River Road (2 page)

I took another sip of brandy and pondered my ability to settle a mer feud. I was a Green Congress wizard. I was hell on ritual magic but had no idea how to negotiate a truce with marauding bands of merpeople. My partner would be even worse. Alex’s answer to anything he didn’t understand was to shoot it with different ammo until something killed it. This could get ugly.

On the other hand, it could also be an opportunity to prove myself, depending on Jean’s motives. “You have no love for the wizards either, unless we’re useful to you. So unless you tell me why you’re in the middle of this, our conversation is over.”

“You have grown up,
Jolie,
” he said with a small smile. “I hope you have not grown hard and calloused as so many of your fellow wizards are. I bring this to you because we are friends—perhaps more than friends. And friends help each other, do they not?”

We might be friends, in a loose manner of speaking. Didn’t mean I believed him for a second. I continued to stare at him.

He set his brandy snifter on the coffee table with a thump. “Very well, then. I conduct business with Rene Delachaise and his brother on occasion. You do not need the details. If there is a war between the mers that makes passage through the waters treacherous and distracts Rene from our dealings, it will hurt my business.”

He looked around at the well-appointed room, then back at me, his voice dropping to a seductive murmur. “If my business suffers, such fine accommodations might no longer be affordable to me,
Jolie
. In such an event, you might need to furnish me a home in the city, as you promised. Or allow me to share yours.”

And there we had it, finally—the motive, followed by the not-so-subtle strong arm. The way housing prices in New Orleans had escalated since Katrina, I’d have to flip burgers at night if he insisted on collecting that debt. Taking on Jean Lafitte as a devious, oversexed roommate? I’d sooner move in with Hannibal Lecter and a pot of fava beans.

“I will talk to your friend Rene and the head of the Villere mers.” I forced a decisive tone into my voice. I’d show him I wasn’t the naive wizard he’d tangled with after the storm. “Also, I’ll need to test the water. This might be a big misunderstanding.”

“Perhaps.” A small smile. “Or perhaps you do not want to discuss the debts you owe me, or what I might really want from you—or you from me.”

My pulse sped up at Jean’s appraising look, and I uncrossed my legs again, tugging on the hem of my skirt. “Stop gawking at me and tell me how to get in touch with the mers.”

“Rene Delachaise and Denis Villere will not talk to you unless I am present.” He smiled, his trump card played. No way I’d be able to cut him out of the negotiations. “They specifically said to tell you this. And they will speak only with you, not another wizard, nor your partner the murderous
petit chien
.”

My little dog: Alexander Warin. And Jean wasn’t just referring to the fact that my partner was a shapeshifter and an enforcer. They hated each other.

“Alex needs to be there,” I said. However independent I wanted to prove myself, I wasn’t stupid enough to meet Jean Lafitte and two angry mermen without backup.

“Very well.” Jean crossed his arms and beamed at me. The man loved to negotiate, and had obviously foreseen he’d have to give in on the Alex issue. “Shall I show you where these hunting grounds lay?”

I hesitated. The Elders’ intelligence was worse than mine these days. As much as I’d like to leave before Jean could make this personal again, I needed his input in order to plan a strategy. “Fine.”

“I have a map here, which Rene provided me.” He walked to a round table and a trio of chairs, all placed strategically in front of the large window. The evening view was breathtaking as the city lights outlined the broad, dark ribbon of the Mississippi. The sitting area had been perfectly set up so the well-to-do Monteleone guests could watch river traffic sail past as they noshed on room-service canapés.

I took a seat facing the window, and Jean slid his chair so close our arms touched. The historical undead weren’t cold-skinned like vampires, and the heat radiated from his arm to mine. I didn’t move away. If this was a battle of wills, I wasn’t going on the defensive.

Instead, I focused on the map, a detailed, laminated representation of extreme Southeast Louisiana, centering on Plaquemines Parish. Jean switched on the table lamp after a bit of fumbling. Guess that newfangled electricity would take some practice.

He traced the coastline with long fingers and swiveled the map to give us equal access. I caught myself admiring the strength of his hands as they splayed across the page and gave myself a mental kick in the head. I did not need to indulge an attraction to an undead pirate, however tempting.

He traced one scarred digit down the length of Plaquemines. In boot-shaped Louisiana, Lower Plaquemines is the bottom of the toe, a vulnerable peninsula of wetlands jutting into the Gulf of Mexico around the mouth of the Mississippi. About halfway down the peninsula, just south of Venice, Jean’s index finger came to rest near the point at which the last real highway fizzled out.

“This is Orchard, where the Delachaise clan resides.” Then, pointing an infinitesimal nudge west, “And this is
Mauree
.
Non
.” He squinted. “The English name is Tidewater. That is where the Villeres have recently made their home. And this”—he moved his finger southeast along the largely uninhabited wetlands around the mouth of the river and came to rest near the easternmost nub jutting into the Gulf—“is where the mers claim the water has been poisoned.”

I frowned and looked at the spot he’d pointed to. The map legend read
Pass a Loutre
. “There’s a town?”

“Non,”
Jean said. “It is mostly
marécage
. Marsh.”

Great. Isolated and hard to reach. “What has happened to make them think the water is bad?”

“There has been some illness, I believe, among both clans,” Jean said, pushing the map closer to me and leaning back in his chair.

“That doesn’t make sense.” I studied the jagged edges of the coastal marsh. “Why would either clan poison the waters it wants as its territory?”

“Exactement,”
Jean said, nodding in approval like a teacher whose dunce pupil had finally come up with a rare bit of insight. “It might be that the mers simply want an excuse to fight over the marshland, as they tend to be a people of fierce temperament, or it might be that something else has fouled the water. Either way”—he reached out to brush a stray curl from my cheek—“it is a wizard matter,
non
?”

If the water was oil-slicked or polluted, it was not a wizard issue, but if there was even a chance it involved pretes … Damn it. He’d done the right thing by getting me involved.

His mouth curved into a smug smile. “From your expression, I know you realize my actions were correct. As you are an intelligent woman, I knew you would recognize this, so I have taken the liberty of arranging a meeting with both Rene Delachaise and Denis Villere tomorrow at the eleventh hour.”

He was so damned pleased with himself, I couldn’t help but return his smile. Big mistake. Give the pirate an inch and he’d take a fathom.

The strong fingers I’d been admiring slid around my wrist, and he traced small circles over my palm with his thumb. “Now,
Jolie,
we should renegotiate the repayment of your debts.” He stroked his hand slowly up my arm. I shivered as a tingle of warmth spread through me, and
raging rouge
danced a hot second-line across my face.

As much as some shameful part of me relished being the object of any handsome man’s desire—even a technically dead man—I couldn’t encourage him.

“Look, Jean. I like you. You’re a very desirable man.” The hand stroked a little higher and squeezed my shoulder. Oh, boy. I searched for the right turn of phrase, one that didn’t include the word
dead
. “But we kind of have an age difference.”

More than two centuries’ worth.

Chuckling, he pulled his hand away, and I checked him out as he walked to the wet bar for another brandy, all powerful grace and lean muscle. The air practically moved out of the way to make room for him.

Stop looking.

He turned back to me. “You still cling to the old world,
Jolie
. Things have changed. I might be older than you, as you say, but you do not fit into the human world any better than I.”

I stared at him, frowning, troubled that I couldn’t think of a good comeback, troubled that he was right, in a warped kind of way. “Still—”

“Still, Drusilla, you owe me for saving your life. Why not repay me in a way that would be pleasing to both of us? You cannot afford to buy me a house,
non
?”

I had no answer for that and I felt my moral high ground turning to mud, so I stood up and gave him a little finger wave, grabbing my purse and striding toward the door. “Gotta be going. See you at the meeting tomorrow.”

“Jolie.”
His voice did that deep, sexy dive again. “What if one simple thing would erase all of your obligations to me?”

I stopped at the door with my back to the room, one hand on the knob, having an internal war. Jean was a devious pirate who always operated with an ulterior motive. On the other hand, he came from an era where favor begat favor. He wouldn’t let this drop, no matter how much I wanted it to go away. One way or another, I’d pay.

“Okay, what?” I turned from the door and gasped. He’d followed me across the room on sneaky pirate feet and stood a scant few inches away. Heart thumping, I got a close-range view of his chin as he flattened his arms against the door on either side of my head, forming a big, warm cage.

“Just a simple meal with me—what your modern people call a dinner date,” he whispered, leaning down to plant a light kiss on the side of my neck.

I closed my eyes and inhaled his scent of tobacco and cinnamon for a moment before pushing him away and pinning him with my best steely glare. “Just dinner?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You wish there to be more? Then, perhaps a stroll after dinner. Perhaps a kiss.”

Except for the kiss part, this could work. Dinner would be public and painless, and how many people got to dine with a legend? Jean was handsome and could be entertaining when he wanted to be.

“So, just to clarify.” I ticked off points on my fingers. “We have dinner. We talk. Maybe we stroll. We do not kiss. And then I owe you nothing.” I couldn’t see a loophole.

“
Mais oui,
I agree.” He stepped closer and rested a hand on my waist. “Shall we seal our bargain with a kiss?”

“No, but we can shake on it.”

He stared at my outstretched hand a moment, then took it in his own and lifted it to his lips. Just an old-fashioned kind of guy. Accent on
old
.

He reached around me and opened the door. “I will meet you at your office at nine tomorrow, Drusilla. We will talk to the mermen.”

In my haste to escape before he thought of any other debts or requests, I reached the lobby before it occurred to me: How did he know where my office was? How did he plan to get there? And what did one wear on a dinner date with an undead pirate?

CHAPTER
2

I cursed Jean Lafitte as I hoofed it toward my parking place in Outer Mongolia. A blister shot pain through my right foot from the accursed high heels, and my arch threatened total collapse. I rarely wore heels. In what part of my warped brain did Jean Lafitte rate heels?

“Hey, baby, trade ya some beads for a kiss.” A short, stocky guy slung an arm around my shoulders and got his beer-breath way too close to my nose. Why did everybody want to kiss me tonight? Well, an undead pirate and a drunken fraternity boy. My man-magnets must be on high beam.

“In your dreams, junior.” I punctured my words with a sharp elbow, which he didn’t appreciate if the unsavory names he spewed my way were any indication. Lucky for him I didn’t have my elven staff with me, or I could have fried him into next week. People from other places like to call New Orleans sin city, but it’s been my experience that most of the sin is being committed by alcohol-soaked tourists.

It was only eight thirty, but crowds already swept along Bourbon Street in waves. Fratboy and his friends had been at it a while, judging by his
eau-de-brew
. By midnight, Bourbon would be wall-to-wall party hounds, which is why locals rarely ventured here—unless, of course, they had a business meeting with a pirate.

Fratboy and his pals dropped back to wield their charms on a group of drunken college girls who seemed more appreciative, so I shouldered my way a couple more blocks. Once I hit St. Louis Street, I’d ditch the crowds and cut over to my parking spot on a side street.

The familiar sign of a neon dancing alligator holding a cocktail caught my eye just before I turned off Bourbon—the Green Gator. A stab of sadness gutted any lingering annoyance with Fratboy, almost stealing my breath. I hadn’t been to the Gator since the emotional days after Katrina, when everyone had been operating in a fog of post-traumatic stress and the preternaturals were making their power play to move into modern New Orleans.

Their scheme had worked. By the time the metaphysical dust settled, Alex had gone from rival to partner to best friend. His cousin Jake, who owned the Gator, had started out as a guy I thought might be Mr. Maybe and ended up a loup-garou, the werewolves’ biggest badass—attacked by a werewolf simply because he had the misfortune of knowing me.

I hadn’t seen Jake since a week after the attack. He blamed me, and I deserved it.

Still, Alex lived in one of the apartments over the Gator and I needed to tell him about the mer feud and our impending day-trip to Plaquemines Parish. I’d just have to pull up my big-girl pantyhose and go inside. Maybe it was time I saw Jake again.

A jazzy version of Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” enveloped me in sound as I entered. I squinted through the crowd at the small stage on the right side of the long, rectangular barroom to see if the singer was a good impersonator or the real undead king of jazz—one never knew when he might pop over for a tune or two.