“What about you, Claire?” Tadji asked. “What do you miss?”
“Oh, I got this,” Gunnar said with a grin. “She misses cheese, good tea, and air-conditioning.”
“Nearly nailed it,” I said, raising my glass to him.
“Sweet tea?” Burke asked.
“Earl Grey, if I can get it.” I looked at Liam, lifted my eyebrows. “I understand you may have a supplier.”
“I am a man of many talents,” he said with a grin, which made Tadji whistle.
“You know why she loves Earl Grey?” Gunnar asked, shifting in his seat to look at me. “She discovered something awesome.”
“And what’s that?” Liam asked, smiling at me.
“It’s silly,” I said, “but if you put honey in Earl Grey, it tastes a little like Fruity Rockers.”
“The breakfast cereal?” Liam asked, and I nodded.
“Saturday mornings with television and Fruity Rockers,” Burke said. “Now, that was bliss.”
It had been bliss for me, too. Were we possibly better off without sugary cereals and zombifying television? Maybe. But it would have been nice to have the choice to ruin myself. If I could have gone back in time—something I thought about a lot at the beginning of the war—I’d have smacked my younger self for not appreciating the small conveniences.
“That’s not the only thing I miss, though,” I said. “My grandmother was a Peretti. Very Italian, but also very Southern. She’d lived in Mississippi before she came to New Orleans. I didn’t know her very long—I was only five or six when she died—but we’d go to her house on Sunday for lunch. She’d make this enormous Italian-Southern meal. Fried chicken, fried okra, mashed potatoes. That would all be one half of the table,” I said, using my hands to illustrate. “And on the other side would be this Italian feast. Ziti with sausage, and red gravy. Mussels. Carbonara. There was so much of it, and it was all phenomenal. I mean, honestly, it was an obscene amount of food. Not that anybody was complaining about it.”
“What about you, Liam?” Burke asked. “What do you miss?”
There was a pop, and the overhead lights blinked, buzzed on. Without missing a beat, Gunnar leaned forward, blew out the candles.
“So much for the romantic evening,” he said with a grin, settling back again. “We’ll assume consistent power is one of the things Liam misses.”
“It didn’t hurt,” Liam said. “I miss Abita beer. A cold beer on a humid day was pretty remarkable.” He was quiet for a moment, lost in the memory, before he tipped his chair back again. “My family had this place on Bayou Teche. It was a cabin, and hardly that, but it snugged up next to the bayou, or at least as close as you could get. Had a dock, and you could sit out, watch pelicans land, see gators slinking through the water while you drank a beer. It was pretty damn exceptional.” He smiled at us. “Not that this fine feast you’ve assembled isn’t spectacular. Because it is.”
The compliment was interrupted by hurried pounding on the store’s front door. Liam, Gunnar, and Burke went on immediate alert.
I stood up, and Liam did the same. I walked toward the door, could feel him moving protectively behind me. I held up a hand to call him off, unlocked the door.
It was Campbell, Gunnar’s blond, lanky cousin. And he looked absolutely panicked.
“Campbell,” Gunnar said, rushing around furniture to the door. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s Emme.” That was Gunnar’s younger sister. “She was attacked by wraiths.”
“Jesus,” Gunnar said, putting a hand on Campbell’s arm. “Is she all right?”
“She’s got a couple of pretty bad lacerations. Your father was at home when she was attacked. He stitched and bandaged her, gave her morphine. There was a Containment patrol in the neighborhood, so we flagged them down. I knew you’d probably be here.”
“Can I get you a bottle of water or something, Campbell?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I’m good. Thank you.”
“She’s at the house?” Gunnar asked.
Campbell nodded. Without cell phones or landlines in the Zone, the only way to communicate quickly was to play Paul Revere—you hauled ass to wherever someone was and then you hauled ass back again.
“We’ll go,” I said, putting a hand at Gunnar’s back. “We’ll go to your house, make sure she’s all right.” I glanced at Liam, who’d moved behind me, watched with a serious expression. “Maybe you could come, too?”
His expression had gone serious. “Already planning on it.”
Gunnar looked back at Liam, nodded. “I’d appreciate it. You’ll know more about them than any of us. And you’re welcome to the bounty if you can find them.”
Liam shook his head. “Don’t worry about that. We’ll make sure your sister is safe, and go from there.”
“Why don’t I stay here,” Tadji suggested, “get things cleaned up? I can lock up the store or stay until you get back.”