“Me, nothing. You got three-eighties and a vamp-killer?”
“No collateral damage. Got it. Fifteen,” he said, meaning he’d be ready in fifteen minutes. He looked at his brother. “While we’re gone, see what you can find about a magic wreath. Get us dossiers on the living and undead principals to fill out Jane’s old ones. See if there’s anything in Reach’s database to update what we know. And get a shower. You stink.”
“Again?”
“Garlic,” I said. “You sweat garlic and testosterone.”
“I’m da man?” he asked hopefully.
“No,” Eli and I said together.
“You just need to shower more often,” I added, trying for kindness.
“A lot more often,” Eli said, going for honesty.
? ? ?
We started out at Boudreaux’s Meats, which opened at eight a.m. according to the sign on the door, but actually opened closer to nine. Maybe so the proprietor could get a few winks in between dawn and opening. I hadn’t seen Lucky in the circle, but I had no doubt that he was involved somehow, his daughter being the center of the whole situation.
Boudreaux’s had been owned and run by Old Man Boudreaux, until Lucky married the man’s daughter and Boudreaux took his son-in-law under his wing, teaching him everything he knew about carving up pig, cow, wild boar, squirrel, gator, and seafood. And cooking all of the aforementioned protein on a grill. And making various meat-based delights out of it. I’d been in the state of Louisiana for a long time now, and I’d never found another eatery as good as Boudreaux’s Meats. The outside was decorated with signs advertising the meat and the day’s meals, with the specials written in chalk on a blackboard. There were also crosses painted on each window in brilliant blue, which was new. Inside, the place was changed a bit too, with blue plastic tablecloths on the few tables, new backless benches, the floor painted blue and polished to a high shine, and the smell of bacon flavoring the air. The cooler was still in the same place, full of ice and beer. And just like last time, I was met with the bad end of a gun.
“Jane Yellowrock,” Lucky said from behind the counter. “Raise your hands. Keep ’em high. You too, boy.” Eli narrowed his eyes at Lucky, the word boy being pejorative in these parts, but he raised his arms. Lucky had a deep, heavy Cajun accent, hard to understand sometimes, but there was no mistaking the intent of a double-barreled shotgun. The witch was in his early fifties, Caucasian, with black hair and dark eyes—what the locals call Frenchy. A few strands of silver marked his hair, new since I was here last. “Why you here?”
“I was asked to come by the Master of the City of New Orleans.”
“To stop de witches of dis town, here? To steal le breloque what Shauna found?”
I wasn’t sure what a breloque was, so I ignored that part. “To find out what was going on and restore peace if possible.”
Lucky snorted, a deep and resonant sound that belonged on the backstreets of Paris or in the deeps of the swamps.
“And no,” I said, “I have no intention of trying to steal the wreath or whatever it is. I’d like to stop the bloodshed before it starts, though.”
“Le breloque. Tell you what. You cut de head off Gabriel Doucette and I let you go way ’live.”
“I’ll tell you what. You put that shotgun down, I’ll let you live. Deal?”
Lucky snorted again and I smelled the tingle of his magic on the air. No way was I letting him hit me with a spell.
Everything happened fast.
I drew on Beast. Leaped hard across the storefront. Pushed off with a foot and lunged left, then right, behind the counter. Fast, fast, fast.
My partner dove behind the cooler, pulling both guns.
He was still midmove when I knocked the shotgun to the side with one forearm and twisted it out of Lucky’s hands. The spell he threw shot over my shoulder and slammed into the wall behind me. Something crashed. I didn’t have time to look. I turned the shotgun on Lucky. And snarled. Fun, my Beast thought. More!
“Move and bleed,” I growled.
Lucky wore a sheen of sweat that hadn’t been there before, slicking his olive skin.
“What was that spell?” I demanded.
“A get away from me spell,” he said, his mouth turning down. Sadness in his tone, he said, “Broke my wall, it did.”
I glanced once, fast. The back wall of the meat shop looked like a cannonball had gone through it. There was a hole open to the shop next door and the sounds of screams came from it weakly, as if the ladies inside were running away. Smart women.
“You not so easy to stop dis time. Why dat is?” he asked.
“I was expecting the shotgun. You were expecting a human. I’m no longer aping human.” Which still sounded weird when I said it, but secrets could no longer help me.