“Mother?” I sputtered. The cold air clearly had frozen his brain. “Eugenie is the child’s mother. I’ll help the two of you work out something that’s good for both of you and for the baby.” Just add prete-human parental custody counselor to my list of sentinel duties, alongside undead pirate-sitting.
“Unacceptable.” His voice dropped lower. “The child is elf.”
God, I hated that imperious elf thing Rand trotted out when he encountered a roadblock and didn’t get his way. It wasn’t even grammatically correct.
“Look, give Eugenie a little time to come to terms with this, and then she’ll talk to you. She knows you have to be a part of this child’s life.”
“A part. A part.” His voice turned to ice. “We’ll talk, Dru.”
I started awake with my face pressed against a photo of a large plate of shrimp rémoulade, which I took as a sign that I should order it. I’d brought all my candy from Eugenie’s, so I had dessert covered. I wasn’t going back to sleep anytime soon.
While I waited for the order, I called Eugenie, who sounded edgy. “He keeps calling me, DJ. I’m not taking his calls. He can’t possibly know, can he?”
Damn it. “He knows. You need to go on the offensive.”
“What? How could he know?” It clicked home. “The wizard Elder told him, didn’t he? Alex Warin has a big mouth. Don’t sleep with him again until he apologizes. Loose lips get no sex.”
I thought that sounded like a reasonable tactic to take with the loose-lipped enforcer. Damn him and his overdeveloped sense of duty. “Here’s my suggestion. Call Rand and tell him you’re glad he knows. Then—”
“But I’m not glad he knows.” Eugenie was heating up fast; the last thing we needed was for her to piss Rand off even more. “I want Rand to leave me the hell alone until … until … until the kid hits adulthood.”
I closed my eyes and prayed for patience. Negotiating was not my strong suit; I wanted to beat people over the head, bend them to my will, and move on. Funny how that never worked. “I know you aren’t glad, but tell him you are. Lie through your teeth. You’ve gotta play this smart, Eugie, so he’ll be reasonable and cooperative. You know how pigheaded he can be.”
She gave a piglike snort into the phone. “You’re not telling me anything new.”
“So play him like a fiddle.” We could outsmart him. Maybe. “Call him, and be all charming and sweet. Tell him you’re tired today but ask if he could drop by tomorrow afternoon. Even better, since it’s so cold out, tell him you’ll come to see him. I’ll go with you.”
That would give us a little time to prepare, not to mention a chance for me to share the info I’d gotten from Adrian. The extra time also would give me a chance to talk to Alex, find out what direction Zrakovi’s thoughts were taking, and plan a strategy. Because me taking Eugenie’s baby and raising it with Rand like some preternatural version of The Brady Bunch wasn’t going to happen.
When Eugenie sighed so loud the noise distorted through the phone, I knew she was going to agree. “Fine. About two tomorrow?”
“Yes, and call to let me know what he says.” I had been pacing around the room as I talked, but stopped short when I glanced through the five or six inches of daylight showing through the curtains. “Holy cow, is it snowing in Uptown?”
“I dunno. I was trying to sleep when Rand started calling every thirty seconds.” I heard her walking to the window. “Man, it’s like freaking Alaska out there. How much are we supposed to get?”
“Hopefully, enough to keep Rand inside until tomorrow.” The weather could play in our favor.
Room service arrived shortly after we ended the call, and I ate shrimp rémoulade and drank a diet soda in the desk chair, which I’d pulled up to the window so I could watch it snow. The last two days of cold weather had chilled the ground enough for it to stick, or at least I thought so, judging by the rooftops visible from my eighth-floor vantage point. The heavy flakes fell so fast and thick I couldn’t see the ground. Later, I’d worry about how much we were supposed to get, and what streets were closed, and how I’d get to Eugenie’s, and what form Jean Lafitte’s vengeance would take.
The streets would be like a bumper-car rally. Since New Orleans flooded on a regular basis from ordinary thunderstorms, we thought we could drive through anything. I hoped Alex would walk from the Napoleon House instead of moving the SUV. I’d hate for him to have a wreck before I got to bitch at him for being an Elder-loving suck-up.
Eugenie called to report that Rand had been frosty but agreed to the afternoon meeting. “He didn’t like it.” She paused. “And he said something else. That the two of you are going to raise my baby. Tell me he’s lying.”
My skin heated from the pent-up anger. “He is a lying horse’s ass, not to mention delusional, and you know that. Seriously, Eugenie. I wouldn’t raise a houseplant with Quince Randolph.”