Time didn’t bubble again, but my heart did skip a beat. An Enforcer took first challenge to all blood duels. Eli was great with firearms and hand-to-hand and things that go bang. Not so much with long swords. And then I knew exactly what to do, as clearly as if God himself had stuck the idea into my head. “Nope. You know that boon you owe me? The one from way back? I’m claiming it. I want you as my Enforcer.”
Gee DiMercy splashed tea over the cup edge onto his hand. His face contorted into some kind of horror. I just grinned. “Welcome aboard Clan Yellowrock. Get with Eli for your place to sleep at the house. Maybe Ed will share his nook under the stairs. It’ll be tight but I think you can manage it. Ed’s good with hair. Maybe he’ll groom your feathers for you.” I set down my cup, stood, and opened the door. “And I think that concludes my business here today.” I closed the door and smiled up into my honeybunch’s face. “Hi ya, Bruiser. Thought I smelled you in the hall.”
Bruiser returned my smile, his brown eyes warm, his Bruiser/Onorio scent like citrus and . . . Onorio. That was a scent all his own. Beast started a purr that I barely kept inside.
He said, “If you’re finished baiting the locals, would you accept an invitation to join me for a trip on a boat?” He held out a hand and I placed mine into his heated one as we walked to the elevator.
“In a storm? Sure. Why not?” The elevator doors closed and we ascended to the ballroom level in back, talking as we moved.
“You heard?” I asked.
“I heard. Onorios have very good ears. Leo will be displeased at your presumption,” he said with a secretive and delighted twist to his lips. He lifted our clasped hands and kissed the back of mine in that old-world charm that made my heart melt into a puddle of goo. Bruiser was pleased at what I had done.
I wasn’t sure when it had become important to please another person, but it had happened around the time that Yellowrock Clan had first been mentioned. Clans, in the Cherokee tradition, had rules and regs about interpersonal relationships; pleasing and supporting each other was a big, if unspoken, part of that. I didn’t remember much about my own Cherokee tradition, but I remembered that. Just as important, at some point over the last few months Bruiser had stopped being Leo’s footstool and started being Onorio. That meant he’d started putting me before his former master. This change had nourished the small bud of happy now growing inside me. Happy was scary. I had never done happy. “Leo can kiss my pretty, golden-skinned bottom.”
“No. He cannot.”
The happy bloom got bigger. So did the scary. I wasn’t sure I had really been happy since my father died. Happiness and death were mixed up inside my head from that juxtaposition, as if being happy meant waiting for death to happen. Together we exited the building to stand under the porte cochere. “Wait. Did you say I’d be joining you for a trip on a boat? A boat? Unless you got an ark out there, I’m not interested in going on a boat in this weather.” Bruiser opened the passenger door of one of Leo’s limos, armored and heavy and very familiar. Especially the floor of this one. I looked at the floor and he read my mind.
“Sadly not today. But soon. I promise.”
I slid in and removed the top from a bottled Coke I took from the tiny refrigerator. I had never had a bottled Coke—real glass and everything—until recently, and now the flavor of canned or plastic-bottled Coke—aluminum or plastic and a touch of bleagh—had begun to pall on me. I figured that the glass bottles were intended for Leo and the cans for the hoi polloi like me, but that only made them taste better. Bruiser slid in beside me. He wasn’t dressed in his usual dress pants and dress shirt, sleeves rolled up, but in jeans, a T-shirt that traced his abs like a lover’s hand, and a navy wool pea jacket, unbuttoned. With butt-stomper boots. There were two rain ponchos resting over the seat across from us. And rain boots. And life vests. The limo pulled away.
“You were serious. We’re going out on the water in this gale.”
“We are. There is something you should see.”
“Ducky. Not. My magic is reacting to the storm. To the lightning specifically.”
“I saw.” His eyes rested on me, his lids low, his lips quirked up on one side with delight. “On the monitor, along with the entire security team, and Eli, gathered in the main security office. When you vanished, reappeared, and pinned the Mercy Blade, they broke into spontaneous applause.”
“Yeah?” Okay. I could live with applause.
“Yes. You took him. He dropped his weapons. And you didn’t vomit blood or grow claws. It was impressive. And something that might get leaked to our enemies. There were a lot of people in the room and not all of them are fully trustworthy.”
“That could be a good thing or a very bad thing. But we’re going to a boat?”
“A very nice boat with a snug cabin and a teakettle.”
Bruiser had never taken me on a very nice boat with a cabin and a teakettle. “It’s about the storm, isn’t it?”
His face went grave. “It is.”
“And about my magic changing?”
“Possibly that too.”
CHAPTER 8
A Felon with Employment Offers from the DOD
The limo trailed through the streets to the docks at Bayou Bienvenue Marina off Highway 47—Paris Road to the locals. The marina led to several bodies of water, including the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet Canal, Lake Pontchartrain, and Lake Borgne.
Bruiser and I raced onto a very nice boat and into the snug cabin with its teakettle. I wasn’t up on my nautical terms. But the boat was wide and the hull didn’t go down into the water much, which seemed smart in the half-swamp, half-navigable waters around New Orleans. It did move around beneath me, though, and Beast turned tail and disappeared. I guessed she didn’t like the blustering wind that buffeted the boat or the unsure footing. My stomach didn’t like them either.
There were thumps and jars above us as the sailor types—a captain and a first mate?—got us ready to shove off. Bruiser poured me ginger tea and watched me sip it, sitting cautiously on a bench attached to the wall and floor, my poncho dripping and my borrowed rain boots puddling storm water. I put a smile on my already-green face, downed the tea, and got ready to pretend enjoyment.
The mate shoved us off into the storm. The water, even in the protected areas, was worse than choppy. It was heaving and cresting and the wind was gusting. I stood and braced my feet, gripping a railing at my shoulder level. I swallowed down my gorge and said, “So where are we going on this little three-hour tour?”
Bruiser laughed. “Gilligan’s Island. How could a youngster like you know about Gilligan’s Island?”
“Reruns.”