” Eugenie stopped in front of an acrylic painting of a mustached man with curly dark hair, hooded eyes, and a big hooked nose. He looked like he’d steal the hubcaps off your grandmother’s Cadillac.
“It’s Jean Lafitte, our most famous pirate,” the artist said. “He was quite a character.”
She had no idea. She also had badly missed the mark on his looks. His hair wasn’t that curly, he’d been clean-shaven the whole time I’d known him, his nose was straight and in perfect proportion to the rest of his features, and he didn’t have hooded black eyes. Still, he might find it entertaining. “How much?” I asked.
“Fifty for the print, but I can sell you the original for only fifteen-hundred.”
I handed her my Elder Express card. “The print’s fine, thanks.” The Elders could pay for it. I hadn’t been given a per diem and, besides, pirate bribery was likely to be required on an ongoing basis if I had any hope of keeping Jean in check.
Tucking the rolled print under my arm, I led Eugenie down Pirate’s Alley, the narrow passage with the cathedral on one side and shops on the other. Local lore claimed it got its name from the pirates who once hung out here, but seeing as how the alley runs between a church and the old “Calaboose” prison, where Jean’s brother Pierre had done hard time, it seemed an unlikely spot for pirate frivolity.
“Turn here.” I led Eugenie in the gate to St. Anthony’s Garden, which lay across the alley from Faulkner House Books. I’d had a contentious run-in with a crabby undead William Faulkner and some of his author cronies shortly after Hurricane Katrina, but he rarely came across from the Beyond. Unlike Jean Lafitte, most of the historical undead were content to let the modern world chug along without their ongoing presence.
“How does this work, exactly? I’m getting nervous.” Eugenie seemed to finally have grasped what we were about to do. It’s not every day a person leaves one world behind to visit another.
“It’s sort of like squeezing through a really tight space, but it only lasts a few seconds.” I pointed to where the transport of colored stones and glass lay, masquerading as a rock garden. “I checked, and there’s nothing that should hurt the baby or you.” At least it wouldn’t hurt a human baby, and I assumed half-elven spawn were of much hardier stock.
Since being officially named to the Interspecies Council, Jean had paid for a private transport to be set up between the French Quarter and his house in the Baratarian outpost of Old Orleans, the anything-goes border town between modern New Orleans and the Beyond proper. On my first visit to Barataria’s Grand Terre, the island south of New Orleans where Jean had lived in his human life and in whose magical version he now resided, I’d had to transport to a remote sand dune and walk a mile of dark, pirate-strewn beach to find him. In the modern world, Grand Terre was a federally protected wildlife area.
I stepped into the transport and pulled Eugenie in behind me. “Nice rocks,” I said for the benefit of a couple of tourists wandering past. They didn’t need to see two women disappear into thin air. Once they’d turned the corner, I knelt and touched a finger to the edge of the transport, willing a flash of my native physical magic to power it.
“Holy shit!” Eugenie squeaked, and threw her arms around my shoulders, as if the transport weren’t squeezing me enough. At least the healing charm had gotten the pain from my gunshot wound within range of bearable. I’d need another application tonight.
“Close your eyes,” I told her. “It helps.”
The air around us settled, and I opened my eyes to the wide verandah of Chez Lafitte, lit with flambeaux that flickered against the red brick of the house walls.