From a distance I heard an unexpected voice say, “Hey, Jane.”
“Jodi?” Jodi worked with the local PD, in charge of the woo-woo team, my term for paranormal cases. PsyLED was a federal woo-woo agency under Homeland Security. The two law enforcement officers shouldn’t be in the same place at the same time. Then I put it together. The Witch Council of the entire U.S. was happening in few weeks. Both the president and the governor—usually fierce opponents—had expressed an interest in the Witch Conclave and the meeting between the witches and vamps that would happen on the last day. It was to be a parley, a vamp term meaning to negotiate and come to a legal agreement, like a peace accord. The powers that be wanted the witches and the vamps to sign a treaty and bury the hatchet, and not in one another’s backs.
Making certain that everything worked out well and that nothing outside interfered with the attempt at rapprochement required that the entire city be secure from hate groups and terrorist groups, homegrown and imported, paranormal and mundane. Security for a whole city might involve PsyLED. Yellowrock Securities was concerned with the micro parts—the security of the mansion where the big weekend-long affair was to take place, security at vamp HQ, and security during travel times, when the witches rode the streetcar from their hotels to the mansion hosting the event, and later, when Leo Pellissier was limoed in. “Are you out of town with Soul or is Soul in New Orleans?”
“We’re eating at Coop’s Place on Decatur. We just got here. Come join us.”
I looked down at myself. Thank God I had put on a bra, or I’d look like I belonged in a wet T-shirt contest. But I’d still need to change. “Order Eli and me the gumbo with extra seafood and we’ll be there in twenty.” I tapped END and looked at Eli, who still wore a faint smirk. “I’ll get dry and change and meet you out front.”
“I take it I’m driving?”
“Until I can breathe without pain, yes.”
Alex said, “Bring me a shrimp po’boy with extra lettuce and tomato.”
Eli stood and followed me inside to put on a shirt and shoes. Even in the Deep South, the “no shirt, no shoes, no service” protocol reigned.
Five minutes later I was clean and dry except for my wet hair, which I braided in a single long plait down my back. It took too long to dry as much hair as I had, but I’d have to get to it soon. Wet hair in this weather could get rank. I strapped a set of small throwing knives to my calf, which I could reach under jeans. I’d rather be better armed, but with cops around, even cops I knew well, no gun and no obvious, oversized bladed weapon was my best choice. I slid into loose jeans and a T, with the long sleeves pushed up to my elbows.
I set the vinyl bag with the skull in it on the floor in the closet and removed a small wooden carving of a crow. It was carved from ebony and had been brushed with some inky stain that darkened the knife cuts even more than the smoothed wood. The crow contained Molly’s new, modified, portable working—what nonwitches called a spell—an updated version of her hedge of thorns ward. I tapped the crow’s claws with my fingernail, which opened the hedge over the crow and the vinyl bag, protecting it and everything inside. Even the arcenciel would have trouble getting to it without a major singeing. I no longer had to spill blood to set such a prearranged ward—except the big one out back, which I hadn’t used in months. Satisfied that no one could get to the skull and the spelled charms Molly had made, not without getting hurt badly in the process, I headed out.
? ? ?
Coop’s advertised itself as the place where the not-so-elite ate. It was a renovated old building so close to the Mississippi that I could feel the faint vibration of the river moving beneath my feet. It was bar dark inside and smelled of beer and drunks and excellent food. Today it also reeked with excitement because someone had just won it big at one of the video poker machines.
Our food was waiting when we got there and I slid into a booth next to Jodi. Eli took the place next to Soul and said, “Ladies.”
We dug into the food and when my appetite was moderately appeased—mud wrestling with an arcenciel used up a lot of energy—I held up my glass so the waitperson could see that I needed more iced tea and said, “I had a visit from your old friend, the chick who always wears rainbow dresses.”
Soul had been reaching for a French fry and she made the faintest of flinches. The chick who always wears rainbow dresses was an unmistakable code for an arcenciel. “When?” she asked, sounding unconcerned and maybe even casual. I’d have totally bought it if I hadn’t seen that tiny flinch. “I wasn’t aware she was still around.”