River Road (16 page)

He frowned. “Risk analysis? What kinda wizard stuff is that?”

“Just a cover. But the phone numbers are good. Call me if you run into any problems.”

I started to climb back into the Pathfinder. “And I’m glad you’re feeling better—sorry the water made you sick.”

His eyebrows bunched, and he looked puzzled. “I ain’t been sick.”

CHAPTER
16

I stared at T-Jacques. “You didn’t get sick from swimming in the water around Pass a Loutre? I thought—”

“Oh, yeah. Forgot about dat. I’m okay now, me.” He grinned at me.

I grinned back. He was lying through his teeth. I could feel the uneasiness wafting off him along with his cold, slippery mer energy. Why had Denis lied about T-Jacques getting sick from the water? An excuse to start a fight with Rene? To cover up the fact he’d poisoned it himself? But how had a mer gotten access to the Styx?

I wanted to pull my hair out. But first I wanted to leave before
Grandmère
came after me with a pot of boiling water and a big serrated knife. I wasn’t going to get answers from TJ.

“Glad you’re okay,” I repeated, climbing into the SUV.

“
Bon chance,
sentinel.”

Good luck? I couldn’t get out of here fast enough. These people gave me the creeping willies.

The drive from Tidewater to Orchard was short—just a mile of dirt road surrounded by a lot of water. The Delachaise land sat inside a wide path that looped out next to the marsh, encircling what looked like three or four acres of wilderness. Different types of boats sat tethered to a dock, and several small houses perched on high piers around the land, some with vehicles parked underneath. I recognized the twins’ pickups. This wasn’t a homestead. It was a compound, and the Delachaises were clearly more prosperous than their angry Tidewater rivals.

I parked behind Rene’s truck and got out, reaching across the front seat to retrieve my backpack. The elven staff lay on the passenger seat. I needed the twins’ help, and Robert, because of his little tiff with Denis in the parking lot a couple of days ago, knew I wielded the staff as a weapon. I closed the Pathfinder’s door with Charlie inside.

I didn’t want to go in armed. Not the signal I wanted to send.

“Hey, darlin’.”

I squeaked again as Robert put a hand on my shoulder from behind. I was either going to have to become more aware of my surroundings or take a sedative.

“Kinda jumpy there, wizard.”

Yeah, that’s me. Jumpy. With good reason. Robert wrapped one arm around my waist and the other jammed in the pocket of his shorts as he propelled me toward the house.

“You should try a massage. Robert has very talented hands.” I peered around Robert’s shoulder, looking for the source of the deep, sultry voice. Libby the nymph stretched artfully across a lawn chair at the side of the house, soaking up rays. Technically, she was wearing a swimsuit, although I’d seen dental floss more substantial.

“Hi, Libby. Didn’t expect to see you here.”

Robert left me and slid onto the lawn chair next to Libby, reaching over with his talented hands to smooth a swath of tanning oil across her thigh. I’d seen about all the hand-talent I needed for the day. “Is Rene around?”

Robert pointed to the small building nearest the water, a blocky, concrete structure and the only one not raised for flood protection. “Out in the fish house. Our cousin Amanda, the one that’s sick—she’s up in the main house.”

I started toward the concrete building, but stopped and looked back. “Is Amanda going to be okay? Do you want me to see if I can help her?”

Robert raised an eyebrow. “Don’t think so, wizard. You just fix the water problem and get rid of the Villeres.”

I’d already decided to tell them about the Styx. I didn’t want word spreading too far, but I also didn’t want more of the mers getting sick. “About the water. Somehow, the River Styx is leaking into the Mississippi,” I said, wondering if he was so mainstreamed he’d even grasp the danger of it.

Robert’s talented hand stopped mid-stroke and he sat up. “Shit. You sure ’bout that?”

Guess he did grasp the danger.

“That’s awful,” Libby said. She stood up and tugged a migrating string of dental floss back in place. “Has anyone else gotten sick?”

“What you plannin’ to do about it?”

I blinked at them. Neither had shown much interest in the contamination till now. “I tested the water using”—a mind-blowing elven trip to hell—“a magical procedure, then we confirmed it with a second test,” I said. “I’m hoping all of you can help with repairs.”

“Of course we’ll help,” Libby said, flipping a strand of red hair over her shoulder. “We don’t want any more of the mers to get sick.”

Robert jerked his head toward the fish house. “Go on and talk to Rene. He’s pretty pissed off, but tell him what you told us and he’ll help. Then we gotta figure out how them Villeres got water from the Styx.”

I left them murmuring behind me and headed to the fish house. Was it a place they kept fish? Was it a ceremonial name since they could
become
fish? The door stood open, and a blast of cold air hit me as I knocked on the doorjamb and stuck my head inside. “Rene?”

“Hold on, babe.” A disembodied voice came from inside what looked like a walk-in commercial refrigerator or freezer. I waited at the door to the building, the cold air sending goose bumps to pimple my arms below the sleeves of my light cotton shirt. Had nothing to do with the alien ambience I’d enjoyed all afternoon.

The room was windowless, with unadorned concrete-block walls and industrial tile floors that had drains set into them. Metal shelves and cabinets lined two walls, and there were several home-sized freezers in addition to the big walk-in cooler. A stainless-steel worktable the dimensions of a queen-size bed took up the middle of the floor.

“Had a feeling you’d show up. Woulda answered my phone if I’d wanted to talk to you.” Rene came out of the cooler with a dead alligator slung around his shoulders, head hanging off one side, tail off the other. “How ’bout you close the cooler door behind me.”

I edged along the wall, giving him and his gator plenty of space, and pushed the heavy door shut. He shifted the reptile off his shoulders, lifted it over his head, and slapped it onto the worktable. The gator looked to be about six feet long—small, as gators go. But it probably weighed a couple hundred pounds and he’d just hefted it as if it weighed no more than a puppy.

“What are you going to do with it?” Gator-hunting season had just ended. Guess that was one of the things mers hunted, but I couldn’t see the attraction. Gators had claws like Freddy Krueger and a temperament to match. Their meat did make a nice sausage, though.

“Gonna eat this one,” Rene said. “Hide’s too little to be worth much. You ever skin a gator?”

Uh-huh. “Sure, that was a required class in wizarding school.” He raised his gaze to meet mine, and I could’ve sworn he almost laughed. Maybe I was growing on him.

“Grab a stool and learn from a master.” He pulled out a drawer underneath the worktable and retrieved a black leather case filled with shiny steel knives. The kind of knife that killed Doug Hebert?

I looked around and found a stool. “Can you talk while you work?” I could always wait outside. In fact, that might be a good idea. I’d hate to barf all over his meat.

“Sure thing. Sit down.” He slid the strap of a white apron over his head and fastened the ties behind him, then pulled a short-bladed knife from the case and skated it back and forth across a black-handled sharpening steel.

I focused on an area behind his head and tried to close my ears to the sound of leathery skin being cut. “We did some tests with the water samples and we know what the problem is. The contamination is caused by water leaking in from the River Styx.”

“Shit! Motherf…” Rene’s knife slipped, slicing deeply into his left hand. He grabbed a handful of towels and started applying pressure to stanch the bleeding.

“Hang on.” I retrieved my backpack from where I’d dropped it next to the door, and pulled out my portable magic case. “I have a healing charm that should take care of that.” I guessed it would work on mermen. We’d see.

Rene looked dubious. “Won’t do anything else, will it? I mean, I don’t want no horns or wings, nothing like that. I’m a were—it’ll heal in a half hour anyway.”

I laughed. “No horns or wings, I promise. Give me your hand.”

He’d cut a two-inch gash through the tender web of skin between the thumb and forefinger. Using my teeth to pry the lid off the potions vial, I tapped a little of the clear liquid on top of the wound and used my finger to spread it.

Rene snatched his hand back. “That hurts.”

“Big baby. Wipe it off again and look at it.”

He took another wad of paper towels and wiped the blood off gingerly. The skin beneath it was unmarked. “Well, damn. Guess wizards are good for something.”

I’d take that as a thank-you. “Yeah, what we’re not good for is diving, and I want to see if you or Robert or one of your family members would help us try to figure out how the Styx is leaking into the water around Pass a Loutre. And now Pilottown, sounds like. Don’t even start about the Villeres. We’ve got to fix the leaks first, then worry about how they’re getting there. Otherwise, somebody’s going to die.”

He flipped the gator on its back and went back to slicing while I returned to my stool.

“What you got in mind?”

“We’d gear you up with a wetsuit if you want to dive without shifting, or at least a mask and oxygen tank if you want to partially shift, so you won’t get sick.” I’d been up half the night devising this scheme. “See if you can find a rift of some kind. If so, I’ll make up some charms so you can patch it at least temporarily while I look for a long-term solution.”

Most simple charms only held for a finite period. I’d have to come up with something more complex for the magic to hold permanently underwater.

“You gonna pay us? Cause if we take another day off work you need to pay us. We ain’t doing wizard charity.”

“Sure, we’ll pay—” I stopped, aghast, as Rene deftly flipped the gator on its belly again and used a longer knife to split its tail near the body and slice off the bony ridge along the animal’s back. He tossed that aside and continued cutting a couple of minutes more. Then he lifted the intact hide off the gator and spread it out.

“Cocodrie jolie,”
he said. Great, me and the gator were pretty. I’d have to tell Jean Lafitte.

“What will you do with the hide?” I asked in horror as he took a large tablespoon and scraped stray bits of meat off the inside of the skin before salting down the hide and rolling it up. I wished I’d skipped the bagels.

“Sell it,” he said. “Sell the skull too, and the feet.” He chopped off the massive, clawed feet and tossed them aside, then took a serrated knife toward the head.

Oh. My. God. That was my cue to leave. “What time can you go tomorrow?”

He paused and looked up, breaking into a smile. “You in a hurry, babe?”

“I don’t want to watch you cut off its head.” Okay, so I’m squeamish when it comes to decapitation.

“I ain’t cuttin’ off the head. I’m slicin’ out the jaw meat.”

I looked at him, traumatized.

He chuckled. “Meet you at the marina at nine. Make sure your boss is gonna pay us, or it’s no deal. And we want the masks and tanks. Ain’t gettin’ sick doin’ wizards’ work.”

I escaped into the warmth, rubbing my arms, and walked back to the Pathfinder. Finally, it felt like we were doing something, or at least had a plan to do something.

Robert was chasing Libby around my SUV with a stick, all playful again. Damn it. Not a stick. Charlie.

“Hey!” I shouted. “Hands off the staff.”

They came to a stop and watched me approach. “No harm done,
chère,
” Robert said, handing me the staff. “We didn’t hurt your little wand. Just wanted to see what it would do.”

I wondered what he’d planned to do with it. “My guess is that it did nothing. It only works for me.”

He jerked his head toward it. “That don’t feel like a wizard thing.”

“It’s very lovely,” Libby said. “Did you make it yourself?”

“No, I’m not much of a wood-carver.” The staff looked okay—as Robert said, no harm done. But I wouldn’t be leaving it in the car anymore.

CHAPTER
17

I’d just finished dog-earing some charm recipes I thought might temporarily seal a possible rift between the Mississippi and the Styx when Eugenie bopped in the back door. I’d almost talked myself out of going to dinner—as boring as a sandwich with Sebastian sounded, it fit my energy level. Mer negotiations had proven tiring.

A distant rumble of thunder promised rain and cooler temperatures, so it seemed like a good night to stay in. I’d dressed appropriately—jeans and an old JazzFest sweatshirt.

A cloud of guilt settled over me every time Eugenie came around these days. Before Katrina, we’d spent part of every weekend together, doing girl stuff. Shopping, movies, moaning over the lack of available men, and whining about trying to run a business in America’s most dysfunctional city. Well, mostly she whined and I pretended, since my fake risk-analysis business was a front for my fake FBI career. Or that’s the story I was currently telling.

“Guess what’s calling my name?” she asked, closing the door behind her. A loud clap of thunder rattled the windows, signaling a storm’s imminent arrival. She wore her usual low-slung jeans with a midriff top of a brilliant purple. It matched the lavender tips in her hair and showed off her belly ring and the assortment of celestial tattoos on her back. I wanted a tattoo but hadn’t summoned the nerve, couldn’t decide what I wanted, and didn’t know where to put it. A mistake seemed so … permanent.

What might be calling her name? “Cool Beans?”

We had a running joke about the coffee shop across the street that closed for Katrina and never reopened despite not flooding or having any wind damage. The empty building still had plywood over its windows, and gang tags covered it from top to bottom. Sad thing was, I’d gotten so used to seeing it that way it had begun looking normal.