House of the Rising Sun (38 page)

He took the chair next to her. “Didn’t sleep well, huh?”

She shrugged, her gaze never leaving her coffee. “I was… up late playing Realm of Zauron.” She sipped her coffee. “My stuff should be here today, right?”

The sudden change of subject wasn’t lost on him. He pulled out his LMD. “Yep. I got a text from Dulcinea around seven a.m. She figures they’ll pull in sometime this afternoon.” He’d sent two of his lieutenants, Cylo and Dulcinea, to Boston to pack up Harlow’s apartment and truck her stuff back to New Orleans.

“Thanks for taking care of that.” She raised her head a little, but still didn’t make eye contact. She seemed shy around him this morning and he had no idea why. He hoped whatever she wasn’t telling him wasn’t serious.

“Of course. With Branzino who knows where, it was the smartest way to handle it.”

Lally set a platter of eggs and bacon on the table, followed by a basket of biscuits and a bowl of grits sprinkled with cheese. “I’m glad that man has stayed away. I’m guessing he knows when he’s been beat.”

“Let’s hope so.” Augustine took a biscuit and slathered it with mayhaw jelly. Truth was, it was more likely Branzino was biding his time. “That reminds me, I can’t hang out too long this morning. I’ve got to meet Fenton.” Fenton Welch served as the Elektos liaison to the Guardian, a role the member of the fae’s high council took very seriously.

Harlow sighed.

“I know, I owe you a lesson. I’m sorry.”

She nodded. “It’s okay. I know the Guardian stuff comes first.”

Damn it. She seemed really disappointed. He had to figure out a better schedule.

Lally sat at the end of the table and helped herself to a spoonful of scrambled eggs. “Do you have a lot to do to get ready for Mardi Gras? As Guardian, I mean.”

“Some.” Mostly he was going to nudge Fenton about getting the house warded before they returned to the ongoing investigation into the death of Dreich. The fallen fae had been the late Guardian’s cousin
and
one of his lieutenants. Hard to believe the man had been involved in letting vampires into the city. Vampires who’d not only killed some tourists and the last Guardian, but Harlow’s mother, Olivia Goodwin.

But the man both Augustine and Harlow truly suspected to be behind the whole thing was Joseph Branzino, Harlow’s biological father, raptor fae and known killer.

He shifted his attention to Harlow. She stared at the tabletop, taking a sip of coffee now and then and looking very much like a lost soul. Maybe he should tell Fenton he needed a day off. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Lally pushed the platter of eggs toward her. “Eat something, child. You need the strength to keep yourself warm.”

“Thanks.” She took a piece of bacon, then finally made eye
contact with Augustine. Briefly. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired. And thinking about how nice it will be to have all my stuff back. If it’s okay with you two”—she turned her gaze to Lally—“I’d like to set up shop in one of the spare rooms.”

“Shop?” Lally asked. “You’re not going to get yourself into trouble again, are you?”

“No. Nothing like that.” Harlow glanced at him. “But I still have clients and I need to work. I can’t just live off my mother’s estate. I need to do something. I realize New Orleans may not have the same kind of business going on that Boston did, but I don’t just have to do penetration testing. I’m thinking I could do some Web work. There have to be people in this town who’d like a website designed. Most businesses here still have them, right?”

Lally shrugged. Augustine raised one shoulder. “I guess. Is that a thing most businesses do? My LMD is the closest I’ve been to a computer in a long time.” The Great War had created a huge divide in who could afford things like electricity and technology. Once upon a time, connectivity had been an almost inherent right. Now it was a luxury for those who had the funds.

Harlow sighed. “I hope so. I’d like to do something with my time besides read my way through my mother’s library. Not that that’s such a bad way to pass the time…”

“You’ll be plenty busy when we get this training schedule figured out.” Augustine had promised to teach her to fight, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t having mixed feelings about it. On one hand, it would be good for her to be able to defend herself and would probably do wonders for her self-esteem; but on the other, he worried she’d get overconfident and do something with lasting results.

“I know.” She chewed a piece of bacon. “But I still want to start this new business.”

“I get it,” Lally said. “No shame in wanting to feel productive.”

“Take whatever space you want. It
is
half your house,” Augustine added. “And I’ll work on setting up the ballroom as a training space, too. I promise.” If lack of activity was behind Harlow’s unhappiness, then he was all for her starting up a new business. How busy she’d actually be, he had no idea, but it would give her something to do. With that and the training, she should be well occupied. He popped the last of the biscuit in his mouth and pushed his chair back. “I should be back before Cy and Dulcinea get here.”

He pulled his coat on, covering the sword that hung at his hip, and headed out to the Thrun, the amazing piece of machinery he now drove thanks to his position as Guardian. He trailed his fingers over the car’s sleek black hood as he approached the driver’s side. He tapped the unlock icon on his LMD, then opened the door and slid in.

He smiled at the quiet-as-a-tomb interior when the door shut. Being Guardian came with a lot of headaches. This was not one of them.

His LMD vibrated with an incoming call. “Answer.”

The com cell behind his ear allowed the conversation to take place in his head, something that was still taking some getting used to. “Augustine, it’s Fenton.”

“I’m on my way.” He started the engine and pulled the car out of the garage. The Pelcrum, their headquarters, was only a few blocks away. “I’ll be there in five.”

“Meet me at Loudreux’s.” Fenton sounded tense.

“What’s up?”

“I can’t discuss it on an unsecure line.”

“This is an unsecure line?”

“In this situation, yes.”

Augustine rolled his eyes. Hugo Loudreux’s position as Prime, head of the Elektos, had certainly filled him with a grand sense of importance. What the man wanted now Augustine could only imagine. “On my way.”

But he kept the car going in the same direction. Being called to the Prime’s house was a lot like having the police come to your door. Even if they weren’t there to arrest you, they probably still weren’t bringing you good news. And that could wait a little while longer.

With Dulcinea out of town, he felt duty bound to check in on Beatrice. The late Guardian’s widow had agreed to become one of his lieutenants, only finding out afterward that she was pregnant. Now she and Dulce lived in the Guardian’s house. He certainly didn’t need it since he’d become half owner of Olivia’s estate, and when Harlow had asked him to stay, he couldn’t turn her down.
Wouldn’t
turn her down. Especially not since the beginning of something had blossomed between them.

Besides, he’d promised Olivia he’d protect her daughter. Hell, as Guardian it was his job to protect every citizen of New Orleans. Getting to live with Harlow was just a bonus. A really good bonus. Now if he could just figure out what was bothering her.

He pulled into the driveway at the Guardian’s residence and turned off the engine. Something was up with Harlow and he was determined to figure out what. Since the night the leader of the vampire gang had taken her hostage, she’d changed. Pulled away from him a little.

Was it because she’d seen him slip inside the vampire and destroy the leech the way only a shadeux fae could? Harlow had shied away from all things fae when she’d first arrived at
the house, but he’d thought she was opening up to her heritage more and more with each passing day.

He tipped his head back against the seat. He’d vowed to protect her and yet he’d killed that creature right in front of her. That had to be it. No wonder she’d been acting so cold toward him these past few days. He’d scared her. Damn it. That had not been his intention. He smacked the steering wheel, his anger at his own stupidity blinding him.

If she needed some space, he’d let her have it, but there was no way he was walking away from her completely. There
was
something between them. Something he wasn’t about to give up on unless she told him to.

And even then, not without a fight.

If you enjoyed
HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN,
look out for

The Shambling Guides: Book 1

by Mur Lafferty

A travel writer takes a job with a shady publishing company in New York, only to find that she must write a guide to the city—for the undead!

Because of the disaster that was her last job, Zoë is searching for a fresh start as a travel book editor in the tourist-centric New York City. After stumbling across a seemingly perfect position though, Zoë is blocked at every turn because of the one thing she can’t take off her résumé—human.

Not to be put off by anything—especially not her blood-drinking boss or death goddess coworker—Zoë delves deep into the monster world. But her job turns deadly when the careful balance between human and monsters starts to crumble—with Zoë right in the middle.

The bookstore was sandwiched between a dry cleaner’s and a shifty-looking accounting office. Mannegishi’s Tricks wasn’t in the guidebook, but Zoë Norris knew enough about guidebooks to know they often missed the best places.

This clearly was not one of those places.

The store was, to put it bluntly, filthy. It reminded Zoë of an abandoned mechanic’s garage, with grime and grease coating the walls and bookshelves. She pulled her arms in to avoid brushing against anything. Long strips of paint dotted with mold peeled away from the walls as if they could no longer stand to adhere to such filth. Zoë couldn’t blame them. She felt a bizarre desire to wave to them as they bobbed lazily to herald her passing. Her shoes stuck slightly to the floor, making her trek through the store louder than she would have liked.

She always enjoyed looking at cities—even her hometown—through the eyes of a tourist. She owned guidebooks of every city she had visited and used them extensively. It made her usual urban exploration feel more thorough.

It also allowed her to look at the competition, or it had when she’d worked in travel book publishing.

The store didn’t win her over with its stock, either. She’d never heard of most of the books; they had titles like
How to Make Love, Marry, Devour, and Inherit in Eight Weeks
in the Romance section and
When Your Hound from Hell Outgrows His House—and Yours
in the Pets section.

She picked the one about hounds and opened it to Chapter Four: “The Augean Stables: How to Pooper-Scoop Dung That Could Drown a Terrier.” She frowned.
So, they’re
really
assuming your dog gets bigger than a house? It’s not tongue-in-cheek? If this is humor, it’s failing.
Despite the humorous title, the front cover had a frightening drawing of a hulking white beast with red eyes. The cover was growing uncomfortably warm, and the leather had a sticky, alien feeling, not like cow or even snake leather. She switched the book to her left hand and wiped her right on her beige sweater. She immediately regretted it.

“One sweater ruined,” she muttered, looking at the grainy black smear. “What
is
this stuff?”

The cashier’s desk faced the door from the back of the store, and was staffed by an unsmiling teen girl in a dirty gray sundress. She had olive skin and big round eyes, and her head had the fuzz of the somewhat-recently shaved. Piercings dotted her face at her nose, eyebrow, lip, and cheek, and all the way up her ears. Despite her slouchy body language, she watched Zoë with a bright, sharp gaze that looked almost hungry.

Beside the desk was a bulletin board, blocked by a pudgy man hanging a flyer. He wore a T-shirt and jeans and looked to be in his mid-thirties. He looked completely out of place in this store; that is, he was clean.

“Can I help you?” the girl asked as Zoë approached the counter.

“Uh, you have a very interesting shop here,” Zoë said, smiling. She put the hound book on the counter and tried not to grimace as it stuck to her hand briefly. “How much is this one?”

The clerk didn’t return her smile. “We cater to a specific clientele.”

“OK… but how much is the book?” Zoë asked again.

“It’s not for sale. It’s a collectible.”

Zoë became aware of the man at the bulletin board turning and watching her. She began to sweat a little bit.

Jesus, calm down. Not everyone is out to get you.

“So it’s not for sale, or it’s a collectible. Which one?”

The girl reached over and took the book. “It’s not for sale to you, only to collectors.”

“How do you know I don’t collect dog books?” Zoë asked, bristling. “And what does it matter? All I wanted to know was how much it costs. Do you care where it goes as long as it’s paid for?”

“Are you a collector of rare books catering to the owners of… exotic pets?” the man interrupted, smiling. His voice was pleasant and mild, and she relaxed a little, despite his patronizing words. “Excuse me for butting in, but I know the owner of this shop and she considers these books her treasure. She is very particular about where they go when they leave her care.”

“Why should she…” Zoë trailed off when she got a closer look at the bulletin board to the man’s left. Several flyers stood out, many with phone numbers ripped from the bottom. One, advertising an exorcism service specializing in elemental demons, looked burned in a couple of places. The flyer that had caught her eye was pink, and the one the man had just secured with a thumbtack.

“Oh, hell yes,” said Zoë, and with the weird, dirty hound book forgotten, she pulled a battered notebook from her satchel. She needed a job. She was refusing to adhere to the stereotype of running home to New York, admitting failure at her attempts to leave her hometown. Her goal was a simple office job. She wasn’t waiting for her big break on Broadway and looking to wait tables or take on a leaflet-passing, taco-suit-wearing street-nuisance job in the meantime.

Office job. Simple. Uncomplicated.

As she scribbled down the information, the man looked her up and down and said, “Ah, I’m not sure if that’s a good idea for you to pursue.”

Zoë looked up sharply. “What are you talking about? First I can’t buy the book, now I can’t apply for a job? I know you guys have some sort of weird vibe going on, ‘We’re so goth and special, let’s freak out the normals.’ But for a business that caters to, you know,
customers
, you’re certainly not welcoming.”

“I just think that particular business may be looking for someone with experience you may not have,” he said, his voice level and diplomatic. He held his hands out, placating her.

“But you don’t even know me. You don’t know my qualifications. I just left Misconceptions Publishing in Raleigh. You heard of them?” She hated name-dropping her old
employer—she would have preferred to forget it entirely—but the second-biggest travel book publisher in the USA was her strongest credential in the job hunt.

The man shifted his weight and touched his chin. “Really. What did you do for them?”

Zoë stood a little taller. “Head researcher and writer. I wrote most of
Raleigh Misconceptions
, and was picked to head the project
Tallahassee Misconceptions
.”

He smiled a bit. “Impressive. But you do know Tallahassee is south of North Carolina, right? You went in the wrong direction entirely.”

Zoë clenched her jaw. “I was laid off. It wasn’t due to job performance. I took my severance and came back home to the city.”

The man rubbed his smooth, pudgy cheek. “What happened to cause the layoff? I thought Misconceptions was doing well.”

Zoë felt her cheeks get hot. Her boss, Godfrey, had happened. Then Godfrey’s wife—whom he had failed to mention until Zoë was well and truly in “other woman” territory—had happened. She swallowed. “Economy. You know how it goes.”

He stepped back and leaned against the wall, clearly not minding the cracked and peeling paint that broke off and stuck to his shirt. “Those are good credentials. However, you’re still probably not what they’re looking for.”

Zoë looked at her notebook and continued writing. “Luckily it’s not your decision, is it?”

“Actually, it is.”

She groaned and looked back up at him. “All right. Who are you?”

He extended his hand. “Phillip Rand. Owner, president, and CEO of Underground Publishing.”

She looked at his hand for a moment and shook it, her small fingers briefly engulfed in his grip. It was a cool handshake, but strong.

“Zoë Norris. And why, Mr. Phillip Rand, will you not let me even apply?”

“Well, Miss Zoë Norris, I don’t think you’d fit in with the staff. And fitting in with the staff is key to this company’s success.”

A vision of future months dressed as a dancing cell phone on the wintry streets pummeled Zoë’s psyche. She leaned forward in desperation. She was short, and used to looking up at people, but he was over six feet, and she was forced to crane her neck to look up at him. “Mr. Rand. How many other people experienced in researching and writing travel guides do you have with you?”

He considered for a moment. “With that specific qualification? I actually have none.”

“So if you have a full staff of people who fit into some kind of mystery mold, but don’t actually have experience writing travel books, how good do you think your books are going to be? You sound like you’re a kid trying to fill a club, not a working publishing company. You need a managing editor with experience to supervise your writers and researchers. I’m smart, hardworking, creative, and a hell of a lot of fun in the times I’m not blatantly begging for a job—obviously you’ll have to just take my word on that. I haven’t found a work environment I don’t fit in with. I don’t care if Underground Publishing is catering to eastern Europeans, or transsexuals, or Eskimos, or even Republicans. Just because I don’t fit in doesn’t mean I can’t be accepting as long as they accept me. Just give me a chance.”

Phillip Rand was unmoved. “Trust me. You would not fit in. You’re not our type.”

She finally deflated and sighed. “Isn’t this illegal?”

He actually had the audacity to laugh at that. “I’m not discriminating based on your gender or race or religion.”

“Then what are you basing it on?”

He licked his lips and looked at her again, studying her. “Call it a gut reaction.”

She deflated. “Oh well. It was worth a try. Have a good day.”

On her way out, she ran through her options: there were the few publishing companies she hadn’t yet applied to, the jobs that she had recently thought beneath her that she’d gladly take at this point. She paused a moment in the Self-Help section to see if anything there could help her better herself. She glanced at the covers for
Reborn and Loving It, Second Life: Not Just on the Internet
, and
Get the Salary You Deserve! Negotiating Hell Notes in a Time of Economic Downturn
. Nothing she could relate to, so she trudged out the door, contemplating a long bath when she got back to her apartment. Better than unpacking more boxes.

After the grimy door shut behind her, Zoë decided she had earned a tall caloric caffeine bomb to soothe her ego. She wasn’t sure what she’d done to deserve this, but it didn’t take much to make her leap for the comfort treats these days—which reminded her, she needed to recycle some wine bottles.