House of the Rising Sun (2 page)

The thought alone was enough to raise goose bumps on her skin. She’d do it the same way she had at Comic Con. A couple of good, stiff drinks and the alcohol would dull her senses and make being around so many people bearable. With a good buzz, she could stand being touched. Maybe even find it enjoyable, if things went well. Which was the point.

She was going to New Orleans. The city was practically built on senseless fun and cheap booze, right? If there was ever a place to have one last night of debauchery before heading to the big house, New Orleans seemed custom made for it.

On her Life Management Device, the one she could no longer afford and that would soon be turned off, she checked the weather. Unseasonably warm in New Orleans. Leaving behind the snowpocalypse of Boston wouldn’t be such a hardship, but she wasn’t about to ditch her long sleeves just for a
little sunshine. On the rare occasions she had to leave her apartment, she liked as much skin covered as possible.

She jumped off the bed, grabbed her rolling bag and packed. Just the necessities—travel laptop with holoscreen and gaming headset, some clothes, toiletries and the cash. Not like she’d be gone long. She changed into her favorite Star Alliance T-shirt, set her security cameras, locked down her main computer and servers and grabbed her purse. She took a deep breath and one last look at her apartment. It was only for a few days. She could do this.

A few minutes later she was in the car, a jumbo energy drink in the cup holder and the nav on her LMD directing her toward Louisiana.

Augustine tucked away his traveling mirror and inhaled the comforting scent of home. The weeks of rarely staying in one spot for longer than a few nights had worn thin. He’d tried a stint in Austin, Texas, another fae Haven city, but a week there and he’d begun to feel eyes on him. Being back in New Orleans was pure happiness. This was the only ground he’d ever considered home, and this house, the estate of retired movie star Olivia Goodwin, was the only place that had ever
felt
like home.

Protecting Olivia and this place was why he’d run to begin with, but she knew he hadn’t been the cause of the trouble. Not really. That landed squarely on the shoulders of his estranged half brother, Mortalis. They shared a father but that was about it. They’d never seen eye to eye on anything. Mortalis disapproved of Augustine’s life in more ways than he could count and took every opportunity, rare as they were, to make that known.

Despite that, Augustine had helped one of Mortalis’s very pretty, very persuasive female friends gain access to the fae
plane, specifically the Claustrum, the max-security prison where the fae kept the worst of their kind. Livie had agreed it had been the right thing to do, but she hadn’t really understood the consequences.

The sounds of female voices reached his ears. Olivia and Lally, her companion and housekeeper, were out on the back porch enjoying the unseasonably warm weather. He set his bag down and moved softly from the hall and into the kitchen. Their voices were louder now, filtering in through the screen door along with the afternoon breeze. Ice clinked in glasses and the scent of mint and bourbon followed.

He smiled. Livie loved herself a julep on the porch. He leaned in close to the screen, but left the door closed. “Miss me so much you have to drink away your sorrows, huh?”

Both women jumped in their rockers, clutching at their hearts and slopping bourbon and soda over the rims of their glasses.

Olivia shook her cane at him, her shock widening into an unstoppable grin. “Augustine Robelais, how dare you sneak up on two old women like that.” She threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, Augie, you’re home. Praise our lady Elizabeth Taylor. Get out here and let me hug your neck.”

He pushed through the screen door and scooped Livie into his arms. She squeezed him hard, her form somehow frailer than he remembered. He whispered into her silver-white bob, “I missed you more than I have words for.”

“And I, you,
cher
.” Her hand cupped the back of his head as she kissed his cheek. “I am so glad you’re home.” She released him, her amber eyes glittering with tears.

He turned to Lally and caught her in a hug as she stood. “I’m sure you didn’t miss cleaning up after me, huh?”

Lally clung to him, her voice catching when she finally spoke. “Silly child.” She patted his back as she let him go and sat down.
“I had so much free time, I read half Miss Olivia’s library.” She laughed. “I’m still not used to seeing you with your horns grown out, but I’m happy to have you back, no matter what you look like.”

He leaned against the porch railing. The warmth of their love was almost palpable, soothing the ache in his heart from being away. “I appreciate that. I’ll be grinding the horns off soon enough.”

A wash of concern took away Livie’s smile. “Everything all right then? Didn’t have any trouble did you? No run-ins with any Elektos?”

“Not a bit.” He couldn’t stop smiling. Even the air smelled better. “How about you?”

She snorted softly. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

Which meant they’d been here. That knocked the smile off his face. Anger fueled a fire in his belly, but for her sake he just nodded. Obviously she didn’t want to talk about it right now. Or maybe just not around Lally, but there wasn’t much Olivia kept from her.

“You home to stay, Mr. Augustine?” Lally looked hopeful.

“Yes.” He sighed and tipped his head back, inhaling the earthy, heady scent of the Garden District. Tiny green tips were beginning to show on the trees. In a few weeks, spring would overtake the place. “I hope I never have to run again.” He would, though, if it meant keeping these two women safe.

“Good.” Lally smiled. “We had enough of you bein’ gone.”

“That we did.” Livie sipped her mint julep, then held it up to him. “You want a drink, darling?”

“No, I’m good. All I really want is to sleep in my own bed.”

She took another sip before setting the drink down. “Well, I’ll be. You mean you’re not heading into the Quarter to see what young thing you might woo into your arms for the night?”

He laughed. Olivia didn’t need to know he’d already been
there. “I thought I’d take one night off. Besides, tomorrow night is
Nokturnos
. I’ll do plenty of wooing then.”

“Is that tomorrow? With you gone, I guess it slipped my mind.” She looked at Lally. “Did you realize it was the new moon?”

“I knew that much, but I can’t be bothered with the rest.” Lally waved her hand. “All that mask wearing and kissing strangers and carrying on like fools. Humans do enough of that during Mardi Gras.”

Augustine raised a brow. “We don’t carry on like—well, okay, a little bit like fools, but it’s the fae New Year. There’s got to be some celebration. Plus the fae need their own party before the tourists invade for carnival and the town isn’t ours anymore. This is a big one, too. Since the covenant’s been broken and humans know we exist, it’s the first
Nokturnos
we can celebrate publicly.” He shook his finger at Olivia. “You’ve got a good bit of haerbinger blood in your system, Ms. Goodwin. You should be celebrating, too.”

She waved him off. “Please,
cher
. I’ve had enough celebrating in my days.”

“My lands,” Lally exclaimed with a smirk. “You sure came back from your sojourn with a lot of sass, didn’t you, Mr. Augustine? Hmph.”

He laughed.

“I missed this, I surely did.” Lally tipped her head up toward Augustine. “So you’ll be kissing a stranger tomorrow evening? Guess that’s not much different than most of your evenings.” She laughed, clearly tickled with herself.

“And I’m the one full of sass?” But he grinned. “Hey, you want me to have good luck for the New Year, don’t you?” A yawn caught him off guard. Before he’d returned home, sleep had eluded him the last few nights, replaced by nightmares so real, they’d driven him to return home. Probably earlier than was prudent, but enough was enough.

Livie immediately looked concerned. “You really are tired, aren’t you,
cher
?”

He hadn’t slept much last night, either, but he wasn’t about to tell them that. He scratched the base of one horn. “You know how it is when you’re not in your own bed. It’s just not the same.”

Lally nodded. “I hear that. You going to make it till supper, Mr. Augustine, or should I put up a plate for you?”

“Depends on what you’re fixing.”

“Nothing special. Just a little RB-and-R and some hot sausage.”

“Nothing special.” He snorted. “You know I love red beans and rice. Especially yours. Yes to supper, but first I should probably run down to Jackson Square and see if Dulcinea is around. Let her know I’m back.” He’d stayed clear of the Quarter’s main areas last night, too, keeping as low a profile as he could without becoming completely invisible to the pretty tourist girls he so enjoyed.

Lally stood. “I’ll just go take another sausage out of the freezer.”

After she left, Livie gave him a sly smile. “I’m sure Dulcinea’s missed you.”

He rolled his eyes. “You know it’s not like that between us.”

“Mm-hmm. I know what you two get up to.” She swirled the liquid in her glass. “I know you’re both adults and consenting and all that.”

He knew what Olivia was hinting at, but the past was the past. “We’re just friends.”

“Friends with benefits, that’s what they used to call it in my day.” She lifted her glass to her lips as Lally came back out.

“Y’all still talking about Miss Dulcinea?”

“Yes, why?” Augustine answered.

Lally settled into her chair and pointed toward the back corner of the yard. “She was out here one night. Just sitting in the gazebo past the pool there. I gave her a little wave, but she didn’t
wave back. Didn’t see her again after that, but the next night, a stray cat showed up. Sleek gray thing with darker stripes and these two different-colored eyes that just looked right through a person’s soul.”

Augustine looked at Livie the same time she looked at him and in unison, they both said, “Dulcinea.”

She was one of the oddest fae he knew, not just personality-wise, but because even she didn’t know her bloodlines other than that they included fae and varcolai, or shifter. The strange stew of her lineage had given her some rare powers, including the ability to take on random animal forms. In othernatural terms, she was a remnant, a label applied to anyone with mixed othernatural heritage. But in the neighborhood, most called her a changeling.

Lally sat back, resting her arms across her plump stomach. “I figured that was her.”

He nodded. “Thanks for letting me know.”

She lifted one hand to shake a finger at him. “You definitely should go see that girl. She’s pining for you.”

Augustine laughed. “Dulce pines for no one. Except maybe this city.” It was nice to know she’d kept an eye on Olivia and Lally while he’d been gone. He hadn’t asked her to do that and was a little surprised she had, but then maybe he wasn’t. Nothing Dulcinea did could really be considered shocking.

A
ugustine strolled toward Jackson Square with a little extra swagger in his step despite his sleeplessness. That was the power of being home again, of being back where he belonged with Livie. But the closer to the square he got, the deeper the invasive itch of the iron fencing dug into him. Iron was a fae’s worst nightmare, a death sentence in great enough quantities, which was why most of the ironwork in New Orleans had been replaced over the years with look-alike aluminum. He shook the itch off. He wouldn’t let it bother him. Not even the tourists plowing past could ruin his mood. It was too beautiful a day, too good to be home and too hard to be grumpy in a city that had so much going for it.

Ahead of him, under her customary black umbrella, sat Dulcinea, her back to him. She kept to the square’s far side to put as much distance between herself and the iron fencing as possible, but he still didn’t know how she could take such prolonged exposure. For a fae, being so close to that much iron was like having your skin peeled off. Slowly. But that was Dulcinea. One of a kind.

A fat strand of bloodred yarn tied back her silvery gray dreads so that the beads, feathers and bones woven into the matted strands clinked against one another when she moved. That slip of red was the only color she wore. The rest of her outfit from her long, flowy dress to her casually torn leggings to her combat boots was black or a shade of gray. Combined with her dusty
gray skin and her nearly six foot height, she made a striking figure. One that looked very much the mystical fortune-teller. And the tourists loved every inch of her, even her bicolored eyes, one blue, one green.

Since the breaking of the covenant that had enabled mortals to see all the othernatural creatures around them, New Orleans had enjoyed a boom in visitors interested in gawking at the fae that called the Haven city home.

Dulcinea was very happy to take advantage, literally, of those visitors. And was doing just that as he approached.

She had a victim—ah, tourist—at her table, her fae tarot cards laid out between them, no doubt spinning some grand tale that would result in the tourist forking over more money to hear what else their future might hold, or where their great-aunt Sally had buried a stash of gold coins or what numbers they should play in next week’s lottery. It seemed likely to Augustine that Dulcinea’s mulligan stew of a gene pool must hold a healthy dollop of haerbinger fae, the same as Livie’s did, because both women had a good knack for knowing the truth about a person.

Dulcinea just embellished the truth with liberal abandon as befitted the needs of the poor sap in front of her. He sidled closer to listen.

“This card means death.” She tapped one black-painted fingernail on the tarot card. The female tourist gasped, fear obvious in her eyes. Dulcinea raised her hand. “This death is not yours.” She passed her hand dramatically through the air. “It’s the death of all ill will against you. The death of your enemies’ desire to bring harm against you.”

“My enemies?” The woman wore jeans with a matching jean jacket and a bright white T-shirt that read “I got Bourbon on Drunk Street.” Her fingers strayed to the St. Christopher medal around her neck. “I don’t feel like I have any enemies.”

Dulcinea leveled her gaze at the woman, cocking her head
slightly. “I see someone at your church. Another woman. She has dark hair and is a bit meddlesome.” Dulcinea squinted and tapped the side of her head like she was on the verge of a psychic breakthrough. “She desires to…”

The woman’s mouth went open. “Helen Kettell! I knew it. My coconut cream cake outsells her German chocolate every year at the bake sale.” The woman covered her mouth with her hand for a moment. “What’s she planning?”

Augustine snorted. Dulcinea glanced back, her eyes lighting when she saw him. She turned to the woman and sat forward in her chair. “You’ll have to come back tomorrow. I’m closed.”

“What? Closed? But you’re talking to me right now.”

“And now I’m not.” Dulcinea jumped up and walked toward Augustine, ignoring the sputtering woman behind her. She flung her arms wide. “Gussie!”

He laughed, even though he’d kill anyone else who tried to call him that. “Hey, Dulce. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“You didn’t. I was done.” She kissed him on the mouth, then stepped back and grinned, crinkling the skin around her heavily lined eyes. “Really good to have you back in town. I guess you were too busy last night to say hello.”

So she had seen him. Not surprising. “Yeah, well, I’m here now.” He shook his head at the lip-to-lip contact. Also not surprising. “And it’s good to be back. I owe you one for checking on Olivia and Lally while I was gone.”

She hitched up one shoulder. “You would have done the same for me.”

“You know it.” Not that Dulcinea seemed to have any family for him to check on. She claimed not to know anything about her parents and that she was raised as an orphan by a distant aunt until she’d ended up in the same gang as him. Then the crew had become her family. He looked at her now-deserted table. “Business been good?”

“Crazy good, but I can only stand so much contact with
these
people.” She hissed at a couple as they passed by, causing them to shrink back and almost run into another artist’s stall. Then she gave the side eye to one of her competitors. “And then there’s
that
one.”

Augustine turned to look. Right in front of the fence, under a beautiful ivory pavilion, sat a woman who was as sleek and sophisticated as Dulcinea was not. “Ah.” He nodded. “Giselle.”

“Witch,” Dulcinea spat.

Augustine smirked. “That’s not much of an epithet considering she is one.” Giselle Vincent wasn’t
just
a witch. As the daughter of New Orleans’s coven leader and High Wizard, she was witch royalty. Her father, Evander, was a fourth-level wizard and the final authority when it came to all things witchy in NOLA. Well, until the Elektos got involved. They were
really
the final authority due to the treaty established after the messy business of the curse.

He could see why Dulcinea would feel threatened by her, though. Giselle’s reputation also made her one of the most sought-after fortune-tellers. Combine that with her rank and yeah, Dulcinea wouldn’t be Giselle’s bestie anytime soon.

“Yeah, well the High Priestess of Mean can get bent for all I care.”

“What’s she done to you?” Dulcinea and Giselle had never been friendly, but this blatant animosity was something new.

“I overheard her telling some tourists I have bedbugs living in my hair.” Dulcinea flicked two fingers at Giselle in some sort of Dulcinea sign language for
suck it
.

Augustine popped a brow. “Do you really think she’d say that? Maybe I should have a talk with her.” When they ran the streets as part of the same crew, he wouldn’t have hesitated to come to Dulcinea’s defense, but now that they were living more separate lives, he didn’t want to overstep.

“No. Don’t say anything. When it’s time, I’ll deal with her.”

Giselle looked up, pushing her long black hair out of the way. From under the fringe of heavy bangs, her dark eyes pierced straight into Augustine. He held her gaze. She might be a witch, but she didn’t scare him. Actually, she was kind of hot in an untouchable, pristine way. He couldn’t imagine her hair messed up or her pristine white outfits dirty or wrinkled. Or maybe he could. He pulled his gaze back to Dulcinea. “If you’re sure.”

“I am. Leave the freak to me,” Dulcinea added. “I mean, who wears white in this city? It’s witchcraft, I tell you.” She made crazy eyes. “Witchcraft.”

“O-kay, how about we get you out of here for a bit?” He rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. “Forget Giselle, I think being next to all this iron is starting to affect you.”

She stared at the fence for a second. “Yeah, that is kind of bothersome. Whatevs.” Then she turned to him and smiled brightly. “Let’s go drink. But not
Belle’s
. I don’t go there much anymore.”

Dulcinea’s standard hangout,
La Belle et la Bête
, was the same as the rest of the othernatural population in town because it was the oldest othernatural bar in town and specifically designed to keep mortal eyes from prying. He’d ask why not there later. “Fine with me. I need to be a little more inconspicuous at the moment anyway.”

“Elektos doesn’t know you’re back, huh?”

“Nope.” He looked at her a little harder. “Is that why you stopped going to
Belle’s
? Were the Elektos hassling you about me?”

“Nobody hassles me. Except for you.” She winked. “It was just… this and that. You know. C’mon. I know a good place.” Without another word, she turned and started walking.

Damn, the Elektos going after her made him mad. He could understand the high council looking for him at Olivia’s, but
bothering his friends crossed a line. He jumped to catch up with her. “I’m sorry about that. Anything else going on?”

“Yes, but…” She shot him a look. “When we’re settled.” Then Dulcinea’s gaze traveled higher. “I like the full-on horns. I bet those fae-loving female tourists do, too. You letting them grow now?”

He touched one self-consciously. In truth, he was kind of over them. “I’m not keeping them this way. Just did it to blend.”

She shrugged. “Your head.”

They crossed the street and swerved through a few blocks of tourists until she pushed through a nondescript wood door. A simple hand-painted sign above read “Stella’s.” He followed after her. The place was lit mostly by a bunch of holovisions showing various sporting events. The few solar tubes there looked like they hadn’t held a full charge in years, which was fine with Augustine because he wasn’t sure the place would hold up to bright light. The sticky floor grabbed at his boots with every step and dust coated the Mardi Gras beads that hung off the beer signs.

Dulcinea had already found a spot at the bar. He took the stool beside her, hoping nothing in the joint was communicable. “Nice place.”

“Isn’t it?” She perked up. “Stella’s is my other joint. They leave you alone in here.”

“They leave a lot alone in here by the looks of it.”

The bartender stopped leaning and walked toward them, nodding at Dulcinea. “The usual?”

She held up two fingers. “Double it.”

“Really,” Augustine started, “you come here that often? What’s your usual?” With Dulcinea, nothing was a given. Once upon a time, it had been white Russians, heavy on the white.

“I come here enough, I guess.”

“Must have started since I left because you’ve never brought me here.”

“You’re too fancy for joints like this.” She stuck her tongue out at him.

“Fancy?”

“Yeah, you like the kind of places where the beautiful people hang out.” She batted her lashes at him, then gave him a wry smile. “I guess I should say the beautiful women. That you then seduce and take home.”

“Hey, now.” He pointed a finger at her. “I never take them home. It’s their hotel or nothing.”

She laughed. “You’re such a man whore.”

He waggled his eyebrows. “That didn’t stop you from taking a dip in this pool.” A dip that had happened ages ago and only that one time, as they’d quickly come to the mutual understanding that being friends was more valuable.

The bartender set two bottles of Abita, the local beer, down in front of them, answering the question about what her usual was. She took a long pull off hers before responding. “That’s because I liked to swim and your pool was always open. Also, we were young and stupid.”

“That we were.” He sipped his beer. “Dulce, you know you could swim in any pool you wanted.” She might be odd, but there were plenty of humans who’d developed a fae fetish since the covenant had fallen and to them there was no such thing as a normal fae anyway. Something he’d taken full advantage of.

She leaned in, clinking her bottle against his. “Maybe, but I don’t want some mouth breather following me around, moon-eyed and dopey with love. I want what I want until I don’t want it anymore.” She tipped her bottle in his direction. “With you, it was just like you said. We were young and dumb. No emotional strings. Just like all those tourist chicks you pick up. Except I never tried to hunt you down afterwards.”

He nodded, slightly sobered by her frankness. “None of them have tried to hunt me down.”

“That you know about.” She set her beer on the bar, her expression growing earnest. “I really
am
glad you’re back. Things are getting a little hinky in town.”

“This about what you wouldn’t tell me outside?”

She glanced around, but the few other patrons in the bar were some distance away and definitely not interested in what they were doing. “Vamps.”

Not what he’d wanted to hear. He shook his head. He hadn’t seen a single vampire on his walk here, despite the fact that they could daywalk within the limits of the Orleans parish thanks to a nearly two-century-old curse leveled against the city by a heartbroken witch. “Is that why you were over at Olivia’s?”

She kind of half shrugged. “That and you were gone. Figured it couldn’t hurt.” The label on her bottle slowly disappeared under her fingernails. “Khell’s got his hands full, but you ask me? It’s his people to blame. I’m sure there’s a soft spot in his ranks.”

“So someone’s getting greased, letting them in.” Bribes were as much a part of New Orleans history as the vampires, but Augustine had thought the new Guardian, Khell, wouldn’t have stood for that garbage. He didn’t know Khell well, but the guy seemed a by-the-book type. Maybe his lieutenants were dirty. Augustine shook his head. Maybe? More like definitely. Few people in this city turned down a bribe.

Her odd eyes went a little darker. “Worse. I think one of them might be
bringing
the vampires in. Promising
La Ville Éternelle Nuit
to whoever can pay the price.”

“Damn. That
is
hinky.”
La Ville Éternelle Nuit
was what the vampires called New Orleans—except they didn’t really know it was New Orleans they were referring to as the City of Eternal Night. After the witch had her heart broken by her fae lover and cursed the city into becoming a vampire playground, the ruling Elektos had been able to temper the curse with a secondary spell
that erased the memory of New Orleans from a vampire’s mind when they left.