Pirate's Alley (38 page)
Authors: Suzanne Johnson
I reached out with my other senses, sifting through the input. Fresh, clean snow, wet wood from the trees, gunpowder. I noted those and pushed them aside, looking for energy signatures. Rene’s wonky shifter aura, or the buzz of Adrian’s wizard signature.
I felt both, although they were faint. The strongest aura I read was wizard, off to my left, where Adrian had been. I moved slowly, trying to make myself a small target in case the shooter had night-vision equipment, and praying the wizard I was moving toward was Adrian and not Zrakovi.
The aura was strong now, and I stopped again, trying to pinpoint it. Ahead and just to the right. I crawled now, not wanting to make myself a big target by standing up. Charlie touched the ground with each movement of my hand, melting the snow with a faint sizzle.
Here. I laid the staff beside my knee and felt around me in a wide sweep of my arms, touching something warm to my right—something that grabbed my hand and twisted my wrist violently. I couldn’t avoid a sharp intake of breath.
“DJ?”
Oh thank God. “Adrian? What happened?”
“Somebody shot at me, so I dropped the lights. He’s moved back toward the transport.”
Damn it, who was the shooter? “I’m hit, too—left calf. You okay?”
“I’m a bloody vampire. Bullets don’t do much.”
Right. I’d forgotten.
Rand!
Silence, but not an I’m-injured-and-unconscious kind of silence. He was still shutting me out. He wouldn’t be out here with a gun, either. For one thing, it wasn’t his style. Plus, he wouldn’t risk hitting Eugenie.
Zrakovi wasn’t the shooting type. He’d send someone else to do it. Like Alex. Alex wouldn’t be out here shooting blindly, though.
Lennox crossed my mind, but why? Letting us all escape would make Zrakovi look bad, opening the door for my uncle to ride in on his white Bentley and save the day.
No point in worrying about the shooter’s identity, only his location. “Let’s try to go toward the transport,” I whispered. “Rene’s out here somewhere, too. I lost him when the lights went out.”
Which worried me. He hadn’t been that far away, so what if the shooter got him? Of course, like vampires, shifters healed from most things. “D’you know if the bullet was silver?” I asked Adrian.
“I don’t think so.” He shuffled alongside me, also crawling. “You think the transport is this way?”
Hell, I wasn’t sure anymore. I could have crawled around in circles. “Let’s try it. We can’t do anything except freeze sitting here.”
He stood up, and I tried, but my left leg kept giving way on me. “Here, try this.” Adrian bent down and pulled my left arm around his shoulder. “I’ll help you.”
We moved slowly toward the direction I thought the transport lay, each with one hand on the staff for warmth.
“I think we’ve walked too far.” Adrian stopped. “We’ve got to have some light.”
“Don’t start up the whole park again. I’ll use the staff.” I held Charlie up and asked for light. Again, he understood, flooding the area around us with a golden light.
“Oh, bloody hell.” Adrian let go of me, my leg gave way, and I crumpled back into the snow.
The distinctive sound of a gun chambering a round sounded, and I sat up, holding Charlie out in front of me, ready to confront our shooter.
Betony Stoneman, the newest council member, stood there with his gun pointed toward us, and gestured for us to stand.
“What are you doing?” I struggled to my feet and held on to Adrian for a second to make sure my leg was going to hold me up.
“Part of my deal with Rand is I help him get the mother of his child. You’ll lead me to her.”
Betony was a short, stout, swarthy man who’d had little to say during the great elf kidnapping and torture session, although he had participated in it. Rand had told me once that he was a weak leader of the earth elves, and had always been easily swayed to follow in Mace’s wake. Guess now he followed in Rand’s wake.
“I can’t believe you shot me,” I said. “Just wait until Rand hears about this. I’m his bond-mate, you know.”
“He won’t care—it’s just a leg wound. Now walk to the transport,” Betony said, gesturing with the gun.
With Charlie lit up like Obi-Wan’s lightsaber, I got my bearings and stumbled toward the transport. We’d gone really far afield, and between the heavy snow and yet another gunshot wound, I couldn’t move fast.
“Damn it, Betony. You know Rand won’t like you having a drawn gun around the mother of his child. Eugenie could be hurt with you out here firing into the dark.”
“Would you shut the hell up?” Adrian hissed. “You’re just pissing him off more.”
“Keep walking, you stupid wizards.”
I glanced back at the gun-toting elf, who raised the weapon and pantomimed taking a shot. He poked me in the back with the barrel to hurry me along.
“You touch me with that thing one more time, buddy, and we are going to have a talk.” But I kept walking and, even with Charlie’s warmth, I felt the makings of a hibernation threatening.
Finally, I saw the tree with Rene’s scarf flapping from it. “Just past that tree,” I said, and was relieved to see a small group of people gathered there. Jean and Eugenie and Jake. “Where’s Rene? Damn it. Was he hit?”
I saw a figure on the ground—Rene—when I stumbled closer, and another, taller figure in the shadows behind. A figure with a gun.
He stepped out of the shadows. “Stop there.”
I fell again, only partially because of my injury. The rest was confusion. “Alex?” Where’d he come from? And was he trying to help us or stop us?
“DJ, are you hurt?”
He walked toward me as I stumbled to my feet again.
“Another council meeting, another building destroyed, another gunshot wound.” I wanted to hug him, but more than that, I wanted his gun focused on Betony.
“Betony’s here on Rand’s behalf, to take Eugenie,” I said. “I am not letting that happen.”
“I think you’re wrong, DJ. You should let her go.”
I stared at Alex. He couldn’t mean that, not after all we’d gone through to make this happen. He gestured with his gun. “All of you get over there together, and you”—he jerked his head toward Betony—“throw your gun down or join me, whichever you want. I think we’re on the same side.”
“Very well.” Betony lowered his gun and went to stand next to Alex.
This particular elf was an idiot, as was proven when Alex raised his gun and whacked Betony in the head. He dropped like a rock.
“You guys need to get out of here.” Alex unhooked a big flashlight from his belt and propped it on a tree branch, throwing a yellow-white glow around the clearing. “Lafitte, you’re not hurt—make sure everyone’s in the transport.”
“Go with us.” I clutched Alex’s arm. “We can keep tabs on things and come back when it all settles down.”
Alex looked at the transport, at me, and back at the museum, where, so far, no alarms had sounded. “I can’t, DJ. I have to stay here and try to fix this so it’s safe for all of us. You and Jake and Eugenie have to go. Zrakovi still trusts me, mostly. I’m the only one who can do this, and you…” He paused and closed his eyes. “I won’t lose you. I’m going to stay here and fight for us. For what’s right. Even if it means fighting Zrakovi.”
I understood what that cost him. But we all had to draw the line somewhere. We all had to stand on our own Bridge at Khazad-dûm and raise our staff and say “You shall not pass” to the monsters of indifference and pride and ambition.
“You shall not pass,” I whispered.
Alex frowned. “What?” He turned as voices sounded in the distance. “DJ, you have to go.”
“Everybody get in the transport, and go now,” I said. “I’ll follow in a minute.”
I heard shuffling behind me, and Alex’s flashlight put out enough light for me to see in my peripheral vision that they’d transported out.
Then it was just Alex and me, him with a gun, me with the staff, face-to-face.
I dropped the staff to my side and he reholstered his gun, pulling me to him for a kiss that was teasingly sweet and achingly sad.
“Be careful,” he said, stepping back and nudging me toward the transport. “I’ll stay in touch and let you know when it’s safe to come home.”
I had a bad feeling about this. Alex was strong, but all of his potential allies had just hightailed it to the Beyond. There was only me.
I took a couple of steps, then stopped. “You won’t be able to fix this, Alex. Zrakovi knows I told Rand about his orders for me to kill the baby and now Rand will be after us, too.”
He looked at me and in his eyes I saw he knew the truth of what I’d said, but it was in his DNA to fight, to try and make things right, to work within the system.
I was Gerry St. Simon’s daughter and it was in my DNA to fight, too. But I had to fight the system from the outside. I prayed that when the fighting was done, Alex and I would meet in the middle somehow, and be together again in a world that wasn’t so broken.
You shall not pass.
“I love you, Alex,” I said, and took a step backward into the transport.
He stood there, a beautiful, genuinely good man who’d placed his loyalty in a system I no longer believed in. I whispered the words, “Old Barataria,” and as space and time compressed around my crushed heart, he dropped his arm to his side, and the light of the clearing shone on his tears.
The last words I heard were, “I love you too.”
SUZANNE JOHNSON
lives in Auburn, Alabama, and works as associate editor of
Auburn Magazine
. She is a veteran journalist with more than fifty national awards for writing and editing nonfiction
. You can sign up for email updates
here
.
THE SENTINELS OF NEW ORLEANS
Thank you for buying this
Tom Doherty Associates ebook.
To receive special offers, bonus content,
and info on new releases and other great reads,
sign up for our newsletters.
Or visit us online at
us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup
For email updates on the author, click
here
.
