Pirate's Alley (15 page)

“Are you serious?” I should know that. True, I hadn’t discovered that Gerry was my biological father until just before he died, and the way I found out—in a journal entry and a couple of dreamwalks—still stung. There had been no time to find out vital details like siblings, and DJ the idiot child hadn’t thought to ask. Apparently, no one had thought to tell me. “Well, that’s a surprise.”

“I knew you’d never mentioned a family except on your mom’s side.” Alex leaned back in the chair, more relaxed now that the conversation had been started. What, he’d expected me to get hysterical over newfound relatives?

My mind stuttered and jumped from thought to thought. My mom had died when I was six, and Gerry had been the wizard who’d taken me a year later when my exasperated family wanted to get rid of me. Gerry had taught me how to be a wizard, how to question authority, and, like himself, how to be a bit entrepreneurial in my problem-solving skills. Or so people kept telling me.

Gerry had talked about growing up in Aylesbury, just northwest of London, and about the death of his parents in an accident when he was thirty. About school adventures. About wizardry and history and what stuffed shirts the Elders tended to be. He was teacher, mentor, boss, friend.
Father,
to me, was still Peter Jaco, the human man my mom had married, whose surname I still used, the one so freaked out by my magic he sent me to live with a stranger.

But what Gerry hadn’t told me could fill books. He never mentioned that he’d met my mom, much less gotten her pregnant. He made it sound like New Orleans was the place he’d chosen to be sentinel, but I later learned that he’d been exiled here by the Elders for being a rabble-rouser. He had never mentioned a brother.

“What do you know about this brother?” I paused. “Is he the only one?” I might have a huge family of strangers in England.

Alex raked a hand across his evening stubble. Like me, he’d been up more than thirty-six hours and looked tired now that his enforcer adrenaline rush had drained. “I asked that. He’s Gerry’s only sibling and is six years younger. His name is Lennox, and he’s probably going to be the new Elder, representing the UK and Europe.”

Lennox St. Simon. How terribly British. “Why am I just now hearing about him? He and Gerry obviously weren’t close.”

Other than myself and Tish Newman, Gerry’s longtime significant other, he hadn’t been close to anyone, which was kind of sad. Tish had been dead only a few months, and the weight of losing her slammed into me all at once. With the prete craziness, I hadn’t dealt with her murder or Gerry’s either, not really, and their loss tended to wallop me upside the head when I wasn’t expecting it. Like now.

As I’d done every time before, I swallowed down the lump of pain that had risen in my throat. One of these days, it wouldn’t work and I’d fall apart. But not tonight. This time, once again, I held it together. “Is he Red Congress like Gerry?”

“Yep, and pretty powerful, I hear.” Alex moved back to the bed, kicked off his boots, and stretched out again. This time, I crawled up beside him and snuggled in tight. He was warm and solid, and I savored a flash of contentment before letting my mind veer back to this newfound relative.

“Did Zrakovi say what he’s like? Does he look like Gerry?”

“Don’t know what he looks like, but Willem described him as the anti-Gerry in terms of attitude. Very buttoned-up and proper.” Alex traced lazy circles up and down my arm with his fingers. “He’s against making concessions to the pretes, and thinks New Orleans is the place to make it clear they don’t belong in our world.”

Great. We’d no doubt get along famously since everyone told me I was just like my father, and I thought the pretes had as much right to a say in magical affairs as the wizards. Well, almost as much. “Does he know about me?”

“Only recently, since the borders dropped in October, and he’s been asking a lot of questions. Willem says he’s curious about you, but thinks it’s awkward. If he becomes an Elder, though, he’ll be here in New Orleans for the council meetings. You’re bound to meet him soon; it’s why Willem wanted you to know. They’re trying to pull another council session together for day after tomorrow.”

I snorted. “Somewhere besides the courthouse, I assume.” According to the news, the trials scheduled for the next six weeks were being rescheduled or moved to other venues, and the building had been closed to repair the water damage. We’d have to find another public building to destroy.

“Dunno.” Alex yawned. “Oh, and Lennox is divorced, but you do have a cousin.”

I sat up. “What? Where? He has a kid?”

Alex smiled. “You’re gonna love this. Her name’s Audrey and she’s twenty-three, with physical magic as her dominant skill set.”

Strange way of putting it unless … “She isn’t Red Congress?”

His smile widened. “She’s flunked the congressional exam twice, and is apparently driving her dad crazy. She has a reputation for being undisciplined.” The sexy crease beside Alex’s mouth appeared. “Willem told him it seems to run in the St. Simon family, and I don’t think he was talking about Gerry.”

I slowly formed a solid fist, made sure Alex saw it, and then punched him in the stomach. “Stop laughing.” Which made him laugh harder. “I am not undisciplined. I’m creative. I’m sure poor Audrey is as well.” I liked her already.

Settling back into the warmth of Alex’s arms, I pondered this newfound family. Uncle Lennox sounded like he’d have a serious stick up his backside, but I liked the idea of a cousin, and she was only five years younger than me.

“Do you think he’ll bring her to New Orleans with him?”

When Alex didn’t answer, I noted his steady breathing and raised my head enough to confirm he’d fallen asleep, so I snuggled in again. I didn’t dare go to sleep because I didn’t want a visit from Rand, but I could close my eyes and listen to Alex’s heart beating beneath my cheek and …

I’m gonna get in trouble; I’m gonna start a fight.

Alex and I both sat up, blinking. “What the hell is that?” His voice creaked with sleep.

I leaned over him, wincing at the pain in my ribs. “It’s my phone.”

“What happened to your Zachary Richard ringtone?”

I finally raked my fingers across the phone and got hold of it before Pink started another fight. “It’s part of my new attitude.” I looked at the caller ID. “Uh-oh.”

Punching the screen to put the call on speaker, I said, “Eugenie, what’s wrong?” The clock on the nightstand read one a.m.

“Rand’s on the porch, banging on my door.” She must have held the phone out because a loud pounding sounded through the speaker, along with a strident male voice. It sounded like Rand was shouting in his guttural elf language. Good Lord. So much for waiting until the two p.m. meeting, although I’m sure it was two o’clock somewhere in the world.

Alex had already rolled out of bed and begun pulling on his boots.

“Say whatever you need to say to keep Rand calm,” I told Eugenie. “Alex and I are on the way.”

I dug under the bed for my own boots and tugged on the ugly coat. “You got a gun on you?”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, why?”

“Make sure it’s loaded for elf.”

CHAPTER
12

The two-block walk to Alex’s SUV was treacherous. The Quarter lay deserted, odd even for one a.m. on a weeknight, and we didn’t talk as we trudged through at least a foot of snow that had a layer of ice underneath it. The temperature had dropped, and part of what hit my face stung like pellets of sleet.

Mostly, we kept our eyes on the ground, sticking close to buildings so we wouldn’t accidentally tumble off a curb and break an ankle. The sea of white across Royal Street lay flat from building to building, with no street or sidewalk edges discernible except for snow-covered lumps I could only assume were cars.

My head had begun to pound after the first five minutes, and a couple of waves of dizziness had me wondering if the stress was finally getting to me. Mostly, though, my limbs ached and I had an overwhelming urge to lie down. I blamed it on the physical exertion of trying to walk in this mess, because the other option was an impending case of the flu, and I didn’t have time to be sick.

After almost ten minutes, with the big lump Alex identified as his Range Rover finally in view, I stopped trying to keep up with him. He’d gained a block on me and had begun freeing the SUV’s doors from their prisons of snow and ice by the time I caught up.

“You okay?” He jerked on the passenger-side door and helped me climb in. “You look kind of green.”

“I’m freezing. Nothing a little heat won’t cure.”
Because,
I told my body,
you are not getting the flu. You have pirates to chase, elven non-husbands to pacify, political shenanigans to avoid.

Once inside, Alex ran the defroster and we waited while the layer of ice on the windshield melted enough for the wipers to operate. Within a few minutes of the heater turned on high, I’d finally begun to thaw, my energy flooding back with a gratifying rush.

I’d never again make fun of this behemoth of an SUV, even if I did need a ladder and an altitude-sickness potion to climb in it. It was big and heavy, had heated leather seats, and its vents shot out enough warm air to melt the snow that had frozen into crystals on our eyelashes and hair.

“I can’t believe Rand went out in this mess.” I reached over and brushed ice off Alex’s shoulder. Even Mr. Hot-Blooded Shifter had pulled a leather jacket out of the backseat and put it on. I wiped the cold water off on the leg of his jeans, earning a playful swat.

“I would say Randolph is a horse’s ass, but that would be unfair to the horse.” Alex pulled carefully out of his parking space and inched through the Quarter. “I’m gonna stick to the main roads just in case there are other idiots out here who’ve plowed a trail. I can’t see the edges of the street.”

We maneuvered the pinball arcade of Canal Street, filled with abandoned cars and people who’d parked on the neutral grounds like they did when they expected a flood, and headed to Uptown along St. Charles Avenue. Alex navigated the curving road by aiming the SUV at the midpoint between the ancient snow-laden live oaks lining both sides of the street and using the overhead streetcar electrical lines running through the middle of the neutral ground to stay on course.

Finally, we cut over toward Magazine Street, dodging stalled vehicles. Alex lurched to a stop by letting the truck slide its right front tire against the curb in front of Eugenie’s house—at least we assumed it was a curb.

The house was a big, solid early-century Victorian painted light blue, with cream-colored hurricane shutters, a broad front porch ringed by a gingerbread rail, and a side entrance for her Shear Luck salon. The porch light was on, and through the thick fall of snow and ice I saw a dark lump near the door, but no sign of Rand. Maybe he’d left a package and gone home like a good elf.

The snow here was deeper, up to my knees, so I waited for Alex and his long legs to blaze a trail to the house and I followed in his wake.

“What the hell?” Alex’s voice took on its gruff enforcer tone.

I couldn’t see around him until he got up the stairs, and I realized the big dark lump on the porch was covered in fur. “Is it a dog? Must be a stray, poor thing.”

He bumped the lump with the toe of his boot, and it rolled over. “No, it’s an elf in a fur coat.”

Rand’s eyes were open just enough to be covered in ice crystals and look creepy as hell. He would be a perfect elven mortuary display. “Is he dead?”

I hope my words didn’t sound like wishful thinking, because while I wanted Rand to leave me alone, I didn’t want him dead. His bonding scheme had almost gotten me killed, but it also had kept me from turning loup-garou. We could probably be of help to each other if he’d get over the notion that we were married. The very mistaken notion, at least in any real sense of the word.

There was also the possibility that if Rand died, it might kill me as well because of the bond, so I had a practical reason for wanting him alive.

“He’s not dead,” Alex said after spending a few seconds with two fingers placed over Rand’s carotid artery, assuming that’s what elves had. “I think he’s just unconscious. Call Eugenie and tell her to open the door; if we knock, she’s gonna think it’s him and not answer.”

I placed the call, and in a few seconds the dead bolt clicked, the scrape of a chain latch sounded, and Eugenie pulled open the heavy cypress door, wielding a butcher knife. She looked from Alex to me and, finally, down at Rand.

“Is he dead?”

Okay, Eugenie definitely sounded hopeful.

“No, he’s sleeping off his stored fat, like a bear in hibernation,” I said, looking down. He didn’t have an ounce of fat on him.

“Let me drag him in,” Alex said, grabbing Rand’s ankles and pulling him toward the doorway. His head bounced on the rough wood.

“Good grief, Alex. You’re a shifter. Pick him up.” It wasn’t the same as little ole weakling me dragging two hundred pounds of Jean Lafitte across a field in Vampyre, which had given new meaning to dead weight.

“Goddamned elf.” Alex scooped up his unconscious nemesis and hauled him through the doorway. The way he let Rand’s head crack against the doorframe had to be intentional.

“Where do you want him? Never mind, I see a spot.” Alex carried Rand to a rug in front of the fireplace and unloaded him in a heap, and none too gently. Eugenie kicked Rand’s calf as she walked past to turn up the gas flames. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

Alex and I sat on the sofa and Eugenie in the adjacent armchair, and we watched Rand intently as if he were a circus act. I had no idea what to do with an unconscious elf, and was fresh out of smelling salts. As his body warmed, he gradually lost the stiff, embalmed look and instead turned into a pretty sleeping elf prince. He was cute enough to set on the mantel for decoration as an Elf on a Shelf. Well, if the Elf on a Shelf spontaneously spouted outrageous pronouncements without warning and had the potential to set off a preternatural war.

I stretched out a leg and nudged his shoulder with the toe of my boot. “Rand. Wake up, honey bun.”