House of the Rising Sun (8 page)

He lost himself in the streets, moving on instinct and muscle memory. There was no good solution for the problem at hand. No clear path that would lead him out of this mess. He’d have to leave. Again.

Maybe for good.

The bitterness of that thought sank into him, blinding him to the people he passed. All he saw was everything he loved in life being taken away. He thought about his half brother, living fat in Paradise City. Even if Mortalis did work for a vampire, he had a cushy life. Hell, he’d always had a cushy life, something Augustine hadn’t known anything about until Livie had taken him in.

He stumbled over a root protruding through the cracked sidewalk, catching himself on the tree’s massive trunk. Behind him, footsteps scraped to a sudden stop. He turned, but there was no one there. He listened. Nothing. Not a heartbeat, not a breath. If the Elektos was having him followed, they could go screw themselves.

He broke into a jog, eager to get home, however much longer that word would apply. He approached Livie’s house and jumped over the block wall surrounding the property. The lights were on downstairs, so she was still up. Probably waiting for him, but he was in no mood to talk. Tomorrow morning would be soon enough.

With practiced ease, he scaled the trellis on the side of the house, then vaulted onto the second-story porch. From there, he climbed the gutters to the attic and the big window he never locked for this very reason. Once inside, he cranked up some blues, a sign he was home but wanted to be left alone. He collapsed onto the bed, folding his arms over his face. His head hurt from trying to come up with something, anything, that would get him out of this mess.

Exhausted, he drifted off.

The low whine of bluesy horns lifted Olivia’s head from her tablet. Augustine was home. And unhappy, by the sounds of his musical selection. Did that mean things hadn’t gone the way he’d wanted with Dulcinea? She’d have to wait to find out. When he listened to blues, it meant he was in a pensive mood.

Let him think. They could talk before breakfast. Before Harlow arrived. Olivia reread the last line of the book on her display,
The Mother-Daughter Dilemma
, but it had no solution on how to handle her relationship with Harlow. That child. How many times could one person break your heart? Tomorrow Harlow would suffer through breakfast so she could get her money, then she’d disappear again. Agreeing not to discuss her father would only make Harlow hate Olivia even more, but Olivia saw no other way. Protecting Harlow was all that mattered. All that had ever mattered since that horrible night.

With a shudder, she tapped off the tablet’s power and got to her feet, picking up her cane from where it rested against the couch before walking out into the hall to stare up the steps.

She sighed, the tiniest niggle of guilt creeping into her bones. Maybe she should have pushed Augustine harder to become more independent, but she wasn’t the boy’s mother. As much as she acted like it. Or wished she could have been. Perhaps indulgent aunt was a better description.

He lived here rent-free, worry-free, responsibility-free. And all because she allowed it. Was that any different than paying Harlow to spend time with her? The niggle turned into a genuine pang and she shook her head, disgusted with herself. She’d failed Harlow; would she fail Augustine, too? Sweet St. Elizabeth, that boy needed some sense talked into him. Tough love, they used to call it. She tapped her cane on the floor. “Augie!”

No response. “Augustine, come down here. We need to talk.”

Still nothing. Her mouth bunched in frustration. She hadn’t taken those stairs in years thanks to the house’s elevator, and she certainly wasn’t going to start now. Fae hearing was excellent. He could hear her, even over those whining horns. If he wanted to behave like a child, so be it. “I’m going outside to sit on the porch, Augustine. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll come out there and join me.” They did some of their best talking out there. No reason they couldn’t work this thing out tonight.

Otherwise, she’d ream him a new one in the morning before Harlow arrived. The position of Guardian was potentially fraught with danger, that was true, but then what part of life wasn’t? People keeled over from heart attacks while doing nothing. Better to face one’s fears and stare death in the eyes than have it creep up on you in your seniority.

She stormed out of the house, slamming the big leaded-glass door so hard she cringed and waited for the crack of glass, but it never came. Exhaling her relief, she took her place in one of
the rattan rockers, easing her weary bones onto the cushions. If only every aspect of life was this easy. Sit, rock, let your thoughts drift. That was part of the life she’d envisioned when she’d left Hollywood to return to New Orleans’s welcoming embrace. That and having Harlow here with her, going to school at Tulane, living at home, the two of them happy. As they should always have been.

Instead, Harlow had ignored Olivia’s pleas to move here, ignored the promises of school paid for, of a new car, of providing anything Harlow needed to be happy. Except the one thing Olivia could never, ever give her—her father’s name.

Then Olivia had met Augustine. He’d scared the daylights out of her at first, but she couldn’t help but feel pity for him. For what he’d been through. How he’d kept himself alive. That boy had
needed
her. His mother had done such a job on that child. Torn the boy down until he felt as worthless and
wrong
as his mother had led him to believe, and then she’d kicked him out.

Who put a not-yet-fourteen-year-old child on the street?

Olivia shook her head, the ache of memories building tears in her eyes. Yes, he’d filled a part of the hole left by Harlow, but if she hadn’t taken him in, he’d be dead, like a few of the others he’d run with. She knew that like she knew the sky was blue and the grass was green.

And then the one thought she never let herself have reared its head. Had someone adopted Harlow the way she’d adopted Augie? Had some other woman become the mother to Harlow that Olivia had never been?

She sniffed. Foolish old woman, that’s what she was. Harlow was as stubborn as Augie. Maybe more. At least Augustine still spoke to his mother on occasion. Harlow wouldn’t even answer the phone.

Now she was getting maudlin and she hadn’t even been drinking. Not her first mistake of the night, that was for sure.
She twisted her cane in her hand, trying to focus on the evening’s soothing sounds. Instead, she heard a soft thump, followed by something shaking one of the bushes at the darkest corner of the yard. She clutched her cane tighter. Augie would be down in a moment. It was probably just a coon falling out of one of the trees. Or an armadillo. The bush moved again, followed this time by a very human-sounding grunt.

“Who’s there? I’ve got a gun.” Which was unfortunately in the drawer of her nightstand.
Damn it, Augustine, get your lazy bones down here.

There seemed to be some faint whispering. Or maybe it was just the breeze. Her age blunted the sensory advantage her narrow fae bloodlines had once given her.

Suddenly, a girl burst forth into the glow of the porch lights. Her hair was disheveled, her makeup tear-tracked and her lip bleeding.

“How did you get in the gate?” Olivia asked.

The girl let out a sob. “Help me, please, my boyfriend’s following me and he’s trying to hurt me and—”

From outside the wall, an angry male voice cut her off. “Jenny? Are you in there?”

“Oh my.” Olivia got to her feet and went down the porch stairs toward the girl. “That will not do.” She stopped beside the girl and brandished her cane like a weapon. “Go home or I’ll call the cops, son. Leave Jenny alone. You’re done for the night.”

Quite unexpectedly, the girl whipped around to look at her. “Hey, aren’t you Olivia Goodwin?”

“Yes, I am, but—”

“Then in that case…” The girl grinned, revealing fangs. “You’re the one who’s done for the night.”

Olivia jerked back but Jenny grabbed her, slapping a hand over Olivia’s mouth and pulling her close against her body. Olivia dug her heels in as the girl dragged her toward the dark
corner. More thumps, the sound of more vampires coming over the wall. Olivia tried to yell, but Jenny’s hand just clamped down harder. Using every ounce of fae strength she could muster, Olivia bit into the girl’s fleshy palm.

The girl snatched her hand away. Olivia screamed, adrenaline fueling her stage-trained, fae-powered vocal chords to new decibels. It only served as a signal for the rest of the vampires to attack. Hands grabbed her and the weight of many bodies took her to the ground hard, knocking her teeth together and cutting off her cries.

Teeth sank into her. Stabs of pain erupted again and again as fangs pierced her skin. She tried to yell, to shout, to whisper but the only thing she could manage was a bubbling sound. A metallic taste followed it.

Then a corporeal heaviness tugged at her, dragging her down like she was underwater. Dark shapes bobbed in and out of her field of vision, blocking the stars above her until nothing remained but blackness.

Far, far away, she heard the front door slam and a familiar male voice bellowing her name.

Poor Augie, he sounded like he was in pain…

“Livie!” Augustine attacked, barely aware that the desperate howl cracking the night’s quiet came from his own throat. Insensate with rage, he moved in a whirlwind of shadow and smoke, tearing through the snarling mass of vampires like a ravenous animal. Like the beast he’d once been. He ripped out a throat as he slid into another and destroyed the leech from the inside out.

Mere moments and the vampires were gone, some ash, but
a handful got over the wall. One injured enough to be helpless but not enough to go to ash lay prone near the edge of the garden.

Exhausted by the reality of his dear Livie torn and bloody before him, Augustine dropped to her side and cradled her body in his arms, whispering her name through his sobs. “Livie, hold on, I’ve got you, I’m here, stay with me—”

“They were… after… me…” she gasped.

“Oh, Livie, no. They were after me. This is my fault.”

She tried to shake her head. “Get the mirror,” she breathed. “The mirror.”

The words cut into him, raising instant scars. There was no time for pretending she had any other hope. “Okay.” He nodded. For her. He understood as well as she that death was coming for her and getting to the fae plane was her only escape.

“Don’t leave me yet,” he begged even as he eased her to the ground and got to his feet. He raced into the foyer, yanked the massive wall mirror off its hooks and hauled it back outside.

He set it down, then gently lifted her. She was feather light and utterly still. Panic gnawed his gut. “Livie, Livie, talk to me.”

“Still here,” she mouthed, blood tinting her lips crimson. What little pulse he could hear was weak and thready. “Vampires,” she added. “For me.”

“I know who did this. They’ll pay. You have my word.” Relief flooded him that she was still alive. “Let the mirror take you. I’ll find you, wherever you end up. I promise.” Then he shifted her tenderly onto the glass.

Her eyes fluttered open and a faraway smile touched her lips. “Tell Harlow… I love her.”

“I will.” Something inside him cracked. The old darkness tried to claw its way out, desperate to run free. To find vengeance.

“My boy…” Her lids began to close again. “Love you.”

“I love you, too,” he choked out. The ground beneath him seemed to give way, but it wasn’t the ground that had disappeared, it was his control. The cracks widened, dropping him into a darkness blacker than the night.

“Don’t be afraid…” She exhaled, sinking down against the mirror.

“Hang on, Livie. Hang on.” He waited, but there was no inhale, no rise of her chest. The faint echo of her pulse went silent, replaced by the crashing sound of Augustine’s world.

Olivia Goodwin was dead.

A
strong, trembling hand gripped Augustine’s shoulder. Lally slid to the ground beside him, her bathrobe bunching up around her knees. “Oh no, Miss Olivia, oh no, oh no…” Her voice trailed off in a whisper.

He couldn’t answer. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t make sense of what had just happened because it was too awful to be real. He looked at Lally. Her cheeks were wet, her mouth open as if she labored for each draw of air. He understood. She fumbled in her pocket, drew out a cell phone.

A soft moan broke through Lally’s quiet sobbing. Augustine started to reach for Livie, thinking some miracle had occurred, then the black rage of reality boiled up inside him. The moan had come from the remaining vampire. The leech was dragging himself toward the wall with his one good arm.

Trying to get away.

Augustine got up, eyes focused on his prey across the garden. “Call nine-one-one, then call the Elektos,” he told Lally.

Sniffling, she nodded, her fingers already touching the numbers on the screen.

He leaped across Olivia and landed crouched over the vampire. “Move again and you’ll regret it.”

The vampire barely glanced at Augustine and kept crab-walking toward the wall. Augustine whipped the dagger from his boot and drove into the vampire’s shoulder. The monster
hissed, baring his fangs. Augustine put the weight of his body on the blade and drove it deeper into the wound. More hissing.

He leaned in. “You think that’s bad? Have you ever been possessed by a shadeux fae? Or burned by a smokesinger?” He paused. “Can you imagine what a mix of those two could do to you?”

The vamp stopped moving, the determination in his eyes replaced by resolution. Maybe he knew he was about to die. “You’re the fae who killed our leader’s girl.”

“And now you’ve killed mine.” The realization of who these vampires were tore new wounds into Augustine. These were the vampires from Jackson Square. The ones he’d refused to go after. They really had been after him. Over the sound of Lally’s brokenhearted weeping, sirens whined in the distance. “Who’s your leader and where can I find him?”

The vampire had the audacity to laugh. “I’m not telling you anything.”

Augustine raised his hand so the vamp could see it, then channeled his shadeux blood, letting his hand go translucent. The vamp’s eyes widened just before Augustine plunged his hand into the leech’s chest and grabbed hold of his dead heart. Then he applied a little smokesinger heat. The sirens were louder now. “You feel that burning inside you? That’s what it feels like right before you go up in flames. Name and location.”

Defiance sparked in the fringe’s eyes. The wound in his shoulder had already begun to knit closed. “Never.”

The sirens stopped, replaced by slamming car doors, but the lights stayed on, bathing the house and yard in alternating washes of red and blue. Augustine squeezed the vampire’s heart a little harder, applied a little more heat. Defiance switched to fear. “Last chance. Tell me and I’ll dump you outside parish boundaries alive.” A complete lie. “Refuse and you’re ash.”

“That’s enough, Augustine.” Fenton Welch stood over him,
a bolt stick in his hand, the end glowing blue with a charge. Behind him, cops and fae he didn’t recognize swarmed the yard. One led Lally back toward the house.

Fenton’s glasses reflected the flashing lights from the cop cars, making it hard to see his eyes. Augustine shook his head. “It’s enough when I say it’s enough.”

Fenton tapped the shaft of the bolt stick into his palm. “That’s Guardian business. And seeing as we don’t have a Guardian, the prisoner becomes the property of the Elektos. Now get your hand out of his chest and let me do my job.”

Augustine didn’t move. “I need to know who their leader is and where to find him.”

“We’ll get that information from him and then we—the Elektos—will deal with it.” Fenton nodded toward the police officers standing between them and Olivia’s body. “Talk to the cops. Tell them what happened here so they can get out of our way. The longer they’re here, the less we accomplish.”

Augustine hesitated. Could he slip into the vampire and make it over the wall? He’d never possessed a vampire before. How long could he keep the leech from exploding into ash? Long enough to get information out of him?

Fenton lowered his voice. “Don’t make me take you into custody, Augustine. Not tonight.”

“Like you could.” Lally’s soft sobbing started up again. Augustine glanced at her. She stood near the house, shoulders shaking, head down. He slid his hand out of the vamp’s chest and stood. He wasn’t about to leave her alone.

The vampire got one hand on the ground and pushed like he was going to get up. Fenton jammed the bolt stick into his chest. A blue flash and a crack like bottled lightning and the vamp convulsed once, then lay still.

Fenton turned to the team he’d brought with him, two males who appeared to be some kind of goblin fae with their squat
muscular bodies and dusty skin. “Guz, Rat, get this vamp contained and back to headquarters.”

They grunted and got to work. Fenton nodded at Augustine. “Talk to the cops.”

Augustine walked away, too numb with unspent rage to do anything else. Two police officers met him at the porch steps. Human cops. Yeah, they’d be helpful. He put a hand up. “I don’t want to talk. Not now.”

“Understood,” the first officer started. “I know your… kind has their methods of dealing with situations like this, but if you could just answer a few questions so we can turn this over to your people officially, that would be very helpful.”

Is that how things worked in New Orleans? The police completely washed their hands of othernatural business? Or is that how the Elektos had set it up? Anger gave him the strength to speak words he’d never imagined himself saying. “Olivia Goodwin was killed by a pack of fringe vampires. What else do you need to know?”

“Can you tell us specifically what happened?”

Augustine took a breath and prayed for patience. “I was in my upstairs apartment—”

“You live here?”

“Yes.”

“Are you related to Ms. Goodwin?”

“No.”

“You rent a room from her?”

“No.” What little patience he had was fast disappearing.

“What’s your relationship with Ms. Goodwin?”

“We’re friends.”

The second officer pulled a face, like he was imaging exactly what kind of
friends
they might be. A muscle in Augustine’s jaw twitched, causing his teeth to grind together.

The first officer kept going. “In exchange for this friendship, you live here for free?”

Augustine’s hands balled into fists. “She’s like a
mother
to me. She took me in when I had nowhere else to go.” He bit back the fresh pain his memories unleashed. She’d done more than take him in, she’d rescued him. Kept him alive. Shown him there was more to life than getting by on brute force and hoping not to get caught.

The first officer scribbled something on his tablet, then his stylus paused midair. “Do you have any idea why these vampires would come after her? They had to jump the wall to get to her. If they wanted an easy meal, there are a whole lot of drunk tourists in the Quarter they could have gone after.”

Augustine teetered on the edge of a very dangerous cliff. “Vampires don’t need a reason. They’re monsters.”

The officer stared at him a second too long. “I suppose you’re right. Thank you for your time. Don’t leave the city for the next few days in case we need to talk to you again.”

He frowned. “Are you saying I’m a suspect?”

“I’m saying don’t go anywhere.” The officer tapped off the screen of his tablet and tucked it back into his utility belt before making eye contact again. “Your juvenile record doesn’t put you high on our list, but it does put you on it.”

“That record was sealed.”

The cop shrugged. “Nothing’s sealed anymore. Not in this country.” Then he and his partner walked away.

Seething, Augustine turned to the scene in Olivia’s front yard. They had her on a gurney now. Covered in a white sheet. She looked so small. His stomach pitched like he was about to lose his dinner. He made his way to the porch and sank down onto the steps. Lally sat behind him in Olivia’s rocker, the cross, key and locket on the end of her gold chain clasped in her hands like a rosary.

“Mr. Augustine.” Her voice was a rasp of pain. “What we gonna do?”

He shook his head, unable to speak. He had no answers. How could he? He was the reason Olivia was dead. He was the one to blame.

The cops were talking to Fenton now, exchanging information maybe. The first officer glanced toward the porch, then Fenton did the same thing, shaking his head like the cops had nothing to worry about it. Damn it, did they really think he was involved in this?

Other than the fact he’d led those undead murderers right to Olivia’s doorstep. He dropped his head into his hands and, for the first time since he’d lived under Olivia’s roof, felt as worthless as his real mother had told him he was.

She couldn’t be gone. She couldn’t. If there was any justice in the world, anything fair or right or good, then Olivia couldn’t be gone.

The urge to explode scratched at him like it had in the old days.
That
Augustine would punish this city. Make it hurt the way he was hurting now. Tear it apart until he found what he was looking for. He raised his eyes enough to watch the cops. They thought they knew about him based on his juvenile record. They knew nothing. The mayhem he’d authored then was nothing compared to the kind of hell he could raise now.

And if they kept him from finding the person behind this vampire invasion, they would discover just how much.

The buzz of Harlow’s LMD woke her. She fumbled for it, opening her eyes enough to find the snooze on her alarm and tap it. She’d been up late, searching obituaries for any mention of any man who might possibly be her father. Given that she had no
name, didn’t know his age or where he was from, the search had been pointless. And also somehow completely necessary.

This breakfast with her mother felt like premeditated torture, but she’d decided enough was enough. If her mother was willing to give her the money to pay her fine, the least Harlow could do was be a little more communicative. It certainly couldn’t make things worse. And maybe, at some point, her mother would realize that Harlow’s desire to know her father wasn’t so she could replace Olivia. She just wanted to know the human side of herself. To find that missing piece of her puzzle. Olivia couldn’t fault her for that, could she? Especially now that the man was dead, what harm could there be in at least sharing his name?

She punched the holovision remote and searched through the channels until she came to a local station. Weather, the thing she’d been looking for, scrolled across the bottom. She yawned, satisfied that at least it wasn’t snowing like it was at home.

Flipping the covers back, she put her feet on the floor and got up. She tugged her T-shirt down as she walked to the bathroom, the anchorman’s drone barely registering as she cranked on the shower.

Until the man said her mother’s name.

She stopped, hands in her duffel bag as she searched for clean clothes, and turned toward the holovision.

“Hollywood legend and beloved local Olivia Goodwin was murdered last night in an apparent mugging gone bad. Police have no suspects at this time but—”

Harlow slumped to her knees, the man’s voice fading as the ringing in her ears took over. That couldn’t be right. She’d just seen her mother. Just talked to her. A pit opened up inside her, a dark place that bubbled with guilt and regret. Then a new noise broke through the ringing in her ears, a strangled keening sound that Harlow suddenly realized was coming from her own throat.

Her mother was dead. And so was any chance Harlow was ever going to have to fix things between them.

A day passed before Augustine could surface from the grief and guilt suffocating him. That second morning came bitter and gray, the oddly warm weather they’d been enjoying replaced by the kind February usually brought. The afternoon added a drizzle. Augustine couldn’t help but think New Orleans was mourning Olivia right along with him and Lally. He stood at the big leaded window in his attic apartment, staring out through the rain-streaked glass at the sprawl of the Garden District but not really seeing anything. His head was too full of memories. The past was all that made sense, really, because the reality of what had happened was too horrific to believe.