Pirate's Alley

“I think Alex has changed,” Eugenie said out of the blue. “Or maybe he hasn’t changed, but the world around him has. He doesn’t seem to be handling all this political mess very well, at least from what I’ve seen. He always seems, I don’t know, restless.” She chuckled. “Of course, what do I know? I didn’t have a clue your world even existed a few weeks ago.”

 

 

Eugenie might be sensitive about not having a college degree, but she was plenty smart and had good intuitions about people—well, except for the whole hooking-up-with-Rand business. “Tell me what you mean.”

 

She tucked her feet under her on the sofa. “I just mean with the pretes all living here now, coming and going when they want to … Alex is a guy who has it fixed in his mind that the world’s a certain way and he’s comfortable there. Then the world changes, and he doesn’t like it. And it keeps changing. Seems like something new comes up every other day.”

 

Or a few times a day. I’d thought Alex’s problem was only with me and the chaos that always seemed to surround me. But maybe I was just a symbol of the chaos he saw infecting everything. It was easier to blame my nature for his discontent than to fight windmills and shadows, or elves and vampires who demanded equal access to the modern world.

 

“I think you might be right.” I rubbed my eyes, which felt like a bucket of sand had been poured into each one. “Unfortunately, I think he sees me as part of the problem.”

 

Eugenie laughed. “It’s because he doesn’t understand you, DJ. He wants you to be like him but you’re not. You’re okay with change. You roll with it where he fights it and gets thrown off-balance by it.”

 

“But I—” A knock sounded from the front door. “That’s probably Rand.” I didn’t know what else to say anyway. Even if Eugenie was right and Alex was having trouble adjusting to our crazy new world with its lack of absolutes, I wasn’t sure how to help him if he saw me as part of his problem.

 

Rand had showered and transformed himself back into his usual snow prince look, albeit a very cold snow prince with lips that had turned an alarming shade of icy blue.

 

“You want something hot? I’ll get you some cocoa.” Eugenie hustled toward the kitchen. Rand stood in front of the fire, holding his hands toward the flames, flexing his fingers.

 

“Lafitte wants you to call him.” Rand smiled at Eugenie when she brought in the mug of hot chocolate; she smiled back. Good. At least these two were behaving themselves. For now. I wasn’t deluded; the bad old Rand we all knew and hated would return eventually.

 

“I’ll talk to Jean when I get back to the hotel.” I wasn’t sure I could hold up to the pirate’s complex verbal sparring tonight. I just wanted everybody to leave me alone for a while.

 

“He says he knows what really happened to Hoffman, but he needs to talk to you before he can say any more.”

 

I groaned and slumped down in the chair. “Oh, holy crap. I can’t handle one more disaster today.”

 

Still, I dug my phone out of my bag and speed-dialed Jean.

 

“You did not call me with proper haste,” Jean said by way of greeting. I really needed to teach him proper phone etiquette. “Or did your elf not relay my request? He is quite impertinent and self-important.”

 

“Quite.” Because if anyone should recognize a self-important man, it would be my pirate. He saw one in the mirror every day. “What’s up?”

 

A long pause while he translated “up”; I was too tired to do it for him. “Some information has come to my attention of which you should be aware, Drusilla.”

 

Great. “What?”

 

“I do not wish to impart such information on the telephone. You must return to the hotel tout de suite.”

 

I’d toot his sweet, all right. “Jean, can it wait? I’m exhausted.”

 

“Do you wish to help your friend Jacob?” he asked. “Do you wish to prevent a war?”

 

Well, when he put it that way.

 

“I’m on my way.”

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 26

 

I had two surprises awaiting me on my return to the Monteleone, neither of them good.

 

First, when I arrived at my room after a harrowing forty-minute cab ride through snow-strangled streets, my key card didn’t work. I trudged back to the lobby to get it rekeyed.

 

“I’m sorry, Ms. Jaco, but your card was declined,” the oh-so-polite desk clerk said, looking embarrassed on my behalf since I was too tired to do it myself. “Would you like to provide us with another form of payment?”

 

Zrakovi had cut me off, the jerk. Then again, I guess my job of tailing Jean Lafitte was over and he saw no reason to continue paying several hundred bucks a night for a hotel room.

 

I dug out my own credit card. It was eight p.m. and I was a zombie. I’d worry later about how to pay the bill. As soon as Christof followed through with his promise to send this weather system somewhere else, I’d check out and call somebody to install a heating unit in Gerry’s house. I still couldn’t quite think of it as mine.

 

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