He started around the table. I grinned at him. Beast nearly purred. Fun . . . I saw an image of her playing with an injured rabbit and let my grin widen. But I carefully didn’t move from the corner. Jodi said nothing, watching us speculatively. Yeah. She’d picked her position.
“We don’t like witches in N’awlins, no better’n we like vamps,” Herbert said, moving in on me slowly. He hooked a chair with his foot and slung it aside with a screech of wood. Beast watched him through my eyes. Fun . . . She gathered herself. I held her still. “Vamps, who killed a dozen cops and ate ’em like they were meat. And you’re working for the cop killers.”
When he was two feet away, Jodi grabbed his arm and said sharply, “Jim. Go wait outside, please.”
“Yeah,” I said, pushing things and unable to help myself. “No one knows if the cameras in the walls also have audio or if they’re straight video. You might just appear on YouTube making an ass outta yourself, and spouting off something NOPD would consider seriously anti-PC. The vamps bring a lot of tourist money in. I bet no one wants to annoy the moneymakers.”
“The vamp council can kiss my—”
“Jim! Outside. Now.”
He jerked away and stomped to the front door. He slammed it on the way out. I laughed and felt a bit guilty all at once. Though Beast was having fun, I didn’t particularly like the fact that I enjoyed baiting the law. It wasn’t smart or safe.
“You’re not going to help us, are you?” Jodi asked, her voice so soft that it might not have carried to the imaginary audio pickups.
“I’m going to kill the rogue who’s killing your cops, your hookers, and your tourists. Sounds like help to me.”
“Are you really human?” she asked again, her voice soft with real curiosity.
“I already addressed that question.”
“Your papers claim you’re twenty-nine, but you act like a fifteen-year-old kid half the time and a fifty-year-old grandmother the other half. You carry yourself like a street fighter, you set off my psy-meter, which means you’re leaking power, carrying power of some kind, or generating power, and you deliberately taunt a cop when you might need us.”
“You brought him here to see what I would do when he got stupid,” I guessed, but making it like a statement. Jodi had the grace to blush. I huffed a laugh. “Good cop/bad cop works only in the movies. I have your cell number, Jodi. I’ll call if I need backup. I’ll call if I need information. And I’ll call if there’s anything that NOPD needs to know.”
“Why didn’t you just offer that right up front?”
“Why didn’t you just ask for it right up front?”
Jodi stared at me, uncertainty in her eyes. I said nothing. She said nothing. After a good minute of that, she heaved a breath and turned to the door. “Thank you for your time.”
Silent, I followed her to the door and locked it after her. When they pulled away, I walked to the bedroom and threw myself onto the bed. Could I be any more stupid? Could I?
Beast purred in happiness. Fun . . .
I wished that Molly would call. On the heels of the thought, the phone rang. I rolled over, yawned at the ceiling, and answered. Molly’s number showed on the readout. “How’d you do that? You’re a witch, not a psychic.”
“I didn’t,” she said. “Angie told me.” We were both quiet for a moment at that one. The girl was scary strong. When Angie came into her power, she had been terrified, magic rushing out of her in a maelstrom, destroying the trailer they lived in at the time. When I rode up, it was to see the metal roof peel back as if with a can opener. Not knowing what was going on, I raced inside, right into the magic. And I shifted. It scared the pants offa Big Evan, who hadn’t known what I was. Molly can keep a secret.
Evan and Molly had been trying to bind the girl’s power, to keep it controlled until Angie was older and could handle it. Power, oddly similar to the gray place I saw when I shifted, was blowing through, ripping at everything. Angie was screaming. It was crazy. Beast, unafraid, had padded right up to the child and curled around her. Purring. Angie had gripped Beast’s ears and pelt and hung on, screaming. Which had left Molly and Evan free to work. Without asking, I knew Molly was remembering too. Into the silence I asked, “Let me talk to her?”
Angie’s little voice said, “Aunt Jane? You got my doll yet?”
A lump grew in my throat. It often did when I talked to Angie. Beast had adopted her like a kit, and so both parts of me loved her. “Not yet, darlin’. But soon.”
“Okay. I love you.”
The lump in my throat spasmed painfully. “I love you too.” Kit. Cub, Beast murmured, sleepy and longing. When Molly came back on, I said, “So. You want to come visit me here in the hot, muggy, Deep South.”